After the War is Over

by Maureen Lee

  Next day, neither girl got up until after midday. Grace made tea, and Louise sat up in bed to drink it. She looked a bit dead-eyed, but that was all. ‘I never want to go back to the Green Man,’ she said with a shudder. ‘That chap could come back again any time – he might even be there tonight.’

  ‘If you’ll be all right on your own, I’d like to do my shift tonight, but I’ll give my notice in and we’ll get jobs in another pub in another part of London.’ It was Boxing Day and Grace didn’t like letting Phyllis down, not at such a busy period. She didn’t feel terribly well, but it was probably due to lack of sleep.

  ‘What if Gary comes here? He knows my address, remember.’

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t know what room you’re in. Keep the door locked and I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  Phyllis Goddard’s office was lined with dark wood and hung with elaborate metal shields and swords with jewelled handles that were actually made out of plastic. Although her age was supposedly fifty, she was rumoured to be well into her sixties. Today, she wore a tiger-print jersey dress stretched tightly over her curvaceous bosom.

  She looked up impatiently from behind a beautiful old desk when Grace entered her office, and appeared to be highly annoyed when her barmaid told her she was handing in her notice. ‘What about your friend?’ She was hopeless with names; understandably, as staff left and new people started by the minute.

  ‘Louise was – well Louise was raped last night.’ Quite unexpectedly, Grace burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘It’s really upset me, but Louise was upset enough herself, I couldn’t very well start crying too.’

  To her astonishment, Phyllis got up, opened a cocktail cabinet with marquetry doors, and poured a small whisky.

  ‘Here, drink this,’ she said kindly. ‘And tell me what happened.’

  Grace described Louise’s experience the night before.

  ‘Stupid girl!’ Phyllis snorted. ‘I warned the pair of you about doing anything as silly as that when you started. What got into her?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Grace confessed. ‘Absolutely no idea.’ She’d tried, but couldn’t think of an explanation for Louise’s behaviour.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Phyllis enquired. ‘Didn’t you faint or something last night?’

  Grace nodded. ‘I had stomach ache.’

  ‘Is it better?’

  ‘Not really, but,’ she added hastily, ‘I’m well enough to work my notice out.’

  ‘Well you’re not going to.’ Phyllis removed a tin cash box from the drawer beside her and took out a handful of notes. ‘Here is double pay for this week as promised, but your friend can have her usual wages. I hope for her sake she hasn’t caught something disgusting. As for you, you look as pale as a ghost. I am grateful that you are willing to work while feeling ill – not many people would and I appreciate loyalty – but I’d sooner manage without you. If I were you, I’d see a doctor about that stomach of yours.’ She shook Grace’s hand. ‘Just let me know if you need a reference. And good luck.’

  William supposed that the best way to describe the Christmas spent with his mother and half-brothers was musical. Apart from when everyone was asleep, music in one form or another filled the house every minute of the day, whether it was from the record player, the wireless, the television or played by Quinn and Kevin with himself rattling a tambourine.

  Nell stated quite solemnly that Red would be looking down on them from heaven, tapping his foot or clapping his hands or possibly even playing a sublime fiddle. Her faith was so sure, so rock solid, and so was that of her lads, that William himself almost became convinced that Red was spiritually involved in the proceedings being enacted in his old home on earth.

  ‘He’ll be pleased you came to stay with us for Christmas,’ Nell said with quiet satisfaction.

  William gave her an emotional hug. He wanted to say ‘I love you’, but felt too embarrassed.

  Before returning to London, he felt bound to drop in on his old family in Balliol Road. When he called the day after Boxing Day, the house was deathly quiet. Tom had reopened his surgery after the Christmas break and had been inundated with patients so couldn’t be there; Dorothy and Clare, William’s former sisters, had gone to the pictures in town, and Iris was in the house alone.

  ‘Hello, William.’ Her lips twisted in a tired smile.

  ‘Hello.’ He brushed his cheek against hers; it was the least he could do. He felt overcome with guilt: that he hadn’t stayed at his old home for Christmas, that it was due to him that Louise had gone to live in London, that he was responsible for breaking up his family. But it was them, Iris and Tom, who had betrayed him, he reminded himself. It was Iris and Tom who had torn his life apart, so that he didn’t know if he was coming or going – or who exactly he was – for quite a long time, though he was all right now; well, more or less.

  ‘How is Addy?’ he enquired.

  ‘Poorly,’ Iris said with a shrug. ‘We went to see her yesterday, but she wasn’t up to making anything to eat. Tom thinks she’ll have to go in a home quite soon.’

  William resolved to stay another night and visit his grandmother in the morning. He’d take her flowers, which reminded him that he had presents in his coat pockets for everyone.

  He gave Iris a paperback copy of the latest novel by Margaret Drabble.

  ‘Jerusalem the Golden!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been longing to read this.’ She stroked the front of the book and said to him shyly, ‘Fancy you remembering that Margaret Drabble is my favourite author.’

  ‘I doubt if it’s something I shall ever forget,’ he said with his best smile. After all, she had been his mother for twenty-one years. From another pocket he produced a box of cigars for Tom and fancy pens for Dorothy and Clare.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll love them,’ Iris said when he told her what the small parcels contained. ‘They talk about you all the time, William.’

  When he knocked on the door of Addy’s house, there was no reply. A woman from across the road came and told him that an ambulance had arrived early that morning and taken Mrs Grant away.

  ‘The people next door have been keeping an eye on her,’ she explained. ‘She was unconscious when they went in earlier. They called her doctor and it was him who sent for the ambulance.’

  Addy was dead by the time William arrived at the hospital.

  ‘Old age,’ Tom said gruffly when he and William came face to face. ‘She had a good stout heart, but it just got tired of beating.’

  Uncle Frank was there – ex-Uncle Frank. William had never liked him – not many people did – but he seemed devastated by his mother’s death. They shook hands and he held William close for a few seconds.

  ‘I’ll never understand life,’ he remarked. ‘One morning you wake up and without warning everything has changed. I doubt if I’ll ever get used to not having a mother.’

  ‘I remember Adele Grant,’ Aunt Kath remarked when William returned to London and told her what had happened. ‘She was a really sweet person, ever so kind and quite left-wing without realising it. Are you going to the funeral?’

  ‘If you don’t mind me taking the day off, it’s next Tuesday.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. How could I possibly refuse to let you go to a funeral?’

  ‘I still haven’t finished searching through your old newspapers for articles that might be relevant some time in the future.’ He had developed a complicated filing system so the cuttings could easily be located.

  Maggie and Jack threw a party on New Year’s Eve. ‘Have I ever told you how I met your dad on this day twenty-one years ago?’ Maggie asked her daughters before the party was due to start.

  Holly groaned. ‘You tell us every year, Mum, and at other times too.’

  ‘We’re sick of hearing about it,’ Grace complained. ‘And about the new years you spent in the army.’

  ‘Those memories are very dear to me.’ Maggie flounced out of the room in her red chiffon dress.
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  ‘She looked like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind just then,’ Louise commented. She was still feeling very down and Grace had spent ages persuading her to come to the party. The Soho contingent would be there, as well as Auntie Kath. Her grandad, of whom she was extremely fond, had been staying upstairs in the spare room over Christmas. Oh, and William was expected; she was looking forward to seeing him. It seemed ages since they’d last met.

  Maggie’s house reflected her personality, William thought; the decoration and the furniture all slightly over the top. The walls were full of paintings that seemed to have been chosen for their bright colours rather than their content. Cezanne’s fruit mingled with Van Gogh’s fields and Gauguin’s Tahitian beauties. Wallpaper dazzled, carpets looked too pretty to walk on, photos in a variety of frames stood on every windowsill and shelf. He had never seen such a voluptuously padded three-piece before, its shapeliness emphasised by the oyster satin material that covered it. Everywhere smelled of perfume. He doubted if Jack had had a say in anything. He had a study somewhere that William would like to bet had sober walls and was full of books.

  He went upstairs in search of a lavatory, and on the way back was passing a bedroom when his name was called.

  ‘Louise!’ he said with pleasure when he went in and saw the girl who had been his favourite sister sitting on the bed. Grace was seated in front of the dressing table doing something to her hair. She waved at him in the glass.

  Louise held out her arms and they embraced. She was only eleven months younger than him, and as small children they had shared baths and even the giant pram they’d been pushed around in.

  ‘How are you, William?’ To his surprise, she looked quite tearful. He assured her he was fine. ‘It wasn’t until I saw you that I realised how much I missed you,’ she went on. She clung to his hand and pulled him on to the bed beside her.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked. There were shadows beneath her eyes and she looked quite drawn. ‘Are you looking after yourself, Louise?’ he asked angrily. These days his life consisted of worry after worry. ‘Are you eating properly? Perhaps it’s time you went back to Liverpool.’

  Grace turned round to face them. She didn’t look all that well herself. ‘She’s all right. We worked in this really busy pub over Christmas and we’re both exhausted. We’ve left,’ she assured him hastily. ‘In a few days we’ll look for somewhere new.’

  ‘Perhaps you should give bar work a miss,’ he suggested. ‘It’s not a very healthy atmosphere, all that smoke.’

  ‘Perhaps we should.’ Grace nodded.

  ‘William! There you are,’ Maggie said from the door. ‘My dad’s downstairs. I thought you’d like to meet him.’

  He got up, and she took his hand and squeezed it. ‘He doesn’t know,’ she whispered. ‘He’ll never know that he’s your dad too.’

  Paddy O’Neill looked young and old; young from a distance, relatively unwrinkled, a full head of iron-grey hair, but close up his watery eyes and rather vague expression were indicative of a genuinely old man.

  ‘This is William, Dad, he works for Auntie Kath,’ Maggie said. She pushed William forward, and he and his father touched for the first and only time in their lives. The older man’s grip was limp, without any pressure.

  ‘How d’you do, William,’ he said warmly. Auntie Kath had said that Paddy was getting too old to be her agent, but he’d have to leave of his own volition; she had no intention of sacking him.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you.’

  Auntie Kath approached. ‘Will is the best researcher in the House of Commons, Paddy,’ she said in a loud voice – she appeared to be incapable of talking in a quiet one.

  William managed to escape from the party an hour before the clock struck midnight and 1969 was upon them. He felt very emotional, what with Addy’s death and the funeral to come the day after tomorrow, Louise looking so unhappy, and encountering his father for the first time.

  He travelled to his flat in Lambeth on the Underground and reached it just in time to hear Big Ben toll in the new year, not on the wireless or television as he had done before, but from across the river, where it could be heard quite clearly. Cheers followed from all directions, fireworks burst into the sky. Unfortunately, William had no alcohol on the premises. He made a mug of tea and held it aloft.

  ‘Happy New Year,’ he said to the empty room.

  Addy’s funeral was a sad, dignified affair with an air of inevitability about it. Unlike Red Finnegan, she hadn’t been a young person who’d had her life taken away years too soon. She’d lived happily for more than eight decades; had married a doctor and raised two doctor sons; been greatly loved as a mother and a grandmother. She died because her time had come. Iris said it would have been impossible to have had a more perfect mother-in-law.

  Nell attended the funeral. She buried her head in her hands and didn’t speak to anyone. It wasn’t all that long since she’d buried her husband.

  When it was over, William wasn’t sure whether to leave with Nell, or go back to Balliol Road for refreshments. In the end, he left alone and caught the train back to London.

  Grace collapsed on Tottenham Court Road underground station and was taken to the nearest hospital by ambulance.

  She had arranged to meet her mother for lunch in a nearby restaurant. Maggie waited for ages before going home in disgust, calling her daughter all the names under the sun on the way, at the same time feeling just slightly worried. At home, the telephone was ringing and she answered to discover that the Middlesex Hospital had been trying to get in touch for ages. Grace’s appendix had burst and she was about to have it out.

  After calling Jack, Maggie rushed to the hospital. Grace’s bothersome appendix had been removed and she was lying smiling in bed, glad it was all over and apologising for letting her mother down.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, luv. As soon as you’re better, I’ll treat you to lunch somewhere dead posh.’ Maggie regretted having called her daughter so many names, even if they had been inside her head. She might have known that Grace would never miss an appointment if it wasn’t an emergency.

  Grace came home from hospital several days later with a hideous scar on the right side of her stomach.

  ‘I’ll never be able to wear a bikini,’ she complained bitterly to her mother.

  ‘It’ll soon fade,’ Maggie said complacently.

  ‘It won’t fade altogether, Mum. In fact, I might not be able to get married.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a silly girl, Grace.’ Maggie had already forgotten the silent vow she’d made to treat her daughter with saintly patience from now on. ‘In future, only go out with chaps who’ve had their appendix out, and you’ll both have scars to match.’

  A week later, the two girls started work in Selfridges’ restaurant in Oxford Street. The pay was slightly better than in the Green Man, but the tips were not nearly as good. The hours were much better, though, as they worked during the day and had the evenings free to sample clubs, see films and window-shop in the West End, dropping in somewhere beatniky or terribly avant-garde for a coffee afterwards.

  This agreeable new life had only existed for four weeks, and they were staring at a mouth-watering display of glamorous evening dresses in Liberty’s window when Louise said, ‘I’ve just thought of something: I haven’t had the curse for ages.’

  ‘But you’re often late,’ Grace pointed out.

  ‘I know that, but I’m never so late that I miss a period altogether. I should have started one about mid-January; now it’s mid-February.’ She looked at Grace, the words hanging in the air between them.

  ‘Oh, Louise,’ Grace said weakly. ‘What on earth are we going to do now?’

  Louise was positive she wouldn’t have an abortion. ‘There’s a living, breathing thing, a little baby, lying all curled up in my womb waiting to be born. I couldn’t possibly kill it.’

  Grace, a Catholic, couldn’t have agreed more. ‘Would your mother look after it?’ she wondered alou
d.

  ‘She might, but she’s just gone back to work, hasn’t she, after raising four children. Anyroad, how do I explain what happened? They’ll want to know who the father is.’

  ‘You know who the father is.’

  ‘Yes, a man I’d met a couple of hours before in a bar, a man who raped me and I haven’t seen since.’ Louise aimed a kick at Liberty’s wall. ‘Sometimes I feel really disgusted with myself. Oh, and I don’t want it adopted, either. It’s my baby and I shall keep it.’ She beamed at her friend. ‘On reflection, I shall have it and I don’t care what anyone thinks or says.’

  The weeks passed. Louise was aware of her waist thickening, but otherwise felt perfectly well. ‘It’s going to be an easy pregnancy,’ she announced one day. ‘I hope it’s an easy birth.’

  Grace didn’t answer, mainly because she couldn’t think of anything to say. It was Sunday afternoon and she was darning tights when the front doorbell rang. She jumped slightly, piercing her finger, when someone knocked loudly on the room door and shouted that they had a visitor. ‘He’s rather gorgeous, actually,’ the someone, a girl who lived downstairs, said.

  Louise got to her feet and offered to see who it was. Grace assumed it must be a stranger; friends and relatives knew to give one long ring and two short ones on the bell. She grew more and more surprised after quite a long time had elapsed and Louise hadn’t come back. Laying down the tights, she went over to the window and looked out.

  Afterwards, she was never sure why she wasn’t surprised to see her friend standing by the front door in earnest conversation with the young man she’d met in the Green Man on Christmas Day, the man who had allegedly raped her, who she wasn’t beating with both fists and screaming insults at, but speaking to in a perfectly friendly manner. Or slightly more than friendly, the way she had her hand on his arm and the way they were looking at each other so passionately.

  Grace picked up her handbag and sped out of the house.

  ‘Grace!’ Louise tried and failed to grab her friend as she rushed blindly past.