Page 152 of The Gathering Storm

‘I see,’ Polly said.

‘And since we did nothing to defend the Czechs, Hitler must believe we’d make a big noise if he took Poland, but wouldn’t actually do anything.’

‘You make it all so clear. Thank you.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I have to go to Manchester for a couple of days to visit the mills. Would you like to come with me?’

‘Enticing prospect. But I have to go to London for a couple of days on business, so it would make sense to do that at the same time.’

‘Business?’

‘Setting up financial and supply chains. And I want to go to Harrods, and persuade them to stock Manning’s Radios. The King and Queen shop there, apparently. It would be a fine thing if they bought one.’

‘Manning’s Radios, By Royal Appointment,’ Polly said. ‘Why not?’

Lennie’s trip overran, so Polly was at home without him when, on the 27th of April, she came in to breakfast and found Ethel pale and tearful, John staring at his hands, his ears red with embarrassment, and everyone talking at once.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

It was Harriet who answered. ‘It’s in the newspaper today,’ she explained. ‘They’ve passed something called the Military Training Act. Men between twenty and twenty-two have to register for military training.’

‘It’s a sort of conscription,’ Martin added. ‘It’s interesting, because it’s the first time there’s ever been peacetime conscription—’

‘Interesting!’ Ethel cried savagely. ‘Don’t you dare call it interesting! You’re talking about my boy being ripped from my arms and sent to war. I won’t have it! They’ll have to take him over my dead body!’

John actually spoke for himself. ‘It’s not that bad, Mum. You do six months’ military training, and you come home again. And then you’re on the active reserve.’

‘Which means they can take you back any time. I won’t allow it.’

‘When you get the letter, you have to register,’ he said. ‘It’s the law.’

‘Well, if they come for you, we’ll hide you,’ Ethel said. ‘You’re not going to fight!’

‘Daddy did,’ he said. ‘You always said you were proud of him for going to fight.’

Polly saw Ethel had been put on the spot. Robbie had gone to war and not come back, and once someone was dead, you had to say you were proud of them. But Polly had heard Jessie say that Ethel had been outraged at the time when Robbie was called up, and had demanded he get himself out of it by whatever means possible. She’d even urged him once to claim to be a conscientious objector.

‘That was different,’ Ethel said weakly.

Polly intervened. ‘If we go to war, he’ll have to go anyway,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it better for him to get thorough training now, in peacetime, when they can take their time about it and do it properly, rather than do it in a rush in wartime and get sent out without all the skills he’ll need?’

Ethel opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she jumped up and cried, ‘Oh, what do you know about it? You don’t have to worry about your son!’ And she rushed out of the room in tears.

There was a short silence, then John rose, muttered something about going to work, and slunk out. Polly felt sorry for him. He demanded so little of life: just to mess about in car engines all day, and not be harassed by his mother at home.

Martin got up as well, and said, ‘I must be off too.’ Since leaving university, he had got a ‘temporary’ post at St Peter’s School, teaching Latin and Greek, until he decided what he wanted to do with his life. But he had been there almost a year already, and the temporary looked like becoming permanent. Polly suspected that the will-there-be-won’t-there-be question of war with Germany had made him think there was no point in long-term plans. He caught her eye, and as if he had read her thought, he said, ‘I’ll be getting a letter too.’ He shrugged. ‘No point in bleating about it. Coming, Harriet? We can get the bus together.’

Harriet crunched the last of her piece of toast, stood up, and they went out together.

Lennie had been surprised and slightly perplexed that Morland Place didn’t have a radio receiver set. He had helped Alec build his little crystal radio from a kit, and Alec loved it, so he knew he had a natural ally, and asked him one Saturday if he would like to come with him to Leeds to choose Mummy a birthday present.

‘Is it a secret?’ Alec asked.

‘Definitely,’ said Lennie. ‘We’ll hide it somewhere so she won’t find it.’

‘Is it another horse?’

‘That would be hard to hide. Besides, I’m capable of thinking of a different present this time.’ He was about to add, ‘I’m not a one-trick pony,’ but desisted, realising it would lead to confusing dialogue.

Polly obligingly evinced no curiosity about where they were going, and saw them off in the Vauxhall, Alec sitting in the front seat beside Lennie, looking proud enough to burst. He was rarely taken on trips, and everything interested him, from the new lambs in the fields, stotting away madly as they went past, to the different buildings of Leeds as they drove through the suburbs and into the centre. And he loved being shown the Manning’s Radio factory, seeing the manufacturing processes, being smiled at and petted by the workers. He examined the finished sets with brow-buckling seriousness and, pondered their performance like a small, scab-kneed professor. He was beguiled by their exotic names: the Manhattan, the Belmont, the Hollywood. Lennie honoured him with the final choice of set for his mother’s birthday, and barely needed to guide him towards the Manning Baby Grand, because it was the biggest and most luxurious in the place.