you’ve got them? They’re in order?’ she demanded sharply.
‘All in order.’ Keth reached in his inside pocket but she held up her hand.
‘No matter. I know who you are, M’sieur Martin.’
‘Perhaps if you could speak more slowly, Tante …’ Natasha hesitated.
‘Of course. He is hard of hearing. I forgot.’ She shaped her mouth round her words as if she really believed Gaston Martin’s deafness, then walked to the hearth, lifting a pan from the hob, stirring it slowly. ‘There is soup, M’sieur, and bread. You will eat?’
‘If you can spare it, please.’ All at once the tension of the past days left him. Here, in this low-ceilinged, lamp-lit kitchen, Keth felt almost safe.
‘What we have, we share. You are welcome.’
‘I have ration cards and, Madame, am I to be told where I am?’
‘You haven’t told him?’ she asked of Natasha.
‘No.’
‘And They did not tell you?’
‘No, Madame. Just that I would be met and brought to a safe house.’
‘Then you are in Clissy. It is as well you know, since you came here by train!’
‘Of course!’ He smiled across the table and Natasha smiled in return with the mischief of Kitty’s smile, he thought in amazement. Kitty, in the summer of ’thirty-seven, with long, black, bobbing curls; hair as black as his own.
He glanced down at his bowl as Madame Piccard and Natasha murmured a grace, then blessed themselves before picking up their spoons. And because he was now Gaston Martin, Keth imitated their actions.
Gaston Martin, he insisted silently. He must tell himself again and again that Keth Purvis was a long way away in Washington. And while he was here in Clissy, he must not allow himself to think of Daisy, because Gaston Martin would not think of her.
He did not even know she existed.
‘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,
