Personality Read online

  But I let myself love him. That is what I did. When I began to love him, Mario, I felt so large and so proud inside myself. My God, he was wisdom, Mario, he was beauty, and when he sang he opened the world for better things. Then God forgive me I did not want to run home to Rothesay and I did not want to be upstairs. I only wanted to be with this man: Enrico Colangelo. You told me to beware of Mussolini and stop speaking of him, but it was not Mussolini I loved, Mario, it was not him: I spoke his name because I could not speak another. The man I loved. Enrico Colangelo. I took a petition to Mrs Viccari of the West End Café and you caught me with it and told me how she was a suspicious and conceited woman and asked why was I doing this? Why was I making this petition for Mussolini? We lived in Scotland now. We were not part of the Fasci. Why would I do this? Why would I harm us this way?

  It’s all so long ago now. Yes I lost myself in this love affair but only because I knew I had found my life. I look at these things lying on the floor now and I am shocked by what they bring to mind just as I was shocked forty years ago. When they say, Mario, that time heals everything they are wrong. My only relief now is that I cannot hurt you any more.

  At a house in Clerkenwell in London I slept with Enrico Colangelo and my face was wet with tears. He sang. We spoke of New York and Buenos Aires and Paris; he had sung in these places and our future would lie there, one day when all causes of secrecy and fear had dissolved, and we would be so happy together. I came home to Bute from the London meetings and saw Enrico sometimes with his friends in Edinburgh. We walked in the Botanic Gardens and spoke of the future of Italy. We spoke of our future. We had our lunch at the North British Royal.

  This is what happened. The war came. Our customers turned against us and in June they came through Rothesay breaking the windows of the Italian shops. I remember holding Sofia between us in the room of a house down where Alfredo’s barbershop is now. The people took us in for that night. We had friends: they read the newspapers and I remember the headline in the Daily Mail. ‘Act! Act! Act!’ It was my fault they took Mario in the night. He was gone and Sofia was crying and the café was destroyed. Many of the Italians were safe and I understood what I had done. My name was among those written down in books at the church in Clerkenwell. I took Sofia to Frances Bone – our neighbour Mrs Bone – and her husband Duncan was in the army, but she took Sofia into her house. I knew they would come for me after Mario had gone. Mrs Bone is the only person on this island today who knows the truth. She knew more of the truth than Mario did – and now, even today, down in the town as I sit here now, she is silent, Frances Bone, and she hates me.

  If took no more than a week. I had a letter to tell me my husband had been interned at a camp in Warth Mills, a place near Bury in Lancashire. I thought I would meet you there, Mario, but everything changed with a telephone call to Enrico in London. He told me the authorities had a list of the people who met at St Peter’s. He said it was not understood to be a social or musical gathering but a political one – we were dangerous, he said, and they had addresses and would soon come for me.

  I never understood Enrico’s world. I think he had artistic friends in Rome who gave support to Mussolini. He knew people in London and could make telephone calls. I later found out he paid money to someone so that we would both be detained at the same place. It was a scandal, certainly: Mario in Warth Mills and knowing nothing of this. When I look back now I see that Enrico could arrange so much even in those dark times; in the end he could arrange too much, but what’s the use? My own heart was arranged by then to follow his plans. Enrico had sung at Covent Garden and was known at the BBC.

  I was taken to the camp at Port Erin on the Isle of Man. A policeman and a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service came to Rothesay in the early morning; people from the town were standing at the sea-railings as they took me down to the pier. Some other officers went down to the café and searched through the things upstairs. Standing on the pier I could see them at the other end of the putting green: they were emptying drawers out of the window into Victoria Street. Mrs Bone came down, I remember, and lifted Sofia to kiss her mother. The officers chose not to ask a question about that. ‘Are you going to Glasgow mummy?’ Sofia said.

  ‘I’m going on a train, darling.’

  ‘A train,’ she said, holding Mrs Bone’s hand.

  ‘Yes.’ And I kissed her again.

  ‘I’ll write to you soon, Frances. You might have to bring her to me. I don’t know what will happen.’

  ‘Just calm yourself,’ said Mrs Bone. ‘I’m ready to do whatever needs doing.’

  I cried for a moment into the arm of my coat.

  ‘This is all just a mix-up,’ said Frances.

  ‘Collar the lot!’ shouted a man from the side of the pier.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ said the policeman. ‘Please move away, the boat is coming in.’

  They moved away and after a while I walked onto the boat and we were out in the Bay. I stood on the deck and cried for my wee girl. I remember looking over and seeing Millport and on the other side the lighthouse and thinking I might never see any of these places again. Later I heard people talking about the bad treatment of Italian prisoners, but they were nothing but nice to me. I wore a fur coat and some good gloves and I carried a gas mask. There was a Black Maria waiting at Wemyss Bay and it took me to Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow. I spent the night there: there were signs on the doors of the cells saying ‘Enemy Alien’. It was mostly men who occupied the other cells and I saw a man who had worked in the offices of La Scozia, but we said nothing.

  After a train journey to Liverpool we boarded a steamer for the Isle of Man, and the crossing was stormy. There were more German people in the group than anything else: I remember some of them singing songs and playing mouth organs. When the noise became too much the officers said they should shut up, didn’t they know there was a war on. The talk was that there were real Nazis in the group – rumours of Hitler salutes when no one was watching. On the Isle of Man people lined the streets and they whistled at us and you could see some of them were spitting too. We were taken to Port Erin, a seaside town just like Rothesay, and I cried when we got there, thinking of Sofia, thinking of Mario and myself when we first came to live on Bute. They said our camp wasn’t so bad as the men’s. The Rushen camp, it was called, and it was cordoned off with barbed wire, but you could move about inside.

  All the boarding houses and hotels in Port Erin were paid to take us in. That’s how the camp worked: the streets had barbed wire at the ends of them, and the landlords took in prisoners. Many of the women had brought their children with them. At the Palace Hotel there were young girls, domestic servants mostly from London, standing around in thin dresses, and women with crying children, standing in groups, and extra blankets were being given out. Any money you had, you had to give to the commandant, who then doled it out to you at five shillings a week. It was kippers all the time. Manx kippers for breakfast, and dinner, and macaroni sometimes, or stew and that terrible tea. I can still smell the kippers.

  Lillie Kermode worked in the tearoom at the Palace Hotel and she was friendly from the very beginning. In the first week she pressed a note into my hand as I approached the samovar. ‘It’s from a gentleman,’ she said. ‘My boyfriend, he’s read it, and he says the gentleman is a good sort all round. Not as if you’re Mata Hari, love.’ The note was from Enrico.

  My dear Lucia,

  I am kept at the Metropole Camp on the other side. I know where you are and will contact you again soon. I may even be able to see you here. Your husband is in Lancashire and is working in the kitchen there. He will be valued in this job and will not be moved. It seems you did not bring your Sofia. Be careful but pass any note you must to the lady. She can be trusted with this.

  Ti Amo, Enrico

  I bought or gathered as much wool as I could and began knitting at Rushen. It made the days pass quicker. I wrote a letter to

  Mario and told him that Sofia was with Mrs Bon
e and we would be happy again after all this had passed. I don’t know why I wrote this to Mario: I was not sure then that our lives could be normal after the war. Some of the women taught classes at Rushen and I learned embroidery and even went swimming one day in the sea. We had no bathing costumes and swam in our underclothes. I saw a look on the face of one of the women officers. ‘These Europeans are quite disgusting when you think about it,’ she said.

  Many of the women at Rushen had husbands interned elsewhere on the island. Eventually, it was said they could meet with them for just two hours, some of them at Derby Castle in Onchan, others at the Balaqueeney Hotel in Port St Mary. Lillie Kermode gave me a note which said I should go to Port St Mary to meet with Enrico. I remember the women preparing to meet their husbands after their time apart. They curled their hair and sewed up their hemlines and borrowed lipsticks and shoes and earrings from one another.

  ‘I love you,’ said Enrico. We held hands across the table whilst I wept into a handkerchief he gave me.

  ‘This is so terrible. What will happen?’ I said.

  ‘I have a plan,’ he said. It was a warm day and around that town on the Isle of Man there was a holiday feeling. Children were running past the window with sweets. Enrico went on.

  ‘We can go to Canada. I think we will be able to go to America from there. I have friends. There is a boat to Canada next week.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s Sofia.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘We can do this. Mrs Bone will bring Sofia to us in Liverpool. My friends in Edinburgh will bring clothes and some things that we might need. Lucia, we can do this.’

  ‘This is impossible,’ I said.

  ‘No, Lucia,’ he said, tightening his hold on my hand, ‘we can do this if we think carefully. I have planned it out. Your friend Mrs Bone will bring Sofia to Liverpool and my friends will leave a suitcase for us at the pier. It can be done. They are sending Italians to Canada and we can go there.’

  We drank the tea and talked for those two hours.

  ‘Why is this happening?’ I said.

  ‘It is war,’ he said, ‘and there are riots against us in all the cities. You lost the café.’ I told him we could start again.

  ‘Not here, Lucia, we must go to Canada. This is the only way for us to –’

  ‘Canada. How will we board the ship?’

  ‘I am being sent on the ship, and I have found a way to bring you and Sofia with me.’

  Enrico told me the plan again and again. We wrote a letter together at the table to Mrs Bone. She was to bring Sofia in a cap and trousers to a house in Liverpool. The people there would help us and we would see Sofia again. ‘I will write more to Mrs Bone tonight,’ I said, ‘and then I’ll send this tomorrow.’

  ‘No, Lucia,’ he said. ‘There are many internees’ letters stuck in Liverpool. It may not get there, or they may read them. There is a messenger who can get this letter to her. Let us complete the letter here and tell her what to do.’

  I remember we read over what was written on the napkin.

  ‘Will she do it?’ he asked.

  I took the pencil and wrote across the top, ‘Please Frances. I beg you. This is for the best.’

  He looked at me. ‘She will do it,’ I said.

  This is what happened. It was early on 30 June 1940. Under my bed at the Palace Hotel someone, Lillie I suppose, had left a bundle of clothes: grey woollen trousers and a dark jacket, a cardigan, a blue tie. There was also a pair of shoes, much too big but I stuffed the toes with nylons, and a hat which fitted as if made for me. I put these clothes on and pinched my cheeks in the mirror. There was only a single bulb in the room: I could see my face and remember feeling shaky, but looking at myself in that light I began to feel comfortable. That morning at the Palace Hotel I felt it was all for the best.

  Impersonation. I had never imagined it, never thought anything like that would happen in my life. I suppose putting on those clothes made me feel that the person who was about to do this wasn’t me, she was another person, frightened by what was happening, and in love with this man. Oh Mario, you never knew me. You never saw me.

  There was a knock at the door. I opened it and a man in a kitchen outfit put his ringer to his lips. I followed him down the stairs and we crossed the breakfast room and went out of a door into a lane. There was a van there, and another man at the wheel. The first man opened the doors at the back and I climbed inside the van and the man covered me with laundry. I can still smell the soap in that van. We moved away and the van jogged and I heard friendly chatter once when we stopped. I don’t know how long it took – it felt like my whole life. When they opened the doors a man in a uniform took me by the arm and I stepped onto gravel and then quickly was taken in the door of something that looked like a church hall. Hundreds of men were crowded into the space; some lay sleeping on the floor on bundles and suitcases. The man who held my arm took me to the corner of the room and I heard him tell someone to put out their cigarette. The man in the uniform left me. Then I saw Enrico. He came over and said ‘Keep quiet’.

  We were on the boat and no one bothered us and Enrico was put into a berth with me and two others. I immediately lay down in the berth and turned myself to the wall. Enrico seemed to know the men well and they spoke of London and played cards and one of them spoke of a village in Italy. When the other men fell asleep and the boat was tossing Enrico leaned into the berth and whispered to me. ‘There are only a dozen or so boys to be taken on the boat,’ he said. ‘Keep her between us. We have to slip her through. Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Just follow me. There will be a medical officer – we must get past him.’

  The quay at Liverpool was busy and confused. I can hardly remember anything about that place, it was so full of people, and we came off one boat and went into a hangar. It was raining, and Enrico disappeared. I thought I would panic but in a moment I felt her pressing into my leg. I looked down and Sofia was there beside me, Good God when I think of it, and she jumped a little on her feet to see me. I crouched down and we were in a state, but I only said, ‘Be good, Sofia. This is a nice game isn’t it? Don’t say anything to anybody.’

  She wore long trousers and a rough waistcoat and her hair was in a crew cut. ‘Pull your cap down,’ I said.

  I whispered to Enrico that I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Quiet now,’ he said. ‘We can only try.’

  I told him we were lost, ‘Ci siamo persi.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Continui.’

  I held on to Sofia’s hand and there were people shouting here and there and giving tickets out for belongings. Everything was happening so quickly and we were tired and Enrico seemed so busy with looks and gestures to the men who huddled around us. A giant metal shutter was lifted up beside the hangar and the men jostled forward. ‘Try not to say mummy,’ I whispered to Sofia as we moved forward. ‘We’re going to have a lovely journey today and I can tell you all about my time.’

  ‘The suitcase,’ said Enrico, ‘they haven’t brought the suitcase. It was supposed to be in here. ‘Porco Dio!’

  The people from Edinburgh would surely have left the suitcase. ‘It has clothes and things we need,’ he said. One of the men beside him said the case might have the wrong label. They thought it was being sent to me on Bute.

  ‘Forget the suitcase,’ Enrico said. The rain was lashing down at the dock and we stepped out and saw the ship for the first time. I heard a Scottish voice behind me. ‘They’ve smashed up every single café in Greenock,’ he said.

  The giant ship had two funnels and I remember noticing that all the portholes were blocked out with wood. ‘Don’t worry,’ Enrico said in my ear. ‘Someone is there to help us on the other side. We’ll get things. They won’t see us. It’s organised. We’re not going to another camp all right? Just walk forward. Between us, make her stand between us.’ He whispered instructions like this and then as we approached the gangway he fell quiet. We shuffled up and I looked down and I remember seeing cars on a road beside
the dock. I thought of Mrs Bone. Two officers stood at the top of the gangplank with lists. I was ready to give up. We would just give up and go back I thought. Maybe the war would be over soon and things could be normal again. I straightened Sofia’s shoulders between Enrico’s legs and mine. Then we were nearly at the top of the gangway – people pushed from behind – and I saw Enrico press the backs of two Italians in front of him, and they started shouting at each other and one of them hit the other with his fist. The British officers didn’t put down their lists but they grabbed the men by their coats. Enrico stepped forward and said something in Italian, and with one hand he reached behind his back and swept us off to the side, in one move we were around the men with the lists, and in that very second they were checking the troublemakers’ names and we were in the throng of men on the deck.

  Enrico said the medical officer wasn’t checking people until the boat had left. I remember the barbed wire at opposite ends of the ship and then we were moved down to a ballroom and blankets were spread out. There was a large sign over a bandstand: ‘The Arandora Star’.

  Florida. Cuba. Canary Islands. Gold Coast.

  The ship was full of noise and seemed to be leaving in such a hurry. When berths were given out, the men shuffled back and forth with suitcases and swapped with each other to be with people they knew. No one supervised any of this and some of the Italian men were shouting at the Germans because they were furious when they heard the ship was flying a flag with a swastika on it. I don’t know if this was true about the flag, but the men were at each other’s throats.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ I said to Sofia, who was hidden between us. An old man was talking to us and we looked up and saw that he understood, but he continued speaking as if everything was normal. His name was Francesco D’Ambrosio. ‘This is all for nothing,’ he said, ‘and they should be ashamed of what they are doing.’ Mr D’Ambrosio had lived in Scotland since 1898 and he owned a restaurant in Hamilton. ‘I have two sons serving in the British Army,’ he said to us. ‘All this … you would think they could avoid all this. I am sixty-eight years old.’ Out of his pocket he took a packet of mixed sweets. ‘Here you go, little angel,’ he said to Sofia.