After Hours (12 page)

‘Take it or leave it.' He shrugged.

She nodded. ‘I'll send Ernie down for the key later on.'

That was Tuesday. On the morning of Christmas Eve, Wiggin walked half-naked out of the Mission sick-bay, down the main corridor, demanding his clothes. Major Hall telephoned Annie to warn her he was on the move. ‘He's not really fit to go,' she told her. ‘But he insists. I thought you would want to know.'

‘I'll come and fetch him,' Annie promised. ‘What kind of Christmas present do they call this?' she grumbled to George Mann, who was shifting new barrels into position in the cellar. ‘Tell Duke for me,
will you? He's out buying last-minute things. Tell him I have to go fetch Willie.'

She flew out into Duke Street, her coat still unbuttoned, running to catch the tram that would take her down Bear Lane and noticing with sharp irony that for once the day was fine and clear. She reached the Mission just in time to see the huddled shape of her old husband come stumbling down the broad front steps, elbows up, fending off all offers of help from two Salvation Army officers. She rushed up and seized his arm.

‘Hush, Willie! . . . There's gratitude for you!' She tried to quieten him, apologizing to the people who'd saved his life. ‘I'll take you back now. I found a room down Paradise Court, I made it nice and clean for you. Come on, now.' She struggled against his shoves and curses.

‘He won't take in much of what you tell him,' the Army man advised. He didn't envy Annie the task of getting Wiggin home.

Annie grunted. ‘He still don't know me, do he?' She stood trying to attract his attention. ‘Willie, behave! It's me, Annie!'

Again the name clicked deep, inside his memory. He investigated her features for a few seconds, then he pulled away.

‘Now, it ain't that bad,' she joked grimly. ‘I ain't changed that much, have I?'

‘Wiggin, 02753, sir!' he told her. ‘See that big one in the uniform there?' He hissed and pointed to the Army man on the steps. ‘He ain't what he seems!' With a mysterious gesture, he beckoned Annie down the street.

‘What's he mean by this number lark?' Annie wanted to know.

The woman Army officer came down quickly to speak with her. ‘We think it's a prison number,' she said quietly. ‘He don't hardly know where he is most of the time.'

Annie shook herself straight. ‘Prison?' She looked at Wiggin through narrowed eyes. ‘No wonder you never came home, you old scoundrel!'

‘Try to keep him off the drink,' the young woman advised.

‘That's like saying, try to keep the rain from falling,' Annie retorted. ‘You hear that, Willie? You've to stay on the wagon!' She
set off, remonstrating with him all the way down the street, deciding not to risk taking a tram back to Duke Street. Though the Army had cleaned up his clothes and the stench was certainly less, they couldn't clean up Wiggin's language for him. He shuffled along, foul-mouthed as before, shouting at invisible devils that tormented him and hovered just out of reach.

Duke and Annie decided to make the best of Christmas that year, for the sake of their customers, and for little Grace and Mo. With Wiggin holed up in Eden House, Duke gave strict orders that he must not be served in the pub, telling Annie that her old husband was in such a poor state that he would never have the strength to stagger further than the end of the court in search of the liquor that was killing him.

But Wiggin on the trail of drink was a cunning animal. He collared a lad on the street and sent him up the pawn shop with the ex-army greatcoat which the Mission had donated as their last act of charity towards him. With sixpence from the coat, Wiggin gave one penny to the lad and ordered him to spend the other five on gin and to bring the bottle back down the court. After that was gone, he would have to beg and steal his way towards the next drink. He had no pride, felt no gratitude, possessed no intention in life, save that of oblivion.

Annie found him on Christmas morning, dead drunk on the stone floor.

In the afternoon, Jess and Maurice came with the children, and there were presents, music and games. Ernie had his new tie from Sadie. He gave Grace a parcel of chocolate wrapped in silver and purple, and Mo a painted wooden soldier. No one spoke of family troubles. Maurice and Rob talked business, while Billy asked Ernie about his longtime job with Henshaw's. ‘Mr Henshaw ain't there no more,' Ernie told him sadly. ‘He passed away. But Mrs Henshaw says she needs me more than ever. She wouldn't know how to get by without me!'

Duke overheard and winked at Frances. ‘Cheer up, girl. Have a
drop of sherry,' he insisted. ‘Come on, Frances, it's time you let your hair down for once.'

She tried for his sake. But she didn't relax until Annie came in, and she saw her father and her stepmother smile at one another and go on as before. If they could cope, then surely to goodness she could too.

Jess and Hettie gossiped with Sadie, the three of them heads together at the table loaded with cold ham pie and sandwiches. They sat under swathes of holly and mistletoe, talking shop and fashion, discussing the merits of various face powders and the desirability of the recent trend among women to take up smoking.

‘It's only what the men do,' Sadie protested. ‘You see it in all the films these days.'

‘Yes, and I don't like it,' Jess put in, playing the respectable lady and mother. ‘It makes them look . . . fast. She drew the line at her own shorter skirts.

‘I don't know. I like the look of them silver holders.' Hettie sprang her opinion on them. ‘Not that I'd take up smoking cigarettes myself, but I don't object to them that do.'

For a time, it seemed a normal Christmas afternoon. It was only when Annie stepped out to check on Wiggin that the heart went out of their quiet celebrations and they were reminded of the problems which the new year held in store.

Rob was the first in the family to tackle trouble head on. He didn't like the way Christmas slowed London down, taking people off the streets and business out of his pockets. He would grumble about it to his occasional girlfriend, Amy Ogden, who was home for a few days, staying at her mother's place.

Amy had many boyfriends, none of them steady. She called it moving with the times. Quite the career woman, with ambitions to become supervisor of the hat department at Dickins and Jones, she was one who didn't hesitate to hitch up her skirts when fashion dictated, or to lounge elegantly against a doorpost, cigarette-holder in hand, playing the vamp. She wore long strings of false pearls and shiny rayon stockings. She curled her fair hair with the new
Marcel wave, and though she worked hard at reducing her weight to suit the new, boyish styles, she never succeeded in slimming down her curves. Rob advised her not to bother. ‘It ain't natural,' he told her. ‘Anyhow, I like you just the way you are.'

Amy enjoyed flirting with Rob. It came naturally. She could make him laugh with her sly imitations of the narrow-voiced, la-di-da customers she dealt with in the shop. She did the accent well and made herself cross-eyed with the effort of looking down her nose. They both enjoyed sending up the middle classes; the flappers, the bright young things.

‘You're only jealous,' he taunted. ‘'Cos you ain't got what they got.'

‘What's that?' Amy blew smoke from between her red lips. She'd teased Rob for being all dressed up when she'd dropped in at the pub to arrange an evening out with him. It was tea-time one Monday early in January.

‘Cash,' came the swift reply. ‘The pound in your pocket to buy one of them nice new hats.'

‘Says who?' Amy countered airily. ‘Anyhow, Rob, how about a night at the pictures with your best girl?' She changed the subject, wondering why he was already dressed up in his suit.

‘Maybe. I got something to do first.'

‘Something more important than taking me to see this new Greta Garbo picture they're all on about?'

‘Much more. I gotta see a man about a dog.'

‘Come again?' Amy showed she was put out. She went into a sulk over her cigarette.

‘A woman about a loan, if you must know.' Rob picked up his trilby hat and his walking stick. He'd arranged to visit Mrs Cooper personally to pay the last instalment of his loan. He thought it would be wise to wish her Happy New Year in person.

Amy frowned. A woman? ‘Best of bleeding luck,' she said to his back as he swung through the doors.

Rob's appointment was for five o'clock. He used the lift up to the office and arrived on the dot, catching the eye of the shopgirls,
who knew him of old. But today he wanted to impress with his businesslike attitude, so he resisted the temptation to stop and chat. Injury hadn't diminished his darkly handsome appearance. His square face was clean-shaven except for the moustache, and his shoulders were still broad and straight. He brushed his short dark hair to one side, took pride in himself, but avoided close involvement with women. He didn't want pity, neither did he want to be anyone's second-best. For who would put up with an injured husband if they could find an able-bodied one?

As the lift door clicked and slid open, Rob stepped out on to the carpeted landing. He saw that Cooper's office door was open and Mrs Cooper herself stood there uncertainly, waiting for him to arrive. She was a slight figure in a purple-grey outfit, with lace and a gold brooch at her throat.

Rob followed her into the office and drew out a long brown envelope from his inside breast-pocket. He handed it across the desk. As she opened it, fifteen pounds in single pound notes fluttered out. ‘But this is too much!' she declared. ‘Are you sure you can afford all this at once?'

He nodded and they fell to pleasantries for a while; the cold, clear snap of weather, the cost of living. Then Rob cleared his throat. As for business, he said, he had great plans for the future. ‘My partner Walter and me, we want to go in for a more modern type of car, a Morris Cowley.'

Edith Cooper listened politely. Since the war and the loss of her only son, Teddy, she'd faded and pined. She was thinner, much older-looking, greyer, more subdued. Not a day went by without her thinking what might have been if she hadn't insisted on Teddy joining up. He might not have been killed in that plane crash; there might have been grandchildren, a future, a family to cushion her old age. She found herself drifting off as Rob carried on explaining the benefits of replacing the old cars with brand-new ones.

‘As you know, I'm a good risk. I pay my debts on time. Never been late with an instalment,' he reminded her.

‘No, never,' she agreed. She rested her thin arms along the padded armrests of the swivel chair. In the background, the whir and ping
of change machines racing along their taut wire tracks punctuated their conversation.

‘So I would like to set out another proposition.' Rob came to the crux of the matter. ‘If you could see your way to advancing us another two hundred pounds, we would pay it back at a more favourable rate of interest than before, and use the money to invest in a new motor car. I've worked out the figures and set them down here, if you'd like to take a look.' Rob knew how to behave with Mrs Cooper; impeccably polite, direct. That way she would go on trusting him.

Edith frowned. She gazed down at the gold watch hanging as a pendant around her neck. She realized that her husband was due back from the cotton suppliers at any time now; it had been her idea to fix Rob's appointment so that she would have the satisfaction of seeing her husband's face when he realized that her ‘bad risk' had paid off. But there was no way he would permit her to make another loan.

‘We must expand to survive, you see,' Rob said. ‘Each year the competition gets stiffer. I can see which way the wind blows; before too long all the old carters' yards will be shut down and the heavy stuff will go on motor lorries. That's something for the future, of course.'

She nodded once. ‘You want to borrow another two hundred pounds?'

‘Yes.' Rob sat forward in his chair. ‘I won't let you down, Mrs Cooper.'

But she had faded back into her chair. ‘I'm afraid it's impossible,' she said. Her hand tapped the chair arm, she glanced out of the window, heard the lift bell jangle below.

‘How's that?' Rob had convinced himself of success. He'd worked out the figures to make absolute sense.

‘Oh, it's not that it wouldn't be a good investment.' She shook her head and raised a pale, thin hand to reassure him. ‘No, I'm quite sure that what you say is very fair, and I wish I could help, I really do!' She looked at him in mute appeal.

Rob quickly caught on. He saw how much his proposal had
embarrassed her. He glanced at the oldish fixtures and fittings around the place; out of date now and slightly down-at-heel. It dawned on him; Coopers' was struggling, just like everywhere else. It had hit hard times since the coming of the massive new West End stores, it had grown shabby and unfashionable. And he'd never even noticed.

He stood up at once. ‘I'm sorry, Mrs Cooper. I'm sorry the investment don't seem a sound one to you.' He was gentlemanly enough to spare her further embarrassment. Amid his own crashing disappointment, he wanted to ease Edith Cooper's position.

She nodded and stood up to shake his hand once more. ‘Thank you, Robert,' she said quietly. ‘And I wish you luck.'

He went out, walking tall, knowing in his heart that it was more than luck they needed to keep the taxi business afloat. He pretended not to catch sight of Jack Cooper's florid, overweight figure coming into the store as he left.

‘What did Parsons want?' Cooper snapped suspiciously at his wife as soon as he reached the office.

‘He came to pay the last instalment of his loan,' she told him calmly.

Cooper grunted. His features were sunken into folds of flesh, his eyelids drooped. ‘Well, you needn't think it'll make any difference,' he told her. ‘We'll get no more cotton or rayon yarn from Hazlitts'. No supplies without payment first; that's the form these days.'