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whatever Clarence says. Solly takes off his tie. He opens the window. He wonders where Dora is.
    All around the kitchen stand the paraphernalia of her craft: the buckets, the fraying sieve, muslin, a small jar of tartaric acid, and a big one of precious sugar; the rations she’s saved all spring, plus the extra meant for summer jam.
    Dora makes cordials. The elderflower is the best. It’s Solly’s favourite, and for Dora it entails tier on tier of happiness. Happiness in the picking, in the making and the drinking.
    He looks forward to the smell of it. The smell is alchemy. At first Dora’s cordial will be nothing but muck and water. It will smell of the pharmacist’s acid and the anodyne sweetness of sugar. Then one day they’ll wake up, one or the other or both. They’ll cough and sigh, and there! Instead of the smell of themselves – instead of Solly and Dora – there will be the elderflower. Its heady scent will fill their rooms. It will be the smell of summer itself. The English summer, that begins with the elderflower, and ends with the berry.
    Solly frowns. He thinks, But what’s wrong with the smell of us? Why wish for anything more than Solly and Dora? Aren’t we lucky to be alive? Aren’t we young, and in love?
    Not so young any more , whispers the imp inside his head, which (he hardly knows it) speaks with the voice of his mother. Not so much of the genius. You smell of beer and no money. You smell like a refugee, Solomon. You smell of childlessness.
    Solly clicks his tongue. The drink is souring his thoughts. He likes the way it loosens him, but he’s never had the head for it.
    What he needs is some music. He takes the drink into the lounge, turns on the wireless, grumbles over the dial until he finds a vein of jazz. Then he dances – little hops – around the room, past the one-bar electric fire, the bookcase full of paperbacks and Dora’s photograph albums, the workshop table with its watches and orphaned parts – all the way to the easy chair, where he collapses gratefully.
    There are letters on his table, but they don’t look new to Solly. They’ll be old news, Dora’s hoardings, brought out to be read again. He swipes a postcard off the top.
     
    NOTHING is to be written on this side except the date, signature and address of the sender. Erase words not required. IF ANYTHING ELSE IS ADDED THE POSTCARD WILL BE DESTROYED.
     
    I am ( not ) well.
    I have been admitted into Hospital {} and am going on well .
     
    I am going to be transferred to another camp .
    I have received your card dated 19th September, 1944
     
    Signature
    Solomon Lazarus
     
    Camp Address
    Onchan,
    Isle of Man
    Internment Camp.
    Date 12th October, 1944
     
    ‘Oh, this?’ Solly says to the room. ‘Yes, I remember this.’ And he nods; not happily, only backing up the words, as if some authority has asked him to confirm his statement.
    He remembers Onchan Camp. The boarding house room he shared with a procession of other men – Jews, Hungarians, Italians. The beauty of the view from their window across the island. Douglas town in the rain, or the castle in the sun, and always the green or gold of gorse – even, on clear days, a hint of Port Erin, where the women’s camps were, and where – the Italians said so – the Finns swam naked in the sea.
    He remembers leaving Dora. They’d been in England six months. Dora, pregnant, nineteen years old, weeping on the platform. The night train to Lancashire. The transit camp, two thousand men, with twenty buckets and no chairs. Then Liverpool, the crossing, the Steam Packet heading into a storm, all of them sick or sleeping, one or the other, taking turns. And when they came into Douglas he woke, and the first thing he saw was the flag of Man, the triskelion, its three legs so like a swastika that for a wild moment he thought he’d been betrayed. He thought he’d been given back into the hands of the enemy.
    It was morning, and the sky was white. The soldiers lined them up