After Hours (40 page)

‘Straight off? Now?' He fended her off'. ‘Get hitched now? You sure it ain't a bit sudden?'

Her eyes sparkled as she looked at him. ‘George Mann, I'm thirty-six years old. What's sudden about that?' She lost him among the silvery leaves, her hat fell off into the water. ‘If we don't hurry up and get cracking, we'll be drawing our old age pension!'

He leaned forward to hold her steady, then kissed her as she fell into his arms.

They married at Southwark Register Office on 21 September 1925. The family radiated happiness and even warmed the heart of the registrar, who'd tied the knot with less than obvious enthusiasm for most of his thirty-year-long career.

The next day, George and Hettie went along together to see Mr
Wakeley. The manager saw them in a small downstairs office, amid the smell of fermenting hops and the sound of horses' hoofs stamping on the cobbled yard. As a hard-headed businessman, he gave nothing away about the present state of affairs at the Prince of Wales, but he noted with approval George's work as cellarman and said he would certainly keep him in mind. He made no connection between Hettie and the previous, unsuccessful interview with Maurice and Rob, on Duke's behalf. To him, she was Mrs Mann, a quiet, good-looking woman who seemed likely to do good service with her husband behind a respectable bar.

‘Good job you ain't mentioned you're with the Army,' George joked. He tucked her hand inside his arm as they walked out through the yard.

‘I know.' Hettie's pledge wasn't the ideal qualification for publican's wife. She included this dilemma in her prayers, and sought time to consult with the Mission commandant over it. She felt it was a problem they would have to solve when and if the time ever came.

Maurice used the occasion of Hettie's marriage to travel south and talk things over with Jess. They met up, for the first time in a month, almost as strangers, outside the Register Office, just in time for the short ceremony. He saw her from a distance, dressed in an elegant grey and silver outfit, with a neat brimmed hat tilted forward in the style of a man's trilby. Mo and Grace were kitted out for the wedding in new fawn coats and shiny black shoes. He felt proud and lonely. Jess came forward to embrace him and they went in together.

‘I miss you,' he told her, short and sweet. It was later that day, after they'd toasted the bride and groom, and Annie had shed tears of happiness. George had stood up and thanked them, and promised them he would move mountains to oust Bertie Hill and get Duke back where he belonged. Jess and Maurice had finally driven home to Ealing and got the two over-excited children to bed. Now he sat on the edge of their own bed, watching Jess unpin her hair.

She went and sat down beside him. ‘Yes, and the house ain't the
same without you coming home at night,' she confessed. The rhythm of her day had changed, shifted out of balance. She missed the slow, unperceived build-up of expectation in the evening when she used to sit at her work, waiting for Maurice to arrive.

‘You mean that?' He looked at her, his face drawn and miserable. His dark, strong features matched Jess's own rich colouring.

She stroked his cheek and nodded, ‘Anyhow, you ain't got time to miss us that much. You're too busy building your blessed picture palaces.'

‘Not twenty-four hours a day, I ain't.' He described his lodgings in a respectable Manchester suburb, which he shared with his landlady, Mrs Walters, her two Pekinese dogs, and her three other ‘gentlemen'.

Jess frowned. Her initial anger against him for reordering their universe without consultation hadn't stood the test of separation. Already she was beginning to work around the obstacles, trying to talk the problem through with Hettie. But she often turned in ever-decreasing circles instead of coming up with any answers. ‘Ett says I gotta make up my own mind,' she dropped into the conversation. ‘Only, with her being married to George now, I don't reckon she'd want to take on the shop all by herself.'

‘But you'd give it up?' he asked in surprise. He felt a surge of hope. During the lonely hours in his single bed, Maurice had convinced himself that Jess was more married to the shop than she was to him. He veered from sadness to bitterness, especially over his enforced separation from Grace and Mo. Being apart from them felt like an amputation, and he blamed Jess's selfishness. But now he began to regret his own high-handedness, as he saw her struggling to come to a decision. ‘Come and live up north with me, and let's be a family again!'

‘I can't, Maurice. I just can't!'

He gathered her to him and comforted her. ‘This is bleeding stupid,' he whispered. He kissed her tears.

‘And you don't hate me?' she implored.

‘I love you, Jess. We can work this out. By Christmas, we'll have come up with something, don't you worry.'

The separation that had softened their anger sharpened their passion. They made love with uninhibited eagerness, rediscovering each intimacy afresh. He loved her softly curved breasts and hips. She clung to his broad, smooth shoulders, stroking the heel of her hand down his long, straight back.

Autumn loosened the leaves from the tree in the park and carpeted the grass golden-brown. A co-operative food and household goods department store opened on Coopers' old premises. Tommy O'Hagan fulfilled his boast by opening a paint and wallpaper section in the basement. He soon began to walk out with, one of the pretty new shop girls, Moira Blackstone, attracted by her dark auburn hair and quick smile.

Dolly offered firm advice. ‘Don't have nothing to do with that bleeding traitor,' she told a bewildered Moira, accosting her on the street outside the Prince of Wales. Moira stood waiting for Tommy, dressed in a soft-brimmed velvet hat and a matching dark blue coat. ‘They should lock Tommy O'Hagan up and throw away the key for what he's done.'

Moira was startled. She'd only started work on the co-op cheese counter that Monday, and was immediately swept off her feet by Tommy's lively flattery. ‘Why, what's he gone and done?' She clutched her coat tight to her throat and looked the length of the street for a means of escape.

Dolly got into her full stride. ‘It ain't just me that says so. Annie thinks the same. He ain't fit to speak to. We all give him the cold shoulder these days; ain't no decent, self-respecting body will give him the time of day!' Her chin disappeared into folds of indignant flesh.

‘He ain't gone and robbed a bank, has he?' Moira's imagination ran wild. Tommy didn't look like a bank robber, with his ready grin and sparkling grey eyes. But there must be something behind Dolly's account.

She snorted. ‘Worse. He good as killed Duke Parsons!'

Moira gasped. ‘Oh, my!'

‘Yes. Might as well stick the knife straight in his back and get
it over with.' She looked daggers at the sign over the pub door. ‘I expect he'll take you in here for a quick drink before he takes you to the pictures?'

The girl shook her head. ‘I ain't gonna go with him, after all. You say he as good as killed someone?' She backed away, stepping down into the gutter and searching in her bag for coins for the tram home. She feared she'd spotted Tommy leaving the co-op and heading up the street.

‘That's what I call it. Helping to fill Bertie Hill's till is the same as signing Duke's death warrant. If he takes you in here for a drink, he's a dirty, rotten traitor, tell him.' Dolly seized Moira's arm and drew her on to the pavement. ‘Tell him from me, if we don't get Hill out by Christmas, the old man won't make it through another winter. Just you tell him that!' She, too had spied Tommy, who whistled as he approached.

She left a breathless Moira to convey the message, refusing to lower herself to speak to him in person.

‘Fancy a drop of something before we see the flick?' he suggested cheerily.

Moira stared at him. ‘Here?' She pointed over her shoulder at the shiny new doors.

‘No. Up at the Flag.' He linked arms, surprised by her stiffness. ‘Ain't nothing wrong, is there?'

She took a deep breath. ‘No. The Lamb and Hag, you say?' From what she could work out from Dolly's garbled story, visiting the Lamb and Flag didn't amount to a crime against the realm. For the minute, Tommy's treachery seemed to have receded. ‘Right you are,' she agreed, relaxing into things.

But he'd lulled her suspicions with a decoy. After a drink at the Flag, they went down to the Gem to see the new Chaplin film, then Tommy brought her back up Duke Street and waltzed her straight through the doors of the Prince of Wales.

‘A pint of best and a glass of port,' he ordered. He stood chatting at the bar with Jack Cooper, while Moira shrank into a corner.

There was only a handful of customers in the pub, two young lads from the tea and coffee counter at the co-op new to the area
like her, and an older, red-faced man with a stained waistcoat and a battered trilby hat. Much later a young man came in. Tommy was already on to his third drink. The young man scowled at her and went and slammed his money on to the bar. ‘Give me a pint, Bert,' he ordered, without lifting his head in greeting.

She saw Tommy frown. Then he went up to the newcomer. ‘How's tricks, Richie?' she heard him say.

The reply was mumbled. Soon Tommy left the bar and came to rejoin Moira. ‘Bleeding cheerful charlie, he is.' He took a gulp from his glass. ‘I bet he ain't mentioned to Sadie that he uses this as his watering-hole neither!'

‘I don't like this place,' Moira whispered. ‘It ain't friendly. Can't we go?'

Tommy ignored her. ‘From what I hear, Richie and Rob still don't get on like a house on fire down at the depot. Walter's had to break up more than one row already.' He shook his head. ‘Even I wouldn't have the brass neck to turn up here, not after what Hill done to Sadie, see. It don't seem right.'

‘Let's go, Tommy.' Her evening was turning sour. She didn't understand what everyone had against the place: it was lovely and new, with posh electric lights and a brand-new, patterned carpet.

Tommy glanced at his watch. ‘We can't. Not yet,' he replied. ‘We gotta hang on a bit longer.'

Moira sat in the silent, almost empty bar, miserably sipping her port wine. This would be the last time she came out with Tommy O'Hagan, she decided. He ignored a girl's wishes, and he drank too much. She sulked as she watched him go unsteadily to the bar for his fifth pint of beer.

Tommy's turncoat activities, relayed loud and clear to Annie by Dolly, were out of character. ‘What's he up to?' Annie frowned and slapped her bread dough on to a floured board. ‘It ain't like young Tommy to let the street down.'

Duke had heard the rumours too: Tommy was turning into a regular at the Prince of Wales. He seemed to prefer late-night drinking sessions there to keeping in with his old pals. But Duke didn't want to get involved. The days were drawing in, there was another long, idle winter ahead. He would fashion wooden toys for his new grandchildren and potter about the house as general handyman, while Annie braved the weather out on the market stall. ‘Mr Baldwin's warning against an all-out strike.' He read the headline news in the evening paper. ‘He wants to set up a royal commission on the miners, and much good may it do them.' He sniffed.

Annie thumped and pummelled her dough! The sweet, yeasty smell filled the kitchen: ‘You ain't listening to a word I say. I'm telling you, Tommy O'Hagan's up to something. He's a cheeky little bleeder, always has been, but there ain't a bad bone in his body. No, if he's taken to lining Bertie Hill's pockets, it's gotta be for a good reason.' She scooped the dough back into the earthenware bowl, covered it with a linen cloth and set it by the range to rise a second time.

Still Duke ignored her. ‘Here's an advertisement for an electric ignition set for motor cars. I'll let Rob know about that. Maybe he can get Richie to fit it to the old Bullnoses. And listen, if there's a general strike over the miners, what's the betting they just bring in the troops to keep things moving? The miners ain't got a chance,
poor bleeders.' He grumbled on as he took a small pair of scissors and cut out the clipping to show his son.

Annie lost patience and began to clatter about at the sink. You ain't gonna make things no better by hiding your head in the sand,' she warned. ‘I think you should pay some mind to what people round here do for you, trying to get shut of that nasty piece of work at the pub.'

He sighed. ‘You think I ain't grateful?'

‘No, I know you are.' Annie softened her tone and turned to face him. She dried her hands on a towel. ‘I'm sorry for going on about it, Duke. Only, young Tommy's gone and got my goat, unless he
is
hiding something up his sleeve.'

He nodded. They were friends again, when they heard the latch of the front door open.

‘That'll be Ernie calling in for his tea,' Annie said. She had the first batch of loaves in the oven, and there was a calm, warm feel to the room.

Ernie came in, his face red with cycling, the feeling of autumn wind about him, as he stuffed his cap into his pocket and came to sit by the fire, Annie swung the kettle on to the hob, cheered by Ernie's smiles.

Then there was a knock. Duke went and answered the door to George. ‘You're just in time for a cuppa.' He led him into the kitchen. ‘I think Annie's knocking together some scones. Come in, come in.'

The tall cellarman stooped his head as he went down into the kitchen and squeezed his large frame into a seat at the table, opposite Duke.

Annie made a great fuss of her new son-in-law. He and Hettie were just setting up nicely in rooms down Meredith Court. Because of his size and occupation, she made frequent comparisons between him and Duke at a young age; both built on a large scale, both correct in manner, but with hearts of gold. She made sure he had plenty of melting butter on his warm, home-made scones. They discussed the price of cheese at the new co-op. George told Ernie to look out for the forthcoming match between Palace and Bury.
He sat there, passing the time of day, without a sign of there being anything unusual in his visit.