After Hours (42 page)

‘Knew what, for God's sake?' Beside himself, Rob grabbed a heavy spanner from the workbench and lunged again at Richie. He pinned him against the wall. ‘You spit it out,' he demanded,
like a man who knows he's just signed his own death warrant. He levered the spanner against Richie's throat, as if to throttle him.

Eye to eye, in bare hatred, Richie delivered the sentence. ‘Amy ain't been a very good girl before she married you, Rob. She tells you you're the kid's pa, but you ain't. It's Eddie Bishop. We all enjoyed the laugh being on you. Bishop made himself scarce over the water, see. He weren't keen on being a pa, it seems. So Amy comes to you, and you fall for it!' He laughed.

Rob felt the strength drain from his body. He dropped the spanner and bent forward, leaning one hand against the wall. All the colour left his face. The pain was in his chest, his guts, from head to toe. With a yell he launched himself from the wall, pounding at Richie, feeling his fists make contact with muscles, skin and bone.

Richie defended himself. He ducked and grabbed Rob's waist, dragged him to the floor. The two men rolled and kicked. Rob lashed out with his fists: nothing mattered except to grind Richie's face to a pulp. He saw the blood, felt his own mouth begin to bleed.

As Walter drove down Meredith Court towards the depot, he was in time to see the two men on the ground, still struggling. He ran in to separate them. Not caring who got in the way, Rob hit out in all directions, but at last Walter forced them apart and dragged them to their feet.

Rob's breath came in short, harsh gasps. Richie wiped his nose and mouth, head down, refusing to meet Walter's gaze.

‘Get him out of here!' Rob yelled. ‘Get him out before I do him in!' He seized a heavy pair of pliers from the bench and aimed them, ready to throw in Richie's face. ‘And don't never set foot in here again, or I'll fix your dirty mouth for good I'll swing for you, Richie Palmer, I mean it! Get him out,' he gasped at Walter.

But there was no need. Wiping the blood from his face, Richie looked at them from under hooded eyes. ‘Stick your bleeding job,' he told them. He left without his coat and cap, limping up Meredith Court towards the Flag.

Once he was gone, Rob collapsed forward, bent double, holding his arms tight around his stomach.

‘Are you hurt?' Walter grabbed hold of him to stop him from falling.

Rob struggled for breath. ‘No.' With an effort, he straightened up. ‘Collect this next fare for me, will you, Walt? I gotta go up home and have a word with Amy.'

He didn't wait for a reply, but set off, running as best he could up on to Duke Street, to catch her before she set off for tea at Annie's.

Amy had just wiped Bobby's face clean and put him into the
perambulator in the downstairs hallway. She stepped out on to Duke Street, tucking the blankets well up under the baby's chin and heading briskly across the street to Paradise Court. She was already late, having waited for Bobby to finish his nap before she got him ready to go out. She was passing her mother's house when Rob headed her off.

‘Oh no you don't!' He swerved the pram in towards the doorstep and hammered on the door. They heard someone come running.

‘What is it, Rob? Oh my God, you look terrible.' She saw that his eyes were cut and puffy, his nose bleeding.

Charlie flung open the door and called straight away for Dolly, who ran to investigate. Rob thrust the pram handle towards her. ‘Look after the kid. Amy's coming home with me!'

Amy felt herself dragged by the arm, back up the street. She ran to keep up, losing her hat, as Rob took her blindly through the traffic and back up their own stairs. He slammed the door behind them and stood facing her.

‘You hurt my wrist,' she cried, sobbing from fear and frustration. ‘What the bleeding hell got into you?'

‘You tell me, Amy. You tell me God's honest truth. Have you lied to me about Bobby? Is Eddie Bishop his real pa? Is he?'

Amy backed off against the far wall. For a moment she struggled to make sense of what he was saying. The name, Eddie Bishop, flew at her from nowhere. She put a hand to her mouth and sobbed.

‘Tell me. Cry all you like, it don't make no difference. You gotta tell me the truth.' He stood in agony, as if his life depended on it. If it turned out to be true, that he wasn't Bobby's father after all, and that Amy had tricked him into marriage, he felt he would wreak a terrible revenge.

Amy saw what it meant. She knew in a flash what this would do to her and Rob, and quelled a rising panic. She must stay calm. As a great force swept through her, threatening to blow her apart, she held fast to the one fact that he wanted to hear. Holding her hurt wrist in the palm of her other hand, she stopped sobbing and looked him straight in the eye. ‘I ain't lied to you, Rob. I don't
know who's put you up to this, but there ain't a grain of truth in it.' She spoke calmly, willing him to believe.

‘Sure?' Rob closed his eyes. He was shaking. ‘You sure Bobby's mine?' Flesh of his flesh. His own son.

‘I'm sure.' By her own calculations, it had been the night of Wiggin's disappearance. She explained it now to Rob, pinning down the time and place. ‘What more can I say?' She bit her lip, waiting for him to open his eyes.

His head went down, he took a huge sigh. ‘I'm his pa?' he repeated.

Amy went and took him in her arms. ‘As sure as I'm standing here, Rob.' She rocked him to and fro. ‘It's Richie what done this, ain't it? He's got his knife into you again. Well, don't take no notice. Bobby's your baby.'

They cried together, until Rob came round and swore to knock Richie's block off for trying to ruin Amy's name. She grinned. ‘Looks like you already done that.' She went for warm water and cotton-wool to bathe his face.

A few minutes later, they recognized Dolly's knock. She entered in full war cry, demanding to know what Rob had done to her girl, swearing that if he so much as laid a finger on her she'd see him sent down for good. She'd rushed out of the house in her carpet-slippers and apron, armed with a poker; a formidable sight.

Amy dried her eyes. She explained the whole thing: ‘Ain't no real harm done,' she finished. ‘Rob believes me, don't you, Rob? And he stuck up for me, see, Ma. Now put that poker down and don't take on.'

‘No harm done! Don't take on!' Dolly spluttered. ‘He only set out to ruin a girl's good name, that's all.'

‘Well, Rob's given him the sack.' Amy led her mother to a chair. ‘Wait till I tell your pa!' She was unstoppable now.

‘Wait till I tell Charlie and Annie and Duke! Richie Palmer ain't gonna get away with this.' She was up and out of the room and down the stairs before they could stop her.

‘Me and my big mouth.' Amy sighed. ‘Now the whole bleeding street will know.' Her ma didn't recognize the word discretion.

Rob, still recovering from the battering around his heart, found it was his turn to comfort her. Amy began sobbing for the loss of her reputation. ‘Mud sticks,' she cried. ‘Sling it in my direction, and there's plenty round here that'll believe it.'

‘And they'll answer to me if they do,' he promised. He felt strong again. Amy couldn't be lying now. The worm of doubt lay still.

By the time they went down to collect Bobby from Dolly's, the street was already awash with rumour. Liz and Nora got it straight from the horse's mouth: Dolly, told them that Richie Palmer had tried to drag her girl's name into the mud, but Rob stuck up for her and gave him a good hiding. Richie was a nasty piece of work. Charlie confirmed to Tommy that Rob had a pair of black eyes, but he'd heard Richie Palmer was in an even worse state. Arthur joined the fray. If anyone dragged down the Ogden name, he said, standing at the bar of the Flag with his fist around the handle of a pint glass later that evening, they'd have him to answer to.

The episode had broken up the Hallowe'en gathering at Annie's house. When they heard, via Grace and Rosie, that the street was in uproar, Frances straight away volunteered to go up to Powells' to see if Rob's injuries needed any further attention. Hettie promised to take Sadie and Meggie home.

‘She's had a shock,' Annie whispered. ‘Not that we couldn't see it coming a mile off.' They'd all known how unhealthy it was for Rob and Richie to be working together, but they'd hoped it would work out, for Sadie's sake. ‘Look after her. God knows when Richie will show up. I can't see no light in Edith's house, can you?' She went up and hugged an unresponsive Sadie. ‘You're sure you won't stay here?'

Sadie shook her head. ‘No, I'd best get back home with Meggie.' Her voice was hollow and flat. She wanted to talk to Richie before she jumped to any conclusions, but the shock of what he'd just done cut deep.

It dug beneath the false gloss she'd tried to put on her present situation, to those layers of uncertainty over Richie's treatment of her and her family. If he truly loved her, how could he carry on the feud with Rob, for a start? If he wanted to give Meggie a home
and family, how could he spend so much of what he earned at the Prince of Wales? This latest row over Amy was scarcely a surprise, even to her. It seemed that Richie had a mission to destroy Rob in whatever way he could, and it didn't matter that in the process he would destroy her love for him.

Sadie stood outside Edith's house and insisted to Hettie that she would go in by herself. ‘It looks like he's gone and done it this time,' she said with an empty smile. ‘But don't you worry about me; Ett. I can manage.'

Hettie kissed her cold cheek. ‘Annie says remember she's just across the street if you need her.'

Sadie nodded and carried a sleeping Meggie up the stairs.

She found Richie sitting alone in the dark. She started, then she went quietly next door to put Meggie into her crib. She turned on a small paraffin lamp on the living-room table and sat down, waiting for an explanation.

‘I ain't gonna say I'm sorry,' he began, his voice more slurred than ever. He'd drunk himself calm at the Flag, but his mind was fuddled. He'd stumbled home to wait for Sadie.

‘I never thought you would.' Sadie sat upright; staring straight ahead. Her face was lit down one side by the yellow flame. Inside she felt numb.

‘That brother of yours deserves everything he gets, always picking on me, never leaving me be.'

‘I expect he does.'

‘What are you so bleeding cool about?' Richie turned his frustration against her. ‘You heard I got the sack?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Again.' She folded her hands in her lap. ‘I heard all about it from Dolly.'

‘Snooty bleeding cow.'

‘Keep your voice down, Richie. You'll wake Meggie.' He took no notice. ‘On your high horse. Miss High and Bleeding Mighty!'

She sighed. ‘Ain't you done enough for one day?' She glanced at his swollen face, his cut hands.

‘Oh yes, take
their
side, why don't you?' Incoherent guilt gnawed at him. He knew that everything lay in ruins, but he wouldn't take
responsibility for it. ‘Well, I'm sick up to here with you and your bleeding family!'

‘So I see.' In turn, Sadie couldn't refrain from her snide little remarks. It was either this or break down in tears at the impending disaster.

‘“So I see!”' he mimicked. ‘Well, let them pick up the pieces, if they're so good and bleeding holy.'

‘I never said they was. I never said nothing, Richie.' Slowly she looked at him. The angry, battered man sitting there in the dark was not the person she thought she loved. His sullen silences were no longer romantic, but destructive. His physical strength conveyed moral clumsiness; she thought him dishonourable. All this she realized in a single, icy moment.

Richie sprang from his chair. Instantly she cowered back. ‘Oh,' he sneered, ‘so now I batter my girl?'

She sat up straight again, avoiding his eyes. ‘What will you do?' She knew they'd reached the point of no return.

‘Go.' He was cruel, careless.

‘Well, before you do, I want to say something.' She stood, only shoulder level to him, looking up at him. ‘I want to say I don't believe a word of what you said against Amy, and it was a nasty thing to do.' Richie sneered again, about to interrupt, but she held up her hand. ‘No, I don't want to hear no more. I think you're a fool, Richie, to throw all this away. Yes, like a spoilt child. You turn your back on Meggie and me now, you run away again and I never want to speak to you no more.

‘We're better off managing by ourselves, just the two of us, and I won't stick up for you no more. Rob's worth ten of you for being man enough to give you your job back, and Walter's worth more than the pair of you put together, only I was too slow and blind to see it. Go on, Richie, hit me, why don't you?'

This time she didn't shrink as he raised his hand. Her stare beat it down. ‘I done all I can, Richie, to give little Meggie a good start. But I don't call it fair when you pick rows with my family and drag Amy's name down.'

Sadie ran out of breath. She couldn't find the strength to say
any more. She turned and went quietly into the bedroom. Richie was a big man, but he had no real courage. He was small in mind and deed. Quickly her contempt rose, allowing her to steel herself to the sound of the door slamming, and Richie's footsteps disappearing down the stairs. The front door banged. She sat a long time in silence.

Three boys sat on the step of the Lamb and Flag, their stuffed Guy sprawled across the pavement, a cap upturned ready to receive pennies, when Arthur Ogden stumbled out late that same night. George Mann, just going off-duty, helped him negotiate the exit and threw a halfpenny into the kids' cap.

‘Watch it, Arthur,' he said cheerfully, as the older man swayed and set his own cap askew on his head. ‘And mind how you go!'