Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase

by Louise Walters

  Mute, unsure of what to say, I shake my head. Did she help somebody else to have an abortion? This Nina she keeps talking about, this Nina she has mistaken me for on several occasions?

  ‘The Infant’s Progress. Of all the things. I’ll never forget that wretched book. I put his last letter inside it. He told me off, you see, in his letter. I kept that book for years. I think it’s gone now, and the letter with it. And I lost my temper with him and I burned all the other ones. I burned the blue ribbon. I even burned his shirt, Roberta, can you imagine? I had never washed it. All those buttons … what a fool I was. I should have kept that, I should have kept everything. I have nothing of his, nothing else at all. I lost him, you see. I was so angry he wasn’t going to marry me after all. I was furious with him for years and years. I asked him to be my husband. Can you imagine? I thought he wanted to be my husband. But he wouldn’t forgive me. I can’t tell you how terrible it made me feel. He broke my heart into so many pieces. So small I couldn’t find them and put them back together again. Just as well they’re all gone, isn’t it, really? But I don’t regret what I did. John was worth it. It was right. We don’t get everything in life, do we?’

  Well, at least that makes sense. My mind is racing as I try to piece together all that she has said.

  ‘Who was Nina?’ I ask.

  ‘Nina? I don’t know any Ninas! Don’t ask questions. I can’t remember everything … I’m not going to tell you!’ and now the sad, wise old lady is a stroppy child again.

  I know I have pushed her too far. So we sit in silence, listening to the radio, and I make tea. She sips hers with a shaking hand. I look at her and wonder if we shall ever talk again. She is barely present now, grey and thin as rainfall on a winter afternoon.

  Possibilities present themselves to me. I don’t like any of them, so I turn them away, one by one, like tiresome beggars. She was a marvellous mother, both to my father and to me. Nothing else matters. As Philip would say, the rest is all bollocks.

  Philip. My fiancé. How grand that sounds, and how strange. I decide to tell her my news.

  ‘Did I tell you? Philip and I are engaged.’

  ‘Philip? I don’t think I know a Philip.’

  ‘He’s a nice man, the very best, and we are going to be very happy,’ I tell her.

  She nods, seeming satisfied with that.

  ‘We’re getting married in August, and I want you to come.’

  She raises her eyebrows and smiles. ‘We’ll see,’ she says, with a flash of that wry humour I have always loved.

  The programme about Billie Holiday has finished. I turn the volume down to a soft background murmur, half-hearted waves breaking on a distant shore, but Babunia doesn’t seem to notice. Carefully, because I don’t want to disturb her, I reach for my handbag. I find Jan’s letter, now much creased and crumpled, open out the two fragile pages, smooth them flat and place them on the side table next to Babunia’s chair. She has fallen into a childlike doze and, after undoing her chignon, I gently brush her long grey hair, over and over, until it shines.

  38

  And now that it was over, he had only vague ideas of what to do, or where to go. He was done with flying, and that was his only certainty, apart from knowing he would not return to Poland. Perhaps America? One day, yes, perhaps. But there were things to do first, here in England. There was unfinished business to attend to.

  He drove to the cottage in Lincolnshire, and from the road it all seemed much the same. He fancied the same curtains were still hanging at the windows. Yet, on closer inspection, he saw that the garden was not nearly as well kept as it once had been. There were no hens. There was no laundry on the lines, although it was a warm day in May.

  He opened the gate and shuffled along the path, and suddenly it was five years ago, and he imagined he could hear the woman’s mournful humming. But he could not. He knocked on the kitchen door. It was opened by a young man, who regarded him with suspicion and impatience.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘No, but I knew this cottage. I stayed here. I was a friend to the lady who lived here then. Do you know her, I wonder?’

  ‘Sal might. Sal!’

  A young woman, a land girl, came to the door. She was neither Aggie nor Nina.

  Jan bowed. ‘I am looking for a Mrs Dorothy Sinclair.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know her. I think Aggie did, though.’

  ‘Is Aggie still here?’

  ‘No. She left in 1942, I think it was. She got moved to a farm in Yorkshire. I heard she’s going to marry a GI when he gets demobbed. They’re going to Alabama, I think. Or is it Arkansas?’

  ‘And Nina? Do you know the girl named Nina?’ Jan tried to suppress his impatience.

  ‘No, but I heard talk of a girl called Nina having a baby.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘A little girl. She got married, I think. I don’t know what became of her, though.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Aggie used to talk about a woman named Dorothy. But I didn’t know her.’

  ‘Is there a music box here? A gramophone?’

  She looked startled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I have it, please? I lent it to Dorothy at the start of the war. I have come to reclaim it.’

  ‘It makes no odds to me,’ said the girl. ‘Bill, what do you think?’

  The young man shrugged. ‘We’re leaving soon to go home, only going to leave it here. Do what you like with it.’

  They stood aside to let Jan enter the kitchen, which was no longer Dorothy’s kitchen. It was dirty and dark. The parlour beyond was dusty and tatty, with packing boxes jostling for space. The young woman indicated the gramophone on the sideboard, and Jan, thanking her, lifted it, wincing. The younger man offered to help, and Jan was forced to accept. While Bill took the music box to Jan’s car, Jan gathered up the remaining records; some were missing, he thought. He thanked the girl.

  She smiled. ‘So where you from, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Poland.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You going back?’ asked Bill, who had come back inside.

  ‘Sadly, no.’

  ‘Don’t bloody blame you.’

  He thanked them again, and returned slowly to the car.

  And a few weeks later, Oxford. He was feeling better, stronger. The drive to Lincolnshire he should perhaps not have undertaken. Then, he had been weak. But now, all was on the mend. It was summer, and Oxford was a nice city, he thought, grand. And he wandered, marvelling at the colleges, the ivy-clad buildings, unscathed. And he asked people, those he met by chance, in shops, in libraries, in the street. He made himself a nuisance, but a charming one.

  ‘Honour? I am looking for a Mrs Honour?’ (For hadn’t Dorothy once told him her maiden name was Honour?) ‘With a grown-up daughter, Dorothy?’

  He was on the point of giving up, tired, unconvinced, his initial energies and hopes waning, wishing he had kept Dorothy’s letter or at least memorised her address before his stupid pride had made him throw it away, when a woman, eager to help a handsome foreigner, brightened and did not shake her head.

  ‘Ruth? Ruth Honour?’

  And thus he found himself, tired and shaking, outside a house with a blue door in the north of the city. He breathed hard and knocked. Nobody answered. He peered through a window. The house seemed to be empty, forsaken. He spoke to a neighbour, who was peeping at him over a neatly cut box hedge.

  Yes, he’d known the people who had lived there. An old lady and her daughter, both widowed, and the daughter’s little boy. Nice family. But they’d gone, oh, three or four years ago? No, he had no forwarding address. The daughter, he thought, had married a Polish man who had died early in the war.

  ‘Do you recall her married name?’ Jan asked him.

  ‘Pilkowski? Pentrykowski? Something like that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jan, his chest swelling with a feeling he could not pu
t a name to. ‘And did she marry again, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. But as I say, it’s been a good while since they moved away. The house has an owner, but nobody lives here. They do collect post periodically, so they may have a forwarding address. Are you Russian?’

  ‘Ah. Of course. Thank you for your time. No, I am not Russian.’

  14th August 1945

  My dear Dorothea,

  I have been trying to find you, with no success. I have got as far as your mother’s house in Oxford, and there your trail seems to run cold. I write to you there, in the hope my letter can be passed on to you. A vain hope, but all I have. I think, if I try hard enough, I will find you. I suspect you go by my name, and you are most welcome to. In fact, it is my privilege. There can’t be too many Pietrykowskis living in England! But at the same time, I do not want to bother you. You may be married again, with new name, and happy, and you no longer think of me. So if this letter reaches you, that is good. If not, so be it. I have a plan for my future, and if I do not hear from you, I will carry it out.

  As you can see, I have survived the war, as I told you I would. I fought long and hard, and I became exhausted. As you say here, I ran out of steam. Last few months of war, I am in hospital. My old injury gives me gyp, I tire greatly, in my mind and body, and in the end I suffer a collapse of it all. Terrible. Thoughts of dying, feeling so weak and feeble and sick. But I am better now and all in my life is dancing and singing and light again. Almost all, because you are missing. I let you go and I should not have. It is the worst mistake of my life. I love you more than ever, and I was wrong to judge you so badly about your baby. I want you to forgive me and marry me, as we expected, if you are free to do so, of course, and if you want to. No doubt you are angry with me, disappointed by the letter I sent to you. I regret each and every word of it. I was wrong.

  That is all. No more to be said, for now. I am not returning to Polska, to live under Communists, no, and I am bitter about that. But my life will be mine. I have a plan to go to Italy, be with the sun, swim, eat, find work. There will be work. I have a friend who says it is a good place to regain strength. Then, I think of the USA, land of opportunity. Perhaps you and your son could join with me there? This is my most cherished hope.

  Jan

  39

  I’m still here, just. Still breathing and sleeping, waking, watching, thinking.

  I remember now, that day we travelled down to London on the train. Just the three of us – me and John and Roberta. It was her tenth birthday, into double figures, so something to be celebrated. John was recovering from the break-up of his friendship with a woman called Kate. It hadn’t been a very serious affair, and I had thought all along it had been ill advised. John could be intense when he was younger. And in those days he was, of course, still suffering from the shock of being abandoned by Anna. I’m not surprised Kate broke it off. She understood the heartache both of them laboured under, and she didn’t fancy trying, and failing, to fill Anna’s shoes. You really cannot blame her.

  So, to London. Madame Tussauds first, which Roberta loved. Then, on the Tube to Trafalgar Square. We fed the pigeons, admired the lions – we got Roberta to sit on one for a photograph. She was wearing a striped sweater. It was a chilly day, so we decided to eat lunch indoors. We none of us knew London well enough to have a restaurant in mind, so we wondered what to do and where to go. I was tired.

  About to suggest the cafe in the National Gallery, I turned towards the building and I saw her, a tall woman, somewhere in her sixties, staring at me. She may have been looking at me for some time, I’ll never know. She was standing by one of the fountains. With her, a woman, fortyish, and two children, about Roberta’s age, a little younger perhaps, both boys. I thought them twins. They were both tall, with mousy hair, and definitely, terrifyingly there was a look of Roberta about them. The younger woman was a feminine version of John. The older woman, Nina – for it was her, unmistakeably – stared at us. She looked at the two young boys, surely her grandsons, and back at John. She was plump, more so than before. She looked tired, grey and careworn. But, I dared to hope, she did not look unhappy. For a second, perhaps two, we looked straight at each other. And in her eyes, behind her eyes, I saw the brash nineteen-year-old, strong, loud, ignorant. All of this in a few seconds. By then my eyesight was failing, of course, but a person’s essence never leaves them – especially, you cannot mistake the face of a woman who was once in pain, in need, begging you to help her.

  And soon enough she was obscured by other people, with other lives, who had stories of their own, and I realised, with relief, that she was not going to advance upon me. I stopped looking. We found lunch, but I could not eat. My heart would not slow its beating, not for an hour, two hours. Finally, later, as we wandered around the galleries, I found myself thinking about Aggie. Had they kept in touch? And also, thank goodness it had not been Aggie. She might have stormed over, she might have caused a scene.

  And soon after that, I found myself wondering about Jan, of course. Always, it was Jan. I don’t believe a day of my life has passed since I last saw him when I haven’t thought about him, and wondered what became of him. I harboured a hope for many years that I would hear from him, that he would track me down. But he did not. There has been one other man, but he was no more than a minor possibility, five decades ago, divorced, charming. Rich, I think, and rather lonely. We had a love affair that never really ignited. He wanted more from me than I could give. He faded away, or I did.

  And now, all of them must be dead, as I should be. Even John is dead. She thinks I don’t realise. Roberta, the dear, dear girl, and her with a fiancé now, a very nice man, she tells me. I think I can recall him, bookish and quite funny and charming. They must go on, have children, and build a good, strong life together. I know they will.

  I am happy that I can frame these thoughts, happy that this core of me is intact; I can still think clearly in this innermost part, this kernel we all have, that remains undamaged throughout our lives. And I must sleep, of course. I’m so tired. I should have been asleep for years by now. Roberta is brushing my hair, she is so gentle and I am fading, I can feel myself, cell by cell, dropping away. I think it is time. Yes. I will keep my eyes closed now, and not open them again, and I shall go to Jan. If I think it, it will be so.

  But — no! Roberta wants something. She wants to know the truth, just like John did. Yes, so simple, in two minutes I can tell all, pull myself together, and put an end to this fretting of hers, so—

  ‘Roberta?’

  ‘Yes?’

  There. It is done. Confusing at first, but I got there in the end.

  And she’s shocked, a little, but not very shocked. I rather think she already knew more than she realised. And her hug, so strong, and she meant it, and I’m still her babunia and always will be. And it might have been nice to meet Jan, because he sounded like a wonderful person.

  She was proud that I had tried to save the life of her ‘real’ grandfather. I had to keep that part in; everybody else believed it, so Roberta must too. Perhaps it will become a family legend. That’s all right.

  She tried to show me something … but I couldn’t see what it was, I couldn’t understand what she was telling me. It’s a terrible thing to grow so old, to lose everything you once had, and to find life, the act of living, weaving your way through the day, so impossible.

  And now, to Jan I must go. At last, it is his moment and mine. Such a roar, and that sun, my goodness it is hot, and my smooth, strong legs are bare and here comes the squadron, such a roar, and there is Jan’s Hurricane, dipping from the sky like a pebble falling through stilled waters, and his face, his beautiful face, his smile, his wave, and I wave back (‘Hush, Babunia,’ I think I hear Roberta whisper), and stillness now, and heat, all around, and no sound, no sight, and there, it is perfect. And his words, those words at the last, cruel to me then, a comfort now: I knew you were for all time, even as there is no time.

  ACKNO
WLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank everybody at Hodder and Stoughton, especially my keen-eyed editor Suzie Dooré. Thank you to my agent Hannah Ferguson for taking a chance on me and my work. Also to Debi Alper, Ian Andrews, Victoria Bewley, Sonja Bruendl-Price, Emma Darwin, Katherine Hetzel, Sophie Jonas-Hill and Jody Klaire for the advice, opinions, ‘WIP’ cracking and all round helpfulness and encouragement. And thanks to Neil Evans and Mark Forster for the technical input. I’d also very much like to thank Susan Davis and all at Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, and Jo Dickinson.

  My research led me to three books that were a particular pleasure to read: I forgot I was supposed to be researching! They were Battle of Britain by Patrick Bishop, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War by Norman Longmate and For Your Freedom and Ours: The Kościuszko Squadron – Forgotten Heroes of World War II by Lynne Olsen and Stanley Cloud. Any mistakes are my responsibility.

  Thank you to my friends Radosława Barnaś-Baniel, for her help with the Polish language, and Tessa Burton, for her delight and encouragement. My mum and dad provided me with the books and the time to read from a young age, thank you to them, and to Pete for being my brother and so much more. Thank you to my children Oliver, Emily, Jude, Finn and Stanley for all the inspiration and excitement; finally, thank you to my generous husband Ian, who makes everything possible.