Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase (24 page)

‘I told you something was wrong,’ said Dorothy.

Mrs Compton stared back at her, formulating a response, Dorothy thought.

‘Nobody could know. It’s nobody’s fault. It happens sometimes like this, and I tried to free him. I did. It was too late. It happened before he … he was deprived. I’m sorry.’

The doctor came and examined the baby, then Dorothy. Albert did not enter the room. The doctor turned to Mrs Compton and instructed her to take ‘the body’ away, to wait outside, and on no account to show it to either of its parents. He would certify the death and take ‘the body’ to the hospital. He put his hand on Dorothy’s shoulder and said he was sorry, my dear, and he instructed her to rest for a few days, and to let the milk dry up and let the blood dry up, let her wounds heal, she had torn a little. He left the room to speak to Albert, and a single anguished cry rang from the kitchen.

Dorothy stared out of the tightly shut window at the May blossom, creamy and curling this morning in the lush hedges, the blue sky looking so cheerful and knowing, but not caring that this happens sometimes, and it was a beautiful warm May morning as all the May mornings had been this year. And Mrs Compton, still clinging to her bundle with one arm, packed away her paraphernalia with the other. She blew out the remaining candles, they weren’t needed any more, and she made for the door, bearing the bloodied bundle, not looking at Dorothy, not saying a word. She crept from the room with the bundle that was now hers, stealing away Dorothy’s baby.

‘Let me see him,’ said Dorothy, her voice low and defeated.

Mrs Compton took one step back into the bedroom. ‘No, love, it’s best if you don’t. You heard what Dr Soames said. You have to forget. They do say it’s bad luck.’

And Mrs Compton left, cradling her bundle, pulling up the door behind her, dropping the latch with the sound of finality.

T
he baby was hungry. Dorothy arranged with Mrs Twoomey for a large jug of fresh milk from her goats to be brought up to the cottage each morning by her lad. Dorothy would pay a shilling a time, which she felt was a fair price. Could her lad please leave it by the gate? Dorothy was trying to keep the house silent, you see, so as not to disturb Nina. The poor girl needed her sleep, until she was strong again. Oh yes, she was exhausted, she had a terrible cold, headaches, vomiting. Dorothy thought it might be influenza. It was the season. And her nerves! The poor girl. And the coughing. No, no need to see a doctor, a few more days of rest and she would be fine. Thank you. Nina wasn’t one for doctors.

Mrs Twoomey thought it odd, at first. But yes, she had heard that one of them girls had fallen ill and was recuperating. Hope she goes on all right. Strapping girl, that one, you wouldn’t expect her to go down with any sort of illness. Mrs Twoomey’s goats were fine goats, as she always boasted, and their milk was quality. Fed it to her eldest lad, she did, when he was a tiny baby, when he was barely alive. Got him through when she thought he was going to die. And look at him now. Oh! But she forgot. She was sorry.

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Twoomey. I’m just grateful you can spare me some milk,’ said Dorothy.

Mrs Twoomey told Mrs Sanderson that Dorothy Sinclair had turned up at her house that morning, begging for milk, looking peculiar. Mrs Twoomey had handed some over, and accepted a shilling for it, so where’s the harm? But the look in that woman’s eyes. She looks right through you. She was desperate for that milk. Always a strange woman, that one. And a little easy (which you wouldn’t expect of a woman like her), so they say, especially where the Poles are concerned. All over the village, that story. For a woman of her years! She’s still a good-looking woman, of course, to be fair to her. Not pretty, but pleasing on the eye. On men’s eyes, at least. She has a sort of nobility. Rumour is she’s head over heels, and poor Bert still alive, as far as anyone knows, and him coming back in November to patch things up. He got short shrift, they say. Well. We all know why, don’t we? A red sports car was spotted speeding through the village on Christmas Day. Oh yes, Mrs Pritchard saw it, and her husband, he thought it was an MG, and very nice too, and it wasn’t seen going back
until the following morning
. Mrs Pritchard doesn’t see so well these days, of course, but she swears the Polish squadron leader was driving the car. They say Mrs Sinclair has taken it hard, him being posted down south, and he writes her love letters. And is
he
married? Not a very young man. Funny goings-on up at that cottage over Christmas. Those girls are tight-lipped, though. Worship her, they do. And now one of them is ill. That’s why she wanted milk, she said. The big lass. Not the little pretty one. You’d think it would be the other way round, but there you are.

Mrs Compton listened to this gossip, and more, as breathless Mrs Sanderson rattled away, barely drawing breath in her eagerness to pass on any ‘news’. And next, Mrs Pritchard, who confirmed the sightings of the red sports car.

Mrs Compton thought it none of her business. Dorothy Sinclair was a law unto herself. But she should pop in, perhaps? It was such a pity she was always made to feel so damned unwelcome. She knew by now that Mrs Sinclair did not want her there, probably because she still blamed her for the loss of her baby the May before last. But the poor thing was dead before it was born. Perhaps it had been dead for several hours, a whole day even. It had happened before, it would happen again. Mrs Compton recalled her own firstborn. A girl. Born dead. And Mrs Compton remembered that feeling of emptiness afterwards. For years afterwards, even with the safe arrival of five consecutive babies, Mrs Compton felt there was a hole in her life that only her first dead child could fill. And, of course, it could never be filled. It was a woman’s tragedy. The years had gone by, and Mrs Compton rarely thought of it now. You just had to get on with your life and soldier on with what the good Lord saw fit to grant you. It wasn’t your place to question Him. But still, Mrs Compton felt a strong sympathy for the Sinclair woman. It was compassion, she was pleased to realise. Poor Mrs Sinclair had a head on her shoulders. She didn’t gossip. There was no malice.

She would go, just this one last time, to see if there was anything she could do. Losing a baby, and such a longed-for baby, that was hard on a woman. It could bring about such low feelings, low thoughts, for years afterwards. Mrs Compton understood this.

Yes. She would go. One last time.

B
aby John, eight days old, was already chubby and rounded. His dark hair lay flat around his head, his cheeks glowed pink and his big blue eyes seemed to look at everyone and everything in a state of perpetual astonishment. Mostly they locked on to Dorothy, the woman who fed him, clothed him and rocked him. His little fingers splayed out as he waved his arms around in between his swaddlings. She found she was swaddling him less; the poor little boy seemed to prefer being able to move freely. She would not upset him. He slept now in her bedroom, in the crib Albert had made for Sidney. Finally, now, on the eighth day, she was bathing him. His cord stump had shrivelled and dropped off, and the time seemed right now to wash him properly. Dorothy buried her nose in his hair to breathe in his glorious baby smell. A smell that, she had to admit, was beginning to wane. He no longer had the intoxicating scent of the newborn.

She was nervous in case she dropped him, his body was so slippery. But he was still and calm in the crook of her arm as she washed him in the kitchen sink, so she stopped worrying and enjoyed the look of wonder on his face as she trickled water on his belly and head. He squinted as drops of water splashed into his eyes. Afterwards, Dorothy wrapped him tightly in his towel and sat with him in front of the range, cuddling him and humming to him. While he slept, Dorothy began to mentally compose the letter she would later write and post.

Nina was back at work on the farm. Her breasts were drying up, after swelling for a day or two and then subsiding like balloons with a slow puncture. Dorothy made pads for them, just in case, which Nina was careful to place inside her bra each morning. The baby had mercifully taken quickly to the bottles of goat’s milk, suckling noisily and frequently, but in such tiny amounts that Dorothy was shocked he was still alive, let alone gaining weight. And so much of the milk was secreted, loudly and triumphantly transformed, into his nappies.

Dorothy made her plans. She would tell nobody. She knew where she would have to go, and what she would have to do. Nina, although exhausted, was relieved to be back at work and had relinquished all responsibility for her baby to Dorothy. The young mother barely glanced at her son.

Dorothy had overheard, the evening before, Aggie and Nina talking. She hadn’t meant to listen. Their bedroom door was ajar, hers wide open. The girls were whispering but, in the silence of the cottage at night, their voices carried.

‘Did you really not know you were pregnant?’ Aggie could not, it seemed, let sleeping babies lie.

‘I said so, didn’t I?’

‘I know what you said.’

‘Why are you asking, then?’ said Nina.

‘I just don’t think I would go through the whole nine months without knowing. I don’t see how any woman can.’

‘I don’t think it was nine months. Thinking back on it. More like eight. That’s all I can say.’

‘I’m your best chum, Nina Mullens, and I know things about you.’

‘You don’t, though.’

‘You can tell me the truth. Didn’t you have even an inkling?’

‘No.’

‘But you were in labour for bloody hours. Didn’t it occur to you?’

‘Nope. I just felt poorly. I was scared, I thought I was going to bloody cop it. I was as shocked as Dot when he came out. Honest.’

‘Oh, Nina!’

‘What?’

‘I wish you were keeping him. Can’t you think about it?’

‘No.’

‘You will regret this,’ said Aggie, ‘one day.’

At this Dorothy sat up in bed, clutching her knees, listening intently. Baby John slumbered in his crib.

‘No, I won’t.’

‘He’s your baby. Not hers! It’s not right.’

Dorothy winced. But she could not stop listening.

‘Why ain’t it right?’ asked Nina.

‘It’s not … I don’t know. Official. She’s going to keep your baby and nobody will even … what if she treats him badly? You won’t know.’

‘Do you really believe that Dot is going to treat John badly?’

‘David,’ corrected Aggie.

‘John. David. Don’t matter to me.’

‘What if her husband comes back? He’ll know it isn’t his, even if he doesn’t know it’s not hers.’

‘Eh?’

‘You know what I mean!’

‘None of his business, is it? Besides, he ain’t coming back. They fell out, didn’t they?’

‘But have you thought it through, Nina? I mean, properly?’

‘I can’t keep the baby. I don’t want the baby. We’ve been over it a dozen times. She does want a baby. She can have mine. It’s perfect for everyone, ain’t it? Apart from you, it seems.’

‘He’s not a bloody doll!’

‘Ssh! Keep your voice down,’ hissed Nina.

‘And where’s she going? And when? She can’t stay here. People will put two and two together. I’m surprised nobody’s got wind of this baby already. I don’t know. Perhaps they have.’

‘Have you said anything to anyone?’ said Nina sharply.

Dorothy’s heart was jumping and thudding, and she wondered if the girls would hear her breathing, would know they were being spied on. She tried to breathe slowly.

‘Of course not. I’m true to my word.’

‘I haven’t told either. And Dot definitely hasn’t. There’s nobody else. Nobody knows, do they?’

‘I don’t see how they can. But one snooping person calling round and it will be all over the village.’

‘That’s the beauty of it. Nobody comes to her house. Keeps herself to herself, don’t she?’

‘But what if the postman hears him crying? What then?’

Yes. What if the postman heard him crying? But it was taken care of. Wasn’t it? It was seen to. She’d thought of it all. Hadn’t she?

‘He won’t hear. You know she keeps all the windows shut now, and the back door locked. Stop mithering me, Aggie. She keeps him upstairs most of the day, you know she does. Nobody’s going to hear. Stop your worrying.’

‘What if somebody sees all the nappies and clothes on the washing lines?’

‘Don’t you notice anything? She puts all that stuff on the horse around the fire overnight. She’s not bloody stupid!’

‘Ssh!’

‘Have a bit of faith. Like I have.’

‘She’s going to just leave, you know. I know she is. We’ll come back one day and … she and that little baby, they’ll be gone. You’ll never see David again.’

‘John. I’ll never see John again.’

They said no more.

Eventually, Dorothy slept.

3
^rd
January
1941

Dear Mother,

Forgive me for not writing to you for such a long time. Much has happened in my life. Albert is missing. I am a widow, or so I must believe, and I have a child. Mother, the child is not Albert’s, and in a way I think you will feel relieved to hear that. I now believe you were right about him. He was not good enough for me. The father of my child is a special man indeed. Cultured, intelligent, courageous. But he is in danger, as so many are in these times. I hope that after the war, if all is well, we shall marry. He is a Polish man, the sweetest, kindest man I have ever met.

Mother, I would like to come home. With John, my baby. He is eight days old today. Please can I ask you to consider taking us in? The estate wants the cottage for others now that Albert is presumed dead. Your grandson is a beautiful baby and I know you will love him as much as I do.

I shall wait for your reply.

Your daughter,

Dorothy

John had wetted her lap after his bath, too long had she sat with him by the glowing fire, singing to him. She put him in a clean nappy and dressed him, then she put on a clean skirt and stockings. In a moment or two, John would be asleep. But until then, she was holding him tight, rocking him and singing to him some more. They were sitting in her chair by the window, in the parlour, and his gaze seemed drawn to the bright snow-light streaming in from outside.