After the War is Over (21 page)

In London, as in every big city, ugly bomb sites were still a feature of most streets, and it would be years before they were tidied up and developed. They remained, like the shortage of food, as reminders of the war that had cost so many precious lives. Although the lights were on again, those in the West End shone on only a handful of Londoners.

It was the first of July, exactly six months since Maggie had met Jack Kaminski and Drugi Nowak in Trafalgar Square. Frequently, she would curse Daphne for turning up and nabbing Jack for herself, leaving her with Drugi.

There was no doubt that Drugi was a generous and amusing boyfriend. One of his uncles owned a popular restaurant in Soho, where Drugi worked as a waiter. There was a whole tribe of Poles in the area, not all Nowaks, who’d come from the same village in Poland and ranged from the very young to the very old. Jack Kaminski was one, but the only person not to have any other family. A week rarely passed without a celebration of some sort: a birthday, an engagement, someone’s wedding. Even the one death – Drugi’s grandfather – had turned into a celebration of sorts.

Drugi seemed to have plenty of money. Maggie frequently offered to pay for herself when they went out, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He professed to be madly in love with her, but didn’t seem to mind that she never claimed to love him back. At the end of the evening, they would kiss, quite passionately. Maggie flatly refused to let him go further. She was worried she would enjoy it as much as she had done with Chris Conway, and had an uneasy feeling that she was oversexed, but didn’t know who she could discuss it with. Nell knew nothing whatsoever about sex. She wondered if Auntie Kath might be a good person to ask, but was too embarrassed.

Daphne confessed to be head over heels in love with Jack Kaminski. She had actually used those words, ‘head over heels’, to describe how she felt.

Maggie wasn’t surprised. She felt the same about Jack, who should have been living in Hollywood like Clark Gable or Alan Ladd and starring in pictures, rather than working in a Polish bank in the city.

‘His job is frightfully important,’ Daphne told Maggie in hushed tones. ‘He doesn’t work behind the counter, he’s not just a bank
clerk
, but is in charge of foreign investments. He deals with millions of pounds.’

‘Did he tell you that?’ If he had, Maggie thought it rather incautious, not the sort of information that should be spread around.

‘No, but Daddy said he almost certainly would, working in that department. Daddy’s longing to meet him. As you know, he was in the Royal Air Force during the war, and he said that Polish pilots were the best he’d known.’ Both Jack and Drugi had been in the RAF.

‘Hasn’t he met your family yet?’

Daphne puckered her red-painted lips. ‘He’s been invited loads of times, but he flatly refuses to come.’ Her eyes grew moist. ‘Sometimes I worry that he’s not really serious about me.’

Maggie hoped and prayed he never would be. But how could she make him be serious about
her
? In the past, she had never had a problem getting any man she wanted, and she wanted Jack Kaminski more than anything on earth.

To her pleased surprise, Jack telephoned her at work one day. ‘Maggie, I understand the MP Kathleen Curran is a relative of yours?’ he said in his lovely deep voice – his English was almost perfect,

‘She’s me Auntie Kath, yes,’ Maggie replied.

‘Would it be possible for me to meet her? I heard her on the wireless the other evening and I was extremely impressed.’

Maggie’s heart did a somersault. ‘If I want to see her, I sit in the visitors’ gallery in the House of Commons and wave. Once the debate’s over, we meet in the lobby.’

‘So if I accompanied you one evening, would you introduce me?’

‘Of course.’

‘How about tonight? Have you arranged to do anything?’

Maggie had genuinely been intending to wash her hair, but immediately dismissed the idea. ‘Absolutely nothing,’ she said.

He said he would pick her up in a taxi after work. There was no mention of Daphne. Maggie said she’d wait in Piccadilly rather than Thomas Cook’s entrance in the street behind, as it would be easier for the taxi to stop, though the real reason was in case Daphne came out at the same time. She didn’t want to be suspected of two-timing her friend. Not that Jack’s request to meet Auntie Kath could be deemed romantic.

It was rather nice to sit within the sanctuary of a taxi and watch other people pouring down the steps of the Underground or queuing for buses. She said so to Jack, who remarked that that was just like her.

‘Most people find riding in a taxi rather boring; you regard it as fun. You always manage to get the best out of life, Maggie.’

‘I wasn’t getting the best out of life when you found me in Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve,’ she snorted. ‘I was desperately miserable.’

Jack smiled. He was dressed as she’d never seen him before, in a black jacket, striped trousers and sparkling white shirt. She was pleased he hadn’t added a bowler hat or a rolled umbrella to the outfit. There weren’t the words to describe just how handsome and desirable he looked.

‘That’s understandable,’ he said. ‘In the same position I would have been desperately miserable myself.’

He was clearly impressed by the grandeur of the British Parliament. They took their place in the visitors’ gallery and Maggie saw Auntie Kath, dressed entirely in bright red, in her usual position in the chamber: in the back row behind where the prime minister normally sat. So far, Maggie hadn’t seen Clement Attlee, the man who’d led the Labour Party to its overwhelming victory during the last months of the war. Auntie Kath had promised to let her know next time he was likely to be present in the evening so she could be there.

Her aunt nodded slightly to let her know she’d been seen. She didn’t take part in the debate, a rather dull one about farm subsidies, no doubt of great importance to some people. After only a few minutes, she got up and left the chamber.

Maggie nudged Jack and they left too.

In the lobby, she introduced them. Auntie Kath wasn’t as appreciative as some women – no,
most
women, thought Maggie – of having her hand kissed by the charming Jack Kaminski, though she showed keen interest when Jack explained his role as an employee of the Polish state bank. She asked him to describe in detail the economic state of his country after its brutal occupation by the Germans throughout the war years.

‘Or is it too soon to ask that question, Mr Kaminski?’ Auntie Kath frowned earnestly, her entire attention directed upon Poland and its economy, as happened with every matter that came her way. It was what made her such a good Member of Parliament. She put her heart and soul into everything.

‘As far as I know, things are slowly getting back to normal,’ Jack said. ‘I haven’t been back to Poland since I left to join the RAF at the start of the war. I would not be made welcome now that we are under communist rule.’

‘Do you have any family there?’

Jack shrugged. ‘My parents died in a concentration camp. I left behind other relatives, but don’t know their fate.’

‘Are you Jewish, Mr Kaminski?’ Auntie Kath asked bluntly.

‘No, Miss Curran, but my mother and father were pacifists. They died for their beliefs, not their religion.’

Listening, Maggie felt ashamed. It hadn’t entered her head that Jack might have a history, a tragic history. Her aunt would be understandably shocked if she knew her niece looked upon him in a purely superficial way, imagining what it would be like if he kissed her or how she would feel in his embrace.

Auntie Kath looked at her watch and said she had a committee meeting and it wouldn’t do to be late. ‘I’m
never
late,’ she said firmly.

Jack shook her hand and said it was a pleasure to have met her. ‘I hope one day that we will meet again.’

Auntie Kath smiled a little smile and looked at Maggie. ‘Oh, I’m sure one day we will, Mr Kaminski. And it was lovely meeting
you
.’

‘What a remarkable woman,’ Jack murmured as Auntie Kath marched purposefully away, shoulders back, red skirt swishing, determined to do all she could to make the world a better place.

They left the building. It was a beautiful summer evening, the sun a huge red ball as it made its slow journey towards the horizon. The day had been hot, but now the temperature was perfect. The area outside Parliament was full of people lying or sitting on the grass or strolling along in their summer clothes. Jack commented that he wished he was wearing something more casual. Maggie suggested he take off his jacket and tie.

‘I’ll put your tie in me bag,’ she offered.

Jack divested himself of his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Maggie folded his navy and gold striped tie neatly and put it carefully in her handbag. She was aware that his shoulders were very broad, he was wearing a belt instead of braces and his waist was very slim.

‘Would you like something to eat?’ he asked.

Maggie immediately realised she was starving. ‘Yes,
please
,’ she said with enthusiasm. The road they were in contained only large important buildings and houses, no shops or restaurants.

‘There’s a hotel not far from here, just around the next corner, the Meredith; a rather grand place. I think only a grand place will do for our first meal together, don’t you, Maggie?’

Maggie felt herself go hot, then cold, then faint. She almost stopped walking, feeling dizzy on top of everything else, and was scared she’d fall over. It came to her like a rocket out of the blue that Jack wanting to meet Auntie Kath was merely an excuse; that it had been a roundabout way of asking her out, that if he’d asked in the ordinary way for a date she would have refused on the grounds that he was still going out with Daphne, which would have complicated matters and made her feel she was being disloyal.

‘What about Daphne?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘I talked to Daphne last night and she agreed our relationship was going nowhere. I told her I was in love with you, that I had been since we met in Trafalgar Square on New Year’s Eve, and she agreed that it was only right that we part.’ He stopped in the street and so did she. People walking by had to dodge around them, but Maggie didn’t notice and neither did Jack. He kissed her lightly on each cheek, then tucked her arm inside his, and they made their way towards the Meredith.

Today was the day when her life had changed for ever. Nothing would ever be the same again. Jack Kaminski loved her and she loved him. One day soon they would get married, have children and grow old together. All the things that had happened before were as nothing compared to what would happen once she became a wife to Jack and a mother to their children.

She would never forget that night, the air touched as if by magic, every single little thing about it perfect, almost surreal. She had never eaten such a wonderful meal before, or drunk such delectable wine in such desirable company.

‘Oh, Maggie, your eyes!’ Jack raised his glass and drank to them. ‘They are such a beautiful colour and they shine like stars.’

‘It’s you that’s made them shine,’ Maggie said shyly. Any minute she would come down to earth and find she was imagining things, or wake up and discover it had all been a dream.

But it was real, all of it. Jack Kaminski had been in love with her and she with him ever since they’d met. Within a week, they were discussing when they would get married and where they would live.

‘Where would you like to live, Maggie?’ he asked one night when they were in Drugi’s uncle’s restaurant in Soho – Drugi didn’t seem to mind Maggie dropping him in favour of his friend.

‘I hardly know London,’ Maggie confessed. ‘I’m only familiar with the West End and Shepherd’s Bush. I’ll leave it to you to choose.’

But first of all, they had another wedding to go to. At the beginning of August, Alicia Black married Philip Morrison in St Mary’s Parish church in Twickenham. All the members of the Thomas Cook ex-servicewomen’s club were there. Alicia and Philip had met earlier in the year at Maggie’s sickbed, and as Alicia didn’t have any sisters or female cousins, she had asked Maggie to be her only bridesmaid.

On the day, Maggie wore a long rose-pink dress and carried a posy of white roses. Jack had only recently bought her an engagement ring, three diamonds in a white-gold setting. It was their first outing as an engaged couple.

It was another perfect day – most days were nowadays. The sun shone, the scent of the flowers in the church was overwhelming, the choir sang gloriously. The reception was held in the garden of Alicia’s parents’ house and the only black spot occurred mid-afternoon when Maggie ran upstairs to the lavatory and heard a woman sobbing in one of the bedrooms.

When the weeping woman was tracked down, it turned out to be Daphne Scott, who had gone out with Jack for more than half a year. She was lying face down on the bed, her face buried in the pillow.

‘You are so lucky,’ she wept when Maggie attempted to comfort her. ‘Only twenty-three and about to get married. I’ll be thirty-one soon and I have no one. I loved Jack and I thought he loved me, but he loved you instead.’

Maggie had no idea what so say. She stroked Daphne’s blonde head, muttering, ‘There, there.’ It was no use promising that the right man would turn up one day – what did
she
know about it? The right man for Daphne might have died in the war. Or pointing out that Alicia was thirty-three, or saying that her friend Nell in Bootle had claimed she was looking forward to being an old maid.

‘There, there,’ she said again. ‘There, there.’

Jack took her to view a house he had found for sale in Finchley. It was semi-detached with a big square bay window in the lounge, a dining room, breakfast room, a modern kitchen with built-in units, four bedrooms, a huge bathroom, and a garage. The present owners were leaving behind the curtains and fitted carpets.

‘Can we buy it?’ Maggie asked when the estate agent had shown them round the spacious rooms and the neat, very ordinary garden. She was already planning a rockery, a rustic arch and dozens of rose bushes.

‘If it’s what you want, love. But this is the first house we’ve looked at. Don’t you think we should look at others before we make up our minds?’