After the War is Over Read online

  She wasn’t used to quiet after the noisy life on the base. She put on her coat and walked around to Coral Street. For nearly six years a blackout had been in force, with everyone obliged to close their curtains so that not even a chink of light showed. Now, like a sign of belated defiance, curtains were being left wide open with lives exposed for all to see.

  The O’Neills were in the parlour. Maggie and her brother Ryan – Nell had had a crush on Ryan for as long as she could remember – were jiving in the middle of the room. Mr and Mrs O’Neill were seated on the settee with their arms around each other, the little girl, Bridie, squashed between them nursing Tinker, the cat. And Auntie Kath, who oozed politics from every pore, had just come into the room with a tray of tea.

  There was no place for Nell in that happy scene. No one would want to see her long face. She turned and went back to her own silent house, wondering if it was always going to be like this now that she was home.

  The men had gone to the pub more than an hour ago: Tom, Iris’s husband, his brother Frank, and their father, Cyril. Their wives were sitting in front of the first-floor window of Iris and Tom’s house overlooking Bootle docks, admiring the view. Iris was aware of her own reflection; out of uniform, she looked small, pale and insignificant. She had natural blonde hair and a quiet face – people didn’t properly notice her until they’d met her two or three times, when they suddenly realised how attractive she was.

  As it had gone ten and the pubs had closed, the husbands, all doctors, were expected home any minute.

  ‘I don’t know why alcohol tastes better when they’re standing knee deep in sawdust, rather than sitting at a table drinking from a crystal glass,’ Constance, who was married to Frank, had said earlier. ‘It must be something to do with their caveman instincts.’

  ‘Did cavemen have pubs?’ Adele Grant queried idly.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ Constance snapped.

  Adele, Iris and Constance’s mother-in-law, plump and motherly, was one of Iris’s favourite people. She had no close family herself, and Tom’s mother had proved a perfect substitute for her own, who had died not long after she was born. Her father had gone to meet his maker a short time afterwards, and Iris had been raised by a rather distant aunt and uncle until she had left home at eighteen. She had only seen them about half a dozen times since.

  It was Adele who’d had the idea of making a special dinner to welcome her daughter-in-law home. She must have been saving her meat coupons for several weeks in order to buy the tender sirloin steak, and Lord knows how much the two bottles of ten-year-old French wine had cost – or where it had come from. Despite the war having ended, rationing was still very much in force.

  ‘It’s been an exceptionally pleasant homecoming,’ Iris said. She had expected to spend it alone with Tom. ‘And this is a wonderful sight: the lights and the glowing water.’ She nodded at the window. Perhaps it was the full moon that made the water shimmer the way it did. During the day, the view was nothing to write home about: cranes, a ship or two with goods being loaded on or off. But at night, with lights burning on the ships, the docks and the street itself, it was quite enchanting. ‘I still can’t get used to there not being a blackout,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t understand why it took so long for you to be demobbed.’ Constance always managed to sound a touch bad-tempered, suspicious almost, as if Iris had been getting up to no good in Plymouth since the war had ended, which to a large extent was true, though Constance had no way of knowing.

  ‘The camp couldn’t be closed down overnight,’ Iris said patiently. Constance might be bad-tempered, but she had a good heart. ‘There was still work to be done, meetings to be held, furniture and equipment to be transported to other camps, put in storage or sent somewhere to be sold. I got my Heavy Goods Vehicle licence,’ she said proudly, ‘and drove lorries all over the country.’

  ‘Did you really, darling?’ Adele remarked, impressed. ‘How clever.’ She patted Iris’s knee. ‘I’m ever so glad you managed to be home for Christmas. Don’t think of trying to get food together for a meal on Christmas Day – you and Tom must come to us.’

  ‘And to us on Boxing Day,’ Constance put in. ‘Beth and Eric are really looking forward to seeing you. They badly wanted to come tonight, but I told them it was only for grown-ups.’

  ‘Thank you both. And I’m really looking forward to seeing my niece and nephew again.’

  Downstairs, the front door opened and the husbands came in singing the Eton Boating Song. All had gone to exclusive schools, but not as exclusive as Eton.

  Adele laughed. ‘They sound a bit the worse for wear. Three inebriated doctors! They should be ashamed of themselves.’

  The visitors had gone. ‘Were they all right?’ Tom asked anxiously. ‘I hope Constance didn’t get you down. She can be awfully abrupt.’

  Iris was pushing the armchairs back into their proper places. Instinctively she closed the curtains. ‘She was fine, if a bit blunt. Not that I mind. Your mother was lovely, but then she always is.’ She sank into one of the chairs with a sigh.

  Tom gave the fire a poke and came and sat in the next chair. ‘I wish I could have gone in the forces too and we could have both come home together.’ A broken leg as a child had left him with a slight limp and he’d been rejected by all three services. He was a very ordinary, dependable-looking man, with straight brown hair and a whimsical smile. He wore horn-rimmed glasses. His patients loved him, but Iris wasn’t sure if she still did. ‘It seems a bit strange not to have seen my own wife for the whole of last year,’ he said stiffly. The smile had disappeared.

  ‘We hardly ever got passes for longer than forty-eight hours,’ Iris informed him. ‘It wasn’t possible to get from Plymouth to Liverpool and back again in such a short time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded not seeing you had I been in the forces too.’

  ‘That wasn’t possible, was it?’

  He shook his head. ‘I wish I wasn’t hopeless in so many ways.’ His shoulders sagged.

  ‘You’re not hopeless in any way that I know.’

  ‘I couldn’t give you a baby.’

  ‘You gave me a baby. It’s probably my own fault I can’t have another.’ Iris closed her eyes, seeing her baby, Charlie, six months old, smiling at her, cooing, falling asleep in her arms. She imagined his bulk pressed against her, his mouth tugging at her breast, and remembered the morning she found him cold in his cot, his face as white as a ghost, lifeless and stiff. Her little boy was dead and she would never get over it for as long as she lived. If it hadn’t been for Charlie, she wouldn’t have joined the army, but she’d needed to get away. Once there, she’d told no one that she’d once had a child.

  Now, perhaps because she was home, in the house where it had happened, it seemed terribly real. ‘Is his cot still here?’ she asked Tom.

  ‘No, I hope you don’t mind, but Mother took it away some time ago. Even if we had another baby, I wouldn’t want him or her to sleep in it. We put the toys and baby clothes in the loft, just in case you wanted them kept.’

  ‘I don’t think I do any more. I’d sooner they were given to another baby.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mother to see to it.’

  ‘It’s all right, Tom. I’ll do it myself.’ He’d also lost a son, and it shouldn’t all be left to him.

  ‘Shall I put more coal on the fire, or will we be going to bed soon?’ He was probably unaware of the longing on his face.

  Iris would have preferred to stay up, but Tom would be hurt. She stretched her arms. ‘I’d sooner go to bed,’ she lied.

  ‘It’s time we started trying for another baby.’ He stood and pulled her to her feet.

  Iris nodded, but didn’t speak. Tom would never know, but she had been trying desperately for another baby since she’d joined the army six years ago, losing track of the number of men that she had slept with. What she would have told Tom had she fallen pregnant, she had no idea. She would cross that bridge when she came to it, she
had told herself. As things had turned out, there was no need to tell Tom anything.

  On Saturday, Iris was already in Jenny’s Café when Maggie burst through the door, creating a terrible draught. She wore a bright red coat and a fur tippet around her neck. The café was full – Iris had acquired the last table. Her camel coat was draped over the back of her chair. Her rather severe matching hat sported a speckled feather.

  The chatter in the café was deafening. Everyone was in a good mood for this very special Christmas. A strip of white material hung in the steamy window with ‘Happy Yuletide’ cut from red crepe paper stuck to it. The wireless was playing Christmas carols sung by a children’s choir.

  ‘Is that fox?’ Iris enquired of the tippet as Maggie more or less threw herself on to a chair.

  ‘No, me dad swears it’s rat. I got it off me Auntie Kath. Mam sprinkled it with talcum powder and gave it a good shake in the yard. It’s lovely and warm.’ She created an even bigger draught by removing her coat and flinging it backwards over the chair, laying the fur on her knee. ‘Eh, you’ll never guess,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Me mam’s only expecting another baby. It’s due in May. She doesn’t care whether it’s a boy or a girl.’

  ‘You must give her my congratulations,’ Iris said, keeping the envy out of her voice. ‘Where’s Nell? I thought you two lived right by each other.’

  ‘I called for her, but she was busy and promised to be along in a minute. Oh, and don’t ask her about going to London, poor thing. She’s had to give up on the idea and look after her mam and the house instead.’

  ‘But that’s not fair!’ Iris was outraged. She knew how much Nell had wanted to go to London. She had grown very fond of both girls, but Nell was such a vulnerable young woman, easily hurt. In her unquestioning willingness to help, she was often taken for a fool. Iris had always felt the need to protect her. She could imagine how easy it would have been to persuade the girl that her duty lay in Liverpool, not London.

  A waitress came, and Iris ordered a pot of tea for three and three scones. ‘Do you have butter?’ she enquired.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, but we only have margarine.’

  ‘Then can we have jam as well, please. It’ll disguise the taste,’ she said to Maggie when the waitress had gone. ‘I can’t stand margarine.’

  ‘Even before it was rationed, we only had butter on Sundays,’ Maggie told her. She smiled. ‘We’re not dead posh like you.’

  Iris rolled her eyes. ‘That was very tactless of me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Maggie said generously.

  ‘But it really is about time we were able to get butter again. The war’s been over for more than seven months, yet rationing is as tight as it’s ever been. Same with so many other things. I couldn’t buy a lipstick anywhere in town yesterday. Not one of the big shops had any in stock, nor did they have cologne for my husband, apart from in Woolies, where it costs sixpence a bottle and can’t be any good. Oh, look, here’s Nell now.’

  In contrast to her friend, Nell almost crept into the café. Her eyes were downcast when she joined them at the table. ‘Hello, Iris,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hello, love.’ Iris seized her hand and squeezed it. ‘How are you?’

  ‘All right.’ She raised her eyes and they looked terribly sad.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, why don’t both of you come round one day before Christmas for afternoon tea?’ She had already bought them presents: boxes of handkerchiefs embroidered with a flower in the corner – there’d only been three boxes left in Owen Owen’s and she’d bought the third for Constance. ‘Have you found a job yet, Maggie?’

  ‘No. I thought I’d start looking for work in the new year. It was me dad’s idea. He said I deserved a bit of a holiday first.’

  ‘My husband said more or less the same. I’m not going back to being his receptionist until January. My mother-in-law has been doing it in my place and she doesn’t mind sticking it out for another week or so. And you, Nell love?’ she asked. ‘What are you up to?’ The girl looked as if she’d died a little since Iris had last seen her.

  ‘I’ve put off going to London for a while and I’m helping at home instead. In fact, that’s where I should be, home, like. I told me dad I wouldn’t long. And I’ve got shopping to do, we’re out of bread.’ She jumped up and almost ran out of the café.

  Iris gasped. ‘But she hasn’t touched her tea or scone!’

  ‘I’ll pop in and see her later,’ Maggie promised. ‘I’ll make sure we come to your house, and she’s coming to ours on Christmas Day when we’re having a party. Me mam’s sister’ll be there and some of me dad’s friends from work. And our Ryan’s bringing his new girlfriend. I’ve invited Nell. If she doesn’t come, I’ll go to their house and drag her there.’

  It was then that Iris made up her mind that she had to do something about Nell.

  Iris couldn’t stand Tom’s brother, Frank. The two men couldn’t have been more different, in either body or brain. Tall and sharply thin, Frank had dark, piercing eyes and an eternally bitter expression on his long face. Iris wouldn’t have wanted him for her doctor. After dinner on Christmas Day, he denounced the planned introduction of a National Health Service in the strongest possible terms. The adults remained at the table and the children, Beth and Eric, had gone into the parlour to listen to the wireless and examine their presents, mainly books.

  ‘I shall never join,’ Frank insisted forcefully, ‘even if it means I’m the only doctor left in England who’s not part of it. I intend to go on choosing my own patients, thanks all the same, and treating them in the way I consider best without interference from the socialist crowd that make up this useless government. The idea that people will no longer have to pay to see a doctor is an insult to our profession.’

  ‘We’ll be paid by the government,’ Tom said mildly. He was an ardent admirer of the new scheme and already treated his poorer patients free of charge.

  ‘You’ll probably end up without a single patient,’ Constance said to her husband. The pair didn’t get on and argued relentlessly. ‘No one in their right mind is going to pay to see you when they can be treated for nothing by another doctor. They will even be getting their medicine for free, as well as spectacles and bandages and cotton wool and stuff like that.’

  Frank spluttered. ‘It’s disgraceful.’

  ‘What’s disgraceful about it?’ Adele glared at her elder son. ‘I think a National Health Service is a marvellous idea. Poor people can have the most frightful things wrong with them, yet they can’t possibly afford to see a doctor. I didn’t vote for Mr Attlee, the prime minister, but I shall from now on. He’s a wonderful man.’

  Frank opened his mouth to splutter again, but Adele banged her spoon on the table. ‘No more arguments, if you don’t mind, Frank. It’s Christmas, and from now on we will only talk about nice things.’ She turned to Iris. ‘I’m so sorry I barged in on you the other day when you had invited your army friends to tea. They were such lovely girls; one so incredibly pretty, the other with the face of a saint. I was really taken with them.’

  Constance frowned. ‘You had them to tea, Iris?’

  ‘Yes, what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘It looks like the class system is coming to an end.’ Constance smiled ruefully. ‘It’s the war, I suppose. We fought together, went hungry together, did without the same things like coal and cigarettes. In a way, it’s made us all equal. Our lot can’t very well look down on poor people any more.’

  Not far away, in another part of Bootle, Christmas Day was being celebrated in a happier vein, though just as argumentatively.

  Paddy O’Neill, Maggie’s dad, was a stalwart of the Labour Party, as was her Auntie Kath, an attractive woman in her mid-thirties who had the same black curls as her sister and niece, though her eyes were more blue than violet. Labour had won the ‘khaki election’ held in July, so-called because it was the troops returning home after the long fight against fascism who were demanding social refo
rm, a country that was fair for all its citizens, not just a favoured few. Labour had promised change in the form of nationalisation of the utilities, the gas and electricity companies, the railways and coal mines, and, of course, the provision of free medical care for everyone. The election had been won with a huge Labour majority.

  Maggie’s dad thought there was enough in the pipeline to please most of the electorate, whereas her aunt considered Labour ought to nationalise virtually everything that moved, including properties with five or more bedrooms, which would solve the housing shortage at a stroke.

  ‘It’s a great idea, Kath,’ Paddy said, nodding his head approvingly, ‘but the people won’t stand for it. This isn’t an extreme country. The population prefer things done by halves, not wholes. Unlike the last war, this time men are returning to a land genuinely fit for heroes. They fought to protect their country and it’s time they had a share in it.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Kath said enthusiastically. ‘But don’t forget it’s men and women who are returning, including your own daughter.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

  ‘And what about the monarchy?’

  Paddy wanted to laugh. ‘What about the monarchy, Kath? Do you want them taken into the countryside and shot, like the Russians did with their royal family?’

  ‘Well, no, but they could just live in an ordinary house like this one.’

  This time, Paddy really did laugh. ‘There isn’t enough room here for the Queen to keep her furs.’

  They were standing in the kitchen and he took Kath’s arm. ‘If we don’t go in the parlour soon and join the gang in there, girl, our Sheila’ll come looking for us and we’ll be in trouble.’

  He pushed her out of the room, through the living room and into the parlour, already packed with friends and relatives dancing a polka. He took his sister-in-law in his arms and they began to dance. ‘Don’t you ever think of anything except politics, Kath?’ he asked.