Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase Read Free

Hand round the plate of Genoa cake. Dorothy, do stand up straight. Goodness gracious, child.’
    Dorothy hated the feel of her new white frock, stiffly starched and rubbing at her neck. Her mother, Mrs Ruth Honour, looked at her with her usual mixture of pride and disgust while Dorothy dutifully did as she was told and handed round the cake. Mrs Lane and Mrs Hubbard smiled kindly at her but Dorothy refused to look at them, knowing she would meet pity in their eyes. Pity she did not want, ever. She wondered, why did they pity her? It must have something to do with Mummy. Or, most probably, the death of her father. Mourning was over now, and mother and daughter were no longer in black. But Mummy was supposed to be lonely, wasn’t she?
    Dorothy stood still, watching her mother and her mother’s gossiping friends nibble at their cake and sip their tea. The day was hot and her frock so uncomfortable; she longed to be outside, at the far end of the garden, under the gnarled apple tree, barefoot in the grass, singing songs to herself or writing in her head her great poetry, and dreaming about the past, the present and the future. In her imagination she had six siblings named Alice, Sarah, Peter, Gilbert, Henry and Victoria. She knew her brothers and sisters would be waiting for her now, in the cool grass, sitting in the tree, idly talking, teasing one another.
    Watching the cake disappear into the garrulous mouths of the three women, Dorothy began to sway. Her throat tightened, her heart raced. She became aware of falling, falling, letting go and landing with a thud on the tea tray, rosebud cups and saucers smashing, tea spilling all over her new, stiff, white frock and all over the rug.
    ‘Dorothy? Dorothy? Oh, you clumsy girl!’
    She felt something hot and sharp hit her in her stomach. Something else, hot and soft and wet, slapped her face. All around was choking smoke, black and thunderous.
    ‘Dorothy! Get back!’ Aggie’s voice was closer now.
    Dorothy saw the girls floating on the other side of the burning wreckage, bright beacons in treacherous fog. ‘I want to join him,’ said Dorothy, but nobody heard her. She rubbed her neck. The new, white frock was too stiff, too rough.
    Her mother stared at her.
    Dorothy swayed. She fell, slowly, her white frock splattered with blood, her head spinning in a vortex of shame, and the sea of barley cushioning her fall.
    It would always be said that Dorothy Sinclair was a heroine, trying to rescue the young Hurricane pilot who came down to meet his death in the Long Acre field on that hot afternoon in late May, 1940. A brave and courageous woman, never sparing a thought for her own safety. A woman to be held up as an example to others, the kind of woman Britain needed in those bleak and fearful times.
    Dorothy knew better.
    Still, she let people believe it of her, as it did no harm.
    Mrs Compton came to visit her later that afternoon, after Dr Soames had been and dressed Dorothy’s wounds, which were sore but superficial: a cut across her stomach, and burns to her face. Fainting and falling down into the barley had doubtlessly saved her from worse injuries. She was a plucky lady, the doctor pronounced.
    Mrs Compton had the unnerving ability to make Dorothy feel ashamed of herself. Did she somehow
know
? Dorothy thought that she might. Mrs Compton was a witch, Dorothy understood. She smiled weakly at the older woman and noticed a fine white hair protruding from a mole on her left cheek. Or thought she noticed. Perhaps there wasn’t even a mole? It was difficult for Dorothy to see people clearly, to see solidity, reality.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Compton, ‘what a state to get in!’
    ‘I just thought …’
    ‘I know, love. I know. Such a shame.’
    ‘They’ve been cleaning up out there all afternoon.’ Dorothy indicated the Long Acre and its swaying barley with a nod of her head.
    ‘They’re nearly finished now, though, I think. Don’t you worry about it. You did