After Hours (20 page)

‘Don't make excuses for him, Annie. I can't bear to hear it.' Frances smoothed down the sheets and patted them. ‘About this business in Hoxton. Dolly says Wiggin weren't your first husband after all.'

Tears rolled from the corners of Annie's closed-eyes. Frances dabbed them with her handkerchief. ‘Don't tell no one, Fran. Don't tell Duke.' She turned her face to the wall, sobbing quietly.

‘I won't say nothing if you don't want me to.' Frances took Annie's hand in hers and prepared to listen.

‘I was just sixteen, not very old. It's true, I was married then, before I met Wiggin.' She opened her eyes and gave Frances a sharp look. ‘Ain't there nothing Dolly Ogden don't know?'

Frances smiled. ‘That's more like it. No, there ain't, so you'd best own up.'

‘My pa was a cobbler by trade. He mended shoes all his life, and pots and pans when they needed a patch. There was a lot of mouths to feed, and when Michael Kearney came along and offered to take me off their hands, they thought it was a godsend.' Annie paused. ‘It weren't, as it turned out, but I couldn't go back and tell my pa that, could I?'

Frances shook her head. ‘Did he treat you very bad?'

‘He liked a drink, and drink didn't improve his temper. I stuck it out for a year before I left him.'

‘
You
left him?' Frances asked. ‘That ain't what I heard.'

‘I was married to Kearney for a year,' Annie insisted. ‘Then I was married to Willie Wiggin.'

‘But how? That's the real question.' Frances tried to battle a way through Annie's evasiveness. Unless they came to the crux, all these painful reminiscences would be for nothing.

‘I think you know the answer to that,' Annie said slowly. ‘Let's leave it, Frances. It's hard enough to hold my head up as it is.'

All Frances's notions about women's rights rose to the surface as she considered Annie's injured face and her struggle to come to terms with the past. She felt another surge of anger. ‘You ain't done nothing to be ashamed of. Not a single thing. The man who done this to you, that's the one ought to be hanging his head in shame. And Kearney. Two men who put their heads together and make a bargain over a wife! It's disgusting.' Frances couldn't help but show her feelings, though she was trying to keep a level head for Annie's
sake. ‘Ain't that what they did? You was Kearney's wife, and he went and sold you to Wiggin?'

‘They was drunk,' Annie whispered.

‘And you was seventeen!' Frances ran out of words to express her disgust.

‘It happened in them days. It was the old way of going on.'

‘But it weren't the proper way, not even in them days. Ain't you ever thought it weren't right, Annie? Ain't you considered that?'

Annie shook her head. ‘Right or wrong, Wiggin struck a bargain and showed me the piece of paper that made everything open and above board. He said he'd got it from the Register Office and there was no going back on it. Kearney wanted rid of me. Willie took me in. I wore a ring. What could I do?'

‘And what happened to Kearney? Didn't he sober up and want you back?'

‘Happy ever after? No, he never did get back on his feet. I heard he went on a binge, then he went from bad to worse. He had to go round the builders begging for work, when everyone knew he weren't fit for nothing. One took him on though, and he was still drunk when he went up a ladder one day. They say he just keeled over and that was it. He fell twenty feet to the ground.'

‘He died?'

Annie nodded. ‘A month after I went with Wiggin. Well, I was in the cart then. Wiggin was no better than Michael Kearney, but I had to stick it out. We got moved on out of Hoxton and we came over to Paradise Court. You know the rest.'

Frances patted her hand. ‘I wish you'd told us.'

‘And be made a laughing stock?' Annie shook her head. ‘Would you own up to being sold on the market like a bolt of cloth? Be honest, what would you have done?'

‘The same as you, probably. But let's get one thing straight; you ain't ever been married to Wiggin, no more than I have. Not in the eyes of the law. That marriage certificate Wiggin said he got from the Register Office, it ain't worth the paper it's written on, not without a proper divorce from Kearney.'

Annie considered this, her expression growing agitated. ‘And in the eyes of the Lord?' she asked.

Frances paused. ‘I ain't no expert, Annie, but I can't see that God would object if you said a prayer or two and told him you done your best for Wiggin, but you can't do no more, and you've decided to follow your heart for once and go back where you know you belong.'

‘With Duke?' Annie trembled.

‘With Pa. You and him should be together, Annie.'

‘He needs me, don't he?'

‘He does. He's lost the Duke. That's what I came to tell you. The brewery want him out. He ain't gonna fight it, and he ain't got nowhere to go.'

Annie had her chat with the Almighty, bathed her bruised face in warm water, covered her cut with antiseptic and lint, got dressed and marched with Frances up to the Duke. She spent half an hour with Duke telling him how things stood. First he swore he'd knock Wiggin clean off his feet and got up to do it then and there. Annie restrained him. ‘He's already flat on his back. Out cold with drink,' she promised. ‘No, you and me gotta talk.'

Duke was ready to believe every word. ‘You threw yourself away on Wiggin,' he said. ‘We all knew that.'

‘And for nothing.' Annie satin her old fireside chair. ‘We was never properly married after all, according to Frances, the law and God Almighty.'

Duke smiled. There was a light in all this. ‘Well, if them three agree, it must be right.' He leaned forward to take her hand.

‘I never left you for Wiggin, Duke. I left you 'cos I thought we couldn't be married no more.'

‘But now we can?'

‘I've come round to that way of thinking, Duke. Yes. Thanks to Frances.'

‘Thanks to Dolly,' he reminded her. ‘It was Dolly tipped Frances off and got things moving.'

Annie sniffed. ‘No need to go overboard. We'd never hear the
end of it. No, let's move your things down the court here and now. No grand announcements. They can just get used to me and you being back together, and let them say what they want.'

It was agreed. The furniture, Duke and Ernie would move in with Annie. Hettie arranged to live with Jess and her family in Ealing, which would help in running the shop. Rob made a temporary arrangement to share Walter's lodgings. Practically, it all made sense.

‘I gotta keep an eye on Willie,' Annie warned them.

They had to let her follow her own charitable course. But Duke insisted on sending Ernie along with her to Eden House, in case Wiggin turned nasty again. Annie gave in to this pressure. She felt safer in Ernie's presence; he was good and strong, and slow to anger. He knew his job was to protect her.

By Friday, 4 July, when Duke should have come before the magistrate, he was ready to leave the pub he'd run for thirty-five years. They crowded out Annie's tiny terraced house with his and Ernie's belongings; the old clock with its quarterly chimes, the two fireside chairs, the old kettle.

The Duke stood empty, cloths covering the pumps, the gauze mantels unlit. No sound came from the pianola, no laughter from the drinkers at the bar. Upstairs in the kitchen, a tap dripped, floorboards eased and creaked in the cool night air. Life that had gone on, year in, year out, voices that had filled the rooms had vanished.

Someone would come and cover the walls with new paper, set different slippers in the hearth. The tap dripped into the stone sink, measuring each empty second. Regulars approached the etched and intricate doors, saw no lights, moved on down Duke Street, grumbling about the changes, blaming the brewery for spoiling their weekend pleasure.

If anything brought home to Hettie the fact that she, Rob, Duke and Ernie had left the pub for good, it was a chance encounter with George Mann on the Monday after the move.

Hettie had a night off from Army work, and was hurrying down Duke Street from the tram stop. She was dressed for the summer evening in a light, wrapover dress in pale blue art silk, with a matching cloche hat pulled well down over her forehead. But every few yards, someone would call out to her; Katie O'Hagan from her haberdashery stall, or Bea Henshaw from the eating-house doorway. Then, when she spotted Ernie on his delivery bike, it was she who waved a loud hello. Her brother jammed on his brakes and stuck out his legs to come to a halt, a broad smile breaking out at the sight of Hettie. She hurried across the busy street towards him.

‘Hello, Ett. You look nice.' He beamed at her.

Hettie grinned. ‘Thanks, Ern. You don't look too bad yourself.' He was dressed up in a smart white collar and tie, in spite of the heat. ‘How's things?'

Ernie's smile stayed put. At twenty-eight, he still had the gauche air of a teenaged lad. Sturdily built, with the family's dark brown eyes, his hair brushed carefully to one side, he still took pride in his job as Henshaw's errand boy, never putting a foot wrong in his daily deliveries of fresh bread, butter and eggs. ‘Things is fine,' he told her.

‘How do you like your new room, Ernie?' Hettie knew that Annie had sorted out a back bedroom for him, arranging his bits
and pieces; his photographs of the family and poor Daisy O'Hagan, his collar studs and cufflinks, on an old mahogany dressing-table.

He nodded. ‘It's fine, thanks.'

‘Good. Well, I'm off to visit Pa,' she told him. ‘Will I see you down there?'

‘What time is it?'

‘Half past five.' She'd left the dress shop early and come over by tube, specially to see how Duke and Ernie were settling in. ‘I got some teacakes from the baker's near us. Your favourite.'

He nodded and mounted the saddle once more. ‘I'll ask Mrs Henshaw if I can knock off early,' he promised eagerly.

‘Watch out!' Hettie warned. Loud trams rattled by, buses lurched from the pavement. ‘See you in a tick.'

He nodded and launched his heavy bike into the traffic, weaving skilfully in and out.

Hettie sighed as she lost sight of him amongst the clutter of market stalls, then went on her way. Ernie seemed all right, bless him. Like a child, he was happy if
they
were happy; his pa, Annie, and his brother and sisters. She knew all too well, though, that Duke would hide things from him to spare his feelings.

Intending to ignore the empty pub windows, Hettie ducked her head as she approached the court. She took the corner at a trot, only to come straight up against a ladder, propped over the doorway, jutting out onto the pavement. Looking up, she spotted George at the top of it, taking down the small sign over the door.

‘Wilfred Albert Parsons. Licensed to sell intoxicating liquor from the premises known as the Duke of Wellington public house, Duke Street, Southwark'. She knew that sign; its small, neat, gold lettering on a black background, her father's little-used first names. She stopped, stunned to see George take out the last screw and ease it from the wall.

‘Hello, Ett.' George looked down, still holding the sign aloft. Then he swung it sideways, intending to slot it under one arm before he descended the ladder.

‘Here, George, I'll take it,' Hettie offered. She held her arms out.

He handed it to her. ‘Got it?'

She nodded. Close to, the gold letters had begun to fade and flake. Hettie waited for George to come down. ‘The brewery ain't chucked you out then, George?'

‘Not yet.' Back on
terra firma
, he took hold of the base of the ladder and swung it level with the pavement. Then he laid it flat, close to the wall.

To her shame, Hettie realized she hadn't given a thought to George's future once the battle to keep the Duke had been lost. Neither had she considered their own future together. Their quiet affair, going along gently through the years, had relied on them both simply being there at the Duke, day in, day out, coming and going. They never made arrangements to see one another; George would simply take it into his head to walk her along to the Mission, or she would come into the bar and chat with him while he worked. Now all that too, would change. ‘They'll have to keep you on as cellarman, don't you worry,' she told him. ‘They can't afford to do without you.'

He shrugged. ‘Let's wait and see who they put in as landlord. Maybe we won't see eye to eye.' He felt embarrassed at Hettie standing there in her light outfit, holding the old licence board in her gloved hands. ‘Here, let me take that.'

But she shook her head. ‘Can I have it as a keepsake?'

He nodded, wiping his own hands on his trousers. He edged her on to the doorstep, as a man wearing a sandwich-board over his shoulders sought room to pass. The board was written over in big, neat letters. It read, ‘I know 3 trades, I fought for 3 years, I have 3 children, and no work for 3 months. But I only want ONE job.' The man looked respectable in a trilby hat and tweed jacket, but his shoes were worn and he walked with his head hung low.

Hettie followed George's gaze to read the message, then she turned back to him. ‘Hang on here as long as you can,' she advised. ‘Jobs ain't ten a penny, remember.'

‘You won't think badly of me?'

Hettie glanced at the upper storey of the old pub; the rooms where she lived for most of her life. ‘Never, George.' She turned to him with a sad smile.

He said he would keep the licence board safe for her while she visited her pa, and Hettie promised to walk out to the park with him later that evening. ‘Thanks, that'd be nice,' she agreed, blushing. It was like starting afresh; she felt young and silly over the formal invitation.

Relieved, George took the board from her. ‘How long will you be?'