Windflower Wedding

11

‘So, Anna, they still hold out at Tsaritsyn.’ Olga Petrovska turned off the wireless. ‘The Bolsheviks are putting up something of a fight – at last!’

‘Something! Mama, the Luftwaffe bombed the city almost to the ground. They left little standing, yet the Russians are fighting for every ruin, every cellar; even for heaps of rubble! And when they have no guns, they fight with pickaxes and petrol bombs – women, too!’

‘Ah, yes.’ The Countess picked up her embroidery frame. ‘I read in Picture Post that Nazi soldiers are becoming afraid of the Russians. They are calling them men possessed – devils. Hitler has lost a quarter of a million men. Those Bolsheviks in Tsaritsyn have one ambition, it seems; to kill at least one Nazi each day, every day.’ She jabbed her needle viciously.

‘That is gruesome and horrible! Not all those soldiers are Nazis. Many are decent boys like Drew and Bas! And you must not call it Tsaritsyn. It is Stalingrad. It has been Stalingrad for nearly twenty years.’

‘Indeed? So those soldiers who try to take Tsaritsyn are changing their tune now. They were all fervent Nazis when the war was going well for them and no country stood up to them!’

‘And you, Mama, had not one good word to say for the Communists, yet now you side with them!’

‘I do, Anna, because they are defending Mother Russia. And if they rid it of those arrogant Huns, I will accept they have earned their right to my country.’

‘Even though you will never see our home again – nor Peterhof?’

‘Even though. And I would be proud, Aleksandrina Anastasia Petrovska, to be fighting alongside those women in Petersburg and Tsaritsyn.’

She said it softly, almost as though it were a whispered prayer and it gave Anna the courage to say, ‘Then you will approve of what I am going to do this morning.’

‘Try me.’

‘I – I’m going to Creesby, with all the other women whose surname begins with R or S, to register at the Ministry of Labour. All women of my age have to do war work now.’

‘I see. You will work on munitions or some other demeaning thing! You, a countess born, who has no need to work!’

‘I have every need, Mama. And my Russian title counts for nothing here. I am Mrs Sutton. I was glad enough to come to England to safety so now I can’t refuse England.’

‘It is preposterous! First Tatiana and now you! Those people seem to think they can do as they wish!’

‘They can, Mama. They do! There’s a war on, remember.’

‘Ha! A Petrovska in a factory! Have you seen those munitions workers? They go yellow!’

‘I’ve seen them. Their work is dangerous. They must wear special soft shoes and cover up wedding rings with tape – nothing to make a spark, you see. I hope they don’t send me to that kind of war work.’

‘They had better not! They will hear from me if they do!’

‘They would take no notice, Mama. This is everybody’s war and we must all help to fight it. Drew is fighting, and Daisy and Bas – and Tatiana is in London, braving the bombing.’

‘You owe this country nothing! Your loyalty must first be to Russia, where you were born!’

‘So what would you have me do, then? Will I stow away on a ship going to Archangel? And will I tell them - if I get there safely, that is – that I am the Countess Aleksandrina Anastasia Sutton, daughter of the late Count Peter Petrovsky of the bourgeoisie and have come to make Molotov cocktails to throw at the Germans! Oh, Mama …’

‘Do not be flippant! I can see now where your daughter gets her impudence from!’

‘I’m sorry – truly I am!’ Anna hastened, because her mother’s bottom lip had started to quiver, which heralded either a prolonged burst of weeping or a fit of rage, guaranteed to bring on a migraine. She dropped to her knees beside her mother’s chair, taking her hands. ‘I’m sorry for your Russia and all the poor people there, but now we live in England, and I must work. I’ve no say in the matter. But they can’t send me away from my home because I am a married woman – and married women are not directed into the armed forces.’

‘What about married women with children – you have a child, Anna Petrovska!’

‘My child is nearly grown up. Only women with a child under fourteen years are allowed to stay at home now. Women of my age are being sent to fill jobs to free younger, single women for the armed forces. Almost any useful job will do, as long as I work.’

‘So what is there for you to do in Holdenby, will you tell me, please?’

‘We-e-e-ll, I could help Winnie on the telephone exchange, or I could work at Home Farm or I could – could … Oh dear, there isn’t a lot I could do locally, is there? But I’m sure there will be work in Creesby. The Labour Exchange will tell me where to go, and I’m sure they will bear in mind that our bus service isn’t very frequent and that I don’t get enough petrol coupons to drive there every day. But I mustn’t complain; not when the young ones risk their lives every day.’

And night, too, she thought for no reason at all – except that she was thinking for the first time with real compassion of a young air-gunner who had been given no choice. And of Tatiana, far away in London, who loved him still.

Keth lay down the axe, pausing to wipe his forehead, closing his eyes, breathing deeply on the salt air that blew in cooling gusts.

It was difficult to believe after all the frustrations and delays that he was actually here at Clissy-sur-Mer, less than half a mile from the coast, doing something as safe and ordinary as chopping logs. Then he smiled because it was a long time since he’d chopped logs at Rowangarth bothy.

The breeze was welcome. In all the turmoil of getting here, not once had he given thought to the fact that so much further south it would be warmer. And had times been normal, he supposed that this part of France would have been a holiday resort.

‘Hullo.’ He looked up, smiling, as Natasha walked towards him carrying a fat, earthenware mug of coffee.

‘Good morning, Hibou – or now I think I should call you Gaston. You are honoured. There is very little coffee in the shops, so don’t expect it every day. The Boche takes most of it, just as they think they have the right to all the wine the château produces.’

‘But they don’t get it, of course?’

‘No. M’sieur at the big house sees to it that we locals have our fair share. Tante Clara left me to sleep in this morning because I was up late last night.’

‘And you have missed school?’

‘Ha! I left school a year ago. Book-learning isn’t important at this time.’

‘It was when I was sixteen,’ Keth scolded.

‘Really? Well, as far as I am concerned, school is a waste of time; learning to stay alive is not!’ She went to sit on the chopping block, arranging her skirts prettily.

‘Where is Madame?’

‘Gone to the village to buy your food and to let it be known, I suppose, that her hired help has arrived.’

‘Is that wise, Natasha – and should we be talking like this in the open?’

‘It would be unwise not to let them know you have come. Why shouldn’t they know Tante Clara’s gardener is here? Now, if they walk by and see a stranger, no one will think anything about it.

‘And talking out here is safe enough. The dogs would bark if anyone came.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘This place is a good walk from Clissy. It is why They decided it should be a safe house.’ She touched her nose with a warning forefinger.

‘Who are They?’

‘If I knew I wouldn’t tell you; but I don’t know. There are many people around here who – help, but it wouldn’t do for me to know them.’

‘The Nazis wouldn’t suspect a child?’

‘They would. And when they looked at my papers they would see I wasn’t as childish as I look! But this far they’ve left me alone.’

‘Aren’t you afraid, Natasha?’ All at once Keth remembered the pill in the cuff of his shirt.

‘Of course I’m afraid. It would be stupid not to be. But I don’t intend to go the way of my mother and father.’

She said it with such matter-of-factness that he wondered how anyone so young could have known so much heartbreak.

‘But you know who I am, Natasha, and that Madame Piccard hides people like me, for instance. What about Hirondelle?’

‘Hirondelle? Before last night I hadn’t seen him and I doubt I will see him again. You brought something for Hirondelle, I suppose?’

‘I was told someone would be waiting for the bag.’ Now Keth was wary.

‘There you are then. Next time that man comes out of hiding he will have a different codename. No one knows more than two people at the most. Until you came, Tante Clara was the only other contact I knew. Here in France people like us don’t play games. It is all very serious, though I’m not important. Anyone could be a messenger,’ she said scathingly. ‘I know very little and I like it that way. The less I know, the less I can tell them.’

‘But how would you explain being here, at Clissy, if you were stopped and asked for your papers?’

‘My papers are false, like yours. It wouldn’t do to have a Jewish name on them. My parents took care of it all long before I was sent here. They knew, you see, what would happen to them eventually. And when France was invaded, they sent me to Tante Clara at once. We heard, later, there had been a search in Paris and that every foreign-born Jew was taken away. After that, I had no more letters from them. They probably went to Belsen. I think it is one of those places; killing places.’

‘Natasha! How can you talk like this?’

She rose, shrugging, throwing logs into the wheelbarrow.

‘My papers say I lived at Dunkirk, not Paris, and if anyone asked they would be told my parents were killed there at the time of the evacuation of your army, Gaston. Many civilians were killed there.’

‘Yes.’ He had been in America at the time.

‘It’s strange, but I have had three names in my life. The name I was born with, the name I was given when I was adopted and the name on the papers I use now. The first I do not know. I wasn’t told until the war started that I was an adopted child. When I asked about my parents all they would tell me was that my father was unknown and my mother’s name was Natasha.

‘It’s why I used it when I met you; it is the only name you will know me by. It is unlikely you will get into conversation with anyone from Clissy – you won’t be here long enough – but if you do, you must refer to me as Madame Piccard’s niece.’

‘Very well. But how can you be so blasé about it all? How can you bear to talk about your parents without –’

‘Without breaking down; without weeping?’ She lifted her shoulders in an unchildlike gesture. ‘Because although I tell myself they are dead, I refuse to weep for them until I know for certain they are.

‘When I was three months old, I was adopted. I had black hair and brown eyes – Jewish colouring even if my nose was not kosher. I was reared in the Jewish faith, though now, of course, it is wisest I worship with Tante Clara. She belongs to the Roman Church, and believes in miracles. It is why she thinks I should pray to St Jude. He’s the patron saint of lost causes, you see.’

She said it without bitterness, wheeling the barrow to the woodshed beside the gate, back stiff, head high and he ran after her.

‘I’ll help you stack them, Natasha!’

She turned and smiled – to let him see she was not crying, he supposed – and for the second time since their meeting he felt a wash of tenderness for her. Had he had a sister, he thought, she would probably have looked like Natasha. The same dark hair and eyes as his. Funny, that, when you thought about it.

‘Pass them to me. I’ll pile them up. I’m good at it. When I was sixteen, I always chopped the logs at home. But tell me,’ he felt safer talking to her within the confines of the shed, ‘you said “every foreign-born Jew”. Where were your parents born?’

‘My adoptive parents? In Russia. In Moscow. They got out before the Czar was shot and came to Paris to live. I think my natural mother was Russian, too, her name being Natasha, I mean. She went to the nuns to have me but that’s all I know, except that I was born in Paris.’

‘I know someone who had to leave Russia,’ Keth offered. ‘Were your parents rich, then?’

‘No, though I suppose you might have called them middle class. My Jewish mother was a milliner – had her own shop she told me – and my father was a musician. Most of what they had was taken. What they could carry away helped them bribe their way out of Russia. They never had children so they adopted me,’ she said softly, sadly. ‘I can tell you no more. I would like to know about you, Gaston Martin, but I won’t ask, though I think you were born in the country, the way you can use an axe,’ she smiled as Keth began splitting logs again.

‘The country,’ he nodded.

‘And your French? Where did you learn that?’

‘In school, and then by speaking it to a governess. Not my governess,’ he added hastily. ‘I have no father, and my mother isn’t well off. If I see this war through, though, I’ll make sure she never wants.’

He turned sharply as the dogs began their barking and Natasha ran to the gate, smiling. ‘It’s Tante Clara!’

‘So! You have got yourself out of bed,’ Madame Piccard admonished. ‘Here – take my shopping into the house and be careful of the eggs!’ Then turning to Keth she said, ‘You, too, M’sieur. The kitchen, if you please.’

She clattered down the path, then closed the door behind them, taking off her hat.

‘They know you are here – or they will before so very much longer.’

‘They?’

‘The people who are expecting you. I mentioned in the boulangerie that my gardener had arrived. That was all I needed to do. Now it will go down the line and you will be contacted.’

‘How, Madame?’ Excitement beat in Keth’s throat.

‘How do I know? You must learn not to ask questions. You will not be given what you came for until your way out has been planned. It takes time. Be patient – and meantime do what you came to do – tidy my garden and dig over the vegetable plot! I hope you can use a spade, too?’

‘I can. But how will I recognize my contact?’

‘I don’t know yet. Perhaps tomorrow, when I go to buy more bread, someone there will tell me. You must learn to wait for things to happen.’

‘Patience,’ Keth smiled, because he liked Clara Piccard in spite of her brusque way of speaking; appreciated, too, the risk she ran taking him in. ‘I’ll chop the wood first, then get on with the digging. And, Madame,’ he said as he opened the door, ‘thank you.’

‘Ha!’ The elderly woman made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘Your thanks are not needed – and anyway, I do it because I hate Germans. They killed the man I married in the last war. Just a few weeks a wife – I didn’t even have the joy of a child. What little I do is for my Henri. He would want me to.’

Keth closed the door gently. Tomorrow, they might know more. Things were moving and of course, he conceded, plans took time. Messages to be passed, London to be contacted. Here, in occupied France, a wireless operator must always be on the move; must never transmit twice from the same place. He, who knew more than most about the interception of signals, knew that detector vans were always vigilant, hoping to home in on an operator.

He wondered if the valves he had carried were now in use, and, more soberly, if some secret armourer had been able to repair the firing mechanism of two pistols.

Keth looked down at his right hand and the blister already forming there. A long time since he chopped logs, he smiled wryly, wrapping his handkerchief around his hand.

He took up the axe again, thinking that the first day was almost over – day one to be crossed off his mental calendar, his first day as Gaston Martin. To forget that identity, even for one unguarded moment, could cost him his life. And the lives of others.

He raised the axe then swung it with such force that the log splintered into two at the first stroke and flew in opposite directions.

It made him think of the morning the letter came telling him he was not to be given a free place at university. That day he had chopped wood; slammed the anger out of himself.

Yet that was in another life, another country. Now, Gaston Martin chopped wood in a French cottage garden. And waited.

‘Mrs A. A. Sutton?’ called the clerk at the Ministry of Labour office in Creesby.

‘Aleksandrina Anastasia,’ Anna smiled as she walked to the desk. ‘Quite a mouthful, isn’t it?’

‘But lovely names. Unusual.’ The clerk returned the smile.

‘Russian.’ Anna sat opposite at the desk, pulling off her gloves.

It’s Mrs Sutton of Denniston House, near Holdenby? You’ll forgive me for interviewing you immediately you registered, but I have a job I think might suit you; one which wouldn’t entail too much travelling. Do you know a Dr Pryce?’

‘Ewart? But of course! He’s our family doctor.’

‘He’s desperate for help.’

‘B-but I’m not – well, medically minded. I wouldn’t be very good with sick people, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s a clerk and general factotum he needs. He told me he’s given up all hope of ever getting a partner, the way things are, and he does have the district nurse to help ease things. It’s more someone to organize appointments he needs, send out the accounts, and most important, he said, be there when the phone rings. The work would be confidential, but I don’t have to tell you that, do I?’

‘N-no. But do you think I’ll suit? I’m afraid I don’t know a lot about anything.’

‘Whatever work you take – and the Government expects you to take work – might be a little strange, at first. Your details say you have no children.’

‘Not small children. Just Tatiana, and she’s in London.’

‘Then won’t you at least think about working for Dr Pryce? I’m sure you would fit in well.’

‘All right! If he’s willing to give me a try – I’ll do my best.’

‘Then better than that you can’t do.’ The clerk was already filling in a green card. ‘If Dr Pryce decides to take you on, will you ask him to complete this card, and return it to us?’

‘And if I don’t suit?’

‘Then he’ll fill in the appropriate section and return it just the same. We’ll fit you in somewhere else then.’

‘Thank you.’ Anna rose to leave. ‘What would my hours be?’

‘Full time, almost. Eight until four in the afternoon or nine until five. Half an hour for lunch. Sundays off and every alternate Saturday. Your wages you would agree between you. Good luck, Mrs Sutton.’

Later, at Creesby terminus, Anna sat on the bus, waiting for it to start. Already she had decided not to get off at the crossroads but to go on into the village and call on Ewart Pryce. It would have made more sense, she supposed, to ring for an appointment, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea.

It would be her first job. Imagine! Well turned forty, and never been out to work. It made her feel useless; a lily of the field. But Tatiana seemed to be doing well in London; why then shouldn’t Anna Sutton have a job, too?

Ewart was a friend as well as her doctor; she knew he would be a reasonable and kind employer. And she had no choice, did she? It was either the surgery on the Creesby road, or work as a bus conductress or perhaps in munitions. She might even be sent to work in the chip shop! Only one thing was certain: under the Emergency Powers Act she was now required to work, so why not for someone she knew and liked? And being away from Denniston would be a relief from her mother’s demands, though just to allow so unfilial a thought made her blush.

She had pleased – obeyed – her parents; she had married and tried to please and always obey her husband. Now she was a widow and tried to please a society which demanded a strict code of conduct from a woman alone.

But the Government said she must work and it might be rather nice, being at the surgery with most of the patients people she knew. And imagine leaving Denniston in the morning and not returning until late afternoon! She could cycle there, too; no waiting for buses!

The more she thought about her new-found key to freedom, the more giddy she became. She was still high on a cloud when she pressed the bell of Ewart Pryce’s front door.

‘Anna!’ It was opened almost at once. ‘Business or pleasure?’

‘Were you asleep? Did I waken you?’

‘I was just catching forty winks, but I’ll put the kettle on. Have you time for a cup of tea?’

‘This isn’t a social call, but I’d love a cup of tea. And I’m not ill either, so you can wipe the concerned expression off your face.’

‘So tell me,’ he said as they settled themselves at the kitchen table.

‘I believe you want a clerk to work in the surgery and take phone messages.’

‘Y-yes …?’

‘We-e-ll, the Labour Exchange sent me and I’m willing to try, if you are.’ She rummaged in her handbag, cheeks burning, for the card.

‘You mean – but Anna!’ He threw back his head and laughed. ‘This is marvellous!’

She knew, even as she offered him the green card, that the job was hers. Now all that remained was to tell her mother.

Clara Piccard swished the curtain over the staircase door, then pulled her chair closer to the fire.

‘The nights are getting colder,’ she remarked. ‘Not the days, just yet, but the nights …’

‘Natasha is asleep?’ Keth stirred lazily, shifting his stockinged feet on the hearth.

‘She had little sleep last night, and after all she is still only a child.’

‘A very brave child. She told me about her parents. Do you think she will ever see them again?’

‘I don’t know. It is in God’s hands. I’m glad her mother sent her to me. I was alone and lonely. The child has made a difference to my life.’

‘But isn’t it strange,’ Keth pressed, ‘that you should know her family – Jewish, and Russian, and you of a different faith and nationality?’

‘Not strange, exactly. When the last war ended I was nursing in Paris. A refugee was brought in, ill with pneumonia and he was in my ward. He and his wife were lonely and bewildered; I was lonely, and bitter. We became friends. They took a small apartment near mine, then from somewhere they adopted Natasha. I loved the little thing. She called me Tante Clara.

‘Two years before this war started I retired and spent my savings on this little place. There were rumours, even then, of war and about terrible things happening to Jewish people in Germany. We decided that if those things should ever happen in France, then I was to take the child.’

‘And now you both help people like me?’

‘We do what we can. I dream, M’sieur, of the day we wait at Clissy station and those two lovely people get off the train. I fear they never will, but still we pray. Are you hungry?’

‘Not particularly, thanks.’

‘The fire is red; I thought to make toast. We never have butter on our toast now, but I have some apricot preserve left from the days when there was sugar to be had. And I need an excuse to go into Clissy in the morning.’

‘Visit the boulangerie?’

‘Exactly.’

Clara Piccard did not cut bread for toast. The urgent knocking on the back door caused her to lay down the knife.

‘Ssssh!’ she said sharply, listening.

There followed three sharp taps on the window, then three more.

‘It’s all right.’ She turned down the paraffin lamp. ‘Stay where you are. Who is there?’ She opened the door.