Sisters of Silent Street : Maggie fragment 1

When she heard the cycle stop outside and the knock of knuckles on her front door Maggie’s stomach turned over and she momentarily felt sick. He was dead, she knew it. She ran to the door and opened it, then took the envelope the post man handed to her. But she looked down and her heart, which seemed to have stopped, started once again. This was just a letter, not a telegram – maybe he was safe after all? Inside she sat at the old kitchen table and opened the envelope with still-trembling hands. She tried her best, but the more she wanted to know what the words said the less sense they made to her. She moved to the other side of the kitchen then took out and wrapped up a large slice of cake.

Mr Summers next door looked surprised, but was only too happy to accept the cake, then read the letter out for her (with cake-muffled words). ‘It’s from a solicitor – something about your father?’ ‘My Dad? I don’t even have one! Only seen him once or twice, and the last time was mebbe when I was….six?’ ‘Well that’s what it says – left you summat and you need to go to a house to find out more. If I tell you will you remember?’ ‘Yes, just tell me’. ‘Go to 3 Silent Street, Camden, at 11am on 24 March.’

When she was back at her own kitchen table Maggie tried to make sense of crowded thoughts. ‘Father’ it was a word she had never gotten used to. She saw him two times, and she was so small she remembered his voice and hands better than his face. No, she couldn’t remember his face at all. And now he was dead? She could hardly see how that could affect her. But the letter seemed genuine, it was written with a type writer on very good paper.