After Hours (36 page)

‘Not a bit,' Annie said firmly. ‘Here, Duke, you watch the stall while Amy and me goes for a chat. Tell Sadie to come and fetch Meggie when she comes back.'

Duke looked in bemusement at the hooks and eyes, the press-studs and rolls of elastic set out in neat rows along the stall. He stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and shuffled into position.

‘A pint of the best, Duke!' Tommy yelled.

‘And you!' he growled back.

‘Tommy!' Liz warned. ‘Don't you go pushing your luck, you hear.' Seeing Duke out and about was good news, but seeing him trying to cope behind the stall was like watching a fish out of water.

‘You gotta laugh,' Tommy told her. ‘Otherwise you'd cry. He took it well, ain't he?'

‘Now listen, Tommy.' Liz took him to task. ‘You ain't been into Hill's place lately?' Like the other market-stall holders, she stuck rigidly to the boycott of the Prince of Wales. She worked hard to keep the young ones in line.

‘'Course not. What do you think I am?' Tommy glanced at his watch, wondering whether to nip off and risk a quick one at the Hag. ‘Not that it'll do the old man much good in the end.'

‘What you on about?' Liz came In quick and sharp.

‘The brewery ain't gonna take him back in any case.' Tommy laid things out plain and simple. He kept his voice low. ‘Even if Bertie Hill comes a cropper, and I ain't saying he don't deserve to, they ain't gonna give Duke his licence back, are they? He's out on his ear and there ain't nothing we can do.'

Liz shook her head. ‘Don't let Annie hear you going on like that,' she warned. ‘And don't go thinking of breaking the boycott because of it, you hear?'

The street was determined to force Hill out of business, come what may.

Inside the pub, word came up from the tenement that Mr Hill was wanted down the court. He left the bar to the booze-sodden care of Jack Cooper, to look after the thin trickle of lunch-time custom. It sounded like he could let another room if he went to sort it out on the spot.

But he was in no hurry as he went down. Too thick-skinned to bother about the sour looks that greeted him wherever he went, he sauntered along in the sunshine. He was taken aback, however, as he entered the tenement and found Sadie Parsons waiting for him in the grey inner court. He'd never expected to see another member of the Parsons family come looking for a room.

Sadie asked civilly if he had anything to let. Much as she resented Hill's existence, she must swallow her pride and find somewhere to live. She confined herself to the business in hand. After all, there had been other, more difficult things to swallow recently, and if Rob or anyone got on his high horse about renting a room from
the ‘enemy', she was prepared to defend her actions. ‘I want something close to my pa,' she told Hill with dignity. ‘It ain't easy to manage without family close by.' She met his inquisitive stare.

‘Miss Parsons,' he began slowly, enjoying the situation. Sadie hadn't lost her looks at any rate, though by all accounts, she'd lost much else, including her reputation, her job and now her man. ‘You'll excuse me for asking, but how do you propose to pay the rent? Supposing I have a room, which I don't say I have.'

‘I plan to take in typewriting work, Mr Hill, and anything else that comes my way. How much do you charge for a room?'

‘That all depends.' He came up, too close. The more civil and distant in manner she grew, the more familiar he became. She could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. ‘A room at the front costs extra. If I have one available, which I don't say I do, mind.'

Sadie held his gaze. His sandy colouring showed up the redness of his complexion, which was already thickening and coarsening into middle age. His presence was arrogant and insulting, he used his strong physique with overbearing, swaggering pride. ‘Do you have a room for me and my daughter, Mr Hill?'

‘Well – Sadie, isn't it? – as luck would have it; I think I do.' He liked this idea, one of life's little opportunities to rub salt into the wound. And he liked the look of Sadie Parsons. The shine hadn't quite gone from her. She'd had more than her fair share of it to start with: smooth skin, pretty face, good little figure. In another five years, poverty and disappointment would have rubbed all that off for good. Meanwhile, he would enjoy watching her come and go through the tenement. He offered terms. She showed spirit in haggling him down. They agreed on a price.

She asked to see the room. Even her self-control snapped when he led her to Wiggin's old hole in the semi-basement. It had recently been vacated by the sailor the O'Hagan girl had run off with. ‘Number five,' he offered, awaiting her reaction.

‘No.' She backed straight out of the room. ‘Not this one. If this is all you have, I'll look somewhere else.'

There was number eighteen, he told her. Up on the second storey, opposite the O'Hagans. It would be more expensive.

In the end, the bargain was made. She wanted to move in right away. Hill held out the key. His fingers rested too long in the palm of her hand as he handed it to her.

Annie grumbled, Duke shook his head, Frances admitted it would solve a problem for the time being. No one liked Sadie coming to live in Eden House except Ernie. He could pop in from Annie's house whenever he pleased. In the end, everyone concluded it would have to do as a short term measure.

Rob drove up to Mile End with Sadie to collect her few possessions, where Sadie bade a tearful farewell to Sarah Morris. She handed over the sealed envelope addressed to Richie. ‘If you hear of him, or if he ever comes back, will you give it to him for me?'

‘I will,' Sarah promised. ‘But don't get your hopes up. Men like Richie, they don't like no responsibility.' She hugged Sadie and wished her well, giving the envelope pride of place on her bare mantelpiece.

‘Funny thing, that,' Rob observed, as he strapped the boot lid closed and started up the engine. He climbed into the driver's seat.

‘What's funny about it?' Sadie didn't feel in the mood for jokes.

‘Funny peculiar, I mean. What the old girl just said. Richie ain't the kind to take responsibility.'

Sadie glanced back down Hope Street as her brother pulled away from the kerb. ‘So?'

‘So, that's just what I'd have said about me before now. I don't like to be tied down, you know me. I like to come and go. But look at me now.'

She gave a wan smile. ‘Yes, but you're happy, Rob. You found the right person. It's me. I weren't the right one for Richie, that's all.'

‘And I got little Bobby.' He headed for the river, threading through the busy streets. ‘For God's sake, if you'd told me a year ago that I'd be hitched to Amy, with a kid, I'd have died laughing.'

He helped Sadie with her luggage and left her in Frances's capable hands. Frances was there to help put the room to rights while
Annie minded Meggie. Little O'Hagans ran in and out, up and downstairs.

Rob went home to Amy and Bobby. The next day, when he took a break from work and went over to Mile End to collect Sadie's remaining boxes and sticks of furniture, he answered Sarah Morris's beckoning call.

‘It ain't taken him long,' she whispered mysteriously from along the balcony.

‘Who? Richie?' Rob frowned and went over.

She nodded. ‘Who else? He heard she'd flitted and came snooping round late last night. Ain't nothing gets by him, not if he don't want it to.'

‘He ain't away at sea, then?'

Sarah snorted. ‘Not him. I could hear him knocking things about a bit, so I goes and knocks on the door. I tells him she's gone back to Southwark and I gives him her letter.'

Rob nodded.

‘He shoves it straight in his pocket and looks daggers at me. It ain't my fault he's gone and left her in the lurch, is it? Anyhow, he says to me, “Tell her I'm in Hoxton, if she wants to know. She can find me there.” But I'm telling you, Sadie would be a fool to go chasing him there.'

‘Hoxton? Any address?' Rob got ready to leave.

‘Care of the Queen's Head, that's all I know.' Sarah delivered the final scraps of Richie's message. ‘He looked in a poor way. I think he's hit the bottle. Like I say, she'd be a fool to chase him.'

‘She's a fool all right,' Rob said. ‘Look where she landed up.'

‘We don't cast the first stone round here,' Sarah replied. ‘I thought she was a lovely girl, only a bit soft.' She followed him halfway along the balcony. ‘You'll give her the message?'

Rob nodded. He was glad to put a distance between himself and Hope Street. When he got home, he took the boxes out of the taxi and took them upstairs into Eden House. Sadie looked at him, half-expecting news of Richie, but he shook his head. ‘Nothing,' he reported. ‘I should forget him, if I was you. He ain't never gonna be no good for you.'

She fought to accept it, sitting over a cup of tea with Frances. She protested that she'd put Richie behind her already. Meggie was all she cared about now. But she lay in bed alone, looking out through the curtainless window at the starlit sky. The street noises died away. Meggie slept soundly.

If Richie walked in now and said he wanted them both, nothing in the world would matter except that. She would sacrifice everything all over again, she knew it for certain. The image of him filled her every waking moment and drifted into her dreams. She longed for him, and wished he would come back. Love was like slavery. It shackled her heart.

‘Ma, spell “Mauretania” for me.' Grace looked up from her homework. She sucked the end of her pencil and stared out of the open french doors, up the long, sloping garden of the house in Ealing.

Jess sat at her sewing. ‘M-A-U-R,' she began, then waited for Grace to catch up. ‘-E-T-A-N-I-A.'.

‘Miss Shoesmith told us the
Mauretania
was built on the River Tyne by the Swan Hunter shipyard in 1907, since when it has held the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic at an average speed of 26.06 knots in 4 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes!' Grace recited, word for word.

Jess smiled. Grace liked facts. When she wasn't busy with homework, she was tuned into the wireless, on the 2LO transmitting station, listening to the news broadcasts. She gobbled up information, read every Chalet School book, and shared Maurice's enthusiasm for the latest aviation developments. When she grew up, she wanted to fly a De Havilland Moth at a top speed of ninety miles per hour.

‘Rosie says her sister, Katie, sailed the Atlantic even faster than that. But I said, how could it, if the
Mauretania
still holds the Blue Riband?' Grace bent her head and scribbled on.

‘And what did Rosie say?'

‘She said I shouldn't call her sister a liar, and she'd tell her big brother, Patrick, and I'd better watch out.'

‘Hmm. I hope you two didn't have a fight.' Jess took her pointed scissors and snipped into the curved seam. She spread the lilac crêpe-de-Chine fabric flat and took it to the ironing-board to finish.
Outside, Mo swung high on the garden swing, slung from a low branch of the apple tree. ‘Did she say how Katie was getting on?'

Grace frowned. ‘No, she never. She says that in America the tenements are high as the sky. She says you can't walk down the streets in San Francisco 'cos they're too steep. Once, Katie started to run and ended up in the sea.'

Jess laughed. ‘And they're paved with gold, I suppose?'

‘I don't know about that.' Grace took it seriously. ‘Pa says Hollywood is where they make the best cinema films. It's where Charlie Chaplin, the King of Comedy, made
The Kid
, and where Mary Pickford, the World's Sweetheart, lives.' She sighed.

Jess didn't reply. She wasn't sure that Maurice should feed the children so many of these sweet celluloid dreams. Grace knew every sequence in every Douglas Fairbanks film, and Jess wasn't sure that a girl her age could tell the fiction from the reality. If she ever went to Hollywood, she might be surprised to find that the men weren't all dressed in curly wigs and frilled shirts, or that the young women didn't spend all their days tied to railway tracks, awaiting rescue. Still, Maurice took Grace to Saturday matinees to see the latest releases, and she came home thrilled, strutting like Felix and humming his tune.

The evening shadows lengthened in the garden. Mo came in for something to eat, and Hettie came down from upstairs to take him into the kitchen to make him a jam sandwich. She planned a summer evening stroll with George, she told Jess. George had a night off from the Lamb and Flag. He had something he wanted to talk to Hettie about.

Jess raised her eyebrows.

‘Now, it ain't nothing like that!' Hettie stood in the doorway, blushing and laughing. She held Mo's sticky hand.

‘Nothing like what?'

‘Ma means cuddling and stuff, don't you, Ma?' Grace giggled and made a face.

‘Now, Grace,' Jess warned.

‘It's got to do with work, if you must know,' Hettie protested.

‘Is that why you're wearing your best dress, Auntie Ett?'

‘She's incorrigible,' Jess sighed.

‘In-corri-what?'

‘Never mind.' She gave her daughter a firm look and said she hoped that Hettie had a good time. Then she took Mo Back into the kitchen to wipe his hands.

When Maurice arrived home late that night, the house was peaceful. He knew Jess would be in the front room, working as usual. The door was open and the light on. He heard the stop-start-stop whir of the sewing-machine, and the even rhythm of the treadle. Instead of going upstairs to Grace and Mo, he went straight in to see her.

She glanced up to receive his kiss on the cheek. ‘You look like the cat that got the cream.' She smiled.

Maurice unbuttoned his jacket and flung it on a chair: ‘I got some good news.' He rolled up his shirt-sleeves, then came behind her to rest his arms on her shoulders. ‘I got us a share in the cinema chain. I'm part-owner now. What do you think of that?'