After the War is Over by Maureen Lee Page A

woman stopped and took hold of her arm. She wore a georgette headscarf over a head full of metal curlers. ‘Why, you’re Sheila O’Neill’s girl, aren’t you? How’s your mam these days? Last time we met she was having a bit of a hard time. It’s not good for a woman to be having a baby at her age. Mind you, me own mam had our Derek at forty-eight.’
    ‘She’s a bit run-down,’ Maggie gasped. ‘The doctor’s given her iron tablets.’
    ‘Iron? The trouble with iron is it can make a person constipated. I remember when . . .’
    The woman looked set for a long jangle. Maggie broke in claiming an emergency, though it was nothing to do with her mother, she then had to explain. She and the woman went their separate ways, Maggie more sedately this time.
    There was a small queue outside Iris’s house and the front door was open. Maggie didn’t know whether to join the queue or knock on the door. After a while, a woman came and waited behind her, a crying baby in her arms, and she realised she was in a queue to see the doctor. She went inside and shouted for Iris, who appeared out of the kitchen looking harassed.
    ‘Why, Maggie! How lovely to see you,’ she exclaimed. ‘As if Tom hadn’t got enough to do, he’s started a Saturday-morning surgery. Come in the kitchen and have some tea. Nell’s here. There’s an Easter carnival or something this afternoon at the school she went to, and we’re making cakes to go with the refreshments.’
    As Maggie had gone to the same school as Nell, it must be St Joan of Arc’s carnival. It wasn’t Easter until next weekend. She entered the kitchen, where Nell was beating a bowl of cake mixture with a fork.
    ‘Carrot buns,’ she said when she saw Maggie. ‘They’re supposed to have currants in, but we haven’t got any. There’s rock cakes in the oven. We’re going to put jam in them.’
    ‘I think we might have some currants at home. Auntie Kath always gives us the rations she doesn’t use.’ Maggie could have sworn she’d seen some sort of dried fruit last time she’d looked in the larder.
    ‘It’d be best to leave little treats like that for your mam, Mags. How is she today, anyway?’
    ‘Not so bad.’ Maggie hadn’t realised that Mam was poorly enough to have attracted the attention of half of Bootle. Being Saturday, her father had been making tea and her mother was still in bed when she’d left the house.
    Iris was attending to the queue outside the door, taking people’s names and putting them in the waiting room. She came into the kitchen and washed her hands. ‘That’s the last for now,’ she sighed. ‘The poor child had impetigo. Maggie, do sit down. I’ve got time till the next patient to make tea. I wouldn’t mind some myself and I’ve never known Nell turn down a cup. What brings you here anyway?’ She smiled and her eyes gleamed. ‘Have you got some really interesting news to impart?’
    ‘Well, no.’ Maggie sat down, feeling uncomfortable. Iris probably thought she’d come to invite them to her wedding or ask Nell to be a bridesmaid. ‘Chris has got a job in a picture house in Walton Vale,’ she told them, just for something to say.
    ‘That’s good,’ Iris said encouragingly. ‘And what with his mother letting you have that nice flat of hers in Scotland Road, there’s nothing stopping you from getting married, is there? You’re awfully lucky, Maggie. Isn’t she lucky, Nell?’
    ‘Dead lucky,’ Nell agreed. She began to put spoonfuls of the cake mixture into a metal tray, the sort that Maggie’s mother used to make fairy cakes. She looked searchingly at her friend. ‘You’re unhappy about something, aren’t you? I can tell. What’s wrong, Mags?’
    As if Maggie could tell her there and then that she and Chris had made love the night before, that she thought she might be pregnant, that she wasn’t too sure if she wanted to marry Chris after all but would have to if she was pregnant. She couldn’t confide all those