After the War is Over by Maureen Lee Page B

intimate things, not with Iris there, a room full patients close by, and the doctor in his surgery only a few feet away. The doctor, Tom, chose that moment to stick his head around the door and demand a packet of cotton wool.
    ‘There’s none in my drawer,’ he complained, completely ignoring or not noticing Maggie.
    ‘It never has been in your drawer,’ Iris told him patiently. ‘The cotton wool has always been in the cupboard on the wall behind you.’ She rolled her eyes, but didn’t appear to be annoyed. ‘I’ll get it for you.’
    ‘There’s something up, isn’t there?’ Nell said when Iris had gone.
    ‘It’s not important,’ Maggie assured her. She hadn’t realised how friendly Nell and Iris had become, how close they were. Nell’s my friend, she thought jealously, yet she knew in her heart she’d been neglecting her. It was weeks since they’d been to the pictures or the Grafton together.
    ‘Are you seeing Chris today?’ Nell enquired.
    Maggie had no idea when she was seeing Chris again. ‘Not till tonight,’ she mumbled.
    ‘Then why don’t you come to the carnival with us this avvy?’ Nell suggested. ‘It’ll be dead busy, but we’re bound to have time to ourselves after all the cakes have gone.’
    ‘Will Iris be there?’
    ‘No, She’s going shopping with her mother-in-law, Adele, in Southport. Isn’t Adele a pretty name? She’s ever so nice. I’m only doing the baking here because it’s easier than in our house. Have you noticed the cooker’s got six rings and two ovens?’
    Maggie hadn’t. She wasn’t interested in anything to do with kitchens, and hadn’t noticed either how big Iris’s kitchen was, or that the pine table could easily have seated ten.
    There was something she could talk about, though. ‘Your mam and dad seemed to be getting on remarkably well when I called in on me way here.’
    Nell grinned. ‘Apparently Rita the hairdresser’s got engaged to a ticket inspector on the trams, and me dad’s been shown the door. I think she must have been wearing him out, ’cos he seems perfectly happy at home, particularly with Mam smartening herself up a bit. Let’s hope it stays like that, eh?’ She chuckled. ‘Mind you, I think he’s already got his eye on some other woman.’
    ‘Do I know this other woman?
    Nell’s grin grew even wider. ‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘It’s Iris. I can’t see him being lucky there, can you?’
    Not wanting to bring on another stitch, Maggie walked home at a normal pace. She was feeling very much out of things. Nell had met Iris’s mother-in-law; Iris had met Nell’s father! Not that it was anyone’s fault but her own. She’d been wrapped up in Chris to the exclusion of everyone else in the world.
    To her astonishment, Chris was there when she got home, Bridie sitting on one of his knees, Tinker purring madly on the other, and her mother looking infinitely better than she’d done recently. Maggie met his eyes across the room and felt no more certain about her feelings than she’d done the night before.
    They’d been talking about pictures, Mam said. ‘Chris told me about this little British girl who’s become a Hollywood star, her name’s Elizabeth Taylor. She went to America as a refugee to avoid the air raids and has made this lovely picture called National Velvet about wanting her horse to run in the Grand National. I’d love to see it, Maggie. You know I love pictures about animals.’ Her face was pink and animated.
    ‘I’ve promised to take her,’ Chris put in. ‘We’ll sit in the best seats with the biggest box of chocolates I can buy.’
    ‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ Mam said.
    ‘I bet you are, Mam.’ Maggie knew there and then that she was going to marry Chris Conway, who had cheered her mother up no end. They would get a special licence – during the war it had been possible to marry at only a few hours’ notice, and she supposed the law still stood. Unfortunately, it would have