Read Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase for Free Online

But these girls fought hard to get the work done, they sweated and cried and kept going, kept going, they blistered, they chafed, they sustained bruises and cuts and calluses. But they never gave up. They inspired Dorothy; they refreshed her life with a new flood of hope and purpose.
    Three days after the Hurricane crashed in the Long Acre, Dorothy – in some pain, still wearing her dressings, but still trying to be useful, still managing to cook for the girls, managing a fraction of the growing mountain of laundry she was tasked with – had a visitor.
    She heard the front gate latch being lifted and the gate being shut, and quickly hid her notebook in the cutlery drawer. She was working on a new poem. It felt like a breakthrough, at last, a couple of sentences with direction. A novelty. Annoyed, she steeled herself for a visit from Mrs Compton. To appear calm, she hummed a tune. She did not want Mrs Compton to get even an inkling of how she was feeling; there was no need. In fact, there was danger in the older woman knowing anything.
    But the knock was not Mrs Compton’s. It was brisk. Unmistakeably, it was a man’s knock. Wiping her hands on her pinny, Dorothy approached the door and opened it.
    ‘Mrs Sinclair?’ said the man standing there, in an indeterminate foreign accent that Dorothy guessed was Polish. He held behind his legs a large bunch of hedgerow flowers, trying to hide it.
    ‘Yes?’ said Dorothy. She sounded stiff and formal – like her mother, she realised with horror.
    ‘I am Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski,’ he said, as though Dorothy should recognise his name. Then, in a deft series of movements, he took her hand, kissed it, released it and, with a flourish, he offered her the flowers.
    She blushed. ‘Oh! Thank you,’ said Dorothy, recovering herself, no longer impersonating her mother. She took the flowers and smelled them, as a matter of politeness rather than curiosity. She could think of nothing further to say. Like all men in uniform, this man looked handsome and smart. Her first impression was of dark hair, slicked across from a side parting, and clear tanned skin. He was clean-shaven, his eyes bright blue. A very bright blue. He had a direct and unflustered gaze that both alarmed and intrigued her. He seemed to be two or three inches taller than Dorothy. Not a tall man, not a short man. But younger – perhaps four, five, six years younger. Too young. Like Albert. It was impossible. And all of this shot through her like a sudden onset of fever.
    ‘I have come to thank you for your brave efforts to save my compatriot on Tuesday,’ the squadron leader announced. Dorothy thought him grandiose, but she was prepared to overlook it.
    ‘Save?’ she said.
    ‘My pilot. On Tuesday. We have heard of your courage. I am here to thank you,’ and Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski bowed.
    Dorothy stared at him in shock, amusement. Something else. Something she did not care to pinpoint.
    ‘I see you have a bandage,’ he said. ‘I hope your face is not too sore?’
    And damn that woman, damn her to hell. The tittle-tattling—! Dorothy, essentially kind, could not bring herself to even think the word ‘cow’, let alone ‘bitch’. Too cruel, these words, too impolite. And, she was generous enough to entertain, possibly not even true.
    ‘I see,’ said Dorothy. ‘I didn’t exactly try to save him. Everybody seems to think … never mind. But thank you. My face is not too sore. It will be better soon, I’m sure. Won’t you come in?’
    The squadron leader stepped over the threshold into Dorothy’s kitchen and immediately it struck her that this man’s presence was a comfort, even a sudden joy. This house had been empty of menfolk for nine months; it had become a feminine enclave, and even more so since the arrival of the girls. She indicated a seat at the table, and he sat. He looked around, and Dorothy noticed he took a long time looking at the mantelpiece with its candlesticks, its