Paradise Court (19 page)

‘What does Mr Sewell think of Ernie's chances?' Frances asked. She knew through Billy that Sewell was regarded as a supporter of good causes such as women's rights and Fabianism. But was he any good at fighting individual cases? She had to put her trust in Billy's judgement. Knowing from their meetings and lectures how well informed he was, she turned to him in this time of crisis.

‘I managed to have a few words with him about it. He says the police have built their case on what he calls circumstantial evidence, but he admits there's a combination of things that will make it hard for a jury. He says to wait till he's seen Ernie before he jumps to any conclusions.'

Frances nodded. ‘Thanks, Billy.'

‘Try not to worry.' He put his hand over hers. ‘No, I don't mean that. You're bound to worry, ifs only natural. I just wish I could be more help.'

She smiled. ‘You've been very good to us, Billy. I don't know what we'd do without you.'

Frances's gratitude was cold comfort when he found himself wanting more. But she was eaten up by her family problem, and he was tied to Ada. Come to that, she probably never looked at
him as woman to man. She was a spinster born and bred, they said up at Union Street. And he was married.

When Maurice Leigh heard the news about Amy's featherbrained entanglement with Teddy Cooper, he decided to steer clear of the women in his household until the upset had died down. He had a serious aversion to female hysterics, and in this sense his relationship with his landlady and her daughter was bound to be problematic. He was a poor shoulder to cry on, he told himself, so keeping out of the way seemed his best tactic.

Still, he couldn't help feeling sorry for the one who seemed overlooked in all this; and that was Charlie. The poor boy wandered in from school and could hardly find a seat to park himself on. Once, while there was some bother rumbling on down in the kitchen and Maurice was just slipping out to work, he found Charlie sitting on the stairs, chin in hands. ‘How do you fancy coming up to the Gem with me tonight?' he offered. ‘You can sit in with the projectionist and see how things work.'

Charlie stared back, his face suddenly alive with excitement. ‘You're not kidding?'

Maurice stood in the stairwell, hands in pockets. ‘I take it that means yes? Right, get your jacket on and hurry up. If you like what you see, I might even find you a little job one or two evenings a week. Keep you out of trouble!'

The two were already out on the street. Charlie walked jauntily along, cap tilted to the back of his head. ‘I ain't
in
trouble.'

‘Well, a boy of your age ought to be,' Maurice replied. They swung diagonally across Duke Street, getting into their stride. ‘If I was you going bike-riding with a pretty girl like Sadie Parsons of a Sunday, I'd make bleeding sure I was in trouble!'

Charlie grunted. ‘I don't think you should be encouraging me that way.' Privately, he realized that those bike rides, so precious at first, were beginning to lose their charm, now that the novelty had worn off.

Maurice laughed. ‘No? You most likely don't need no encouraging neither.'

‘That'd be telling.' Charlie followed on Maurice's tail into the plush picture house. This was it; he'd arrived! This was the future, these were the machines he wanted to learn about. Magic flickered up there on the screen. He fell in love with the giant reels of celluloid, the whir of the projector, the hot dust rising in the tiny projection room. Their lodger had offered him a gateway to heaven, and Charlie was about to dash headlong through it.

Maurice offered Jess a gateway of a different kind, which she approached timidly and full of doubt. For a start, it didn't seem right to her to be having thoughts about anything except Ernie's trial. She saw Frances moving heaven and earth to get him the best solicitor in the East End, delving into her own savings and working long hours at the chemist's shop to pay for it. She watched Hettie transformed from a music-hall girl with a spring in her step to a quiet, nunlike figure, grieving for Daisy. Duke was a shell, an empty husk; even Florrie had given up trying to jolly him along and had to leave him alone.

And Jess already felt guilty for the comfort she found in nursing little Grace and in watching her baby develop her first smiles. Sewing work had come in from the advert, and this too brought satisfaction. Jess, who less than a year ago expected to be the most miserable of women, feared she was blossoming in spite of her family's troubles. She racked her brains to see what more she could do to help, and constantly asked herself how could she rein back her hopes for the future.

‘Jess?' Hettie said tentatively, in the middle of one long afternoon's sewing. She was altering the sleeves in a ladies' jacket to bring it back into fashion. Jess sat at their new sewing-machine, running up girls' petticoats for Mrs Henshaw's nieces. ‘You remember me mentioning I wanted to put something better into my life than working the halls?'

Jess glanced up from the yards of fine white cotton, but she kept the treadle moving. The machine whirred on. ‘You said to mind my own business if I remember right.'

‘I never did. Or if I did, it was because I hadn't made up my
mind then. I have now.' Hettie was moving on from helping Mary O'Hagan out of her terrible hole. Now she felt that she'd like to help others too. It grew harder to walk by the huddled shapes under the railway arches, and she began to loathe the effects of the demon drink as she watched the men stagger from the pub at night. Then one day, when she'd been lending Mary a hand by asking after Tommy O'Hagan up at Waterloo Station, she fell in with a Salvation Army woman called Freda Barnes, who described the work done for the poor at her industrial home in Lambeth. ‘We provide food, shelter and honest work,' she said. She told Hettie that she was going to man a stall of goods made by the inebriates in a special home set up by the Army, then back to the industrial home for an evening meeting. ‘Why not come along?' she said.

Hettie went and joined in their rousing choruses to the accompaniment of a brass band. She was singing again, but this time she was singing for Jesus.

‘I signed the pledge,' she told Jess. ‘I took the plunge the other day. Look!'

Jess stopped treadling in surprise. She read the richly decorated card which Hettie handed to her: ‘I Promise by Divine Assistance to Abstain from all Beverages that Contain Alcohol. Also from Opium and Tobacco in Every Form; and that I will not Gamble or use Profane Language, but will Strive to be Loving, Pure, and True in Thought, Word, and Deed.' Signed Hesther Parsons, 20 September 1914. ‘Blimey, Ett!' Jess sat staring at the picture of cherubs against a twinkling night sky. ‘What you gonna tell Pa?'

Hettie laughed. ‘I ain't gone and done nothing terrible, you know.'

‘Ain't you? Talk about cat among the pigeons,' she grumbled. She needed to think more carefully about Hettie's new fad.

‘No, I only signed the pledge. I think it's common sense when you watch what drink does to a man. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me if drink played a part in poor Daisy's death.'

Jess nodded. She began to see the train of Hettie's thoughts.

‘Pa won't mind,' Hettie cajoled. ‘He likes to have the Army come round collecting. He always dips his hand in his pocket.'

‘If you're sure, Ett,' Jess couldn't picture pretty Hettie in a drab blue uniform and homely bonnet, all buttons and old-fashioned maroon bows. ‘You ain't acting a bit sudden, are you?'

‘ “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament,”' Hettie read out from her pledge card. ‘Well, I don't know if I can be wise, Jess, but I should like to do a little bit of good!'

‘Oh, Ett!' Jess stood up and embraced her. ‘You've got a heart of gold, you have. Don't tell me I gotta get used to another angel in the family! Ain't Frances enough?'

‘Listen, Jess, it don't mean we can't carry on being partners in the business, you know.'

‘Good!' Jess smiled and went back to her work. ‘These petticoats won't make themselves.' She'd been on the point of confiding to Hettie over Maurice Leigh, hut the subject sounded trivial somehow alongside Hettie's momentous decision.

On the last Sunday of September, Charlie came calling for Sadie as usual, eager to show off about his new job at the cinema. He waited in the yard for her to finish tying up her hair, or whatever it was that took a girl so long to achieve between his ring on the bell and her coming down to unlock her bike from the shed, ready to set off. Sadie sent Jess to keep him company, and she was still standing in the side alley waving them off when Maurice came running up the court. She turned to go in, almost bumping into him.
‘Damn!' He watched Charlie disappear up the street. ‘I meant to ask him to work a couple of extra hours for me tomorrow night.' He didn't seem unduly upset about missing him, however, and turned instead into the alley with Jess. ‘Are you busy today?' he asked.

She felt the same confusion; a mixture of liking, longing, fear, doubt. It twisted around her chest like a tight band whenever Maurice came near. ‘I don't know yet. Why?'

‘I thought we might walk out this afternoon?'

‘Oh, I don't know,' she demurred.

‘Why not? Don't you want to?' He put one hand over her shoulder against the high wall, leaning in, confident that she wouldn't move away. ‘We got to stop meeting in these narrow places,' he joked. ‘It ain't dignified. How about meeting up with me at the park gates at half two?'

Jess looked up at him, took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Half two, then.' She was committed. Quickly she went up by the metal fire escape, and Maurice swung out into the street back home to his attic room.

‘Nice to clap eyes on a cheerful face,' Arthur Ogden grumbled, as they crossed paths on the doorstep. ‘Like a bleeding morgue in there these days if it wasn't for you.'

Maurice nodded and whistled up the stairs. He planned to polish his shoes, find a clean collar, have a shave.

Back at the Duke, Jess had to ask Florrie a favour. To her surprise, her aunt practically whirled her out of the place. ‘Mind? Why should I mind? I been saying you should get out more! Of course, the others don't notice, but I do, girl! Blinded by their troubles, they are, but I seen you was looking peaky the minute I walked in. I says to myself, “That girl needs to get out!” It ain't no fun looking after a baby all by yourself, but no one knows that better than me!'

Jess smiled gratefully at her larger-than-life aunt, gearing herself up for the usual reminiscences.

‘My Tom was always a sickly child, coughing and wheezing. And there I was stuck with him after his poor father passed on. Day in, day out without a break. Oh, there's no need to tell me what it means for a mother to have to manage by herself.' She swept up and down the living-room carpet, baby Grace settled on one broad hip, little legs dangling. ‘So you go and have a break, girl. Go out and enjoy yourself.'

Jess had put on her best hat; a dark-blue velvet one, and a new soft-collared white blouse. She liked the fashion of wearing a strip of dark silk around her neck like a loose man's tie; she thought it
looked jaunty and modern. Her even features smiled back at her in the mirror.

Florrie came up close for a confidential whisper, though there was no one else in the room. ‘You go and find yourself a nice young man. You got my blessing, and never mind about young Grace here. It don't mean you got to lock yourself away like a nun for the rest of your life!'

Jess turned to her. ‘You sure, Auntie?' Florrie's early letter about the baby had sounded stiff and stern. But since her arrival on the scene, little Grace's soft dark curls, her rosebud mouth and huge dark eyes seemed to have melted the old lady‘s heart. ‘Do you think I'm doing right?'

Florrie answered the appeal warmly. ‘I know you are. You're a lovely girl, even if Wilf ain't never seen it in you. And you're only young once. So just leave me to get on with things here and you take as long as you like.' She gave Jess a wink. ‘What's he like? I bet he's a bobby dazzler.'

Jess laughed and blushed. ‘He is, Auntie. Well, I think so at any rate!'

Maurice decided that a walk in the local park wouldn't do for the type of treat he had in mind for Jess. He was ambitious for this courtship from the beginning, seeing it as something different. So he hopped her up on to one of the new ‘B' type buses when it stopped at the crossroads, and they sat on the open upper deck in the rich autumn sunlight, all along the Embankment, up to the great green space of Hyde Park.

Jess felt the bus roll smoothly past splendid shops under mellow golden trees. She saw ladies walking white lap-dogs past the hotels on Park Lane, heard the rant of orators on Speakers' Corner. During all her years in service she'd had little free time for Sunday afternoon jaunts. Her time off had been spent visiting family and helping in the pub. Now she and Maurice alighted arm in arm from the bus and joined the people strolling through the iron gates.

‘Oh, look!' She pointed to a corner of the park where a collection of giant hot-air balloons hovered at rest. A crowd of women in white skirts, carrying pale parasols, and men in long jackets and trilbies had gathered round. Children stood in small knots, heads craned back to study the tethered monsters. Then a gasp escaped as one took off. It rose slowly, silently over their heads into the perfect blue sky. Jess heard the ‘oh!' and clutched Maurice's hand. ‘Look, there's people in them things! How are they supposed to get down?'

He laughed and looped her hand through his arm. ‘They just have to let some of the hot air out and down they come.'

‘What if they want to go higher?'

‘They chuck a couple of passengers overboard.'

They walked on happily together. ‘Ever been to the seaside?' he asked, as they passed colourful posters on Magical Margate. When she shook her head his plans grew extravagant; he'd borrow a motor car if she liked, and take her on an outing to the sea. Jess was impressed that he had friends with cars. ‘Talbot Invincible, that's the best one out,' he recommended. ‘Say you'll come.'

But Jess made no promises. ‘Ain't you got too much on with your new job?' she asked. They'd walked away from the crowd down an avenue of beech trees. Sunlight cast a dappled pattern over his face as she glanced sideways at him. ‘From what I hear, your place is bursting at the seams most nights.'

‘That's why I deserve a day off every so often.' His success in drawing audiences to the Gem away from the halls, with his clever mix of comedies, romances and the latest foreign epics had set him in good stead. He stopped and turned to face her. ‘I ain't larking about with you, Jess. You know that?'

She nodded and received his kiss. Her arms went up round his neck, he pulled her close. There was an intense look in his dark eyes when she tried to pull away. Instead, he offered more close kisses which made her melt against him once again.

‘I'm serious,' he whispered, his mouth against her neck. ‘I ain't never been this serious with any girl.'

Suddenly she drew away. This was a temptation almost too much to resist; to swoon in his arms and let herself be kissed into unconsciousness. But she had to get straight with him. The misery of getting involved and then having him break it off later when he discovered the truth would be too much to bear. She was pretty sure Maurice wasn't the type to have got involved in any of the street gossip since he came to live at the Ogdens. Yet telling him about Grace must surely finish things off before they'd truly begun. Jess struggled with her conscience. At last, self-denial, always a strong force in her, won through.

‘What?' Maurice pulled at her wrist. ‘Don't walk off. I said too much, I'm sorry.' He thought he'd scared her.

She hung her head. ‘It ain't that.'

‘What then?' He caught her round the waist and made her walk
along the path with him again. ‘Look, Jess, I ain't sure what's going on here.'

She saw it wasn't fair; that he might think she was teasing and leading him on. So she forced herself to try and explain. ‘It's me. I told you, you don't know nothing about me.'

‘And?' He watched her struggling to confess, felt certain there was nothing she could say which would alter this build up of feeling towards her. He held her close around the waist.

‘You sure you ain't heard?' She looked fearfully into his eyes. ‘Ain't Dolly said nothing?'

‘No. Why should she?'

The corners of her mouth went down. ‘It's to do with why I had to come back home to the Duke in the first place. I ain't always lived there, you know. Before you came to five in the court, I was in service.'

‘Don't cry.' He offered to wipe the tears from her cheeks with the flat of his thumbs. His voice was soft and gentle.

‘You know what I'm gonna say, don't you?'

He nodded. ‘I think I can guess what's coming. But you gotta say it, Jess. Don't be scared.'

‘All right then. I came home because of the son in that family I worked for. Gilbert Holden. He got me into trouble.' She paused, unable to go on. Then she gathered herself together. ‘Pa took pity on me and took me back, thanks to Frances. You see, Maurice, it ain't just me. I got a baby to think about.'

His forehead went down on to her shoulder and he closed his eyes. ‘It's all right, I ain't shocked,' he murmured.

‘Ain't you? I am. I can hear myself telling you these things and I can't hardly believe it myself. I'm sorry, Maurice. I ain't never been more sorry in my life!' She tried to draw away, struggling for some scraps of dignity.

‘It don't make no difference.' She was still the woman he desired. The old ‘no complications' motto was good enough when you only felt things on the surface; easy come, easy go. But it didn't seem to operate now that he'd met Jess.

In some way which he couldn't put into words, the fact that she
had this baby made him want her more. It moved her further away from the child-women he came across in gaggles on park benches and on the front row at the picture house, putting her into new realms of experience for him. ‘Just tell me you like me, and you want to be with me,' he said, gathering her to him.

‘Do you still want me?' Relief flooded through her as she stroked the short hair at the back of his head. ‘I thought no one would want me now.'

He kissed her wet cheeks, her open mouth, her long neck as she raised her head. She felt the branches of the trees shift and whirl overhead. Then a sense of being out in the open, in public, brought her back to herself. She put her fingertips over his mouth. ‘No, stop. Let's walk on. We gotta think,' she insisted. ‘We gotta wait a couple of days for things to settle down, see how we feel.'

They walked on together, hands firmly clasped. In the distance, a silent, white hot-air balloon coasted gently to the ground.

By late autumn of 1914, war talk had taken over from the Irish problem and threats of strikes in all the East End bar rooms. Their British lads had joined the French and the Belgians to become an army of moles, tunnelling into the muddy fields around Ypres, Vimy and Neuve Chapelle. The Germans had been halted short of Paris, but only just. Now the two sides fought across barren wastes of barbed wire, and the faces of recruits lining up outside Southwark Town Hall looked less than exuberant, more resigned to a hard slog in the trenches.

Robert Parsons sent letters home, full of concern and advice over Ernie. When he addressed his letters to the whole family, he would tell of the crossing to Calais and the huge operation to shift men, horses and machines to the front. He told them to keep their chins up over Ernie; they'd have him home by Christmas once the lawyers had done their work. To himself, he hoped the promise didn't sound as hollow as the one about the war being soon over now looked from this side of the Channel. As for the war, he said, morale was good. He wouldn't have his pa thinking any different and anyway it'd never get past the censor. So he chatted on about
meeting up with an old pal from the docks; George Mann. They were in the same regiment. George was strong as an ox; single-handedly he'd dragged a water cart out of the axle-deep mud, making him the sergeant-major's blue-eyed boy. They hoped to get leave together eventually, and Robert would bring George back to meet the family.

His letters to Duke alone were less gung-ho. He told him how hard it was to get a night's rest, sharing board and lodgings with rats. A recent infestation of lice also kept them awake. They were stationed half a mile west of the front in the Somme valley. You heard the big guns go off and longed to get at the Hun. But for the time being they were stalled, waiting for action.

‘I got a lot of time on my hands,' he wrote. ‘And I get to brooding about poor Ern. If I never took him up to the Palace that night, he'd never be in the Scrubs now. And if I'd not been in that scrap with Chalky White earlier in the day, I wouldn't have had to make myself scarce and drop Ernie right in it. That's a fact. It preys on my mind, day in, day out.'

Duke wrote back words of consolation. What was done was done. Ernie understood Robert hadn't dropped him in it on purpose. Now they'd have to rely on British justice to get him out. Meanwhile Robert must concentrate on the army and keep himself safe. He told him Hettie had taken the pledge and joined the Sally Army, and he sent his regards to George Mann. Frances believed she knew his sister, Susan, who came in for prescriptions for their mother.

Everyone brought stories of the Western Front into the bar at the Duke; of cousins killed or sent home wounded. Convalescent homes were set up in great houses in the Kent and Essex countryside, where the injured men lived the life of Riley.

‘I ain't so sure.' Annie Wiggin delivered her opinion over a glass of porter. She'd taken to coming in of a tea-time, instead of scuttling off back down the court with her jug. Her ties with Duke had strengthened over Ernie's arrest; she felt he'd appreciated her being there to lend a hand and would pick her out to confide in when the time was right. But Florrie's arrival had put her nose out of joint. The daft ha'p'orth fancied herself as her namesake, Florence
Nightingale. She treated Duke as if he was sick instead of boosting him up. Annie thought Florrie was going about it the wrong way, sighing and dabbing her eyes at every mention of the court case. So she stayed put on her bar stool, following Florrie's every move behind the bar, looking out for Duke. ‘It ain't no picnic over in them trenches,' she pointed out. ‘And it ain't a nice thing to be sitting in them hospitals with your legs blown off, even if there is roses climbing up the bleeding walls!'

‘That ain't very nice,' Florrie sniffed. ‘Them boys is heroes in my eyes. I bet they feel proud, no matter what. I'd feel proud if my Tom joined up, then came home wounded, I can tell you.'

Annie looked sceptical. She glanced round to check that Duke was at the far end of the bar out of earshot. ‘Your Tom's way too old even to enlist,' she reminded her. ‘So there ain't no danger to his limbs exactly. Easy to say you'd be proud when he's just about ready to go down the Post Office and draw the pension what nice Mr Asquith's handing out.'

Florrie took the bait. Her expression flashed outrage at Annie. ‘My Tom's fit as a fiddle!'

‘And not a day under forty.'

‘That's a lie!'

‘Forty if he's a day. And what does that make you, Florrie Searles? You're pushing seventy for all your fancy blouses.'

Florrie leaned over the bar towards her skinny opponent. Her bosom settled on its mahogany surface, squat and steady behind its whalebone plating. ‘Say that once more, Annie Wiggin, and I'll throttle you!'

‘You and whose army? We all know you, Florrie. We remember you from the old days, poking your nose in where it's not wanted. And just look at you now, girl. Who you trying to kid with all them beads and bits and pieces? Come down my stall and I'll deck you out with something more suited to your situation!' She was scornful of Florrie's attempts to dress like a woman half her age, and snorted whenever she saw her begin to flirt with Duke's customers. When you were over the hill, you ought to have the guts to recognize it, Annie reckoned. As for herself, she still had a
bit of life in her. Florrie Searles was a good fifteen years older than her.

‘Look at you!' Florrie's foghorn voice floated over Arthur Ogden's head. Duke glanced around. ‘Them boots you wear is a disgrace for a start. Can't you take no better care of yourself, Annie, and show a bit of self-respect?'

‘Them's my old man's boots!' Annie stood up, face to face. ‘As if you didn't know. They're a keepsake, so you keep your nose out!'

Florrie had hit a raw nerve, and she knew it. ‘Keepsake? What the bleeding hell do you want to remember him for? Useless article, he was, going off and leaving you in the lurch!' Florrie's throat and chest were flushed red with the effort of hurling insults. She'd never liked Annie's snappy, whippet-like ways, and she liked her even less now that she'd obviously set her sights on Duke. The poor bloke needed protecting, especially since he was so down over Ernie. Annie might catch him at a low point and he'd find himself doing and saying things he'd regret.

‘My old man was lost at sea,' Annie said with fierce dignity. She held her head high and her shoulders back.

‘Lost at bleeding sea, nothing! Lost in the arms of another woman, more like!'

Annie saw red. But she wouldn't descend to fisticuffs. She'd stick the knife in where it hurt instead. ‘Them who lives in glass houses,' she began. She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue in her cheek.

Florrie choked. ‘You go and wash your mouth out,' she threatened. ‘Thomas was a good husband to me before the consumption came and took him after we moved to Brighton for the sea air and all.'

‘Consumption!' It was Annie's turn to gloat. ‘Thomas Searles was a weedy little bloke all right, but it weren't the consumption what took him off, believe you me.' She winked at Arthur, who enjoyed this from a ringside seat. ‘Her problem is she's got all twisted up in her mind about what's true and what ain't. She thinks her old man popped his clogs from consumption, she really does. She thinks she's a widow woman of thirty, when she's sixty-five if
she's a day. She even thinks she's worth turning round in the street for a second look, but just have a gander at her close up!'