Several women had even been before the tribunal more than once, to no avail. Only three or four had been released after appearing before the Committee, but it wasn’t known how they had obtained their freedom: whether they had confessed or repented or denied. Most accepted that their activities had been too well-known – public meetings, pamphleteering – for any attempt at minimizing them to be believable. In any case, it was a matter of principle: there was personal loyalty to Sir Oswald to consider. It was known that the Leader was campaigning for their release: it would be an act of treachery to repay him with disloyalty. They certainly would not have sneaked on anyone else: there was a strict unwritten code of loyalty among them. Whether they had said the right thing, whatever that might be; or whether the grounds on which they were being held were too flimsy to prolong their incarceration, was much discussed. Was there, could there be, a correct thing to say, some kind of open sesame? No one knew. It became something of a point of honour to try and outwit the panel, to cheek them. There were so few opportunities for the women to assert themselves. Several of the prisoners had been asked if they loved Germany, which struck them all as a very stupid question. In any event, only two or three of them had ever set foot in Germany. One woman had been required to say what she would do if a German airman with a parachute fell at her feet. Her response became more and more outlandish in the retelling. The others chimed in with humorous suggestions, some of them ribald.
‘I’d have my clothes off – and his – quick as a knife. He could wrap us both in the parachute, then, and do me on the spot,’ said one.
‘Well, I’m fluent in German and I’ll tell you, ich lieber dick,’ said someone, with a music-hall roll of the eyes as she pronounced the last word.
‘Don’t we all, ducky,’ said someone else.
‘I’d make him lick my fanny and then sew me a nice frock out of the parachute silk,’ said another, to whoops of laughter.
Phyllis had seldom heard this sort of talk before, apart from the odd coarse remark of Venetia Gordon-Canning’s. Even her outspoken sister Nina did not go in for such banter, while Patricia would have considered it beyond the pale. One or two of the officer’s wife types didn’t join in and Phyllis was aware that in ordinary circumstances she would have been expected to be among them. Hugh had been a Commander of the Royal Navy, after all. But any laughter was a respite from the boredom and anguish, a chance to forget the time.
The tribunal Phyllis was called before consisted of three women and one rather tired-looking man. The youngest of the women asked almost all the questions. Since Phyllis did not know what Hugh had told the police, nor any tribunal he’d been put before, she thought honesty was the best policy. What was Phyllis’s opinion of the war? Had she ever visited Germany? Had she visited Germany in the twelve months leading up to the declaration of war? Was it her belief that a wife owed complete loyalty to a husband? That she should obey her husband in all things? If asked to decide between loyalty to her country or to Sir Oswald Mosley, which would she choose? To this last she gave an answer she was proud of: that there could be no such choice, for Sir Oswald would never be disloyal to the interests of Great Britain. They pressed on, questioning her about Hugh and his weekly trips to London. The procedure was plodding and yet alarming at the same time, like a visit to the dentist. At length the man addressed her.
‘Would you describe yourself as a fascist?’
‘I see myself as nothing more sinister than a traditionalist. I believe in putting the British interest before all else, it’s as simple as that. Having lived abroad for a number of years I came to be involved with British Union in a roundabout sort of way, through … through neighbours in Sussex, where we had settled. I certainly am a follower of Sir Oswald Mosley. I believe he talks a good deal of sense. I believe that we’d never have got into this war if he’d been in charge. But if you are asking whether I am an admirer of Hitler, the answer is no. We have our own brand of politics here, we don’t need his.’
This was the longest answer she had given and she felt her face reddening.
‘And who were these neighbours of yours?’
Phyllis did not want to incriminate Nina and Eric, although their names and activities were surely known to the authorities. She cast about in her mind.
‘There was a fellow called Gordon-Canning. We met him at various parties and so on.’
‘And anyone else?’
‘No one who comes to mind, no. Not that I can recall.’
‘Are you able to shed light on the question of why your husband was in possession of a firearm?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. He fought in the last war, as I expect you are aware. Perhaps he kept it from then.’
She thought she detected the trace of a smirk on the face of the older woman with spectacles, who had not spoken throughout. Phyllis dimly recalled Hugh having told her that the Leader had asked a number of senior people to keep a gun, in case of emergency; but he had not said that he was among their number and it had sounded rather far-fetched, at the time. She had put it out of her mind until the day they were taken in. The woman who had asked most of the questions now spoke again.
‘Thank you for appearing before us today. The Committee will reflect on what you have told us and let you know of our findings. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us, before we conclude?’
‘Well, I know it hasn’t got anything to do with anything, but I have three children and none of this is their fault and yet they’re deprived of both their parents in war-time, passed from pillar to post …’
She was cut short. ‘Thank you. We’ll certainly bear the family circumstances in mind.’
And the four interlocutors stood to signal that the hearing was over.
Back in her cell, Phyllis wept. She hadn’t realized how much she had invested in the tribunal, but now she understood that a part of her had almost dared to believe that she would be released on the spot. A little splinter of hope had worked its way into her. This had let her imagine that the tribunal would take one look at her and know – just know – that she posed no harm to anyone, let alone her country. She’d allowed herself to picture what it would be like, arriving home: letting herself into the house, the gleam of the parquet floor, the welcoming curve of the oak staircase. The quiet. The gate-legged table where the post was placed on a salver she and Hugh had had as a wedding present, so that whoever was going out next could take letters to the pillar-box. In this reverie, there was no Hugh. Even the children weren’t there, or not yet. It was just her and the empty house.
Her friends on the block gave Phyllis her privacy. People often emerged from the tribunal in tears and they knew, after months in prison, that grief passed more quickly observed alone. A woman whose house had been hit during an air raid had howled for her dead husband and the other prisoners had huddled around her like dairy cattle. Afterwards she could barely look anyone in the eye for weeks. They had learned it was better to let people do their crying alone and then proffer some gesture of sympathy: a cup of tea if there was one, or a cigarette.
It was agony, waiting for the tribunal’s decision. She didn’t like to consider how the discovery of the gun on the day she and Hugh were taken in might have prejudiced her case. How could he have been so careless as to have concealed a dangerous weapon among the children’s things? When she thought of it she felt a horrible cold sort of anger towards him. But surely they would see that she wasn’t the sort of person who knew anything about guns? Hugh had never so much as mentioned it to her. It must have been a relic, from his war service. Why else would he be in possession of such a thing?
Now when she woke up in the winter mornings she prayed, and again before she went to sleep. One evening it dawned on her that praying in bed wasn’t good enough: that only kneeling was acceptable to God. Otherwise, why would people kneel in church? After that she knelt at her bed to say her prayers. It was surprising and somehow reassuring how quickly her knees began to hurt. It occurred to her that the
hurting might be a sort of short-cut to God’s attention. Prayers might move faster through pain than through comfort, like electricity moving through fuse-wire but not through wood. If only she had paid attention to the sermons in church! Surely she had heard that suffering created a kind of Communion? She couldn’t quite remember. But if Christ had died in agony for her sake, then the least she could do was put up with sore knees. Welcome them, even.
The tribunal’s decision came through on December 16th. Phyllis was to remain in custody. She was not given any reason why she must stay in prison, nor given an indication as to how long the term might be. A handful of the others received the same news at the same time. They sat forlornly at the long table, smoking, too dejected to cry. Someone went to boil water for tea. Another had been sent a precious jar of honey, which she now fetched and with some solemnity put on the table in front of them, to sweeten the tea when it came. At length Phyllis went to her cell to write to her sisters and tell them the news and to ask them to make arrangements to collect the children from their schools and accommodate them over the holidays. She asked Patricia if she would be kind enough to have all three for Christmas itself – perhaps for Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, if at all possible – so that they could at least be together. She didn’t feel she could request that her sister have them all for the duration, but it seemed only right that they be united for Christmas itself. The rest of the school holidays she would have to trust to them.
As Christmas neared there was a slight shift. Whether this was a matter of policy or simply a relenting from the prison staff, no one knew, but things became a little easier. Parcels were still opened and any perishables disbursed, but the rules governing letters slackened. No announcement was made, but the women gradually became aware that they were able to send out several letters a week, instead of the previous limit of two per prisoner. Better yet, the limit on how much post they were permitted to receive was relaxed. For Phyllis, as for the others, this made a tremendous difference. Now all the children could write, instead of taking it in turns; so could her sisters.
At the beginning of the third week in December a letter came. It was in a large manila envelope and felt lumpy, as if the sheets of paper inside were of different sizes or had been folded without care. Phyllis knew the writing at once, slightly larger than other people’s and with extravagantly sweeping crossbars on the letter ‘t’: it was from Jamie. She had last seen this handwriting after her father died, when he had sent a sweet note of condolence. This new letter had already been opened, as all post to the prisoners was. Generally the knowledge that her communications had been perused by someone else before she saw them tainted the pleasure of receiving them, but in this case she had an unfamiliar feeling of pure joy as she held the letter in her hands. Her friendship with Jamie came from a simpler and happier time. Unfolding the paper, she saw at once that it was only partly covered in words, the short paragraphs being interspersed with ink drawings: the face of a cow, a fat crow weighing down a twiggy branch, a cluttered windowsill framing a view of the farmyard. The drawings were delightful, simple and vivid. There were the same swoops of ink as in his handwriting, as if he had drawn the pictures very rapidly. Jamie did not ask her any questions at all, nor make any reference to her imprisonment, as her usual correspondents did. He said that he had bumped into Nina one day when she had come to visit her mother and that she had mentioned that it might now be possible for Phyllis to receive letters from people outside the immediate family. Otherwise he wrote rather as a kind uncle might address a favourite niece, describing in a few words and pictures a typical morning at the farm: the milky vapour of the cows’ breath in the cold morning air, the puddles frozen over in the yard and how the ice on them squeaked under his boots; coming in at mid-morning for a cup of tea and to read the paper. He didn’t mention anyone else.
After she’d read it once, Phyllis tucked the letter back into its envelope and put it under a book on the little table in her cell. Several times that day and in the days that followed, she took it out and looked at it again. It was like finding a precious piece of jewellery somewhere humdrum like a sewing box. When she answered she told Jamie how sorry she was that she could not draw, but that if she could she would depict for him the haughty face, pinched with disapproval, of her next-door neighbour. Then she would enclose the likeness of some of the women who had been kind to her, so that he could see something of the company she kept.
‘… but perhaps it is for the best that I am no artist, for none of us are looking at our finest and no one would thank me for depicting them as they presently appear. If I confide that certain of my friends are in sore need of the services of the hairdresser, the dressmaker and even the laundry you will perhaps have some idea. If we had been camping out on a Welsh hillside during a rainstorm we would hardly look worse. Please do write again if you are so inclined and it isn’t too much trouble. I loved the drawings especially since I don’t have much of a view from my quarters here. (You are very good at drawing, Jamie, I should have said so when you showed me some of your pictures last summer was it? But to see the pencil portraits you had done of me made me tongue-tied, because it was funny to think you’d looked so much at me.) Your letter gave me such a lot of happiness I can’t tell you and it was wonderful to see glimpses of your life on the farm, as good as a trip to the cinema, or actually better than that because it was like a visit home.’
It was only after she’d written the letter and was looking it over before posting that she noticed she’d written the word ‘home’ and understood that she’d meant her childhood home, the Grange. Yet when she visited home in her imagination, it was in Sussex she imagined herself.
Christmas came. The women tried to bolster each other along, but it was a sad day. They sang carols to keep their spirits up and toasted the Leader with watery fruit cordial and wore paper hats they’d cut out and glued themselves, but there were few smiles. A particular friend of Phyllis’s was June, an unmarried woman of about the same age who’d been a British Union organizer at St Albans. She was a spry little person with thick wavy hair, and musical. When they put on their entertainments she accompanied a fellow inmate who played the upright piano on the cornet, tapping her small foot energetically as she played. June’s sister kept a smallholding in Kent and had sent her a tin of shortbread fingers, which she handed around at tea-time. Various of the women had received fruitcakes, too, but the shortbread was the greatest treat. The cakes were low on fruit and tasted bitter, as if they had attained their brown colour with the aid of Marmite, or gravy browning. But the shortcake was heavy with actual butter that they could taste. No one had seen so much as a scraping of butter since they’d entered the gates of Holloway: the pale stuff they spread – or smeared, really – on their bread was hardly even identifiable. On Christmas night June came along to Phyllis’s cell with a couple of pieces of the shortbread, which she’d kept back for them, to accompany their bedtime drink. One of the wardresses had brought in extra milk for this and someone had procured a tin of cocoa powder. Half a bowl of sugar appeared from somewhere, as if magicked by a genie.
‘Next year I’m going to roast a goose and a whole bag of potatoes, just for myself,’ said June.
‘Next year I’m going to give all three of my children new bicycles. And I’m going to buy myself a satin nightie, like those ones people wear in films,’ said Phyllis.
‘And a pair of slippers with ostrich feather trim and high heels, to go with it,’ said June.
‘Exactly! And, what are those dressing gowns called, a peignoir is it?’
‘Or is that a fancy name for a pair of spectacles?’
‘I’m not sure. Anyway, a satin dressing gown to go over the nightie. Ecru satin. Then I’m going to loll on a sofa eating grapes while everyone opens all their presents all around me.’
‘And I’m going to play gramophone music at top volume while I feast on my enormous lunch. A nice bit of Tchaikovsky, for preference. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,
do you know it? It’s festive as anything, lots of triangles. And I shan’t go for a walk afterwards. I shall just sit about, eating nuts.’
‘It’ll be splendid,’ said Phyllis.
‘Yes,’ said June. ‘It will.’
14. Isle of Man, June 1941
Phyllis couldn’t see why they had to keep the blinds down all the way from London to Liverpool, but it was no good appealing to their police guard, who’d already made it clear that he was a stickler, even before the train pulled out. Orders were orders. The women had already attracted a good deal of attention on the platform, despite the earliness of the hour: people had gathered at the barrier to jeer. The sensations of being out of Holloway and on the platform of a busy terminus were so overwhelming that Phyllis hardly noticed. The blinds had to stay down because the prison party – there were over forty women and an escort for each carriage – did not wish to invite the attention of travellers further up the line, as they stopped at stations. Nor did they wish the women under custody to know where they were going. This was absurd, for they had overheard the porter telling the guard how long the journey to Liverpool would take. In any case their carriages would surely excite more curiosity, swathed in black, than the sight of a handful of rather bedraggled-looking women in darned stockings, one or two of them in mothy furs.
It was fuggy in the carriage. A smell of staleness seemed to linger in the moquette, of cigarette ash and unwashed bodies. There was the underlying smell, too, of acrid coal dust; presumably because they were right at the front of the train, up by the engine. It always struck Phyllis as peculiar that a smell caused by burning could be so redolent of cold. A dead coal fire was exactly that: cold and dead. It was for this reason that she had always preferred log fires to coal, despite Hugh’s insistence that wood fires gave off very much less heat. Then too, the smell of wood smoke reminded her of childhood; of long winter afternoons at the Grange with her sisters, toasting chestnuts. The tips of their fingers had blackened and stung, from trying to prise the hot shells off. Now that she thought of it, it occurred to Phyllis that none of them had cared very much for the chestnuts: they tasted of the glue on postage stamps and had a disagreeable, woolly texture. And yet the girls had loved the ritual of the wide flat chestnut pan with its long handle and the terrific popping sound as the shells split in the heat.
After the Party Page 20
