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wives of the “tired, white-faced dockers” would stop on the street and coo at Decca and her sweet baby. She and Esmond had been in the habit of being together all the time. It might have been hard at first to be alone—in her house full of siblings, she had never been alone for extended periods. But Decca adapted and caught up on her novel reading while the baby slept.
    Esmond and Decca still liked to have a lot of friends around, but what was once a gambling palace now smelled of diapers. Guests to their transformed casino brought bottles of beer, wine, and liquor; food hampers; and fish and chips wrapped in newspapers. Decca and Esmond shared with their guests and with almost everyone they knew—everyone awake, at any rate—a sense of always needing to be on the alert. Around the Romilly household, there was an enduring brightness, a nimbus of power and energy symbolized by their fabulous electricity bill. Neither Decca nor Esmond understood the social contract in capitalist societies regarding public utilities (like where, when, or how to pay), so they ran up their bill without worry. Other generations of Romillys and Mitfords wasted their fortunes on horses and cards. This all-night parsing of the issues, betting on the future surrounded by light, was another kind of gamble.
    In March 1938, while General Franco’s armies were crushing the Republican forces in Spain, Hitler annexed Austria and initiated the threats that would soon lead to German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Despite the wretched news from Europe, Decca and her friends were eager to take on what would come. Esmond had anticipated the loss of Spain. He grieved, but like the practical, perpetual motion machine that he was, he forged
ahead. They had new plans, hopes, and dreams. If not Mexico, perhaps they could move to Paris, where Julia would grow up “a little gamine trudging to a lycée with books in a satchel.” In any case, their daughter would be “born to freedom and May Day parades.”
    To Decca, those early May Day parades seemed the apotheosis of socialist delight. By the time the May Day march of 1938 came around, there was a feeling in Decca’s circle that the fight against fascism would be long and vicious, but that they and their comrades had the courage, the strength, and the determination to beat back any threat. Starting with its throngs in the street, she painted the day of the march—“the entire community turned out”—full of passion and confidence in their solidarity. With people’s collective power and dedication, they felt that they could stop any juggernaut. Decca carried Julia, with Esmond and their friend Philip Toynbee arm in arm. The trio sang “The Red Flag,” then teased their soberer comrades with altered lyrics—instead of “The people’s flag is deepest red,” they sang, “The people’s flag is palest pink. It’s not as red as you may think.”
    Decca and her friends marched with the Bermondsey Labour Party contingent. It seemed that every antifascist organization and person in London had turned out, thousands upon thousands, and thousands more joined at every intersection—the co-ops, the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party, all with their flags. The unofficial theme of the day was repeated on banners snaking through the parade: “United Front Against Fascism.” The march was good-natured at the start. There were children and baby buggies and flirtations of every variety. It was a long walk to Hyde Park. Along the way, a marcher might rest with a bottle of beer or take off her shoes to cool her feet and wonder at the holes in her stockings. Whole extended families might stop to take tea along the route, amusingly furnished with proper cups and saucers. But the marchers would be wary, too, that Mosley’s British Union of Fascists troopers would line the parade route and at some point attack as those antagonists had been attacking each other in a miniature world war for years.

    Decca was