Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters Page B

thought certain items might come in useful. And some of them have.’
    ‘And some of them have not?’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘Why did you marry him?’
    ‘Why?’ She laughed, a little flustered. ‘Because I wanted to.’
    ‘And why did you want to?’ Jan stirred sugar into his tea, slowly, looking at Dorothy.
    ‘Well, I suppose the right answer would be that I loved him dearly, I simply had to be his wife, he could offer me a wonderful life and eternal happiness. That I fell in love.’
    ‘And the actual answer?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. Escape, I think. I wanted to escape from my mother. I wanted to strike out on my own and I had no means of doing so, other than marrying. I thought his life sounded interesting, and he was kind to me. There.’
    ‘A sad tale, Dorothea.’
    ‘Dorothea’ watched Jan take a bite from a sandwich. His teeth were small, even and white. She noticed the way his fingers curved lightly around the sandwich. He was an elegant man.
    ‘Perhaps it is sad,’ she replied.
    ‘Were you ever happy?’
    ‘Oh. What a question. Perhaps I was happy when I was very young.’
    ‘Not since then? I am sorry to hear it. You deserve happiness.’
    ‘I’m not sure what happiness would mean to me, anyway.’
    ‘Perhaps a child?’
    ‘Yes. Oh yes!’ Dorothy realised she was leaning eagerly on the table – brazenly, she thought – squaring up to this man, engaging with him in a way that could be considered literally ‘forward’. She checked herself, sat back in her chair, and sipped her tea.
    ‘You have regrets, no?’ said Jan. He raised his eyebrows at her encouragingly.
    ‘I have regrets, you could say, about certain things,’ said Dorothy.
    ‘I have heard talk of it.’
    ‘I expect you have.’
    ‘You lost a baby?’
    ‘I lost more than one.’
    ‘But you gave birth to a child?’
    ‘You are very full of questions!’ Dorothy picked up the plate of cakes and offered it to Jan.
    She watched him eat, and he seemed unabashed, eating under her scrutiny. She, for her part, always ate guardedly. She hated the way eating contorted her face, and it made her feel exposed.
    ‘I ask too much,’ said Jan, wiping his mouth with a serviette. ‘Forgive me, I am sorry. I like to know, that is all. You are an interesting lady and I would like to hear more about you. Sadness turns us into people, surely you understand? People with hearts that thump in our chests, and souls that dream. You see?’
    It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold off from Jan.
    She took a deep breath. ‘Sidney. That was his name. A dear little boy. He was taken away. They – Mrs Compton and Dr Soames – thought it best. But I didn’t want them to take him away. I wanted him to stay with me. I wanted to hold him and comfort him and tell him how sorry I was to have let him down.’ She was breathless and close to tears, but it felt right to have said such things – things that she needed to say. Things she had never said.
    ‘The child was born dead?’ Jan asked. The birch trees swayed softly around them, gently rattling their silvery leaves.
    ‘A stillbirth, yes. He was silent, no crying, you understand? There was just this dreadful quietness. The stillness was terrifying. He was blue, I shall always remember that. Translucent.’
    ‘Trans …?’
    ‘… lucent. As if I could almost see through him.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Not like a little human being at all.’
    ‘I wish it had not been so.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘And now I have upset you.’
    ‘No, no. Truly. I think I need to talk about it with somebody, from time to time. It doesn’t help to bottle it all up and try to pretend it didn’t happen. It did happen. And it’s with me all the time, I can’t stop thinking about my little Sidney … his little body … what became of him? He was a person, you see. A dead person, but he had been alive, kicking inside me, I felt him kicking every day. I so wanted to be his mother.’
    Jan said nothing, but he passed her a