After the Party

by Cressida Connolly

  ‘I believe the lady has fairly strong views about your … your political affiliations. That is to say, she has said in no uncertain terms that she won’t serve any of you. But if you wish to discover whether she is bluffing, you are at liberty to find out for yourselves. Perhaps I should tell you that one or two other shopkeepers have expressed similar sentiments. There is a feeling that your politics mark you out as traitors. To look on the bright side, though, there was some anti-German feeling when the enemy aliens first arrived here, but things soon smoothed over. Many of the shops began selling things the aliens had made, as a matter of fact: embroidered gloves and collars, carved figures, bits of drawn-thread work, that sort of thing. I daresay it will be the same for all of you, in due course. As I say, civility is the order of the day at all times, irrespective. Any other questions? I should add that you will see me every morning, so if you think of things you need to know I’ll be coming up at the same time tomorrow.’

  Phyllis asked about letters. Was there a limit as to how many letters they might write and who should they give letters to, for vetting and posting? Should they give their actual address for return post, or was there some central camp to which their correspondents should address their letters?

  The young woman explained. Just as she was leaving, Margaret Thomas piped up.

  ‘I don’t suppose we’re allowed on to the beach, are we?’ she asked. ‘Only I should love to feel the sand under my feet.’

  The young woman laughed. ‘Of course you can go to the beach. You can paddle all you like, but bathing is only allowed from the northern edge of the beach, away from the boats. It’s rather rocky. There’s also a sea-water bath, but you may not have spotted it from here, you can’t see it because it’s tucked in, under the cliff. It’s actually the biggest sea-water pool in Britain. I don’t imagine you’ve come with bathing things?’ Here she smiled. ‘I believe there are costumes and towels for hire at the baths. Otherwise Curphey’s sells costumes, it’s just down the hill from here on the right. Next to Collinson’s, the big café with the dome.’

  Phyllis could not believe their luck. If it weren’t for the danger of swimming too soon after a meal, she would have plunged straight into the waves. As it was she had to wait out the requisite hour before she could go in. One of the others proposed a stroll out to the tea-room along the headland, and she went upstairs to fetch her purse. When she had left Holloway she had been handed her things, her handbag and the light gabardine coat she had brought with her and a small felt hat. These had been taken away on her arrival and she had never thought to see them again. Pinned to the lapel of the coat was a brooch her daughters had given her, in the shape of an old-fashioned galleon in full sail. Its cut steel glittered darkly, as if it were made from tarnished little diamonds. Phyllis had been delighted to see it again, remembering how excited Julia and Frances had been when they handed her the little box. Her old familiar bag was lined in soft suede the colour of face-powder, with a little side pocket edged with leather which held a mirror. Her lipstick had all but dried up, but her purse and hankie and comb were intact. Folded alongside them was a piece of paper on which she had written a list. Phyllis felt a jolt of sadness at the sight of it, for it seemed to her now that the woman who had written the list was an innocent who had no notion of what was about to happen to her.

  Dark tan shoe polish

  Order extra name-tapes

  Baking soda

  Envelopes – good paper for letters + tradesmen’s

  Return fish-kettle to P.

  It seemed almost like something from a museum, the list, some ancient papyrus or fragment of scroll; an object from an altogether different age. It illustrated how ordinary her life used to be: the list could have been anyone’s. But her pensive mood cleared when she opened her purse. For there was a five-pound note folded small and two ten-shilling ones, as well as a good handful of change: great riches. She recalled that Hugh had given her the notes in some haste, when it was evident that they were being taken away from their house. It was emergency money, in case she had needed a taxi or even an hotel after what they had both assumed would be an hour or so of questioning. He was normally cautious: Phyllis generally carried only a few shillings, while Hugh dealt with cheques and money orders and settled their monthly accounts. Now she would be able to buy herself a bathing dress and some new stockings and underthings. A bottle of lavender water, perhaps. She could send little presents to the children, if anything larger than letters were permitted: the sweets they liked – a stick of rock each, if she could still obtain them – and some small fancy goods. It gave her some little happiness to imagine making up the parcels, one for each child. But the feeling was bittersweet and didn’t last. The reality of her new situation was that Phyllis was very much further away from her children than she had been in London. Lovely though it was to be free to wander the little streets and walk on to the sand, miles and miles and miles of water separated her now from everyone she most loved.

  Phyllis, 1979

  I’m not sure how I found out that it was Nina.

  It did seem odd that Eric hadn’t been taken into custody, he was so much more closely involved than I was, or even Hugh. He wasn’t just a local organizer, he actually wrote a lot of the leaflets and things that were put out from HQ. Come to think of it, he was really rather good at writing, very persuasive. He managed to cajole a lot of the top people into coming to speak at meetings down in Sussex. He was very capable at a great many things, considering he was essentially a glorified mechanic. But I suppose we all underestimated him, because he ended up owning that string of garages all along the south coast: he did very well for himself and his family. Played golf with other local businessmen, sherry with magistrates, that sort of thing. Rotarians. And, to be fair, he was very good to poor Hugh after the war. Well, I suppose he felt guilty. I suppose it was what you might call an attempt at some sort of reparation. But we didn’t know that at the time, we thought he was just being kind.

  So I did wonder why they hadn’t rounded him up, but there wasn’t much logic to it, who they took in and who escaped their notice. One chap was arrested after returning from his sixth cross-Channel trip to rescue soldiers from Dunkirk. So much for our lot being traitors! Some of the people they detained were such small fry it scarcely seemed worthy of Her Majesty’s Pleasure to keep them under lock and key. Little clerks, girls who’d made the tea. Mosley’s actual secretary, Miss Monk, never got taken in, although she knew all his secrets; same thing with his mother, old Lady Mosley. She was a fearful dragon. They went to fetch one young woman District Leader, but she was away on her honeymoon at the time and they never went back for her. That’s how ill-thought-out it all was.

  The irony was, of course, that prison made me believe in the cause even more firmly than I had before. A so-called free country that would lock up patriotic folk, simply because they dissented from the prevailing view of the Government: how could I have any faith in our rulers after that? In the Isle of Man various charitable organizations came and busied themselves on behalf of the enemy aliens. Bishop Bell came and wrote a report, and some well-known Quaker character, and people from important-sounding councils for this and that. To be fair, they far outnumbered us: there were a good four thousand of these foreign women and children at Port Erin, with just forty-three of our lot. After Italy joined the war, some Italian women and women with Italian husbands turned up too. For the people who owned the boarding-houses it was like the best holiday season they’d ever had: every bed in the town was taken. The do-gooders wanted to make sure they had enough to eat and were being kept nicely. They bothered about them, but of course there were no such charitable efforts on our behalf, when we were carted off there. What they didn’t like was the idea that the ordinary foreign nationals were being cooped up in the same camps as active Nazis from Germany and Austria who’d somehow got caught up in the same net and been brought over to the Isle. Some bright spark thought of introducing a de-nazification programme
over there, in the island camps. The idea being that the National Socialists would be cured of their beliefs by the time they came out. They never put any such programme into practice, of course.

  As I say, no one came to ensure that we were kept under humane conditions. British Union set up an Aid Fund for the victims of 18B and their families, people who were suffering hardship. But the charities and churches and politicians, they didn’t bother about us, although we were British nationals. The idea was that we had it lucky, being out of the danger of the bombing raids and living in boarding-houses generally used by paying customers. But we hadn’t broken the law. They only outlawed British Union in the same year as they brought our detention order, so technically we’d done nothing wrong. And it galled that these foreigners had people looking out for them while we had no one.

  Even though I felt such dreadful guilt about the death of my poor friend, I still knew that it was terribly unfair that I should have been kept as a political prisoner for all that time. A third of my little boy’s life, it was. I mean, as I say, I hadn’t done anything: hadn’t committed any crime. It was against Magna Carta, to lock us up like that. All I’d done was to believe that there was one man who could prevent war and bring Britain back to greatness through strong ties with our Empire and the hard graft of our own workers. A Greater Britain, that’s what the Leader named it. You have to recall that what is now called the First World War was considered by my generation to have been the war to end all wars. We didn’t want to see our men and boys mown down again, especially not for a quarrel that wasn’t our quarrel.

  We had a dear cousin who’d been killed and our own father had been wounded: we simply couldn’t stand by and do nothing while another generation was felled.

  Being locked up and then sent to the Isle of Man with no trial and no recourse to justice actually made me see what a dreadful system we were living under, and how much better it might have been under British Union, with Sir Oswald at the national helm. I don’t regret my politics, I don’t see why I should. I think history has proved us right. Look at the state of the country, now! Endless power cuts, grave-diggers on strike so that bodies lie unburied, no one collecting the rubbish so there are rats in the streets … it’s a disgrace. People freezing to death in their own homes because the electric’s been switched off. Socialist infiltrators picketing outside our hospitals and fire stations. All these foreigners taking over our little shops and whatnot. We had to let them in, you see, because of the break-up of all our colonies, our Empire. They’d been under our protection, we couldn’t just abandon them. Mind you, one can’t understand what they’re saying, half the time. We used to be a great nation, a great Empire, and now look at us. Sir Oswald would never have let things come to this. I’ll be honest: so far as I’m concerned, he walked on water. I think the world of him, still.

  In any case. To get back to Nina and how I found out. I think it must have been through one of the chaps I met at the annual reunions. I expect you’ve heard that a few of us, loyal to the cause, go to a pub in the East End every November to celebrate the Leader’s birthday. November 16th, it is. Sir Oswald always joins us, comes over specially from his home in France. A driver collects him from Victoria. There is such a bond, such loyalty, you see. That’s what people never mention, when they do the Movement down. They think we were just a bunch of Nazis, but it wasn’t like that at all. If they knew their history they’d understand that the Corporate State we were proposing was closer to what Mussolini had achieved in Italy than to the Germans.

  I met a fellow at one of the early reunions after the war who had been a friend of the policeman in Chichester who’d tipped off the authorities about Hugh and myself; and it was he who told me that this same officer had been pally with Eric and my sister. Very friendly, they were.

  Apparently he’d gone round and warned them that the powers that be were looking to round some of us up, but he said that if they gave him some names he’d see what he could do to keep them out of it. Well, you must remember that Nina was expecting a baby by then: of course she wasn’t going to volunteer herself. Not that she could’ve known what was coming. To be fair to her, no one would ever have guessed that they’d keep us locked up for all that time. I expect she just thought they’d come and search our house and ask us some questions, perhaps take us in overnight or for a day or two. She couldn’t have known I’d be taken away for all that time. Even after I was released I was still under a restriction order, which went on for a good few months after the war ended.

  I’ve forgiven her, by now, more or less. Perhaps rather less than more, if I’m going to be really honest. It’s funny, isn’t it, that I was just saying what tremendous loyalty there was among us all and yet my own sister turned us in. But you see I find it hard to blame her completely, because she simply could not have had any idea what would happen to us, not then. And after all, it’s not as if our involvement in the cause was a secret: lots of people knew that Hugh and I were active in the Party. If it hadn’t been Nina, it could just as well have been someone else. Some busy-body from outside the Party may have made the call. More than Nina I blame the situation we found ourselves in; the war itself, the politicians who allowed it to happen. At the time it was widely felt among us that the Labour Party had made locking us up a condition of their joining the Coalition. The timing was certainly right: we were taken in in May 1940, same month as Churchill’s Coalition government was formed. After the war, Aneurin Bevan claimed that the Labour Party had forced Churchill to imprison Sir Oswald. You may judge for yourself.

  Sometimes I do feel that prison is what did for poor Hugh. He was so much older than me, I think his health was affected. Whereas I had yet to turn forty, by the time we got out. Felt ancient at the time, but now I realize I was still a fairly young woman.

  We do keep in touch, Nina and I: at Christmas, birthdays. I usually send her a picture postcard from my holiday. No. The person I find it so much harder to forgive is my other sister, Patricia.

  15. Isle of Man, summer and autumn 1941

  It took several weeks before Phyllis found out that Hugh, too, was on the island. The men had been moved with the same secrecy as their female counterparts, so his letter telling her that he’d been relocated to Peveril camp was much delayed by having to be forwarded via Holloway. She learned that Peveril was situated up the west coast at the harbour town of Peel, an hour or so away from Port Erin. It was a relief that he hadn’t been held at the notoriously awful camp outside Liverpool, where it was said that many of the men were suffering from serious ill health due to the punishing conditions. Privately, though, she felt a tight little knot of unease. The German and Austrian women were permitted to see their husbands once a month, when they were bussed into Port Erin from their camps elsewhere on the island. They were allowed to stroll about the town, arm in arm, quite freely. There were quite a few small children with their mothers in the foreign women’s camp: it was touching to see their little faces, tight with pride, when their fathers lifted them up on to their shoulders and carried them down to the beach or along the esplanade.

  Nothing of the kind had so far been proposed in their own case, but it seemed to Phyllis that the serenity of their little group would surely be ruffled if the men were admitted. These women had borne the privations of imprisonment together, with each other’s help: the men would unsettle them, undo their routines and companionship. Such thoughts she kept to herself, for it would not have been popular with the rest. The other married women in the camp were up in arms when they discovered that the so-called enemy aliens were allowed to see their husbands while they, British women, were not. There was talk of getting up a petition, as well as writing individual letters of appeal.

  Before such considerations arose there were several weeks of glorious weather that summer. It was impossible not to feel some sense of gaiety from the sheer relief of being out of prison, of breathing the sea air and sleeping on an actual sprung bed; of morning walks along the headland and ap
parently limitless quantities of milk and butter, and even cream. Because local farmers were hardly able to export their produce to the mainland, there was a local glut. Eggs were plentiful, too. When Phyllis took Rowena and June to a tea-room they had all three been so astonished to be served a cream tea – even if the red jam tasted suspiciously like beetroot and the scones were rather dry – as to be reduced to total silence. The best of it was being free to go outside. In the ground opposite her lodgings the buddleia came into flower and in the warm afternoons the bramble leaves gave off a delicious smell. To be able to sit on the tussocky grass with the hot air on her bare shins and the sunlight against her eyelids, the brightness creating whirling bursts of colour within her closed eyes: Phyllis could scarcely believe that such sensations were possible. Nevertheless the longing for family and home remained as sharp as ever. The absence of any release date to look forward to was never less hard to endure.

  Time had dragged terribly, in Holloway, but here there was a seemingly endless round of things to keep them occupied. The British Council, the Society of Friends and the local Welfare Officers had between them furnished the reading room with a variety of books, although a lot of them seemed to be educational books rather than the stories which Phyllis preferred. And you had to hand it to them, the Jewish German and Austrian internees were extraordinarily resourceful. They had among themselves arranged a constant programme of lectures and practical classes, everything from flute-playing to wood-carving. There were talks and lessons every day: European history, literature, mythology, pedagogy, dietetics, science. Visiting lecturers came each week to talk on everything from archaeology to philosophy. Most of the lectures were given by speakers, highly distinguished in their fields, who were interned on other parts of the island. In addition there were language classes in French, Italian, Spanish and even Greek. Those German-speakers who were less than fluent took English classes. All of this was quite apart from the Friday concerts and Wednesday recitals, the choral singing, dramatics, eurythmics, drawing, clay-modelling and music and movement classes. It was as if the sleepy little fishing port had unwittingly become a thriving university. With all the classes and talks and music being put on, it was like another Heidelberg. Most of it was too intellectual for her, but Phyllis joined a glove-making class, although she had to give up after the second lesson: she just didn’t seem to have the knack. Instead she learned to crochet on a Monday afternoon and signed up for the French conversation class on Thursday mornings. Using her French vocabulary again reminded her of the happy times she had spent with Sarita. Those lessons with Monsieur Hubert seemed to have taken place in another lifetime: these were not nearly so much fun, but it was better to be occupied than to spend all her time brooding. June joined several musical groups and volunteered to give piano lessons to some of the children, only to discover that music teachers were in greater supply than pupils. Rowena was to take dressmaking and elementary Spanish.