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