Page 56 of Lost Luggage
35
It couldn’t be true. Dolly’s sister, a mother? It was as ludicrous as Greta saying she’d visited other continents.
‘She only spoke about it once, in depth,’ said Phoebe, ‘and got quite emotional – most unlike the Maisie I knew.’
Most unlike Greta, too. Underneath the table, Dolly clasped her hands together.
‘Greta got pregnant in her teens.’
‘What?’ Dolly laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m sorry, Dolly, but I believed Greta. She said she hardly showed and in the last few weeks her mum kept her off school. They didn’t tell anyone, not even the doctor. A friend had delivered babies before and helped out when the time came.’
Dolly fixed on the mahogany table, studying the wood grain. If this was true, Greta wasn’t cared for in hospital. Anything could have happened. What could their mum have been thinking? However, Phoebe sensed it had been a desperate situation, the two women not wanting neighbours or anyone else to know. Their mum had a hard enough time as it was, in the fifties, a single woman with a string of boyfriends and if word got out that such a young girl wasin the family way– the words Maisie had used…
‘I think your sister felt she’d let your mum down. She’d always mentioned having had kids, but it turned out she gave the baby up. Greta said it was as if she’d given away her identity as well, as the mum she so wanted to be.’
Dolly walked over to the conservatory and stood with her back to Phoebe, looking out of the glass at the borders her sister used to love tending.
‘The father came into her place of work a few years after. It was a travel agency and—’
Dolly pressed her arms closer to her body. Could this be why she worked at Hackshaw Haulage – hearing the truckers’ stories from abroad was the closest she got to following her dreams? But why, then, did she leave shortly after Dolly and Fred split? And why would having a secret baby mean Greta could never travel? Phoebe explained that the father was a new customer for the agency, having set up a successful hotel business. Greta couldn’t control her temper when she saw him and shouted how their child would never know where it came from and that was his fault. Unsurprisingly he denied everything and walked out. Her boss fired her immediately, saying she was hysterical and lucky not to be sectioned.
‘The framed photo of my sister looking miserable, in Lytham. It’s all adding up.’
‘She actually cried, you know? We sat by the computers; no one else had come into the library yet. She spoke in a whisper about the one possession she’d kept from when the baby was just hers – a pair of yellow booties with orange bows. She used to kiss the baby’s feet before putting them on.’
Dolly jolted before striding out of the room. She rushed into Greta’s bedroom to fetch the small wooden chest. She almost broke the lid as she yanked it open and took the booties to the dining room. Dolly ran a finger over the knitting. Instinctively she smelt it, disappointed with the mustiness. ‘She didn’t say whether it was a boy or girl? You couldn’t work it out?’
‘No, and Greta never spoke about it again. That photo frame might hold the answer – holidays are supposed to be happy. The back of it might be hiding a clue.’
Oh, to have had a nephew or niece, and one that would have been roughly Dolly’s age, the fun they would have had playing together, and going to the Victoria Baths – and side by side they could have fended off the stupid school bullies. Greta must have had such feelings of missing out, magnified by a thousand. Dolly tucked the booties into her trouser pocket. She’d taken Fred’s advice after all and kept a small bag of mementoes, telling herself she could always throw them away at a later date if she wanted. She went into Greta’s room again, confronted by the wardrobe, full of the memories of Greta’s clothes. Was the shame of a teenage pregnancy the reason she always strived to look so smart and respectable? Dolly held the booties to her face once more, imagining Greta’s despair when the baby smell eventually wore off. It cut through Dolly that she’d not been trusted with the truth, her sister, her mum, neither had confided in her, but giving up her own flesh and blood must have sliced through Greta’s heart.
She tipped the bag upside down, over the bed. An array of items fell on to the mattress – Greta’s silver hair and hand mirror set, her gold cross necklace, a man-sized Roman numeral watch, her sister ever practical, and a drawing Dolly had done as a little girl, of the three of them eating ice creams, Mum, Greta, Dolly, with sticks for arms and legs. Heart racing, she looked in the bottom of the bag. She searched under the bed. On top of the wardrobe. Pulled open every drawer.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Phoebe as Dolly walked back in, biting on her fist.
‘The photo frame. The last time I saw it, it was lying on top of Greta’s tweed coat. I think I must have put it in the bag for the charity shop, changed my mind about getting rid of it but got distracted and not taken it back out.’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’
36
After making an urgent phone call, Dolly took the train into Stockport first thing the next morning. She couldn’t face driving and needed fresh air. Despite the pinch of April, she’d kept her window open all night. Away from the tannoy announcements and squeaking of train brakes, she sat by a window and turned away from the spitting rain to stare at a Coke can rolling on the carriage floor, as the train pulled away. The revelation that Greta had a child formed a clamp around her chest leaving her struggling to breathe, as if she were a squashed drinks can.
As if she’d lost her sister all over again.
Dolly rubbed her forehead as the train pulled into Stockport station, hoping to rub away her headache. Fred hovered at her side as she stood by the doors and tilted his flat cap, letting her off first. Leroy had offered to accompany her to the charity shop – he’d tell Steve he couldn’t go in early, as planned, to discuss his ideas on staff management. But Dolly hadn’t wanted to disrupt his plans. Phoebe was meeting Zoe, the young woman from the bake-off. They’d been texting since last week and were meeting in Manchester to visit bookshops.
‘Hope you didn’t mind me butting in when Phoebs offered to cancel her plans,’ said Fred. ‘It’s so good to see her making friends.’
‘I could have come on my own,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘But I’m glad you did – Leroy and Phoebe would have insisted. It’s partly your fault, anyway, that I’ve had to come this far, taking your advice not to donate the clothes locally.’
Fred smiled to himself as they headed out to the road that swept downwards past a McDonalds. A homeless woman sat by the doorway. Greta’s child might have fallen on hard times. Did they look like her? Have her red-tinted hair? Maybe they’d grown up down south, lived the London life, saw the north as alien. As Dolly and Fred walked down Wellington Road, towards Merseyway Shopping Centre, she studied everyone her age who passed. She, Greta and Mum were of average height and had the usual twang of the Mancunian accent.
Dolly’s niece or nephew could have been anyone.
‘…and remember how we always went to Stockport’s indoor market?’ asked Fred and he pulled down his cap as a gust blew rain on to his cheeks. ‘The knife stall that sold cutlery, scissors and kitchenware. The rails of clothing; you could buy a tracksuit for less than four quid. We used to choose a selection of cheeses. Eating them back at the flat, with crackers and a bottle of Blue Nun, would leave us feeling rather grand.’
‘What?’ Dolly glanced at Fred as they passed a queue of buses. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of diesel. They entered the precinct.
