After Hours (16 page)

‘I said, a pint of best bitter!' Wiggin had to cling to the bar to make his demand. His head lolled from side to side, he had trouble shaping the words. He stood there unshaven, shouting his order.

Duke raised the wooden flap and came out from behind the bar. He took Wiggin by the elbow, feeling many eyes on them as he steered Annie's old husband towards the door.

Arthur Ogden watched, then grunted into his glass. Joe O'Hagan wiped his mouth with his sleeve. They couldn't help but make a comparison between the two men; Duke still sturdily built, wearing a crisp striped shirt under his dark waistcoat, vigour in his grasp. Wiggin, on the other hand, had never been much of a figure, even
in his youth, and was now shrunken, bent and unkempt, his mind permanently fuddled by drink.

‘Come on now, Willie, let's get you safely back home.' Duke never raised his voice an these occasions. In fact, he managed to suggest he was doing a man a favour by refusing to serve him. Even with Wiggin he was considerate, steering him out on to the street.

‘You take your hands off me, filthy swine!' Wiggin roared. He exploded into a writhing mass of fists and elbows. He kicked, he staggered, he spat and thumped. ‘I know you, Wilf Parsons! A man just has to come in for a little drink and you throw him out! Yes, I know you!'

Taken by surprise, Duke hesitated. Maybe Wiggin wasn't as far gone as they imagined. Annie still said he didn't know her, ranting and raving at her each time she went in to cook and clean. ‘You know me, do you, Willie?' Duke turned him round to face him and stood him up straight.

Wiggin came out with a barrage of obscenities that made some of the nearby women shriek in mock horror. Rob left off talking to Tommy O'Hagan at his news stall to come to Duke's assistance. If necessary, they'd lift Wiggin clean off his feet and cart him down the court between them.

‘That's the way, Willie. Easy does it.' Duke managed to swivel him in the right direction again. ‘Just get one thing clear, will you? You won't get served a single drop in my pub, understand? Shouting and carrying on don't make no difference. Just don't come back and try it on no more.' He was only sorry he'd not got rid of the old nuisance a minute or two sooner, as Annie came towards them, a worried frown on her face.

Wiggin put his fists up again. ‘Oh, you serve those you like, no bother! I seen you. Same old Duke Parsons, serving right through the night. I seen your light. It always shines, long after closing time. Ha!' He raised a gnarled finger and pointed an inch away from Duke's race.

‘Shut up!' Annie stepped in to take over from Duke. She grabbed Willie's elbow and shoved him on down the pavement. ‘You just
shut your noise, you hear!' God knew who was listening as he ranted on. ‘I told you lots of times,' she muttered to Duke, ‘if someone like Willie blabs, we're done for!'

Wiggin roared on down Paradise Court. ‘We all know you ain't no angel, Wilf Parsons!' Children laughed, women backed away, seeing in Wiggin the terrible shape of things to come, unless their old men cut down drastically on the drinking. ‘We know about you, Parsons! Refuse a man a drink at tea-time, and serve your pals right through the night!'

Annie bundled him down the street and into the tenement. She slammed the door behind them, worried to death about the after-hours serving. It just took one man, one enemy, to ruin Duke for good.

Back in the bar, the crowd of weekend drinkers closed over Wiggin's interruption as if it had never happened. Only one or two paused to comment. Tommy O'Hagan turned to Bertie Hill and expressed his usual opinion that Wiggin was a man who'd outlived his usefulness. He was sick of hearing him clattering about in the room below theirs, and thought it a shame that the old wreck should come between Annie and Duke, who'd never done anyone any harm. Now he was even issuing drunken threats. ‘He belongs in the knacker's yard if you ask me,' Tommy said.

Hill raised his glass but said nothing.

Rob came in and leaned on the bar, winking at Ernie to bring him a pint. ‘I'll knock his block off before too long,' he promised. ‘He ain't fit for nothing, and that's a fact.'

‘People ain't animals. You can't cart them off to the knacker's yard, however much you reel like it.' Hill's tone was infuriatingly reasonable. ‘It ain't right.'

‘Oh, ain't it?' Rob replied. And, ‘Oh, can't I? Well, we'll just have to see about that.' He admitted that he'd cheerfully strangle Wiggin if he thought it would solve anything. He swallowed down his beer in a couple of gulps and went on his way.

‘Joke!' Tommy reminded Hill, recalling the landlord's old police background and noticing his dark look. ‘Don't take no notice of Rob.'

Hill shrugged and drank on in silence. The waters closed over the event.

‘Funny thing, that,' Arthur remarked to Dolly when she called in later that evening. ‘Did you know, Duke had to chuck Wiggin out?'

Dolly gave a short laugh. ‘That's life.' She pondered the situation with an ironic smile.

‘Funny, though, when you think about it.' Arthur saw that Annie had popped back to help behind the bar as usual. No one could have told from looking at her and old Duke what the pair of them must be going through. They handled it well, considering.

Two weeks later, Tommy and Rob had cause to tackle the subject over again.

If there'd been any warning, any suggestion that Wiggin could do real damage, Rob said, they'd have done things differently. ‘Only no one except Annie took him serious, see?' He was just coming to terms with events. The letter from the magistrates' court had arrived that morning, 20 June. ‘It hit Pa like a bombshell,' Rob went on. ‘And I still feel a bit shaky myself.'

‘Are you sure Wiggin's your man?' Tommy could just make out from the official wording: on the letter Rob had handed him that the coppers planned to drop down hard on poor old Duke. He made out the words ‘summons', ‘investigation', ‘evidence'. There was no doubt, they were on to him with a vengeance.

‘You heard him. He might be a useless old drunk, but he knows enough to give us a real headache round here. God knows what Pa can do about it now.'

Tommy shoved the letter back to Rob and leaned both elbows on the bar. George Mann had taken over the serving, with Ernie there as usual to help with the clearing away. There was no sign of either Duke or Annie. Regulars dropped in every now and then for a quick word of commiseration, but they drifted off again when they found Duke was missing. ‘It's hit him pretty hard,' Dolly said to Charlie, who came in on his way to the Gem. ‘I ain't never known him to leave the bar to George on a Friday night.'

‘
Someone
gave the game away,' Rob was still insisting. ‘And who's the first one that comes to mind?'

‘Wiggin,' Charlie admitted. He didn't like to see the Parsonses in more trouble over this. ‘What'll happen now, Rob? What does the summons mean exactly?'

But Rob was taken up by his own train of thought. ‘You show me a pub in the whole of the East End that don't serve after hours!' He clenched his fist and smacked it down on the bar. ‘We're forever getting warnings from the coppers and sticking them on the fire. Pa couldn't make ends meet if he stuck to licensing hours, for God's sake!'

Tommy, standing nearby, saw the light at last. He gave a faint whistle. ‘Bleeding hell, Rob. You mean to say your old man could lose his licence over this?'

It took Duke himself several hours for this realization to sink in. While Rob and his friends fretted in the bar, he sat upstairs with Annie, motionless in his chair by the empty fireside. Hettie would soon be back from the dress shop. He'd have to explain all over again.

‘Try looking on the bright side,' Annie begged. ‘What if they can't prove nothing? Who'd take Wiggin's word in a court of law?'

‘We can't be sure it was him.' Unlike Rob, Duke didn't want to jump to conclusions.

‘No, but let's say Wiggin's word don't prove reliable, according to the magistrate . . .'

Duke shook his head. ‘The police don't get up a summons without checking their facts,' he insisted. ‘I reckon they already sent their men in for evidence. Someone we don't know. You seen anyone, Annie?'

She searched her memory. ‘I can't think of no one, Duke.' She tried to build up his hopes because she knew the pub meant everything to him now. He'd already given up his marriage, Sadie had gone off with Richie Palmer, and now it was his home on the line! She couldn't go down the court, leaving him to despair.

‘How long have I been here, Annie?'

‘Thirty-five years. I remember it, Duke. Jess was just a little baby.'

‘Well, I'm too old to change my ways now,' he sighed. ‘What is it they reckon? Three score and ten years? I had my fair share, when you look at it that way.'

‘Ain't nothing wrong with you!' she snapped. ‘You'll go on for years yet!' She raised herself and walked to the window, looking out at the market traders packing up for the day. ‘How long before we have to go to court exactly?'

‘Two weeks.'

‘Fourteen days to get something done,' she promised.

But Duke got up to join her. ‘Ain't you forgetting something, Annie?'

She turned to look up at him.

‘They caught me redhanded, remember?'

She threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. She willed him to fight back. She cursed Wiggin and their own carelessness.

Annie and Duke looked down together on the barrow boys trundling carts over the cobbles. They saw two of the youngest O'Hagan girls ducking in the gutter for bruised apples. A pianola tune drifted through the open window below, churning out a Viennese waltz above the hum of street life. She glanced up at his lined features, saw that his eyes were moist. She couldn't bear it if he lost everything because of Wiggin; wife, home, occupation all gone.

The whole of Paradise Court was up in arms when they heard what Wiggin had done.

‘You know what this means, don't you?' Arthur Ogden sat on an upturned orange-box among the rows of young cabbages and leeks on his allotment.

Dolly, bent double over the tender plants, gave a short reply. ‘Yes, it means no more drinking after hours. And a bleeding good thing too!' She stood up to roll back her sleeves and fix her hair.

‘You don't mean that. Think about it, if Duke does get chucked out over this and a new man comes in, and that new man happens to be a stickler for the rules, what then?' Arthur groaned at the prospect of many early nights ahead.

‘It'll do you no end of good,' his wife insisted. She eased her back after her labours. It was a fine summer's evening. Swallows darted overhead, an old black tomcat sat blinking on the fence, while in the background a train shuttled by. Dolly wiped her face with her apron. ‘No, it ain't you I'm bothered about, Arthur. It's old Duke. What the bleeding hell's he gonna do if they take away his licence?'

There was no answer to this. Arthur sat silently brooding.

‘I mean to say, it's the same as uprooting one of them cabbages and chucking it on the compost.' Dolly jabbed with her trowel. ‘If he goes, what's left for him except the scrapheap?' The idea of the old man minus his pub was unimaginable. ‘It's his life, Arthur, you
gotta admit.' She sighed and bent slowly to begin weeding once more.

‘Maybe Annie will take him back?' Arthur sat, arms folded, contemplating the ripple of pink clouds in the eggshell sky.

Dolly shook her head. ‘Never in a month of Sundays. There's Wiggin standing in the way. Don't ask me why, but Annie still sees herself as married to the old sod. She has old-fashioned views on the subject.'

Arthur changed tack. ‘Well, then, he could go to live with one of his stuck-up, bleeding daughters.' He gathered phlegm, coughed and spat. ‘That Frances, or that Jess.'

‘Jess ain't stuck-up.' Dolly pointedly ignored his reference to Frances. ‘Anyhow, that ain't the point. The thing is, what's an old man like him to do when they take away both his home and his job? Come to that, what's Rob and Ernie and Hettie gonna do?' She dug savagely at a dandelion root, heaving it free in a shower of earth. She flung it into a nearby barrow.

‘Like I said, it ain't good news.' Arthur stood up. Talk of problems at the pub had helped him to work up a thirst.

‘You can say that again. It's like an axe over their heads, and there ain't nothing they can do.' Dolly hacked away at another root.

‘I think I'll just pop along there and see how he is,' Arthur said. ‘I expect he'll need cheering up.' He took his cap from his pocket, unrolled it and put it on.

‘Have one for me!' Dolly watched him go, meandering up Meredith Court past the blank windows of Coopers' Drapery Stores. That was the other big news of the week: Jack Cooper had closed down and thrown eighty-five workers on the dole. On Monday the bailiffs had moved in and cleared the place. Not that she wasted an ounce of pity on the shop owner. He'd been a pig in his time, and Dolly herself had rowed with him on Amy's behalf. The son, Teddy, had behaved badly towards Amy, and Jack Cooper, quite wrongly in her opinion, had stood by him. That was all water under the bridge: Teddy Cooper was just one more dead hero, and Amy had got on in life in spite of the setback. Still, Dolly wasn't
sad to see the shop go under. Something better would come in its place. Meanwhile, though, half of Duke Street was out of work.

When Arthur arrived at the Duke, he found Tommy O'Hagan standing his pa a drink, and soon muscled in on the act. Tommy was good for a pint these days. He earned a pretty penny on his stalls, selling daily newspapers on one, and a range of brushes, paints and varnishes, pastes and wallpapers on a new stall on the corner of Duke Street and Union Street. Soon he planned to open a little shop and call it The Home Decorator. Arthur admired his get-up-and-go.