After the War is Over (11 page)

‘Me mammy’s gone to heaven,’ Bridie told Nell.

‘I bet she’ll be happy there.’ The poor child didn’t understand what had really happened, that her mammy was dead.

In the parlour, Iris was talking to Auntie Kath, congratulating her on being a candidate in the forthcoming by-election. ‘I do envy you,’ she remarked. ‘Being in Parliament must be incredibly interesting. I wish I could do something like that.’

‘Well what’s stopping you?’ Auntie Kath asked pugnaciously. She had Maggie’s dark curls and her pretty face sparkled with life and intelligence. She wore a black dress that was much too long, and clumpy-heeled shoes.

‘For one thing, I have a husband,’ Iris stammered, slightly taken aback by the woman’s attitude.

‘Does he keep you locked up or something?’

‘No, but he’s a doctor and I’m his receptionist.’

This was greeted with a contemptuous ‘Huh! Did you want to be a doctor’s receptionist when you were growing up?’

Iris was obliged to shake her head. In the manner of most little girls, she’d wanted to do all sorts of exciting things.

Auntie Kath seemed determined to prove her a total failure as a woman and a human being. ‘But your husband wanted to be a doctor and just assumed that you, his wife, would be his assistant. If you were the doctor, would your husband agree to being
your
receptionist?’

‘I doubt it very much,’ Iris was forced to concede.

‘It’s just so unfair,’ her tormentor raged. ‘Men automatically assume their wives will be on hand to provide free labour. It doesn’t cross their minds that women have ambitions too. And I bet your husband doesn’t even pay you a salary.’

‘No, he doesn’t.’ She would demand one as soon as she got home.

Auntie Kath was slightly more impressed when Iris told her she’d been a sergeant in the army, which was how she’d met Maggie, her niece. ‘What did you do there?’

‘I was a driver.’ Iris wanted to laugh, but remembered she was at a funeral. ‘I’m awfully sorry, but all I ever did was chauffeur officers around, and not a single one was a woman.’ She finished by offering to deliver leaflets leading up to the election. ‘And I’ll put your poster up in our window.’

Auntie Kath thanked her kindly, and when they shook hands, Iris felt as if she’d made a friend.

Wakes never seemed to be all that sad, Nell mused as she carried round another plate of sandwiches, this time in the street outside the house, where the mourners had spread when it became too crowded indoors. There was no sign anywhere of Maggie or her father. At the cemetery, they’d stood by the grave, the despairing husband of the deceased, and the devastated daughter, drained of life, neither recognisable from the dignified man and laughing girl they’d been this time last week.

Now, hours later, conversations were animated. People who hadn’t seen each other for ages were catching up on old times, sharing experiences they’d had during the war. There was even laughter here and there. Sheila O’Neill was remembered with affection, and instances of her kindness were described with real warmth.

Perhaps it was only to be expected that someone would start to sing, starting with
Oh, Mary, this London’s a wonderful sight, with people here working by day and by night . . .

Inevitably the sound carried and people from nearby streets came to join in. It’s a celebration of a life, Nell thought, much better than everyone weeping and wailing. If it had been her own funeral, she would have far preferred songs to hymns, and jokes to tears. She said this to Iris when she went back indoors and they came face to face.

‘If I’m still around in another sixty years, I’ll remember that, Nell,’ Iris said with a grin. ‘These sandwiches are nice. Is it real salmon in them?’

‘It came from me dad,’ Nell informed her. ‘He got a big tin from somewhere.’ A tin that size couldn’t possibly have been acquired legally; it had probably fallen off the back of a lorry.

When Irish eyes are smiling
, people were singing now.

‘Your dad is very generous,’ Iris said.

‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call him that. He’s usually referred to as a bloody criminal.’ Nell took the empty plate into the kitchen and found Ryan O’Neill and Rosie Hesketh locked in a passionate embrace.

‘Ah well,’ she sighed. It looked as if her long-held ambition to marry Ryan was no longer on the cards – if it ever had been.

At five o’clock, Ryan O’Neill ran upstairs and banged on the door of the bedroom where his dad was, then on his sister’s. ‘Everyone’s gone,’ he shouted. ‘Me and Rosie are going round to their house. She’s dead tired. She’s been in the kitchen since early this morning and was baking stuff till nearly ten o’clock last night. Me and Nellie Desmond saw that everyone had a drink. Now someone needs to come down and look after our Bridie.’

His voice was only slightly accusing. It was a black business, his dear mam dying long before she should, and he was as upset as anyone, but he considered that his dad and their Maggie were laying it on a bit thick. What if he too had decided to go into a virtual coma and expect someone else to see the day through?

He banged on the doors again, this time louder. ‘Will at least one of youse come down and see to Bridie. She’s also lost her mam and it needs to be explained to her.’

Both doors opened at the same time. ‘I’m coming, son,’ his father said.

Jaysus! Paddy’s face looked as if it had caved in and his eyes were glazed. Then Maggie came out and she looked just as bad. Ryan hoped he hadn’t sounded too hard. Maybe there was something wrong with him, that he wasn’t sensitive enough, that he didn’t feel things as badly as his dad and Maggie.

He put his arms around both of them. ‘I think our Bridie needs a cuddle,’ he said. ‘She keeps asking where her mammy is.’

It was Saturday afternoon a few weeks later and Iris was trying on hats in Owen Owen’s, her favourite shop. She couldn’t make up her mind between the blue linen halo and the pink straw shaped like a pie with a frilly veil. In the end, she chose the pie, paid for it, and went upstairs to the restaurant for a coffee and a cake.

She’d brought a novel with her, mainly to read on the tram:
The Razor’s Edge
by Somerset Maugham, her favourite author. She took it out of her bag and began to read now as she sipped the coffee. After a while she became conscious that a man in a loud tweed sports jacket two tables away was staring at her fixedly. She frowned deliberately, hoping to put him off, but he continued to stare. Lifting the book, she held it in front of her face and he disappeared from view. When she’d finished the coffee, the cake, and the chapter she’d been reading, she put the book down and the man had gone.

Back home, Iris made tea and continued reading
The Razor’s Edge
in the kitchen. Tom, Frank and their father had gone to a football match – Liverpool were playing a London team, she couldn’t remember which. Going to the football was something they did three or four times a year. The match over, they would buy fish and chips and eat them out of the newspaper, then spend the rest of the night in a working-class pub singing along with the clientele. They would all go home mildly drunk, so she wasn’t expecting Tom until about ten o’clock.

Not that she minded. In about an hour, Nell would arrive, possibly bringing Maggie with her. The plan was to have tea and afterwards go to the Palace in Marsh Lane to see
Mr Skeffington
, with Bette Davis and Claude Rains. If Maggie came, it would be as if they were in the army again – it was the first time all three of them had gone out together since they’d left.

It would seem Maggie was finding it hard to get over her mother’s death; it had really knocked the stuffing out of her. Nor was she enjoying having taken over Sheila’s role in running the house. She was a hopeless cook with no interest in housework of any description, and the O’Neill household was a complete mess according to Nell, who helped out a bit. Poor little Bridie cried for her mam every night, but Maggie was no help, too easily giving in to tears herself.

There was a knock on the door. Iris laid down her book and went to answer it. It might be Nell arriving early, or a hopeful patient looking for emergency treatment. If the second, they would be unlucky. She would direct them to the nearest hospital.

But when she opened the door, she found it was neither. Instead, the man she’d seen in Owen Owen’s restaurant was outside. It was the sports jacket she recognised first: black and cream houndstooth, really dreadful.

He smiled, but she didn’t smile back. ‘Yes?’ she asked abruptly.

‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ His smile became wider. ‘Sergeant Grant, isn’t it? Iris to her friends.’ He spoke well, with a classy southern accent.

‘Who are you?’ Her heart seemed to shrivel inside her body. He had actually followed her home, boarded the same tram.

‘Major Williams, Matthew to
my
friends.’ He made to walk into the house, but she stopped him. ‘Now that’s no way to act with a friend, is it, Iris?’ he said, smiling still. ‘Because we
were
friends in Plymouth, close friends if I remember rightly.
Very
close,’ he emphasised. ‘I would like us to have a little talk about those times, if you don’t mind.’

‘I do mind, actually.’ Iris stayed where she was, blocking his access.

The smile vanished and his blue eyes narrowed. He was a good-looking man, about forty, quite tall. She noticed that the collar of his pale grey shirt was slightly frayed and the buttonholes on his sports coat needed repair. There was a weary, almost shamed expression on his handsome features. This was a man down on his luck, she realised.

‘Then maybe I should talk to your husband about our friendship,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there are episodes of your life in the army that he would find fascinating. I’ll come back tomorrow, shall I? After Sunday lunch should be a good time. Or is your husband available now?’

Iris stood to one side and let him in. ‘My husband is out,’ she said quietly. She took him into the waiting room. No way would he be allowed upstairs where she lived with Tom.

He glanced around the room with its four rows of metal chairs. ‘I noticed the brass plate outside saying your husband is a doctor.’ He managed to raise another smile. ‘In which row should I sit?’

‘Anywhere you like.’ She sat at the end of the back row. He turned the chair in front round so they were facing each other.

‘I’m not going to beat about the bush,’ he said. ‘I need cash and I need it straight away. I’m only in Liverpool because I came for an interview for a job that I didn’t get. It was like manna from heaven when I saw you in that shop earlier and remembered what we’d been to each other in the army – lovers, were we not? Quite passionate lovers, if I remember rightly. How many nights did we spend together in that hotel?’

‘I can’t recall.’ It
had
been four, she remembered quite clearly. And they had been passionate. He hadn’t been at the camp for long. He’d been posted to India and she had taken it for granted that she would never see him again.

‘I wasn’t the only one, was I, Sergeant? You were well known in that place. “Keep an eye out for the sexy sergeant,” I was told by one chap when he knew I was bound for Plymouth. I think “camp bike” is the appropriate description.’

‘How much do you want?’ Iris asked baldly. She had no alternative but to pay him.

He shrugged. ‘Fifty quid should do for now.’

She gasped. ‘Fifty! Do you seriously think I can lay my hands on fifty pounds at the drop of a hat? I would have to go to the bank, and they aren’t open until Monday.’ What did he mean, ‘for now’? Was it his intention to come back again? She was doing her utmost to stay calm, but inwardly she was screaming and badly wanted to be sick. Now that he had found where she lived, she was trapped. He might never leave her alone.

She said, ‘On reflection, even if the bank was open, I couldn’t withdraw fifty pounds. My husband would have to sign the cheque and I couldn’t possibly ask him.’ She had a bank account of her own, but it only contained about ten pounds, maybe even less.

‘You must think of a reason to get him sign a cheque. Tell him you want a new fur coat or something.’

‘But he’ll expect to see the coat!’ He’d also think it very strange that she’d want a fur coat at the start of summer. And it was out of character for her to buy something so expensive without discussing it with him first.

‘Then say you want jewellery, buy cheap stuff instead and show him that,’ he said impatiently, as if it was something she should have thought of herself. ‘It’s what my wife used to do.’

‘Does your wife approve of you blackmailing other women?’ Iris asked sarcastically.

Anger flared in his nice blue eyes. ‘She left me for my brother while I was in India fighting for my country,’ he said bitterly. ‘When I got home, she’d moved into his house and our house had been let to someone else. I had no job, nowhere to live, no wife.’

Iris wasn’t going to say she was sorry for him. ‘So you decided to take up blackmail as a career.’

She’d made him angrier, which was a foolish thing to do. He leant forward in the chair and grasped the top of her arm, squeezing it hard. ‘Look, I’ll be here at half past ten on Monday morning and expect to be given fifty pounds – no, more like midday; you need time to get to a bank. If it’s not forthcoming, I will sit in this room and wait until your husband is free and inform him of his pretty wife’s sideline while she was in the army.’

‘And do you expect
him
to give you fifty pounds?’ Iris said, not without irony. She wondered how she was managing to stay so outwardly calm when her insides were in turmoil.

The man shrugged and released her arm. ‘You never know, if I put it a certain way, offer him my sympathy, say my wife did more or less the same, tell him just how hard up I am, the good-hearted doctor might find it in him to help me.’

Knowing Tom, that could possibly turn out to be true, but it would mean the end of their marriage. Iris rose from the chair. ‘I think you’d better leave,’ she said. ‘Where will you be staying in Liverpool?’ She wasn’t sure why she asked, because she didn’t care if he was sleeping in the street. Perhaps it was because she already had the germ of an idea.