After the War is Over

by Maureen Lee

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Iris said emotionally. At least Louise would have company for another few weeks, or however long Grace intended staying.

  ‘It doesn’t seem so bad leaving her and George behind when Grace is there, does it?’ she said to Tom that afternoon in the taxi.

  ‘No.’ Tom sniffed and looked quite tearful. ‘Monica didn’t look all that pleased to see her; Grace, that is.’ Monica had deigned to come back to say goodbye to the visitors and found Grace there.

  ‘Grace won’t care,’ Iris said tersely. ‘As for Monica, she can go and jump in the lake.’

  It was late. Everyone in the house was asleep apart from Louise. Beside her, Gary lay as still as a log, breathing evenly. He rarely woke during the night. Louise slid carefully out of bed, as she did every night, and crept along the corridor to the nursery. She opened the door and went in. It terrified her every time she looked at her baby asleep in his crib. He was so still and white and she was fearful that he had died, all alone and motherless.

  She pulled a chair up to the crib and sat beside it, holding her son’s tiny hand, whispering a lullaby. ‘Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop, When the wind blows, the cradle will rock . . .’

  She stayed for half an hour, then kissed his cheek, sighed, and left the room. But instead of returning to her own bed to lie beside Gary, she went up a flight of stairs to a room next to the one where her mum and dad had slept. Knocking softly on the door, she went in.

  ‘Grace,’ she said in a low voice.

  Her friend woke up instantly. ‘What’s wrong? Are you all right?’

  ‘No,’ Louise said hoarsely. ‘I am not all right. I’m desperately unhappy, more than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Oh Grace, you’ve got to help me get out of here before I go stark raving mad.’

  Chapter 18

  It wasn’t until she was on the crowded train into town that Nell had time to open the letter with the London postmark that had come that morning.

  It was a cutting from an American show-business magazine attached to a compliment slip from Jack Kaminski with a message in Jack’s incredibly neat writing.

  Thought you might find this interesting, Nell. I wonder if this is the one with Red’s song and they’ve changed the title from Lost in Paradise?

  The interesting bit had been circled in red and it announced that the film company Cerulean Productions would shortly commence work on a movie called Raining Flowers, starring one-time matinee idol Hugo Swann and newcomer Naomi Vaughan. The company hadn’t revealed any more details.

  Nell’s lips curled into a delighted smile. She’d always loved Hugo Swann. Putting aside Red coming back to life, she couldn’t think of anything more wonderful to look forward to than a picture starring one of her favourite film stars and featuring her beloved husband’s music.

  In London, Maggie Kaminski faced the morning with a vinegary smile. The night before, their elder daughter Holly had informed her mother and father that she was getting married at Easter next year to Dennis Walker.

  ‘But we don’t want a big fuss,’ she said in the hoity-toity voice she used sometimes. ‘What Dennis and I would prefer is that instead of spending loads of money on the wedding, you give it to us for a deposit on a house.’

  ‘And how much are Dennis’s parents coughing up towards this house?’ Maggie had demanded in the hoity-toity voice she sometimes used herself. She didn’t like Dennis, or his family. They were ordinary people who’d made loads of money with a couple of cheap furniture shops and had lost touch with their roots. Maggie was working class and proud of it.

  ‘It’s the bride’s family who traditionally pay for the wedding reception and stuff,’ Holly informed her.

  ‘But not for the house. That is considered the job of the husband, who earns the money by going to work.’

  Maggie half listened to Holly’s reply and decided she couldn’t be bothered arguing further. Later, she went to bed and read until Jack came up. ‘What she doesn’t seem to realise,’ she said at once, ‘is that I want a big do, even if she doesn’t. I want her to have a posh dress and posh cars and millions of flowers. I want a slap-up sit-down meal at the reception with loads of guests. What do we do, Jack, show them a photo of the bloody house instead? I suppose we could have a house-shaped cake.’

  ‘What we can do, darling,’ Jack said patiently, ‘is have a posh do with all the trimmings for you, and give Holly money as well. We can afford it, don’t worry.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem right.’ Maggie smouldered. ‘I’ll only agree to give her money if Dennis’s mum and dad put up a similar amount. I don’t want those horrible people sponging off us.’

  She was still smouldering the following morning. It didn’t help when a letter with an airmail sticker dropped on to the mat. It had been written three days ago by her other daughter, Grace, who had arrived in Boston.

  Louise has had a gorgeous little boy called George, she wrote. But she also has this absolutely monstrous mother-in-law. She went on to describe the beautiful house, finishing, Mr and Mrs Grant were there when I arrived, but flew home the same day.

  ‘Children!’ Maggie spluttered to her own empty house. Poor Iris, having her daughter and first grandchild living thousands of miles away. In fact, she’d give Iris a call, sympathise with her. She recalled having resolved never to speak to Iris again after learning what had happened with Nell and William. There and then she decided to forgive her. Anyroad, she’d gone to Louise’s wedding and she and Iris had spoken to each other normally then. It was a long, long time since William had been born, more than twenty-two years.

  Another thing, Maggie was fast running out of friends to chat to, either in person or on the telephone. The members of the ex-servicewomen’s club had moved away or just lost touch. Same with the Soho contingent, the younger ones having moved out to the suburbs or even further afield. Nell was at work, Rosie, her sister-in-law, was also working. And she may as well not have a sister for all she saw of Bridie.

  Maggie dialled Iris’s number and sat on the stairs prepared for a long jangle. There was no reply, and she recalled that it was Friday, one of the days Iris worked in Owen Owen’s. It reminded her that she still hadn’t found a job herself. Life would be considerably less boring if she had somewhere to go a few times a week. She decided to ring Auntie Kath and suggest they have lunch, and telephone Iris on Monday.

  William answered. ‘She’s at a committee meeting,’ he said. He seemed extremely fed up.

  ‘Are you free for lunch,’ Maggie enquired. He was, after all, her half-brother, and it was time they became better acquainted.

  ‘Why not?’ he said tiredly. ‘Where shall we meet?’

  She recalled the hotel not far from Westminster where Jack had taken her the magic night he’d proposed. They’d just come away from seeing Auntie Kath. ‘What about the Meredith?’

  ‘Isn’t that very expensive?’ William sounded alarmed.

  ‘My treat,’ Maggie said. ‘Anyroad, it would hardly be fair to invite you to lunch and expect you to pay, would it?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t.’

  It turned out that William was genuinely fed up. Auntie Kath hadn’t exactly sacked him, but she had suggested he find another job. ‘She said it was for my own good, as it was time I got a proper job with a proper wage.’

  ‘Is she right?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Well, yes,’ William said gloomily. ‘I’ve worked as a researcher for Kath for a year and it will look good on my CV, but it wouldn’t do to stay too long or it will start to look bad, show I have no ambition, no “get up and go”, as she put it. Trouble is, I have neither of those things.’ He sighed deeply. ‘If it were up to me, I’d stay with Kath until I retired. But the pay’s lousy. My gran – the person I’d always thought was my gran – left me a bit of money when she died last year, but it won’t last for ever, will it?’

  ‘No,’ Maggie agreed. She studied his handsome features. He had the O’Neills’ good looks and Nell’s lovely brow
n eyes. She felt as if she were seeing him properly for the first time, that it was only now she truly appreciated how lost he must feel; one minute the much-loved son of a close family with three sisters, then all of a sudden entirely on his own. She’d heard from Grace that he rarely went home to Bootle. He had no father to ask advice from about his future. Nell must love him, but she already had Quinn and Kev and their futures to think of.

  The waiter arrived with the starters. ‘You must come to dinner one night soon,’ she told William. Jack would be only too willing to advise him about his career. Just discussing things with someone else might help him make up his mind. ‘Oh, and I had a letter from Grace this morning. She’s in Boston. Did you know Louise has had her baby, a little boy called George?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ He brightened up slightly. ‘Will you let me have the address in Boston and I’ll send a card. And something for the baby. Louise was always my favourite sister,’ he said wistfully. ‘I miss her.’

  Maggie put her hand over his. ‘I’m sure she’d love to hear from you. And although she’s no longer your sister, you don’t love her any less, do you?’

  William looked thoughtful. ‘I’ve probably really hurt her. And Dorothy and Clare. They don’t know about this other stuff, do they? I mean about me being adopted. They must think it’s a case of . . . how do you put it?’

  ‘Out of sight, out of mind?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Yet I think about them all the time.’

  ‘Then write to Louise and go and see Dorothy and Clare.’ Iris and Tom would be thrilled to see him too. Crikey, she thought, life wasn’t half complicated.

  Iris left Owen Owen’s through the staff door only minutes after the shop had closed. She hurried around the corner and met Matthew outside the Cups, a small pub in Williamson Square. Tall and devastatingly attractive, he was moving impatiently from one foot to the other. He picked her up and kissed her hard and greedily before they went inside, where he ordered her a gin and lime and a whisky for himself. They sat in a corner, just looking at each other and holding hands. It was the first time they’d met since she and Tom had returned from Boston. It was now seventeen days since they’d seen each other.

  ‘How are your daughter and her baby?’ he asked. Iris could tell he was only being polite, that he really wanted to tell her how much he’d missed her and hear her say the same to him.

  She told him about Louise and George, about the house on Beacon Hill, and Monica Dixon. ‘She’s a dreadful woman,’ she said. ‘Of course, now Tom and I are really worried about our daughter.’

  She’d forgotten he didn’t like her mentioning Tom. A few times he’d tried to talk her into getting a divorce so that they could get married, but she’d refused to discuss it. She had no intention of breaking up her family.

  ‘I missed you terribly,’ he said huskily. He put his finger beneath her chin and raised her face so they could kiss.

  ‘And I missed you,’ she assured him. She was longing for them to make love. Some nights they didn’t bother having a drink, going straight to the hotel instead because they couldn’t wait to be in bed together. This seemed to be one of those nights.

  ‘I thought about you all the time,’ he whispered. ‘It was strange, but I kept thinking of when we were in the army and we made love in the back of your car. It was the best I’d ever known, far better than with my wife.’ He frowned slightly and said almost petulantly, ‘You had quite a reputation. I suppose I was just one in a long line of lovers.’

  ‘You are the only one I remember,’ she said. It wasn’t strictly true, but he’d been the best. She decided to tell him the truth, why she’d allowed so many men to make love to her. ‘Before I joined up, I lost a baby. Tom and I tried, but I never had another. That’s why I slept around, as it’s called. I was trying to get pregnant.’

  He thought about this for a while, before saying, ‘But you eventually did?’

  ‘William, our eldest, is adopted. By then, the war was over and Tom and I managed to have three daughters of our own.’

  ‘I see.’ He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, running his hand through her hair. ‘You are a remarkable woman, Iris Grant, and I can’t wait to make love to you. I have booked us a room in The Temple hotel by the Town Hall. I suggest we leave this very minute and get a taxi there.’

  Iris finished her drink in a single swallow. She couldn’t wait either.

  His car, the blue Jaguar, had been left in St John’s car park. They strolled towards it after leaving the hotel at ten, exhausted from lovemaking, but deliriously happy too. He drove her home and dropped her at the top of Balliol Road. Neither said much on the way. Iris rested her head on his shoulder. She was already thinking about tomorrow, Saturday, when the same pattern would be repeated. She told him she preferred them not to waste time by going to the pub first.

  Matthew said he couldn’t agree more. He would reserve a room at the Temple and meet her there instead. ‘I shall have a bottle of champagne on ice waiting for you.’

  She went into the house expecting it to be completely quiet – Dorothy had gone to her friend Rachel’s house with the intention of staying the night, and Clare to the hen party of a girl she worked with who was getting married tomorrow. She wasn’t expected home until late. But Iris could hear Dorothy’s distressed voice coming from the living room followed by Tom’s quiet one.

  Dorothy, it appeared, had arrived at Rachel’s only to find she had started her period a day early. She usually had very heavy periods. Neither she nor Rachel had a sanitary towel, all the chemists were closed, and as Rachel lived quite close, she returned home for a towel.

  ‘But then she fainted,’ Tom said, ‘in the bathroom, and banged her head on the rim of the bath. When she came to, she managed to crawl downstairs and ring me. She’s hurt her knee really badly too.’

  ‘I’m going to have a horrible bruise, Mum.’ Dorothy touched the pink swelling above her right eye. She was lying on the settee with Tom sitting beside her. Her knee was heavily bandaged. The room reeked of disinfectant. ‘I thought you’d be in,’ she said accusingly to her mother. ‘Where on earth were you?’

  ‘I’ve been to the theatre with Blanche,’ Iris lied. She’d become best friends with Blanche Woods, or so she told her girls, to explain away the time she spent with Matthew. She and Blanche often visited the theatre together or went for a meal after work. Her children had grown up aware that their parents didn’t live together, but she knew they would be upset if they discovered she was going out with another man. Tom was always there when they needed him. He no longer showed a preference for William over his daughters.

  ‘I’ll make a hot drink.’ Minutes later, she returned with three cups of tea. She gave one to her daughter. ‘There’s two heaped spoons of sugar in there. It should make you feel better.’

  ‘I’m worried she’s anaemic,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll give her a blood test next week.’

  ‘I won’t go to work tomorrow.’ Iris didn’t like letting people down, but Dorothy couldn’t be left on her own all day in the state she was in, and Clare would be going to the wedding.

  ‘I haven’t got surgery in the morning. I’ll look after her.’

  ‘It’s all right, Tom.’

  ‘There’s no need to fight over me.’ Dorothy chuckled. For all her injuries, she seemed in a very good mood. She was the most easy-going of the Grants’ daughters. Louise was oversensitive, Clare demanding, but Dorothy had always been very laid-back. Perhaps, just now, she was enjoying being made a fuss of. ‘I’ll manage on my own.’

  Tom said she’d do no such thing. ‘You might have difficulty walking when you get up. No, your mother will go to work and I’ll come and read you some of those super Enid Blyton books you had when you were little. I’ve noticed they’re still around. I really miss those books. I think I enjoyed them more than you girls did.’

  Early next morning, Iris telephoned Matthew at home to say she couldn’t meet him that night. Sarah Holmes, his hou
sekeeper, answered. ‘He’s gone to Chester for the day.’ It appeared there was to be an auction of old cars at the home of Lord Something-or-other.

  ‘Will you please tell him Mrs Grant won’t be able to meet him as arranged and I’ll telephone on Sunday?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Grant, I’ll do that.’

  At work, Iris found herself far more worried about her daughter than she was about missing her date with Matthew. Why had she fainted? It was worrying. Even in the army, living among hundreds of women, she’d never known one to faint because of a period. Feel faint, yes, but not drop unconscious to the floor. Hopefully it was just anaemia as Tom had suspected, and all their daughter needed was a course of iron tablets.

  Even travelling home on the train rather than catching a taxi down to the Temple where Matthew would have been waiting with a bottle of champagne, she found she wasn’t exactly bothered. In fact, she would sooner see Dorothy than her handsome, passionate lover. She couldn’t love him as much as she’d thought, she concluded. Or it was a case of loving him with her body, whereas Dorothy she loved with all her heart and soul, as she did all her children.

  Her daughter looked pale when she went in, but still managed to sound cheerful. Tom was in the kitchen making tea.

  ‘Did your father seriously read you the Enid Blyton books?’ Iris enquired.

  ‘He read all three of the Faraway Trees and both Wishing Chairs,’ Dorothy confirmed, ‘and some Mr Meddles.’

  ‘Silly idiots, the pair of you,’ Iris said fondly.

  Tom came in with drinks. ‘We had a lovely time,’ he commented. ‘Very nostalgic.’ He glanced at her. ‘Are you going out tonight?’

  ‘Of course not. I wouldn’t dream of going out again and leaving Dorothy. What about you? Are you and Frank going for a drink?’ He sometimes went to the pub at weekends with his brother.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of leaving Dorothy either. I suggest we ring that rather nice Indian restaurant in Stanley Road and order a takeaway, then sprawl on the settee and watch television. It’s a very unhealthy way of spending the evening, but it won’t hurt for once.’