Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase

by Louise Walters

  She smiled back.

  Suddenly, it was Christmas.

  Jan followed her into the kitchen where she helped him remove his greatcoat, which was wet and cold, and laid it over the clothes horse in front of the range to dry. Gentle plumes of steam filled the room. He opened and poured the champagne, with his left hand, holding the bottle awkwardly against his body. Goodness knows how he had come by champagne. But who cared? It was champagne! And Dorothy could see he was in pain. He held his right arm at a curious angle. Nevertheless, he helped her to dish up the dinner, putting the heavy plates on to the table one at a time, using his good arm.

  ‘I’ll call the girls through,’ she said.

  But Jan put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He gently took hold of Dorothy’s waist with both hands. She looked away, embarrassed. He took her chin in his good hand and softly tilted her head towards his. He kissed her, soft and light. She did not want the kiss to end.

  ‘You have lost weight, no?’ he said, releasing her.

  She opened her eyes.

  Had she? Perhaps. Since Albert’s visit she had certainly lost her appetite.

  ‘I’ve been pining for you,’ said Dorothy, and she smiled shyly at him.

  He laughed his big, hearty laugh – the laugh of one who doesn’t laugh as often as he should – and she blushed and pulled away from him, calling to the girls that dinner was on the table.

  They ate the food and washed it down with the champagne and more port. Jan said he was hopeful that all was not lost; the death all around was not in vain. There had been a victory, of sorts, despite the bombings, and the war could and would be won. There had been no invasion, and there was no sign of one coming any time soon. They could all take heart from that.

  ‘But I have no idea when the war will end,’ he said, pouring himself another glass of port. The last glass. The women had insisted.

  ‘Years?’ said Dorothy.

  ‘I hope not, but I suspect so. I do not expect to return to my homeland for a long time.’

  After dinner, they listened to the King’s speech, and then the girls made space in the lounge and insisted on dancing, giddying themselves until Nina, red-faced and full, plonked herself on the settee, laughing. Drunk and tired, she soon slept, and Aggie left the cottage to milk the cows alone. It would take three times as long, she said, but Nina was all in. Let her sleep. She deserved some time off. She worked like a bloody packhorse.

  Alone in the house, apart from the sleeping girl, Dorothy and Jan cleared the dishes and washed up. Jan, ever mindful of his arm, winced once or twice.

  ‘May I have a look at your arm?’ she asked him as she put away the last of the dishes.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

  ‘But it looks as though you’re in a lot of pain.’

  He shook his head and changed the subject. ‘May I stay tonight? On the settee will be all right, I have my kit. Only it is so cold, and colder still now it is almost dark. And I am not expected back until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Yes. Of course you can stay. You must. But in the spare room. I prepared it for you weeks ago.’

  After Albert’s departure, Dorothy had stripped the bed, turned the mattress, scrubbed the floor. She had remade the bed and scrubbed the settee, over and over.

  Aggie returned, and Dorothy made sandwiches and tea. One of the cows had mastitis, Aggie thought. Nina, awake now and slothful, announced herself to be ‘full to the bloody brim’ but happy to accompany Aggie to The Crown, to ‘see who was about’. The girls disappeared upstairs and returned, a few minutes later, changed and lipsticked. Jan offered them a ride, one at a time, in the little red sports car. It was an MG, loaned to him that morning by his English flight officer. ‘Take care of her, Pietrykowski,’ he had said. Jan wasn’t certain that he had meant the car.

  Dorothy watched and waved from the parlour window as each girl was whisked away. And while Jan was ferrying for the second time, Dorothy made up a fresh tea tray and set it out on the low table in the lounge.

  ‘Thank you for giving the girls a trip in that car,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they think it very glamorous.’

  ‘It is glamorous, isn’t it? And fast too. And red! But so cold, like flying. So I got here in time, in time for your delicious dinner.’

  ‘You didn’t write.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I hoped a surprise would do. Besides, I could not write,’ and he raised his arm.

  ‘It’s incredible to see you again,’ said Dorothy. ‘Please may I have a look at your injury?’

  ‘There is no need.’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing to speak of. A small injury, a scratch. No need for any worry.’

  Dorothy said nothing. She slowly sipped her tea, and concentrated on the tick, tick, tick of the clock, the crackling of the fire. She felt the man’s gaze on her, unwavering. He perched on the edge of the settee, drinking his tea in long gulps. She had hoped he might be more comfortable with her. But, of course, she could not expect too much.

  Truly, they barely knew each other.

  He recalled these cups from their first meeting, when they had tea in her kitchen, all those months ago, in May, months that could just as easily be years. And yes, she had aged – imperceptibly to others, perhaps, but he noticed one or two new lines around her mouth, her eyes. She was definitely thinner. He noticed these things, because he looked. He looked at Mrs Dorothy Sinclair as only a man in love can look, with attention to detail.

  There had been few women in Jan Pietrykowski’s life: his young bride, lost to him after just months of marriage, followed by an intense but short-lived fling with a young woman who had bewitched him for a while; and once, once only, but shamefully, the wife of a colleague. Dorothy seemed to him, now he was in her presence again, to fill the world with womanhood. And he had missed her presence, reading over and over again the odd, stilted letters that had occasionally arrived from her. She was no writer, as she was quite possibly no lover. And if he found that out – if he pushed this woman beyond her endurance, if he tried to ‘get into her knickers’ (a peculiar phrase he had heard often since being in England) – then the spell between them would be broken, irretrievably and forever. At this moment he hated being a man, the ludicrous physical reaction that accompanied thoughts of her. And he had thought of her often, before and after his injury, alone, at night, in bed (and sometimes not alone, not at night, not in bed), imagined pleasure overtaking all sense, all reason. He imagined Dorothy above him, wide-eyed, sweating, hair crumpled, face flushed, breasts swollen.

  And now, to be here with this woman, in her warm and safe home, was almost more than he could bear. The fear and exhaustion he had so long fought finally beat him, and his face caved in like a bullied child’s. Rising from the settee, he stumbled towards her, knocking into the tea tray as he did so, and the tray swayed on the edge of the low table, and he waited for it to fall, but it righted itself.

  Jan fell to his knees and Dorothy stroked his hair, cradling his head in her lap. And he was glad to feel her compassion, to know that hers was intact while his had been blown apart.

  ‘Hush, Jan. Come now, it’s all right,’ she whispered as she tentatively stroked his glossy black hair.

  He cried. Her hand found his neck and stroked back and forth, back and forth, a hypnotic movement that had the desired effect. She repeated her request to see his arm, and this time he allowed her to remove his tunic and roll up his shirt sleeve. The arm was reddish-purple and swollen, but surely less so than it had been. Still, it saddened her.

  Even injured his arm was a work of art, and she could not stop looking at it. Gradually, his sobs lessened. The clock ticked, and the fire crackled. His head was heavy in her lap, he was perfectly still, barely breathing; she thought he slept. She looked down at his hair, the curve of his ear, the tiny birthmark shaped like Italy just beneath it, his cheek and his solid jaw. Dorothy ran her hand over the stubble that was beginning to shoot fo
rth like small black arrows, then turned her hand over and stroked his face with the back of her fingers. She gazed down at the closed eyes of this man who was also still a boy, at the tear tracks crusting like fresh ice on his cheeks; she gazed at his strong neck, stretched across her lap as though on the executioner’s block. His surrender, she realised, was complete. This was Jan, the person, the man. She kept perfectly still, save for her stroking hand.

  He could be, she dared to imagine, her happiness.

  And later, after an hour, perhaps longer, Jan raised his head to look at her. ‘I’m sorry, Dorothea.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am a coward. You see, I am.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I cry like a baby and sleep in your lap.’

  ‘I like babies.’

  ‘I know.’

  She held his shoulders. The male strength flowed from him into her hands and up to her arms and flooded through her body, to her lungs, her heart, her stomach. She gritted her teeth and held him firmer still, and for a moment there was panic in his eyes.

  ‘Jan.’

  It was not a question.

  He raised himself, balancing on his haunches, reached for her hair and loosened it from its chignon. He curled it around his fingers and smelled it, and then she was on him, her mouth grasped his, and she kissed him, she took control. He seemed stunned, and for a moment he did nothing, nothing at all, until he stood, pulling her up with him, and with one movement he gathered her up in his arms, wincing again, just for a moment, and then they were through the door, and he was carrying her upstairs, and grappling to open the door of a bedroom, any bedroom. The one he found was the little spare room made up for him, and he threw her on to the bed and kicked the door shut behind them.

  20

  17th November 1944

  Dearest Eliza and Bert,

  Just a note to let you know I had the baby at last! Four nights ago, just after midnight, so she shares her birthday with me. I have named her Diana. My mother has been helping with the housework while I rest and nurse Diana and try to sleep. I read too, such a luxury to lie in bed all day. Thank you for the Agatha Christie books you sent for my birthday. I am enjoying them, and quite see now why you are such admirers. Diana is a wakeful baby and very hungry, which is not always comfortable for me. I love her dearly and shall feel like this for always. Is there a mother who doesn’t? If only Bob were around to meet his little girl. My heart breaks each time I think of it and I cry often. Mother calls it the baby blues, and perhaps it is, even though I think I have reason enough to be crying. Wish me strength, dear friends, to be both mother and father to this baby girl. Do visit when you get the opportunity. You are much missed down here,

  Jean

  (I found this letter inside a first edition of Agatha Christie’s The Moving Finger. Philip asked me to check the book over and wrap the almost pristine dust jacket in protective cellophane. It was later placed in the locked antiquarian cabinet priced at £230, and it sold shortly thereafter.)

  The day is bleak but the care home is warm and sheltered. Suzanne is there, greeting me with a smile.

  ‘How are things?’ she says.

  I tell her almost everything. I like talking to strangers, or near strangers. They don’t judge. I don’t tell her about Babunia’s letter from my grandfather, even though I can sense it burning a hole in my handbag, demanding to be set free. I do tell her a little about my stupid affair with Charles Dearhead, his wife’s confrontation with me, my leaving the Old and New. I tell her about my father’s illness. I tell her how Philip defended me.

  Suzanne is a good listener. She says she likes the sound of Philip.

  I ask her how my grandmother is.

  ‘Not so well,’ says Suzanne. ‘Dorothea is confused more often than not. But I don’t feel that it’s senility, not as such. I feel that she has something on her mind, some burden, as old people often do. It’s probably nothing at all, just something she has kept within her all these years and has now blown out of proportion.’

  I don’t know what to say. I’m not about to betray Babunia’s secrets, even if I knew what they were.

  ‘The name you call her, Babunia, where does it come from?’ asks Suzanne.

  ‘It’s Polish for “Grandma”.’

  ‘I thought it probably was. Your grandfather was Polish, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. I think she likes me to call her that in memory of him. He died when she was expecting my dad, you see. It was a wartime romance. They weren’t married for long before he died.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Dorothea was never married to your grandfather.’

  ‘They were married in 1940.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry, Roberta. I thought you knew. It’s just … she told me she never married him. She was married, but to somebody else. She changed her name to your grandfather’s, though. I expect she was ashamed – in those days, it was a big deal to have a child outside of wedlock. And by another man. That could be what’s troubling her … Oh. Now I’ve upset you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘She just took his name, you mean?’

  ‘It looks that way, yes.’

  ‘Is there a deed poll certificate?’

  ‘Yes. She showed it to me not long after I first started here.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Later, my mobile rings. It’s Sophie. She telephoned me at home the day I walked out of the Old and New, in tears.

  She couldn’t believe I had left. When was I coming back? Couldn’t I patch it up with Philip?

  I told her no, I could not.

  Now she is calling to tell me that Philip has been interviewing. ‘There’s a woman called Patricia, very tall, taller even than you, with very short grey hair, lots of beads and bracelets. Philip asked me what I thought of her after she left. I said she was nothing like you. And I’m sure he was going to cry, Roberta, I swear. He moped off into the office and I didn’t see him for two hours.’

  ‘What can I do about it?’ I ask, crossly. None of this is my concern.

  ‘Nothing, I suppose. He’s interviewing again tomorrow. Jenna’s helping – but to be honest, she’s more of a hindrance. And she’s acting weird. I’ll let you know how it goes.’

  ‘If you want to, that’s fine.’

  ‘You do know you could come back right now. I mean, you could walk into the shop this morning and he’d take you back like a shot.’

  ‘I don’t know that.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  I hate the word ‘orphan’. I’m not an orphan, of course, not yet. And can adults be described as orphans, anyway? I sit alone in my flat, sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio, not getting drunk exactly but feeling sorry for myself, going over my pathetic life, hating myself. And, of course, regretting my hasty departure from the Old and New. I’m hoping to get a call from Philip, begging me to return. But the telephone in my hallway sits stubbornly silent, cold and inanimate, and the mobile phone in my handbag has nothing to say either.

  I consider ringing Dad. I want to talk to him. Suzanne showed me the certificate from 1941, which proved to me that my grandmother changed her name by deed poll from Mrs Dorothy Sinclair to Mrs Dorothea Pietrykowski. So at least now I know the suitcase was hers, and hers all along, and now it’s mine. And so what if Babunia had an affair and fell pregnant? It must have happened so much during the war. I wonder who her husband was? Did he die in the war? Is that why she changed her name? But why did she lie to us about it, to Dad and me? I don’t care if she was married, or had an affair, or had a dozen affairs. I’m pretty sure my dad wouldn’t give a fig either, he’s pretty laid-back about most things. But of course, Suzanne was right, things were different back then. I understand that my grandmother is very much a product of her time.

  And does Dad know any of this? My dear father, gradually dying from this hideous disease, refusing to fully accept his limitations. He has an aversion to hospitals, and I can’t blame
him for that. My mother, Anna, Dad’s former wife – they are long divorced – is unavailable to me, for reasons entirely of her own making. My grandmother is confused and old, possibly weeks from death – even though we have been fearful of that for a decade, probably longer. It seems to me she has always been weeks from death. I’ve broken off my only proper adult romance (I don’t count the unfortunate episode at university), which in itself isn’t a tragedy, but it feels like one. I’ve been exposed in public as a home-wrecker (although the Dearhead marriage, from what I’ve heard, appears to be intact). I’ve cut myself off from the person who is surely my best and most reliable friend. And this letter, this stupid letter that I wish had not fallen out of The Infant’s Progress, seems to refute all that my grandmother has told me about her early life.

  I sip my wine. I read the letter again, although I know it by heart now, but I read to search for clues and answers that I will not find. I can’t think ahead. I can’t think sideways. All I can think about is the past, which is unravelling slowly. All I can do, it seems, is wait for it to reveal itself to me.

  21

  Dorothy awoke and realised it was snowing. The bedroom was too light, the world too still. It was but five o’clock, and she guessed she had slept for three hours, perhaps less. She sat up and pulled back the curtains. It was cold and white, so she lay down again and snuggled into the arms that had held her through the short night, and the owner of those arms stirred, and kissed her head, and told her to go back to sleep.

  ‘It’s snowing, Jan.’

  He sat up then, leaned over her and looked out of the window. He exclaimed in Polish. ‘I have to get up. The car … before there is too much snow. I’m sorry, my darling.’

  ‘It’s perfectly all right. I know you have to leave early.’

  She watched as he climbed out of bed, and marvelled that he was not at all abashed by his own nakedness. It was funny to think how familiar she had become in one short night with his body, when this man was really still a stranger to her. She could not recall all that they had enjoyed together; it was as though she had been drunk, which she certainly had not been. Were they lovers? Yes. Of course. He was her lover. All the rumours were true.