After the War is Over by Maureen Lee

Saturday and she’d go and see him first thing and apologise for behaving the way she had. They would have a proper discussion about getting married, name a date – later in the year, say, after Mam had had the baby. She felt uneasy that marrying Chris, which that morning had seemed an infinitely desirable thing to do, now seemed terribly wrong.
    She turned on her back and gazed at the ceiling. Downstairs, Auntie Kath was laughing loudly – well, someone was pleased that Phelim Hegarty had had a heart attack!
    Ryan came in. He was still going out with Rosie Hesketh, who wasn’t at all his sort of girl. Maggie had tried to tell him, but he’d just laughed and told her to sod off.
    It was at this point that she fell asleep. When she woke again, it was early morning and the house was completely silent. For some strange reason, she’d been dreaming about Edna Wilcox, who’d joined the army at about the same time she had, but had left after a year.
    Why had she left? And why dream about Edna Wilcox out of all the other girls that she’d known for much longer?
    Maggie racked her brains. In the dream, Edna had been digging a garden – not a garden that Maggie recognised, but that was the way with dreams. She couldn’t remember if they spoke, but the reason why she’d left came to her quite clearly. Edna had discovered she was having a baby.
    ‘It’s just not fair.’ The tearful words carried over the years. ‘After all, we only did it the once.’
    Her father, a small, square man with tight, bad-tempered features, had come into the hut to collect her. He stood over her while she packed her bag.
    ‘Bye, everyone,’ Edna had said when she left. Her father said nothing. The other girls stood staring at the door after Edna had gone, feeling desperately sorry for her.
    Maggie and Chris had only done it the once. The possible consequences of that act hadn’t crossed her mind until now, though there must have been some sort of awareness or she wouldn’t have dreamt about Edna Wilcox.
    She knew little about the inner workings of a woman’s body. Her imagination took over, and she visualised Chris’s seed already inside her womb, in the process of turning itself into a baby.
    She was pregnant. She was convinced of it. It would kill her mother and ruin her father’s political career. The entire family would be disgraced. ‘I see Paddy O’Neill’s girl is up the stick,’ people would say. In no time at all, it would be all over Bootle.
    The only thing to do was to marry Chris after all – as quickly as humanly possible.

Chapter 4
     
    Next morning, Maggie burst into the Desmonds’ back yard and through the door into the house.
    ‘Nell!’ she yelled.
    ‘She’s not here, Maggie luv.’
    To her amazement, Mr Desmond was seated on a pouffe in front of the living-room fire, a skein of wool stretched between his thumbs, while Mrs Desmond, who had spoken, wound the wool into a ball. ‘She’s at her friend’s house in Rimrose Road,’ Mrs Desmond went on, adding a touch smarmily. ‘The one that’s married to the doctor.’
    ‘Is it all right to go out the front door?’ Maggie asked, wondering what on earth Nell was doing at Iris’s so early in the morning – it had only just gone nine o’clock. Another mystery was why Nell’s mam and dad were getting on so well when they were supposed to be mortal enemies.
    Mr Desmond nodded towards the hallway. ‘Help yourself, luv.’
    ‘Ta.’
    Maggie ran in the direction of Rimrose Road until she got a stitch in her side and had to stop. She leaned against a wall, panting hoarsely and waiting to get her breath back. Nell was the only person in the world who she could confide her troubles in and not be criticised or blamed, but told that everything was going to be all right. She knew it was unreasonable to expect her friend to be at her beck and call, but she couldn’t help feel put out that she was with Iris just when Maggie needed her.
    ‘Are you all right, luv?’ A