The Last Englishmen by Deborah Baker

Author:Deborah Baker [Baker, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-994-2
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2018-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

Victoria Station, London,

Wednesday, September 28, 1938, 2:00 p.m.

“I am so glad I’m here,” Stephen Spender had said, standing by the stove on the opening day of the 1938 fall term at the Euston Road School of Drawing and Painting. “It is such a relief to have finally decided to give up writing, even if I start painting so late.” Stephen wasn’t much of a painter, but the Boys had needed his fees.

“Oh, are you giving up writing?” the painter standing next to him had replied. “How strange, I have decided to write and to give up painting.”

A plumb line and a twelve-inch ruler were the principal teaching tools of the school, which had been founded by Bill Coldstream and a few of the Boys from the Slade. The ruler, held at arm’s length, verified distance; the plumb line was dropped in front of the model to establish how her body parts aligned, as if she were a conquered territory needing a new map. Like Michael Spender’s matrix of triangles, it was an empirical approach to the feat of representation, which enabled them all to firmly turn their backs on abstract art and political ideology. Stephen regarded the plumb line with alarm; his first brushstroke on the canvas was invariably his signature.

Three weeks into fall term, Stephen invited Bill Coldstream to the family Sunday tea with Granny. Perhaps Stephen thought Granny might benefit from Bill’s views on the Czech crisis. Bill had only just met Michael. When Erica found out Michael was having an affair with Nancy, Michael had moved to Upper Park Road to hide out. He arrived with his luggage just as John Auden departed for Brussels. There, at Wystan’s implacable insistence, John tore up the enraged telegram he had prepared to send Nancy. He phoned her in Cornwall instead, accusing her of deliberately timing his departure with Cornflower’s arrival. It was a bitter ending to all his hopes. He was cursed.

That was where things stood with everyone when tea was poured.

The argument that ensued, however, was not about Michael’s affair with Bill’s wife but about Chamberlain, due to return that day from Germany. The PM had forwarded Hitler’s demand for the Sudetenland to the Czech cabinet. They had until two o’clock Wednesday afternoon to surrender it. The Czech cabinet promptly resigned, throwing the ball back in Chamberlain’s court. Protesters were just then marching on Whitehall, crowding Trafalgar Square and shouting, “Stand by the Czechs! Concessions Mean War! Chamberlain Must Go!”

If further concessions to Hitler meant war, what did standing by the Czechs mean? The air was filled with an unfocused fear that made it difficult for anyone to think clearly. Bill appeared to be the exception. Had Chamberlain suddenly become as rabidly pro-Nazi as Lady Astor? Of course not, he assured everyone. Chamberlain wasn’t stupid or ill informed, just desperate for peace. As they all were, really. Bill was pulling every string possible to avoid being called up.

Stephen didn’t want war either but neither did he agree with Granny that peace was worth any price.

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