Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase Read Free Page A

what you could. You did more than you should, perhaps.’
    ‘It was nothing.’
    They sat in silence, sipping tea. The clock ticked on the range mantelpiece. Distant male voices drifted in through the open window, the voices of men clearing up the flesh and metal in the Long Acre. Had Mrs Compton remembered the part she played in the drama of a year ago? Was she aware of this saddest of anniversaries? Dorothy suspected not. Even more reason to distrust the woman. Even more reason to imagine her prone, with her head on a bloodied block, her ugly face contorted in fear, pleading for her life as Dorothy raised a huge axe, told her to—
    ‘He was Polish,’ said Mrs Compton.
    ‘I heard they had arrived. A couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?’
    ‘It was. They do say the Poles hate the Nazis more than we do.’ Mrs Compton finished her tea with a small slurp. She put the cup and saucer on the table carefully and, folding her hands in her lap, she gazed at Dorothy. Dorothy shifted her own gaze to the window, watching male heads bob up and down, the hawthorn hedge obscuring their bodies. Dorothy thought about the Polish pilot, dead, burned and disembodied. Part of him had hit her in the face. She touched her cheek, and felt the dressing. She must look frightful.
    ‘And how are you keeping, nowadays?’ asked Mrs Compton, leaning forward.
    ‘I’m well,’ said Dorothy, standing to look out of the kitchen window, watching a hen scratch at the earth and pluck a worm from it. Dorothy, rational, contemplated the worm’s futile struggle.
    ‘Good. That’s good.’
    Mrs Compton sounded doubtful. She glanced at the clock. She must go, she said. A young woman down at the next village was expecting her first baby and had been labouring since half past four that morning. Mrs Compton’s services may be needed by now.
    Dorothy stared at her.
    Mrs Compton moved towards the door and lifted the latch. She turned back to Dorothy, who remained motionless, her back to the window.
    ‘I’m sorry, Dorothy. I should have remembered. It takes time, you know. It
was
around this time last year, wasn’t it? If I remember rightly? Anytime you need to talk about it, I’ll be happy to listen. You don’t have to ignore it. I know we soldier on with life, but things can haunt us, Dorothy.’
    Mrs Compton left then, closing the door, and Dorothy stared after her.
    How dare that woman!
    She picked up the teacup Mrs Compton had drained so unceremoniously and threw it at the door, hard and fast, before she even knew what she was doing, so that the noise of it shattering surprised her. In pain where the hot metal had ripped through her skin, she swept up the mess.
    Alice, Sarah, Peter, Gilbert, Henry and Victoria lived and moved and breathed in Dorothy’s lonesome imaginings. The trouble was, she never really knew where she, Dorothy, belonged in this family of girls with flowing fair hair, strong sturdy boys playing with catapults and hoops, all six children with bright blue eyes and long lashes. They were blessed, she fantasised, with perfectly perfect childhoods. Was she the eldest sister? Austere, serious, strong, bossy? Or was she somewhere in the middle, forgotten, ignored and unimportant? Perhaps she was the baby, the odd one out among the girls with her long straggling brown hair, her green eyes. A cherub with thick little legs. Oh no, that would never do. Little Victoria was the youngest – she was the angel, with pink cheeks and fair curls and big blue eyes. Perhaps Dorothy was the second youngest? She was allowed to play with Victoria’s dolls, and the tiny black perambulator. Yes, that was where she fitted, with two big sisters to hug her when she fell, to pick her up and dust her down. Her brothers were of indeterminate age, but all were tall and raucous. They took no notice of Dorothy.
    The first male who did take notice of her – many years after her imaginary brothers and sisters had slipped off the slope of her longing – married her.