After the War is Over

by Maureen Lee

  Over the next seven days, Iris never forgot for a single minute about the parcel. A few times, when Tom was out, she went into the outhouse to check it was still there, though there was hardly a chance on earth that it would have been taken.

  The following Friday she set off to do the weekly shopping with William and Louise in the pram and the parcel tucked at the foot. It dawned on her that Alfred Desmond must have known about her movements to have been waiting outside the Friday before and to have known that she would be there at the same time this week. She shivered, hating the idea of being spied on by such an odious creature. She resolved to change her shopping habits from now on and go at different times each week.

  She bought the groceries, went outside and looked for the man she was beginning to think of as her tormentor. There was no sign of him. William was kicking the pram with his heels and had woken Louise, who smiled when Iris looked down at her.

  ‘Poor darling, did your horrible big brother spoil your beauty sleep?’ She reached inside and sat her daughter up against the pillow.

  ‘What a lovely family you have,’ a passing woman remarked.

  ‘Why, thank you.’ She enjoyed the moment, but sighed when she realised that Alfred Desmond wasn’t coming. He had said it might be two weeks until he would want the parcel back. She released the brake on the pram and went home.

  She suffered another week of worry. Her nerves were on edge, half expecting the police to turn up and search the house, having heard there were stolen goods on the premises – or money. If money, it might be counterfeit. She imagined Alfred Desmond denying all knowledge of the parcel. Her heart almost leapt out of her body when she imagined him having known all along that William was the grandson that Tom and Iris had virtually stolen from his daughter. Blackmail or revenge of some sort might well be on the cards in the future.

  To her relief, when she emerged from the Maypole the following Friday, he was outside talking to William.

  ‘Got it safe, kiddo?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ Iris said through gritted teeth. Kiddo! She took the Henderson’s bag out of the pram, gave it to him, and released the brake. She was about to hurry away, when he caught the pram handle.

  ‘Half a mo,’ he said. He removed the parcel from the bag and tore the paper off. William helpfully joined in. ‘Here you are, little man.’ William accepted the contents, a fluffy black and white panda, with delight. ‘His name’s Percy,’ Alfred Desmond said. ‘Percy Panda.’

  ‘Percy!’ William hugged the toy to his chest. ‘Panda.’

  ‘What was that all about?’ Iris was enraged. ‘You’ve had me terrified for the last two weeks, yet there was no need for it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Just didn’t want to let a favour go to waste. If I’d left it any longer, it would’ve been too late to ask.’

  ‘I would have been quite happy to do a normal favour for you.’ She pushed the pram, but he was still holding the handle and walked along beside her.

  He shrugged again. ‘Couldn’t think of one. Anyroad, it won’t have hurt to keep you on your toes for a while. By the way, I thought you’d like to know, our Nellie’s business is thriving; I think that’s the word, thriving. Crown Caterers, it’s called.’

  ‘I know. My mother-in-law and some of her friends use her.’

  ‘She’s courting too, our Nellie. Nice chap, Red Finnegan, as Irish as they come. He’s in show business,’ he said proudly. ‘Known as Flynn and Finnegan. He plays the fiddle like a dream, even writes his own music. You can buy it on records in Rushworth and Draper. They’re getting wed come summer.’

  ‘Really!’ Iris was conscious of the longing in her voice. Oh, how she would love to listen to Nell talk about the man she intended to marry. She was glad Nell had a chap of her own, and hoped everything would go well for her in the future.

  On the second Tuesday in May, a day that began with drizzly rain but turned into one ablaze with glorious sunshine, Maggie came to Liverpool for her friend Nell’s wedding. It was a wrench leaving her girls behind, but Holly was only one and a half and Grace seven months, and she couldn’t face the ordeal of taking them on the train, or, even worse, in the car – she’d passed her driving test the previous year.

  ‘If I catch an early train there and a late one back, I can do it in a single day,’ she said to Jack, who had promised to take the day off to look after their precious daughters.

  She arrived at Lime Street station at eleven o’clock, caught the electric train to Bootle, then made her way to the O’Neills’ house in Coral Street, where Rosie let her in and together they admired Rosie and Ryan’s new baby, Peter, who had been born three months before.

  ‘He’s massive,’ Maggie said. ‘My girls are so small, yet it hurt so much when they were born. I’ve decided not to have any more.’

  Rosie said she’d quite like another two. ‘But it means finding a bigger house. As it is, we’re all a bit squashed. Ryan’s actually thinking of buying one.’

  ‘We bought our house in London. Imagine what me mam’d think if she were alive and she knew me and Jack and you and our Ryan were buying our own houses!’

  ‘D’you think your dad and Bridie would be all right on their own?’ Rosie asked anxiously. ‘If he preferred, we’d take Bridie with us. She feels like our little girl as it is. I’d be upset at leaving her behind.’

  ‘I should be offering to do something like that.’ Maggie felt ashamed that she saw so little of her small sister, who was now eight. ‘But I get the impression she far prefers you to me. I bet the last thing she wants is to come and live with us in London. It’d upset her if I asked. She probably thinks of you as her mam, Rosie.’ She scratched Tinker underneath his soft, furry chin. ‘I expect Tinker thinks the same.’

  ‘Whatever Bridie thinks, she’s coming home from school in her dinner hour specially to see you,’ Rosie said. ‘If I were you, I’d get changed now so she can see you in your new outfit.’

  The new outfit came from Selfridges in Oxford Street and had cost an arm and a leg: a shell-pink two-piece in a mixture of silk and linen. The top had pearl buttons and a frilly collar and cuffs over a straight skirt. The hat to match was a little white bonnet with a pink flower on the side.

  ‘You look lovely, Auntie Maggie,’ Bridie said when she came home. She kissed Maggie shyly. She looked lovely herself in her blue school frock, her dark hair tucked behind a blue ribbon. She was the image of their mother.

  ‘I’m not your auntie, sweetheart, I’m your sister.’

  ‘I know that really, but somehow I always think of you as me auntie.’ The little girl blushed.

  ‘Haven’t you grown tall? I’m sure you must come nearly up to me shoulder.’ Maggie was upset at being called auntie. She suggested that Bridie come to stay with the Kaminskis in London during the summer holiday. Perhaps it was time they got to know each other better.

  Bridie looked a bit dismayed at this and didn’t reply. Rosie said to wait and see how she felt about it once the holidays had started.

  She managed to get to St James’s church just before the bride arrived. Mrs Desmond wore a stiff net cartwheel hat in a lovely purple colour. Maggie could only assume it was part of a collection that had fallen off the back of a lorry, as Nell’s sisters wore the same style of hat but in different colours. Their husbands and their various children were also there. The only relative absent was Nell’s sister Theresa, who was working as a stewardess on the Queen Elizabeth, sailing to and from New York. On the groom’s side of the church the guests included a woman who was already crying copiously and three couples, all young, who turned out to be the groom’s friends.

  It was really lovely to see Nell come walking up the aisle on her dad’s arm, looking so radiantly happy. She wore a simple white knee-length frock and a circle of white flowers in her hair. Alfred Desmond appeared to be wearing an evening suit with a Paisley bow tie.

  And Red, who Maggie had never seen before and who she thought looked a little bit like a red-haired monkey
, had a truly charming smile that nearly split his face in two when Nell joined him in front of the altar. His best man, Eamon Flynn, was tall and handsome in an offbeat sort of way – beanpole-thin with a tangle of black hair. The crying woman wept more and more loudly throughout the ceremony.

  In no time at all, the couple were pronounced man and wife, by which time the woman’s cries filled the church. Photographs were taken in the grounds, and the small party walked as far as the Bootle Arms in Marsh Lane, where the reception was being held in a room upstairs.

  Maggie had hoped to see Iris in the church with all the other people at the back, mainly women, who’d come to watch. Iris was on the point of having her third baby. Although Maggie knew that years ago she and Nell had had a falling-out, a wedding seemed the ideal opportunity to mend things. But there’d been no sign of her in the church or outside. She resolved to do her best to call on Iris later, before she left Liverpool for London.

  At the reception, Nell introduced Maggie to Red as ‘my very, very best friend in the world’.

  ‘Pleased to meet’cha, Maggie,’ Red said, kissing her extravagantly on both cheeks. ‘Any friend of Nell’s is a friend of mine for life.’ He introduced her to his best man.

  ‘How d’you do?’ Eamon Flynn shook her hand so hard it hurt. ‘Are you aware, Maggie, that in Ireland we have this custom at weddings where the best man chooses any woman he fancies from the guests and she’s obliged to spend the night with him?’

  Maggie giggled. ‘I wasn’t aware of that, no.’

  ‘Ignorance is no excuse,’ he said severely. ‘It’s a custom approved of by the Pope himself. If a woman doesn’t comply, she has to say five hundred Hail Marys once a day for the rest of her life.’

  ‘Then I’m just going to have to say the Hail Marys, I’m afraid, seeing as how I’m a married woman with two children and me husband wouldn’t approve. I’ll start saying them on the way home on the train, though it won’t be as interesting as reading a book.’

  Eamon pretended to look as dejected as sin. ‘Are you allowed to dance with me?’ There was a piano in the corner of the room, and one of the guests was playing a selection of Irish songs. A few people had already started to dance.

  ‘Indeed I am.’ Maggie couldn’t wait. She loved Jack to distraction, but couldn’t see any harm in dancing a jig or two with a dashing musician with black curls and dark, sexy eyes.

  ‘Before he whisks you away, Maggie, let me introduce you to me ma. She’s the one who made a show of herself by sobbing her heart out in the church. Ma,’ Red said fondly, putting his arm around his mother’s shoulders, ‘this is Maggie. Maggie, meet me ma, Eithne Finnegan, who came all the way over from Ireland to witness the last of her bairns get married.’

  Eithne had once been pretty, but her worn, sad face showed evidence of having led a hard life back in Ireland. She started to cry again. ‘Oh, it’s lovely to meet you Maggie, darlin’. Isn’t it a wonderful day for a wedding? Now I can die in peace knowing me baby boy is happily wedded to a good Catholic woman.’

  ‘She wanted me to be a priest.’ Red rolled his eyes, and Maggie, who felt embarrassed, was glad to be whisked away by Eamon, who flirted with her outrageously the entire afternoon. When it began to approach four o’clock, she made her excuses, saying she had to go home. She hadn’t forgotten she wanted to see Iris before she caught the six o’clock train.

  She was saying ta-ra to Nell when the door was flung open and a voice screamed, ‘So you thought you’d get away from me, did ya, you fuckin’ bitch? Well I followed you, and here I am, at me own son’s wedding where I’ve every right to be.’

  A man, middle-aged, grey-haired and unshaven, had burst into the room. He wore a collarless shirt and a shabby navy suit. His wild eyes scanned the room until they lighted upon Eithne Finnegan. Before he could be stopped, he grabbed the woman by her hair, threw her to the floor and kicked her.

  As quick as a flash, Red jumped over the table with the refreshments on and leapt upon his father, punching him so hard that he bounced off the wall.

  ‘You bastard!’ he roared. ‘Can’t she get away from you not even for a single day?’ He was thumping the man with both fists, while Eamon tried to separate them.

  In the end it was Alfred Desmond who lifted up the intruder and dragged him outside. He came back about ten minutes later to say he’d rung the bobbies from the telephone downstairs and they’d taken the bugger away.

  Mrs Desmond, still wearing her wondrous cartwheel hat, offered to put Eithne up until Red and Nell returned from their honeymoon and sorted matters out. Eithne was bawling her head off while Nell bathed a bruise on her chin.

  Maggie made her goodbyes, assuming that the reception was over, but she was going downstairs when the piano started again, someone began to sing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and the guests joined in.

  ‘Everyone’s having babies,’ Maggie remarked when Iris opened the door preceded by her enormous stomach. Sometimes she felt quite willing to put up with the pain again, but Jack refused to countenance the idea of another child. ‘I couldn’t stand it, even if you could, my dear Maggie,’ he would say. ‘When exactly is yours due?’ she asked Iris.

  ‘A week on Wednesday.’ Iris’s face had lit up at the sight of her visitor. ‘Oh, it’s lovely to see you, Maggie. What a beautiful costume. Have you been to Nell’s wedding?’

  ‘Yes. It went very well.’ Out of loyalty to Nell, she didn’t mention the fight. ‘I thought you might have come at least to watch.’

  ‘I really didn’t feel up to it.’

  Maggie could tell from her tone of voice that she was lying. ‘I find it hard to believe that you and Nell are no longer friends,’ she said irritably. She longed to know the reason for it. In the hope of receiving an explanation, she pressed on. ‘You two became such good friends that I felt quite jealous.’

  ‘We just didn’t seem to get along when we were in Wales,’ was all Iris said, which was more or less what Nell had said when Maggie had tried to get an explanation out of her.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Maggie noticed that Iris actually didn’t look at all well, that her face was terribly pale. They’d been standing in the hallway all this time. Overcome with contrition, Maggie insisted on making the tea when it was offered. In the kitchen, she made Iris sit down while she put the kettle on and took the cups and saucers out of the cupboard where she remembered they were kept.

  ‘Where are William and Louise?’ she enquired. Iris already looked better just from sitting down.

  ‘Tom’s taken them for a walk so that I can have a rest.’

  Maggie felt even more contrite. ‘I hope he manages to get back before I leave; I’m catching the six o’clock train from Lime Street,’ she explained, ‘and I have to collect me suitcase from me dad’s house on the way.’

  ‘If Tom does get back soon, he’ll take you in the car,’ Iris said kindly. ‘Save you having to rush.’

  ‘That’s awful nice of you.’ Maggie felt close to tears. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never gone to London all those years ago,’ she said quietly. ‘I wish I still lived in Liverpool and could see you and Nell every day – well, nearly every day.’ She would have done something to make sure they were all friends again, the three of them, just as they’d been in their army days.

  ‘If you’d stayed in Liverpool, you wouldn’t have met Jack,’ Iris said, pointing out the obvious. ‘You might have other children by now, but not your two little girls. Life would have been very different.’

  Maggie was forced to acknowledge the truth of this. Iris asked about Rosie’s baby and Maggie described her new nephew, and said that Rosie and Ryan were thinking about buying a bigger house as Rosie wanted more children.

  Iris nodded and said she and Tom were thinking the same. ‘This house is huge, the second floor is hardly ever used except for storage, but we have no garden and I do think children need a garden to play in.’

  ‘We never had a garden to play in when we were grow
ing up. Me and Nell – all the kids – played out in the street. We made swings on the lamp posts, played hopscotch on the pavement, and the lads drew goalposts and cricket stumps on the walls, but have you noticed the number of cars around these days?’ Maggie went on indignantly. ‘There were at least three parked in Coral Street earlier. It’s no longer safe for kids to play in the street.’

  They discussed the problem of ever-increasing traffic until Tom came back with the children. He was only too pleased to take Maggie to the station, after collecting her suitcase first.

  Maggie felt the sort of sadness that was almost an ache after she had got on the train and found a seat. She did miss Liverpool, her friends, her relatives – she really should see more of Bridie. Sometimes she almost forgot she had a sister. Oh, and she missed Nell, always had. And she was worried about Iris, who looked so miserable yet should be excited at the thought of having her baby in a matter of days. Tom hadn’t been quite himself either, a bit quiet really, not quite as friendly as she remembered.

  But as the train passed through Crewe, then Stafford, followed by Birmingham, her spirits began to rise. She imagined Jack putting the girls to bed – he would sing to them, Polish lullabies, holding both of them in his arms, rocking them to and fro. She suddenly felt as if it was days, weeks since she’d last seen her family, yet it was only early that morning. And tonight she would go to bed and lie in Jack’s arms, they would make love, and it would be wonderful.

  At Euston station she saw Drugi waiting on the far side of the barrier, as Jack had promised he would, to drive her home. Home! The very thought of it made her smile.

  She hurried towards the exit, Liverpool forgotten. It wasn’t until she woke up the following morning that she remembered where she’d been the day before and proceeded to tell Jack all about it.

  Chapter 12