‘Nazis out!’ someone called from the crowd. ‘We want Churchill!’ Policemen were vaulting the barriers now. A couple of men in the crowd had also produced guns and looked fiercely around: Special Branch undercover men. David pulled Sarah to him. The crowd parted to let the police through, and he glimpsed a struggle off to his right. He saw a baton raised, heard someone call out, ‘Get the bastards!’ encouragingly to the police.
Sarah said, ‘Oh God, what are they doing?’
‘I don’t know.’ Irene was holding Betty, the old woman weeping, while Steve was staring at the melee with a face like thunder. The whole crowd was talking now, a susurrating murmur from which the occasional shout could be heard. ‘Bloody Communists, beat their heads in!’ ‘They’re right, get the Germans out!’
A British general, a thin man with a sunburned face and grey moustache, climbed the steps of the Cenotaph, carrying a megaphone, picking his way through the wreaths, and called for order from the crowd.
‘Did they get them?’ Sarah asked David. ‘I couldn’t see.’
‘Yes. I think there were just a few.’
‘It’s bloody treason!’ Steve said. ‘I hope they hang the buggers!’
The ceremony continued with the rest of the wreath-laying and then a short service led by Archbishop Headlam. He spoke a prayer, the microphone giving his voice an odd, tinny echo.
‘O Lord, look down on us as we remember the brave men who have died fighting for Britain. We remember the legions who fell between 1914 and 1918, that great and tragic conflict which still marks us all, here and across all Europe. Lord, remember the pain of those gathered here today who have lost loved ones. Comfort them, comfort them.’
Then came the march past, the thousands of soldiers, many old now, marching proudly along in lines as the band played popular tunes from the Great War, each contingent laying a wreath. As always David and his family looked out for Sarah’s father, but they didn’t see him. The steps of the Cenotaph were still splotched with red, Rommel’s swastika prominent among the wreaths. David wondered who the demonstrators had been. One of the independent pacifist groups perhaps; the Resistance would have shot Rommel, would have shot a lot of the Nazis stationed in Britain, but for the fear of reprisals. Poor devils, whoever they were; they would be getting a beating in a Special Branch Interrogation Centre now, or perhaps even in the basement of Senate House, the German embassy. As it had been an attack on Rommel, the British police might have handed the demonstrators over. He felt powerless. He hadn’t even contradicted Steve. But he had to keep his cover intact, never step out of line, try to play the model civil servant. All the more because of Sarah’s family’s past. David felt a stab of unreasonable irritation against his wife.
His eyes were drawn back to the veterans. An old man of about sixty, his face stern and defiant, was marching past, his chest thrust out proudly. On one side of his coat was pinned a row of medals but on the other was sewn a large, bright yellow Star of David. Jews knew to stay out of the limelight now, not to attract attention, but the old man had defied common sense to go on the march wearing a prominent star, although he could have got away with the little Star of David lapel badge all Jews had to wear now, very British and discreet.
Someone in the crowd shouted out ‘Kike!’ The old man did not flinch but David did, anger coursing through him. He knew that under the law he too should have worn a yellow badge, and should not be working in government service, an employment forbidden to Jews. But David’s father, twelve thousand miles away, was the only other person who knew his mother had been that rare thing, an Irish Jew. And half a Jew was a Jew in Britain now; the penalty for concealing your identity was indefinite detention. In the 1941 census, when people were asked for the first time to state their religion, he had declared himself a Catholic. He had done the same thing whenever renewing his identity card, and the same again in the 1951 census, which this time also asked about Jewish parents or grandparents. But however often David pushed it all to the back of his mind, sometimes, in the night, he woke up terrified.
The rest of the ceremony went ahead without interruption, and afterwards they met up with Jim, Sarah’s father, and went back to David and Sarah’s mock-Tudor semi in Kenton, where Sarah would cook dinner for them all. Jim had known nothing about the paint-throwing until his family told him, though he had noticed the red stain on the Cenotaph steps. He said almost nothing about it on the journey back, and neither did Sarah or David, though Irene and especially Steve were full of outraged indignation. When they got back to the house Steve suggested they watch the news, see what it said about the attack.
David switched on the television, rearranging the chairs to face it. He didn’t like the way that in most houses now the furniture was arranged around the set; over the last decade, ownership of what some still called the idiot-box had spread to half the population; having a television was a mark of the sharp dividing line between rich and poor. It was coming to take over national life. It wasn’t quite time for the news; a children’s serial was on, a dramatization of some Bulldog Drummond adventure story, featuring Imperial heroes and treacherous natives. Sarah brought them tea and David passed round the cigarette-box. He glanced at Jim. Despite his conversion to pacifism after the Great War, his father-in-law always took part in the Remembrance Day parade; however much he loathed war, he honoured his old comrades. David wondered what he thought of the paint-throwing, but Jim’s prosthetic mask was turned towards him. It was a good prosthesis, close-fitting and flesh-coloured; there were even artificial eyelashes on the flat painted eye. Sarah confessed once that when she was small the crude mask he wore then, made from a thin sheet of metal, had frightened her and when he sat her in his lap on one occasion she’d burst into tears and Irene had to take her away. Her mother had called her a nasty, selfish girl but Irene, four years older, had held her and said, ‘You mustn’t mind it. It’s not Daddy’s fault.’
The news came on. They watched the young Queen paying her respects, and listened to Dimbleby’s sonorous, respectful reporting. But the BBC did not show the incident with Rommel; they simply passed from the Dominion representatives’ wreath-laying to Ambassador Kennedy’s. There was a flicker on the screen that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it, and no break in the commentary – the BBC technicians must have done a re-recording later.
‘Nothing,’ Irene said.
‘They must have decided not to report it.’ Sarah had come in from the kitchen to watch, flushed from cooking.
‘Makes you wonder what else they don’t report,’ Jim said quietly.
Steve turned to him. He was wearing one of his glaringly bright sweaters, his plump stomach straining it unattractively. ‘They don’t want people to be upset,’ he said. ‘Seeing something like that happen on Remembrance Day.’
‘People should know, though,’ Irene said fiercely. ‘They should see what these despicable terrorists do. In front of the Queen, too, poor girl! No wonder she’s so seldom seen in public. It’s a disgrace!’
David spoke up then, before he could stop himself. ‘It’s what happens when people aren’t allowed to protest against their masters.’