Paradise Court (7 page)

‘I don't think Pa could believe it at first.' Frances felt deeply for Duke in all this. They'd descended into the underground on to an almost empty platform.

‘Me neither. I sometimes think maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and find the whole thing's been a bad dream.' She grinned at Frances in a brave attempt to lighten the mood.

Frances smiled back. ‘Ready?' she asked when they'd negotiated the tram journey and the light traffic of Duke Street.

Jess pulled at the skirt of her dark-blue coat and checked her reflection in the windows of the Duke. ‘Ready as I'll ever be,' she announced, stepping upstairs into the lion's den.

‘She's here!' Hettie called back into the living room. She'd pepped over the banisters and seen the top of Jess's head coming upstairs. Then she fled into the kitchen.

Sadie sat as instructed at the table with Ernie, stiff and awkward as if they expected visitors she hardly knew. She pulled her long plait in front of one shoulder, then tossed it back again. She bit her lip. ‘Sit still, Ern!' she told him. She could head Jess and Frances pause on the landing before they came in.

Ernie glanced at Robert for his lead. Rob leaned against the mantelpiece smoking a cigarette. Everything was all right then, Ernie thought. He smiled back at Sadie.

So when Jess finally came in, Ernie jumped up as he always did when she came home to visit on her half day off. He went right up to her and hugged her, knocking her hat off. ‘Make the tea!' he shouted through to Hettie. ‘Jess is here!'

‘Watch it, Ern!' Robert jumped nimbly forward to rescue the hat.

‘Leave him be, I won't break, you know,' Jess said. ‘I'm only having a kid.' She put one arm around Ernie's waist and gave him a cuddle.

‘Blimey.' Even Robert had to admire her coolness. ‘I thought I was the one who knew my way around the place!' He felt he was seeing a new Jess here. He had expected her to creep back home like a mouse, yet here she was making jokes about the worst thing
that could happen to a girl. ‘Good for you.' He winked. ‘I'll go down and tell Pa you're here.'

Then Hettie came in with a full pot of tea, tears in her eyes, hardly knowing where to look. Jess was the last one she'd expected to be in this mess. It was one thing when a girl at the Palace got into trouble. There was a network, people to tell them what to do next. But not your sister. She thought Jess looked pinched and peaky. They'd worn her out at that horrible place and sent her home in this condition, fit for nothing.

Jess let go of Ernie and went up to Hettie. ‘That's a nice blouse you got on, Ett.' She took the pot from her and set it on the hob. ‘I like the trimming.'

‘I got it from Annie. It's a bit she had left over on the roll,' Hettie said. ‘I'll try and get you some next time I'm down the market.' She plumped up a cushion in the easy chair, inviting Jess to sit in it. The ‘trouble' was vanishing like Rob's cigarette smoke.

And soon they were having their Sunday afternoon chat; Sadie complaining to Jess that Charlie Ogden was made of stone, despite all her efforts. ‘I want him to ask me to walk out with him,' she protested. ‘But he's always got his nose stuck in some flamin' book!'

‘He must be blind then,' Jess commiserated. Sadie had come to sit at her feet on the hearthrug. ‘You getting to look so pretty and all.'

Sadie beamed up at her. ‘Do you trunk so? Here, how do you like
my
new blouse? It's only an old one of Ett's, but we put a bit of extra lace round the neck. What d'you think?'

Without them knowing it, Duke had sidled into the room and taken a cup of tea from Frances. He stood by the door listening to the female chit-chat, watching his grownup children gathered together; the contented smiles, the pleasant laughter.

His gaze fell on Jess and his mind now back down the years. A third daughter, the midwife had told him. ‘But there, never mind, we can't choose these things.'

When Robert followed on a couple of years after, it was almost as if Duke completely forgot about Jess. With her father's mind absorbed by his son, little Jess missed the fussing and petting he'd
lavished on the older girls, and she seemed easy to overlook. He recalled her as a quiet child, without Frances's strong will or Hettie's sparkle. The only clear memory he had of Jess from her early years was that she ran like the wind. She carried home prizes from the running races at school, having beaten all the boys. ‘Look, Pa!' She would hold up her spinning-top for him to see.

‘Ern, go and give Robert a hand downstairs,' he said gruffly. Jess started at the sound of his deep voice. The blood rushed to her face as she stood up to face him. Frances edged her forward. ‘Go on!'

Jess recalled all the times in her childhood when she'd looked up to her father and tried to please him; how she'd often failed. Then she would bide her hurt by withdrawing into a corner, and he would call that sulking. Well, she'd displeased him now, and no mistake. ‘Hello, Pa,' she said quietly, hanging her head.

‘Pa?' Sadie jumped in, anxious to fill the gap.

He looked Jess up and down. ‘If I could get my hands on him!' he threatened.

‘Now, Pa.' Frances laid a hand on his arm. Jess finally met his gaze.

He sighed. ‘Well, we'll have to make the best of it,' he said. ‘Since it's the season of goodwill.'

They all nodded and smiled.

‘Let's make it a Christmas to remember,' Frances suggested. ‘A real family gathering.' She and Hettie had been busy baking, and ordering, a turkey, beef and ham. They'd kept their fingers crossed.

‘A celebration,' Duke conceded. ‘Why not?' He still studied Jess, trying to judge how she would manage the shame of the baby's birth.

Then Daisy came running upstairs, bursting in without knocking to tell them that little Jimmy had been sick again. ‘He had a dreadful night, coughing and coughing, and all the little ‘uns were whimpering and whining about it. But this time we had the money to help him straight off, thank God. So Ma goes up for Dr Fry and that medicine he gave him did the trick like before. Magic it was!' Her lovely face was all smiles. She'd only just popped in to tell them the news,
she said. ‘And hello and Happy Christmas, Jess!' She winked and sped off, while they stayed and caught Jess up on all the street news, and the comings and goings down Paradise Court.

Amy Ogden sat behind a row of wooden heads stuck on poles arranged along a narrow table. The heads were of various sizes, shiny and featureless, and marked with figures showing measurements for the top hats which the workshop produced. She was one of six women and two men, excluding the supervisor Bert Buggies. As the youngest there, she was the recipient of many of the worst jobs in the lengthy flatting process. Sometimes she moulded the stubborn leather band around the crown of the wooden model, or else she ironed the swansdown forehead pad firmly in position before the lining was attached. Her hands were always chapped, her breathing hindered by the ceaseless steam from the irons.

Strips of russia leather and gauze lay lengthways down the table, while the precious moire silk for the linings was carefully stacked in bolts on a shelf behind.

Despite the luxurious quality of the finished article, conditions in Coopers' sweatshop were grim. The low room with its sloping ceilings and tiny skylights was poorly lit and ventilated, but it was cold none the less. Damp plaster fell away to expose bare brick wall and was never repaired. The place stank of leather and glue.

Only the determined cheerfulness of the women made the place bearable, with the unfortunate Bert providing the main butt of their humour. Today, for instance, in the run-up to Christmas, one of the women had been forced to bring in her youngest infant who was sick with croup. Still under three and hardly able to speak in sentences, the child was dressed up in the supervisor's apron, with a measuring tape around his neck. ‘I've got ourselves a new gaffer.
Let's all take orders from Donald!' they proclaimed. We'll get more sense out of ‘im, any rate!'

Bert slouched off unmoved by the
coup
, and poor Donald was soon responding to the women's calls; ‘Please, Bert, can you ‘elp with this gauze vent!' and, Took ‘ere, Bert, I asked two days back for you to soften up this leather for me!' He would clamber on their knees in his big leather apron, barking his hard, dry cough all over the half-made hats.

In the early afternoon Teddy Cooper paid his routine visit. As usual, he looked as if he had very little to do with the place. His grey Homburg hat was perched on the back of his head, and his immaculate striped bow-tie, his collar and natty tweed suit suggested a day at the races rather than any serious function in office or shop.

Amy glanced up as he came in, and a smile brightened her small, blunt features. In the dull stretch of the day, when her back had begun to ache and her fingers to rub into blisters, a visit from Teddy was a breath of fresh air. Today he brought oranges and a news story from the papers about a famous music-hall star, George Robey, who'd earned one thousand pounds in just one week.

‘What'd you do with a thousand a week, Emmy?' he asked the mother of the sick boy.

‘I should think I'd died and gone to heaven,' came the caustic reply. Emmy was impervious to his charms.

‘Watch this.' Undeterred, Teddy winked and invited Donald to come up close. ‘I'm Extraordinary Edward, the famous juggler. Watch!' And he set up a rapid display with the three oranges, flipping them between his hands, behind his back with surprising dexterity. ‘Dazzling! Delightful! Delictitious!. . . But chiefly your own!' he declaimed. Everyone shrieked, whistled and clapped. Sam, the leather worker, and Dora the chief moulder each caught an orange from him and whisked them off.

Amy laughed. ‘You been practising. I can tell.'

When she looked up at him, her eyes were shining white orbs with blue centres. ‘Now that's very observant of you, Amy.' Teddy
gave Donald the last orange and came to perch at her section of the table. ‘As a matter of fact, I have!'

As he leaned sideways across her station and screened her from view, the others took it as a signal that the show was over. They bowed their heads to their work and Emmy came to draw Donald further off.

Teddy studied Amy's face from close quarters. Her skin was milky white and smooth. The upper lip arched in a full curve, the blue eyes conveyed guilelessness. ‘What's a nice girl like you . . .' he began.

‘Doin' in a place like this?' she giggled ‘Don't ask me, ask your pa!'

‘Hm. What if I ask the governor to look out for a place for you in the shop?' he asked, looping his fingers through a pair of scissors and threatening to snip at one of Amy's blonde cuds.

She gasped. ‘Would you?'

‘Course I would. I can just picture you behind the counter in your little white collar and cuffs; a good-looking girl like you.' The scissors snipped close to Amy's earlobe. She didn't flinch. ‘“Yes, madam, no, madam, three bags full, madam!' ” He replaced the scissors with a flourish. I'll ask him straight after Christmas if you like.'

‘Really and truly?' Teddy was offering her a dream come true; a move out of this overcrowded, tawdry sweatshop into the world of mahogany counters and glass display cases where she felt she belonged. ‘Will you really?' She stared up at Teddy. He was part of that world in his expensive suit and tie, with his nice voice and manners. He called the severe Mr Cooper ‘the governor' and made it seem as if he could do anything. After all he was the boss's son.

Teddy bent low over Amy to whisper in her ear. ‘For you, my dear, anything!' He grinned and sat upright. ‘And let's start with that jaunt I promised.'

‘What jaunt?' She felt flushed by his boldness in front of the other women, yet at the same time determined not to care. She wanted to lead him on to the point where the job in the shop was a reality. That was all that mattered.

‘Our trip to the Empire,' he reminded her. ‘How about tonight? Meet me downstairs outside the back entrance, half seven sharp.' He swung his legs off the table and stood up, hands in pockets.

All she had time to do was to nod her head once, then he was off, ruffling Donald's hair, winking at Emmy, humming a tune. He went out of the workshop in fine fettle, down into Hosiery in the basement, to fill up his social diary into the New Year. If only all the girls were as easy to seduce as Amy Ogden, he thought. Unluckily, most of them had their eyes a bit more wide open and they played harder to get; though get them he did in the end.

Amy sat and held her breath. She finished here at half six. She'd have to be off like a shot to get changed and be back for half seven, looking her very best. There wasn't much time. Maybe Bert would let her clock off ten minutes early today. These thoughts swam through her head.

‘Where is it this time?' Dora broke into her plans. ‘The Jewel, the Gem or the Empire?' Dora was a tall, masculine-looking woman, very blunt. She knew how the boss's son operated. He only ever took a girl out once, got as far as he could with her, then dropped her. They all knew about it. The only wonder was why his old man never tried to put a stop to it.

Amy stiffened. ‘None of your business.'

“‘Let me take you away from this horrible place, my darlin'!' ” Dora mocked. ‘Oh my gawd, Amy, you ain't fell for that line, have you? It's old as the hills!'

‘Just watch it,' Emmy advised more kindly. ‘Dora's right; don't be a ninny and go falling for it.'

‘I won't.' Amy nodded and put on a firmer expression.

‘That's right, don't believe a word he says and you'll be fine.' Emmy shifted a bolt of grey silk from the shelf to the table and picked up her scissors. ‘It don't stop you from going out and having a good time, just as long as you keep your head screwed on.'

‘Just don't say we didn't warn you,' Dora insisted darkly. ‘Ask Louise Makins in House' old Appliances. He took her to the Empire last week, I think it was. Ask Louise Makins about his nibs!'

Amy frowned. ‘No need. I can look after myself, don't you worry.'

The women gossiped on, growing more ribald about Teddy Cooper's style of courtship. ‘He looks a proper gent at first, don't he?' Dora said ‘He talks like a toff and he always gives the girls a bit of a treat first off; a night out at the local fleapit, or a slap-up meal. But they soon find out he's no gent after all.'

‘How would you know, Dora Kennedy? He asked you out, has he?' Amy was nettled. She knew for a fact that Teddy would never ask the angular, tall moulder. She was only speaking out of pique, Amy told herself.

‘Ask anyone. Ask Louise,' Dora turned to Emmy, hands on hips, determined to undermine Amy's silly vanity. ‘You hear what she told me? She says he don't mind where he does it, or who he does it with. And when he does do it, it's over so quick you'd wonder what all the fuss was about.' Dora grinned. ‘She says it's about as exciting as posting a letter!'

‘She never!' Emmy guffawed. Then she reflected a moment. ‘Yes, that'd be right. He's a boss, ain't he? It's always like that with the bosses.'

Amy refused to join in. Teddy Cooper was the only purveyor of bright dreams in her dim, twilit world. The others could say what they liked. She'd hang on to him, come what may.

Ernie Parsons sat beside Robert in the red velvet seats at the Southwark Palace. He was in his own seventh heaven.

Every time the crimson curtains swept down across the stage, he roared himself hoarse and clapped until the last echo had died in the vast, domed auditorium. When they opened again on to the golden stage, he laughed till he cried at the little man with heavy eyebrows who flip-flapped across the boards in his giant boots, performing all manner of acrobatic stilt walks on the tips of their wooden soles. He laughed when Robert laughed at the jokes about mothers-in-law and unpaid rent. But it was Ernie who led the singing when it came to Gilbert the Filbert and Daisy.

This last he sung until his lungs nearly burst. ‘Steady on, Ern,' Robert said. He pulled him back in his seat. “Daisy's coming back on in a bit.' He gave the couple sitting next to him an embarrassed
smile, then hid behind a cloud of cigarette smoke tinged pink by the lights that blazed down on to the stage.

Ernie sat back entranced as the creamy-limbed chorus girls finally returned. Here he sat in the midst of thousands of people; the balconies were crammed full, there were men standing shoulder to shoulder at the back, and he alone seemed to have a special link with the girls onstage. One was his sister, one was his friend. It was as if Daisy and Hettie sang specially for him. To him they blew their kisses across their white-gloved palms, to him they curtseyed. The orchestra played, the audience joined in the songs. Ernie couldn't imagine anything better.

‘C'mon, Ern,' Robert said when the curtain fell for the last time. ‘Let's get round to the stage door and join the queue for the postcard queens.' If he was giving Ernie a treat, he had to do the thing right. They had to end up crowding the stage door, wailing for the chorus girls to emerge. He dragged Ernie up the gangway, nodding hello to a few mates, but not stopping to chat.

Ernie, overwhelmed by the squeaks and thuds of the hinged seats as hundreds of people stood up and stretched their legs, grabbed Robert's coat-tails. His face twitched with alarm.

‘Don't do that. You're not a little kid any more!' Robert said sharply. He snatched his jacket free. ‘C'mon, you want to see Daisy, don't you?'

Ernie took his courage in both hands and nodded He put one elbow up as a shield, ducked his head and followed on through the crowd.

At the stage door, Robert thrust his way past a group of twenty or so young men towards a high, narrow window further down the alley; the same window young Tommy had used to signal to Daisy. Seconds later, Hettie came to the door, opened it a crack and let Robert and Ernie in. Then she shut it fast on the noisy gang outside.

‘Lucky for you Mr Mills went off early,' she explained. ‘So you can come in and wait for us in the warm tonight.' She hurried ahead of them down the corridor into the dressing room. ‘Everybody
decent?' she sang out. Those who weren't would have time to nip behind the screens.

‘More's the pity,' Robert said with a wink. ‘Come on, Ern, don't be shy.' He played the man about town with bravado, though on a docker's pay his cheap worsted jacket and clumsily cut waistcoat weren't up to the role. Still he made up for it with his confident manner and sturdy good looks. All the girls sang out cheerful hellos and smiled kindly at Ernie.

‘Hello, Ern. You come to walk us home?' Daisy's muffled voice asked. Her back was to them and her arms raised to fix her hair in the mirror. Then she twisted to look at him, two hairpins clenched between her white teeth.

Ernie nodded hard. ‘Yes, please.'

‘That's good. You can be my new beau,' she teased. She finished her hair and swept towards Ernie.

‘Leave off, Daisy,' Hettie muttered, ‘He'll think you mean it,' But she didn't want to spoil Ernie's big night out, so she held her tongue as Daisy ignored her advice and asked Ernie to help her on with her coat and hat. The thrill he felt was spread all over his broad, open face. Who could want to spoil that?

Fully dressed now, Daisy held up her arm, face to face with Ernie. ‘C'mon,' she insisted, ‘you gotta hook your arm like this, Ern, and I gotta slip mine through the hook, like this, see. That's if we're walking out together!'

Mechanically Ernie did as he was told. Disbelief spread across his face and he turned to Robert.

‘You sure Chalky White don't mind?' Robert asked, half serious. He wasn't one to spare her blushes. We don't want Ern messing with the likes of Chalky and his gang.'

Daisy coloured up. ‘That was ages ago. Anyhow, it ain't none of your business,' she said, with a deft little push against his chest. ‘Ready, Ern? Let's go.' She sailed down the corridor with him, out into the cold alley and up past the gaggle of men at the door.

Hettie and Robert followed on. That the truth?' he asked. ‘She got rid of Chalky?' He watched Daisy carefully from behind.