Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase

by Louise Walters

  After dark, when nobody could see me, I buried her under the plum tree in my tiny back garden.

  It was with a large measure of serendipity that I stumbled upon the vacancy in the Old and New Bookshop. Philip had plans to open up a further room of the shop, to sell a decent range of new books. He needed somebody to manage that side of the business, as well as helping him with the second-hand books. I like to think my newly acquired degree in English Literature helped me to land the job. Philip tells me he liked my friendly, non-pretentious manner and my willingness to clean. He felt I would slot very nicely into his bookshop.

  We were a small, tight-knit team, Philip and I, in those early days. Just the two of us, in the shop from nine to five (often much later in his case), both of us for six days a week, most weeks. I have not minded giving up my Saturdays. My social life is sparse. But Philip has always been good company, funny and witty, and observant of his fellow man, if a little too critical. I have enjoyed his company since day one.

  As the shop grew, the need for another member of staff became apparent, and Sophie became the third employee. A lovely girl, inside and out – intelligent and kind – perfect for the shop. I think I resented her, at first. I wanted the shop, and Philip – I wanted it all to myself. Sophie was new and pretty and I was jealous, of all things, which was utterly ridiculous. I got over it.

  Sophie’s boyfriend, Matt, collects her from work on Saturday evenings, and they often ask me to ‘hang out’ with them. They are getting a Chinese, or a pizza, they’re watching a film. I’m welcome to join them. I always decline.

  ‘Oh, come on, Roberta. It’ll do you good,’ says Sophie.

  ‘No,’ I always say. ‘Tara needs feeding.’

  A soft shake of Sophie’s head. ‘You need to get over it! Go home and feed her, then pop round to ours. Stay the night. It’s just a cat, not a child. You should live a little. For God’s sake.’

  Philip and I have a professional relationship, but we can laugh and joke together, and often we do. We rarely talk about our lives away from the shop. Philip bought the eighteenth-century building housing the Old and New twelve, thirteen years ago. I believe, I get the feeling, there is no mortgage, there are no loans to repay. Sophie and I speculate that he may have won the lottery. Or inherited money from a dead relative. Of course, we never ask. Some months, I know the Old and New is lucky to break even. It often makes a loss, and usually only makes a profit in December – and even then, only in good years. Yet Philip continues to run his independent bookshop as a going concern, and he has converted the uppermost floor into his comfortable and handsome flat. He is simple in his tastes. Books, obviously, lots of books in his personal collections. And paintings, mostly prints, but I suspect a few originals too, all nicely framed. Plants, lots of houseplants – unusually, for a man, I think. That lovely sofa in the roomy lounge, an old rocking chair. A small television in the corner. No game stations, no Xboxes or whatever they’re called, just a handful of well-chosen DVDs. A clean kitchen, small and functional. All is simple and old-fashioned – or, at least, pretending to be simple and old-fashioned.

  One of Sophie’s recent ideas (Philip values her ‘fresh’ input) was for one of the book rooms to be given over to a coffee shop. Philip vetoed this immediately. I am secretly thankful for this. But bless Sophie. She is so … modern.

  ‘We’re not bloody Borders!’ spluttered Philip. ‘There’s a reason they went to the wall, you know!’

  And Sophie poked out her tongue at him.

  Of course, he was joking. But he’s right. We are small, independent. We are unique. We deal in books. We deal in the written word.

  I’m preparing a simple dinner to share with … who? My boyfriend? Lover? The man I sleep with?

  We are having triple-glazed chicken in honey, with salad and herby potato wedges. I am not a great cook, finding the whole process rather tedious. A bottle of Pinot Grigio is cooling in the fridge. There is a lemon sorbet in the freezer. Wine is unusual for us because his wife mustn’t smell it when he gets home. She thinks that every other Thursday he attends a yoga class, straight after a staff meeting. This blatant lie, so bare and transparent, frightens me a little. Subterfuge I abhor, although sometimes it is necessary. But I do wish his ideas were a little more inventive.

  Of course, I feel awful. I never thought – or planned, or expected – to end up in a relationship with a man already married. I think I suffered a moment of weakness, a lapse in my normally quite good judgement. And now I seem to be living with the consequences. He’s not happy with his wife, he says, and hasn’t been for some time. She’s ‘difficult’, whatever that means. I don’t press him on this or anything else. I wouldn’t blame his wife for being angry with me if she were to find out, truly I wouldn’t. And maybe she would expel him from their home and he would turn up on my doorstep, bedraggled and tearful.

  Would he expect to move in with me? Would I owe him that?

  I think not. I certainly wouldn’t want him to move in with me. And I know I shouldn’t be carrying on with a married man twenty-two years my senior. It isn’t nice and it isn’t fair and it will all come to nothing. I know this.

  His name is Charles. Old-fashioned, but that’s the kind of woman I am, attracted to older men with older-men names. I find them comforting, with none of the rawness and threats of a younger man. They are civilised.

  And you don’t have to love them, if you don’t want to. They are flattered enough if you like them, invite them into your home and listen sympathetically to their woes. That’s the drawback of older men: the woes are endless.

  My older man – who, of course, isn’t mine at all but belongs to her, his wife, the woman whose name is Francesca and who, he tells me, smells like Febreze – has bought me a cat. She’s a replacement for Tara. He knows, as all the regular customers of the Old and New know, that I lost Tara. Their sympathy is enormous, and I believe it is genuine. The death of my cat is a subject up for discussion.

  Our first date was, of necessity, some way off from our hometown. He could not afford for anybody to see him on a clandestine date with that woman from the bookshop. (What’s her name? The plain one. Rebecca?) Mr Charles Dearhead, Head Teacher at Northfield Primary School. He had too much to lose. And so did I, only I wasn’t as scared of losing it as he was. ‘We’ are a secret, and he trusts that I will always, always keep our little secret.

  But I haven’t kept it, not completely.

  ‘Are you seeing somebody?’ asked Sophie.

  It was a quiet Saturday afternoon, a week or two ago. Fax-man had been in, and out, once again reminding me of the ongoing offer of a date. I politely laughed him off, as usual, and continued to look up the difference between swallows and swifts in Birds of Britain: An Illustrated Guide. Sophie asked her question, turning to me hastily before another customer arrived at the till.

  ‘Why are you asking?’ I said, grinning at her. I wasn’t exactly bursting to tell anybody about my fling. But it would be quite nice, I thought, to tell somebody, if only to get another perspective. I realised that we had swifts swooping around the Old and New in the summer. Not swallows. And definitely not house martins.

  ‘You are,’ she said, triumphantly. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘I might be,’ I replied, and winked at her.

  ‘Who? Who? Who is it?’

  ‘He’s married,’ I warned. I had hoped it would sound sophisticated, but it didn’t.

  ‘Really? Oh! Well, that doesn’t necessarily … who is it? Does he come in here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  A pause. A customer inconveniently filled it, and Sophie hastily, politely served her.

  ‘Who is it?’ Sophie hissed at me as soon as the customer was out of earshot.

  ‘Charles Dearhead.’

  There was no mistaking Sophie’s disappointment. I wanted to reach out and gently swipe it away, as I might a stray strand of hair from her face. I hold a great deal of tenderness for Sophie.

  ‘It’s all right,’
I said, and shrugged.

  Of course it wasn’t all right. But it was better than nothing. I’d had rather too much of nothing, and Charles had become my ‘something’.

  I didn’t love him. I would never love him. Sophie and I both knew it. And all this passed between us in those few seconds, telepathically, a silent conversation in which nothing was said but everything was communicated.

  ‘He’s a lot older than you,’ said Sophie, breaking our spell.

  ‘Twenty-two years older.’

  ‘Too old?’ she asked.

  She made me think. But not for long.

  ‘Maybe. But he’s nice. I like him. He’s kind to me. And he is handsome, for his age,’ I said, my vanity coming to my defence.

  ‘He’s married to his wife,’ said Sophie, and our eyes widened and we giggled.

  ‘I know what you mean, though,’ I said, and I whispered, ‘Mrs Francesca Dearhead, no less. Have you ever seen her?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘He says she’s difficult.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried that you’ll be found out? Philip might sack you. Scandal at the Old and New?’

  ‘Philip wouldn’t sack me. And he’ll never find out. Nobody will. I don’t make a song and dance of it, and neither does he. It’s all okay, Sophie. Okay?’

  Jenna emerged from the children’s book room, where she had been busy putting out the new books delivered that morning. She is a neat person, when she tries, and putting out new stock, arranging shelves, especially in the children’s section, has become one of her particular duties. She smiled at us as we cut short our conversation. I don’t think she heard any of it; perhaps she thought we were talking about her.

  Jenna offered to make coffee. As the kettle boiled loudly in the kitchen, and we could hear her clattering around with cups and saucers, Sophie said my affair with ‘the Dearhead’, as she called him, was okay, if I said it was. And it was none of her business, which was obviously true.

  But I care for her opinions. I know she knows I cannot be truly happy with a man like Charles Dearhead, even if he is handsome. She thinks I deserve better, and maybe that is so. But, living as I do, alone, Charles feels right for me, and he is a sweet man in his own way. And I quite like his way, the fact that he never really wants to speak about me. I can lose myself in his life, and it means I don’t have to think too much about my own, which, I convince myself, is infinitely better than his.

  Ah, but here he is now. Hassled. Frowning. I’ve put my Billie Holiday CD on for him. He likes jazz, and so do I. It’s good to have that in common. If I sit him down in my small but comfortable lounge, massage his shoulders, pour him a glass of wine … there. That’s better. Is he? Yes, he is, he is actually smiling now. And asking me what is for dinner because it smells delicious and he can’t really believe that he will be able to stay here for the night, our first night together. He sips wine and looks smug. He parked his car two streets along. You never know who might be prying, he says.

  Her mother is ill, you see. Francesca’s. She’s knocking on, he told me, and keeps falling over. She hurts herself, breaks her bones. This latest issue is nothing serious but she needs an operation, he thinks. And there’s talk of a home, but she won’t go into one. Which isn’t really terribly fair on Francesca, who has her own life down here and can’t keep dashing up to the Dales every time her mother sneezes.

  ‘Anyway, stroke of good luck, eh?’ he said when he telephoned me with the news.

  I don’t like him to telephone me at work. He rings my mobile, never the shop telephone. On my mobile I have him listed under the name of Ashley.

  I leave ‘Ashley’ in the lounge. In the kitchen I cook, and sip my own glass of wine. I consider showing him my grandfather’s letter. But I decide against it. The Dearhead would probably not be interested, and I would feel I was somehow betraying both my grandparents. Especially Babunia. It’s private.

  I’m luxuriating in fine silk underwear, purchased only yesterday for the big occasion. In a dark red colour, like blood from a deep cut. It looks pretty, but it’s all rather uncomfortable; I’m ignoring that, and projecting ahead to his delight later when he removes my clothes to reveal the lingerie. I hope it’s his thing. I hope we have a wild … no, not wild – what am I thinking? – a nice time.

  We deserve it.

  We do have a nice time. Charles is good in bed, and I may as well be honest about that. It’s a very major part of his charm, and one of the reasons I remain his … other woman. But, somehow, there’s a cynical emptiness to it all.

  There’s something missing.

  ‘What do you expect?’ Sophie, hands on hips, irate, hearing my tale.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come off it.’

  ‘I thought … I don’t know what I thought. It’s good to have a lover, for want of a better word. Actually, it’s fun.’

  ‘Yes, of course it is, and you deserve some fun. But you won’t get it from him, not long term. Being involved with a married man is rubbish, constantly looking over your shoulder. You can’t relax, you can’t hold hands in public unless you’re, I don’t know, three hundred miles away, and you can’t be normal. There’s more to a good relationship than just sex, you know?’

  ‘I know. I do know that. It’s all a bit … soulless, I think.’

  ‘Whatever. If I were you, I’d drop him. Get your life back. That’s the way forward.’

  And I think. I hear and rehear Sophie’s words, and I end my relationship with the Dearhead. Two days later, over the telephone. Like this.

  ‘Charles? I’m sorry to ring you at work. But it’s important. Look, Charles, I don’t think we should see each other any more. It’s got to end. I think things have … have fizzled out, rather.’

  Of course, he is excessively polite. And after pondering for several moments upon his own shortcomings, he apologises for screwing my life up.

  I tell him my life is not remotely screwed up. I’m just uncomfortable with the whole thing; he’s a married man, after all. And I’m a little bored, if I’m honest.

  He’s less polite now and says he’s boring, is he?

  I say no, he is not boring. But the relationship is, frankly. It’s getting tiresome. And it’s hardly right, is it?

  He says I’m not very sensitive, and he always thought that of me. I’m brusque.

  I apologise. I try again. The thing is, Charles …

  The conversation ends with a promise from him not to attempt any further meetings. Of course, we will both be cordial and professional within the confines of the Old and New. And thank God, that is the only place we are likely to encounter each other.

  So now the relationship is over. I can keep the cat. He hates cats, anyway. Bloody butchers.

  And we shall be happy together, she and I. Of course, I won’t miss Charles at all, not even on alternate Thursday nights. I shall, instead, make myself useful. I’ll catch up with housework. I’ll tackle that ironing pile before I really do run out of things to wear. I’ll decorate my flat. I’ll take my new cat to the vet. I know I’ll miss Charles Dearhead, despite the shortcomings. I’ll miss his urbane presence. But I won’t feel sorry for myself, I won’t allow my essential aloneness to bring me down. Aloneness is the shell in which I gratefully hide. And it’s not the same thing as loneliness. Aloneness is what I’ve always felt I deserved; I choose it, prefer it and want it. You can’t be hurt if you are alone. Perhaps that was how my mother felt the day she decided enough was enough. I’ll probably never know. But I wonder how alike we might be. I wonder what she is doing, I wonder how she lives her life; how she lives with herself. Guilt is a terrible burden. So, I’m Doing The Right Thing. All is well.

  I wish him all joy of this world, as my grandfather might have said.

  And I so want to talk to my father about the letter.

  I’m visiting him. It’s a Sunday afternoon, it’s pouring with rain – the heavy type that clashes on to windows and roofs like stones thrown by chi
ldren. My grandfather’s letter is nestled snug and dry in my handbag, and Dad and I are drinking tea.

  ‘Have you visited Babunia recently?’ I ask my father.

  It’s a start, an innocuous enough question.

  ‘No. I haven’t felt up to it much,’ says Dad.

  He looks wan today. Tired. I want to ask him about his pain management, I want to hear about the outcome of his last visit to the hospital. We have rarely talked about his illness. He broke the news to me several years ago, but he insisted that we shouldn’t discuss it any more, unless it was ‘absolutely necessary’. He vaguely refers to visits to the hospital. He mentions a Dr Moore, but it’s pretty much a closed subject and one he usually forbids me to even try to discuss with him. So I don’t. Of course, he’s known for many years, but being the stoic he is, he was determined to keep it from me. Babunia still doesn’t know about it. He doesn’t want to burden her.

  ‘I’m thinking of visiting her tomorrow,’ I say. ‘I haven’t been for a month or so. I really should go.’

  ‘Good. I’m sure she’d be pleased to see you. I can’t go at the moment. She’ll know straight away …’

  ‘I know, Dad. I’ll tell her you’re busy. Actually, I might have a couple of questions I’d like to ask her.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘Well, I’m thinking of doing a family tree thing.’ I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet. ‘Everyone else seems to do one, so I thought I’d give it a go.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘I’d like to ask Babunia about your father.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know much about him, do we? He died during the war, before I was born. You know that, love. I don’t know much else about him. He was Polish, that’s about it. Your grandmother likes to remind us that he was a squadron leader in the Battle of Britain, God bless her. But you know that already.’