‘Jamaica. I grew up in Kingston,’ I said. ‘My mother was English.’
I waited for her to compliment my English or ask me if I was cold, but she surprised me.
‘Is that a flute you’re carrying?’ she asked. ‘Do you play?’
I’d left my cases at the camp headquarters, but I had the flute on its strap over my shoulder. ‘A bit,’ I said cautiously.
Mummy would have told her I didn’t like to practise. I didn’t want to admit this right away to a professional opera singer. Or to the only person who’d started out by showing as much interest in my flute as in the colour of my skin.
‘Frau von Arnim, this is Louisa Adair.’ The woman from the camp office introduced us. ‘Louisa can help you pack.’
‘I don’t want help packing,’ said Frau von Arnim. ‘My things are my own business. But I shall need assistance to get to the bank to collect my furs.’
‘Your furs are at the bank?’ I echoed.
‘Yes, of course, we’re not allowed locks. I don’t trust that damned Nazi Ella Fiesler across the passage, and there are three children downstairs who stain everything they touch. They’re not Nazis – they’re just children. I cannot keep their sticky paws off my gramophone. If that martinet of a commander would allow us to listen to the radio they might be less trouble, but as it stands, my gramophone is the only entertainment in the house. Open the wardrobe – you’ll see. Go on, girl, don’t stand there staring.’
Not only could she speak English, but her English was flawlessly proper. She sounded like a radio announcer. Like a duchess. Like the Queen.
She watched me as a cat watches a bird, hungrily. I opened the wardrobe.
There was the gramophone, and next to it was a stack of records higher than my knees. Gowns bloomed like hibiscus and oleander on the rail, pushed to the back so she could reach the gramophone.
‘Well, Louisa, now you’ve met Johanna von Arnim, help her to her feet,’ said the young woman from the camp headquarters. I thought she must be evaluating me.
I clasped Frau von Arnim by the forearms and braced my heels while she pulled herself up. She was a good deal heavier than she looked.
‘The coat, and then the sticks – ugh, dreadful things, I look like an old spider,’ said Frau von Arnim. ‘And my bag beneath the pillow. The passbooks are behind the notes for one of the Django Reinhardts, I forget which.’
‘Pardon?’
‘In the record album,’ she explained impatiently. ‘At the bottom, beneath the frocks. That damned Nazi Ella Fiesler would never pick up a jazz record.’
Frau von Arnim got down the stairs by herself. I was relieved that she could manage stairs, but goodness, they seemed to take forever – she did them one at a time. The volunteer and I came down behind her. I carried her walking sticks, wondering if I should have gone first to break her fall if she went plummeting forward.
‘You must have very strong arms,’ I said.
‘I have, girl,’ she agreed.
And then a long plod to the bank, where we collected a mountain of furs. The Society of Friends woman came with us, watching how I got on. Frau von Arnim, frowning with hostility, examined each piece of fur and signed for it.
‘I shall be withdrawing my savings, as well,’ she announced with queenly pomp.
That was more complicated, and the bank manager took her into a private room to sort it out.
This left me alone with the detainment camp volunteer.
She grasped my arm and pulled me away from the bank manager’s office. She glanced about to be sure none of the clerks were listening, and then she spoke to me quickly, with her voice carefully lowered.
‘Thank you for coming for Frau von Arnim,’ she said. ‘She should have been released over a month ago, and frankly she ought never to have been sent here in the first place. It really is too bad! She’s well aware of why it’s taken so long for her niece to find someone to help her travel. There’s nothing worse than knowing nobody wants you.’
I nodded. I thought I understood that.
‘Do keep a careful eye on her, won’t you?’ said the social worker. ‘That fall she had on the cliffs was providential, if you ask me. We think she was planning to throw herself over the top when she made it to the edge.’
It took me a moment to realise she was serious.
Oh, heavens, did Nancy Campbell know that about her aunt? If she did, she’d been a bit secretive about it.
‘Frau von Arnim has always been very unhappy here,’ the camp volunteer explained, seeing my wary expression. ‘The Rushen Camp women are allowed to go about the town freely, to the shops and the cinema and such, but Frau von Arnim would keep doing things we had to put a stop to. Bathing in the sea naked – at her age! Playing records at three o’clock in the morning, purposefully hiding library books when they were due to be returned. Tossing out other people’s post! She’d say it was an accident, but she always picked out the ones belonging to people she didn’t like. And then there would have to be consequences, so she wasn’t allowed on the beach, or to the library, or to speak to the postman, and we had to move her three times in four months, and her gramophone got taken away for a bit … just constant scrapping with everybody. And it always ended in us having to treat her more and more like – like—’
I was sure she was going to say more like a prisoner, but she surprised me.
‘More and more like a very elderly woman indeed.’
The social worker paused. She had me by the arm, as if she expected me to try to escape. She searched my face, no doubt wondering if I understood her.
I thought of Frau von Arnim’s whacking great lie about her age. I put that together with what I’d seen of her in the past hour: stubborn, independent, regal and elegant, with a voice like a nightingale and a cupboard full of jazz records. She was still looking for adventure. Perhaps when she was arrested she imagined a few nights in prison before someone discovered how old she was – perhaps she imagined she would charm her guards with song, and then there might be outraged news headlines about her brave spirit and the injustice of her arrest, and people would remember her operatic past. Retired, perhaps, but not old.
A rule-breaker, just like Mummy.
Just like me.
‘And now that she can’t walk properly, of course she does have to be treated like an old woman,’ the social worker finished.
‘I expect she’ll cheer up once she’s off the island,’ I said.
‘I expect she’ll cheer up now she has you to order about,’ replied the social worker, at last letting go of my arm.
She smiled at me. Then she ruined it by adding ominously: ‘Do take care that Frau von Arnim isn’t allowed to hurt herself again.’
We had one last visit to the camp office. I was to be the Official Keeper of Documents, and there was a brief argument over my suitability for the job.
‘Miss Adair is perhaps rather, um, perhaps too young?’ said someone. ‘To be entrusted with such responsibility, I mean.’
‘I don’t believe the commander would approve,’ said another. ‘Not if she saw the girl herself.’
‘But she hasn’t seen the girl,’ protested Frau von Arnim, who was ready to leave.