After Hours (31 page)

. . . ‘Me and Rob's getting married!' Amy bubbled over with enthusiasm as she delivered the news to Charlie, who she found drowning his own sorrows at the Lamb and Flag.

‘Better make it quick,' he commented, staring into his beer.

Amy's heartbeat quickened. Had he got wind of anything he shouldn't? Rob and she had decided to keep the news about the baby secret until the families got used to the idea of them being married. ‘How's that, Charlie?'

‘If you want me to be there,' he explained. With one dream of success in the cinema game shattered, he was quickly rebuilding another. ‘I aim to sail for America as soon as I got the wherewithal.'

Amy gasped. ‘Where did you get that idea?'

Charlie jerked his thumb towards a corner of the bar, where the sailor, Jack Allenby, sat deep in conversation with Katie O'Hagan. ‘Jack says it's the land of opportunity.'

‘What's he doing
here
, then?' Amy asked drily.

‘Oh, he ain't gonna be hanging around much longer. Him and Katie are off to San Francisco, soon as ever they can.'

Amy stared. ‘They ain't!'

‘Ask them.'

‘That'll be a bit of a winder for Mary, won't it?' Amy's imagination went full-tilt. She gazed at handsome Jack. ‘Mind you, I could see why she'd fall for him.' She paused. ‘Only, what's he see in her? She's a little mouse, ain't she?'

‘Miaow,' Charlie said, with a gulp of his beer.

‘I ain't jealous of Katie O'Hagan.' Amy gave him a shove and. waltzed out of the pub, showering congratulations on Katie and Jack, sharing her own good news. ‘Me and Rob Parsons is getting married!' she said to whoever cared to listen . . .

. . . ‘Congratulations. Amy's a decent sort.' Walter came to terms with the news and took Rob for a celebratory drink at the Flag. They'd missed Amy by just five minutes, Charlie said.

‘Oh, we get on like a house on fire,' Rob assured Walter. He knocked back two quick whiskies.

‘So what brought this on?' Walter suspected more. He knew Rob as a footloose, fancy-free sort as far as the girls went. He'd often envied him his flexibility in his choice of girlfriends. There was he, Walter, still stuck on Sadie, all these months after she'd gone off to live with Richie.

Rob fell into confidential mood, the whisky working its way down his gullet. ‘Amy's in the cart, you know. I mean, that ain't the only reason, 'course. But I can't drop the girl now, can I? It ain't right.'

Walter drank and nodded. ‘You sure, Rob?'

‘What?'

‘Better think it through now before it's too late. Not that I'm
trying to put you off the idea, don't think that. Like I said, I like the girl.'

‘But?'

‘But do you love her, Rob?' Walter couldn't get it into his head that his friend was serious.

‘You make it sound like bleeding prison.' Rob's laugh was shallow. ‘I'm only marrying the girl.'

‘And how do you know for sure that it's your kid?' Walter pushed the point home.

Rattled, Rob insisted that he was the father. ‘Amy says he's mine, and she ain't a fool. She wouldn't trick me, not over something like this.'

Again, Walter nodded. ‘Sorry, Rob. It ain't none of my business.' He extended his hand. ‘I hope you'll be very happy, mate.'

Rob accepted the congratulations. It wasn't second thoughts that Walter had just shoved into his head. It was third, fourth or fifth thoughts . . .

. . . ‘He ain't getting cold feet?' Jess had invited Amy to the shop to go over some designs for her wedding outfit. She laid out the drawings on the table in the back workroom.

‘I think he is,' Amy said, with a bright smile. ‘Trust Rob,' Hettie laughed. ‘He always knew how to make a girl feel wanted.'

‘Anyhow, we already sent out the invites.' Amy studied the styles Jess had come up with. She needed something to disguise her thickening waist; a straight dress with a loose satin jacket and wide revers. Nothing too flimsy or revealing. Luckily Jess had come up with winter designs that would be suitable.

‘The thing is, to keep the dress and jacket nice and plain, like this one, cut on the cross so the skirt hangs nice, in a heavy, smooth cream satin for the jacket, and something lighter for the dress.' Jess got caught up in her creation. ‘Then we can put all the detail in the head-dress; scalloped lace with a little coronet of seed pearls and lily-of-the-valley. Very up-to-the-minute.'

Amy's eyes glowed. ‘It's lovely. That's it. That's the one.'

Then it was Hettie's turn to show her some fabrics, suggest some shoes from the shop. Edith Cooper was there to offer her congratulations. Amy smiled and said yes to this and that, taking her time to choose. Then she glanced at the time and said she must fly: Rob and she had arranged to look at some rooms to let above Powells' ironmonger's shop on Duke Street. She'd promised to meet him there at half-five.

Hettie and Jess waved her off, then went inside. ‘She seems happy,' Jess commented, folding away her drawings.

‘'Course she's happy. And Rob's a lucky man,' said Hettie, ever generous, ever optimistic . . .

. . . ‘I ain't never felt so important in my whole life.' Amy sighed. She sat with Rob in the taxi, parked just off Regent Street. She'd told him about her trip to Ealing to choose her wedding clothes, putting off the moment when she would have to kiss him goodbye and trudge up the metal staircase to the women's dormitory.

Rob caught her enthusiasm. ‘'Course you're important. Specially now.' He slid a hand around her waist.

‘Yes, but Jess and Hettie, they make a girl feel special.' She revelled in it, allowing herself the luxury of believing in what until now had been a dream that happened to other women, not to her. It was a strange process, to strip away layers of worldliness, even cynicism which she'd built up over the years, to dare to be innocent again.

She was hoping for a happy ending with Rob. They'd taken the rooms over the shop, and Rob had told her to hand in her notice at Dickins and Jones. ‘Ain't no point in you working after we're hitched,' he told her. ‘You'll want to put your feet up.'

‘I ain't sick,' she protested. ‘I'm only having a kid.'

‘Bleeding hell!' He stopped her mouth with a kiss. Passers-by might hear.

‘They don't care.' Amy laughed. ‘But I don't want mollycoddling, Rob. I'll have the rooms to sort out. We'll have to get the stuff from Tommy and paint that ceiling, for a start.'

They argued over who would climb ladders and where the baby
would sleep. Nevertheless, Amy knew, as she finally waved Rob on his way round Oxford Circus, that the time would soon be here when they would have their own place, and that this would be one of the last times she would have to watch the taxi disappear into the traffic before she climbed the stairway to her lonely crib.

St James's, Dolly Ogden's regular church,; tucked away behind Marshalsea Road, was the venue for Amy and Rob's wedding on a cold, clear morning in late November 1924. Blackened by soot, its gothic tower a favourite pigeon haunt, nevertheless the bells rang out as the guests arrived spruce and correct in their suits and smart outfits.

Tommy O'Hagan turned up in a new pair of wide trousers and a double-breasted jacket, his mother, Mary, in a decent grey coat and hat. Katie went into the church arm-in-arm with her handsome sailor, the envy of all her friends. Even Joe sloped along to see the couple married. Not so much lapsed from the Church as gone for ever, his memories of the Catholic Mass were uncomfortably revived by the stained-glass angels and brass altar-cross.

Amy had sent out invitations to the whole of Paradise Court, to her pals from Dickins and Jones, and to her old mates on the market. She persuaded Edith Cooper to show up, just for the ceremony, she said. The other older women – Nora, Liz and the rest – had come to accept the ex-storeowner's wife and greeted her cheerfully at the doors of the church. They were all dressed up in Sunday best, with new feathers in their hats from Katie's stall, and fox furs slung around their shoulders.

Then, once the church was two-thirds full with friends and a gang of children and idlers had gathered at the gate, the families began to arrive.

Frances and Billy, quietly and nicely dressed, slipped in first, followed by a stir when Maurice and his family drew up in their new motor car and stepped out. Grace and Mo walked up to the
church hand-in-hand with their mother, the little girl looking lovely in a broad-brimmed emerald velvet hat and matching coat. Mo was buttoned inside his pale camel-hair coat with its brown velvet collar, his black hair brushed across his forehead, looking serious as he held tight to his mother's gloved hand. Jess herself wore a fur-trimmed outfit in autumn gold, plain but beautifully made, with a neat cloche hat to frame her dark features. Maurice followed close behind in his dark suit, the picture of a successful businessman.

Then Hettie came up the path with George, smiling at friends, stopping to wait for Duke and Annie and able to enjoy a few moments of wintry sunshine. Opinion was that although the other sister, Jess, had plenty of style without being showy, Hettie's outfit came off best, with its pearl-grey hip-length jacket trimmed with grey fur, its slim, longer-length skirt and neat kidskin shoes. They thought she suited it and looked more relaxed, whereas Jess was smart but self-conscious. She hadn't quite carried it off, they thought.

But Annie, the stepmother of the groom, looked perfect. Without trying too hard, without being bang up-to-date, she radiated happiness from her little, upright figure. She came only up to Duke's shoulder, and her hat was as wide as she was; a square-crowned blue one with a dipping, broad brim. Her pointed face smiled from under it, she walked tall in her royal blue outfit, her arm in Duke's. The old man wore a white buttonhole in his pinstriped suit. He'd aged, they thought. Still, he looked proud and steady.

Then came the groom and the best man: They drove themselves to church, arriving in good time. Rob stopped in the porch to check details with Ernie: the order of events, the ring. Then they went nervously in.

Just time then for Dolly to arrive all in purple, with Charlie in tow, fussing over her hat, her gloves, her fur stole, Charlie's tie and glum expression. A dozen pigeons perching on a flat black tombstone took flight, clattering into the air as Dolly paused to inspect everyone, took a deep breath and plunged into the church.

On the stroke of midday, Walter drove up with Amy and Arthur, his car decked with white ribbon and gleaming in the sun. He opened the door to let out the bride; a white foot and stocking, a
flowing cream skirt to the knee, a silky jacket and cascading veil. Amy clutched her lily-of-the-valley bouquet, steadied herself on her father's arm, and walked the endless path to the church, through the porch, down the aisle.

During the whole ceremony, with half of Southward gathered behind and lifting the roof of the church with their singing; during the exchange of vows, the fumbling with the ring, the vicar's sing-song blessing and the signing of the book, Amy's terrified fear was that someone would ‘find her out'. This was how she put it to herself. Lawful impediments would be produced, something would crash into her happiness and smash her apart from Rob. She trembled with superstition, with the notion that there was still time for him to change his mind, that fierce little Annie would find out about the baby and prevent the match.

Only when the register was signed and witnessed, when they walked clear of the small, fusty vestry to face the congregation and walk down the aisle together to the swelling notes of the organ, did she believe that she, Amy Ogden, was now Amy Parsons, and safely married to Rob.

The groom, still ill at ease, caught sight of Walter in the front pew. He negotiated two shallow steps into the aisle with Amy on his arm. Walter winked and nodded. Rob grinned back. The music pushed the couple down the aisle together, out into the bright sunshine. There was a photographer organizing guests into a horseshoe shape around the happy couple; endless photographs.

Amy's veil was trampled, Arthur fretted for a drink to calm his nerves. The photographer bent over his tripod and ordered them to smile. Dolly reorganized everyone, refused to stay still, insisted on at least two photographs from each angle. The photographer softly blasphemed under cover of his black velvet hood. At last they could disperse.

The wedding party trooped across the streets, down the main thoroughfares, back to Duke Street, where Dolly had got up a reception at Henshaws'.

Then the toasting and the speeches began. Arthur took copious Dutch courage before he stood up. He swayed and thanked everyone
for coming. He said how proud he was of Amy, and how lovely she looked. Amy blushed. Dolly sat in her purple finery, challenging anyone to deny it. Arthur said how well matched the couple were, how the Ogdens were proud to have Parsons as in-laws, though at one time they'd hoped for Bishops.

‘Pa!' Amy protested.

Arthur laboured the joke. ‘One of Amy's young men, his name was Eddie Bishop,' he explained. ‘Only, no need to worry, Rob, it never came to nothing.'

By this time, the guests would laugh and caw at anything. Arthur rambled on, people drank up and started to tuck in, lifting their glasses to this toast and that. Rob stood up to sit Arthur down, on Dolly's instructions. He offered more thanks, lost his way, pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. Then he screwed it up and tossed it over his shoulder. ‘Ain't no need for that.' He grinned. ‘Amy and me, we just want to say thanks to Dolly and Arthur for putting on this do for us, and thanks to Pa and Annie for everything they done,' He smiled broadly to left and right, ran out of people to thank and sat down.

Duke sat at the top table, Annie on one side, Ernie on the other. He brimmed with pride. It was the third wedding in the family, after Jess and Frances, and so far everything had gone smoothly. Rob, whom he never thought would settle down, had met his match in Amy. Duke expected there to be a few fireworks; neither was the placid type, and they'd have struggles over money, like everyone else. But Amy would coax Rob out of his moods when he got down, and if she was a bit loud, like her ma, it was what Rob needed to keep him steady and his nose to the grindstone.