Paradise Court

by Jenny Oldfield

  Once on the road, she felt exhilarated and free, despite her cumbersome skirts, her good mood heightened by the knowledge that Charlie would glimpse her slim ankles and calves. He would show off in turn, riding ahead with a dare-devil call of, ‘Look, no hands!’ They’d sit to rest on the high grassy banks and Charlie would confide his dreams; how he’d leave the East End behind him for good once he’d passed his scholarship to go to college in Birmingham or Manchester.

  ‘Is that what you want, Charlie?’ Sadie lay back in the grass on one of these days out, staring into blue nothing. It all seemed so far ahead. ‘What about your ma and pa?’

  ‘What about them? I want to be an engineer. I’ll make machines that change the world, like flying machines. I’ll be part of something wonderful like that, Sadie, to make my life really mean something! I won’t rot away in Paradise Court!’

  Hesitantly she said she understood.

  ‘I got a friend at school living out in Putney now. Posh house, a garden even. I wouldn’t want to bring him down the court if I could help it, would I?’

  Sadie bit back a sharp reply. Paradise Court was good enough for her; she didn’t always want something better, like Charlie did. But then maybe he was right; there was a whole bigworld out there. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’ She sat up and brushed the palms of her hands, unsettled by the turn of conversation.

  That was the time when he caught her wrist and stared at her. They knelt face to face, and Charlie tilted his body towards her and kissed her on the lips. ‘Don’t take on,’ he whispered. ‘There’s all kinds of things I want in this life!’

  ‘Not just books, Charlie Ogden?’

  He kissed her again. ‘Not just books, Sadie Parsons. And not just a house with a garden.’

  That night she had a scolding from Frances for being late and giddy with it. ‘Out till all hours, God knows where. Honestly, Sadie, it’s not as if you ain’t been brought up to know better.’

  Sadie went out mouthing Frances’s words, mimicking her. She banged the door of the room she shared with Jess. Jess sat at the open window, a shawl thrown loosely over her night-dress. She started as Sadie came in, then went back to staring over the rooftops up into the star-filled sky.

  Jess’s baby was due in July. In June she finally agreed with Frances’s plan for her to go out into Kent, to spare Duke the details of childbirth which held bad memories for him since Pattie’s death. A letter from his sister Florrie had finally made up her mind on this.

  Florrie was living with a married son in Brighton. She heard the family news on the grapevine, and saw fit to write and tell Jess what a silly girl she’d been, but there, least said about that soonest mended. Only she’d better not cause her poor pa any more trouble, what with business going downhill all the time amidst all this talk of war. Before they knew it, they’d have lost Robert to the army and all the pubs would be empty of custom, and then where would they be? ‘Your pa’s had enough trouble for one life,’ Horrie wrote. ‘It’s my place as your godmother to tell you this for your own good, Jess. Be a good girl and don’t cause no more. Go away somewhere nice and quiet until the worst is over, and be glad if you’ve still got a home to go back to. I’ll close now, wishing you health and happiness, your loving Aunt Ho. PS: My rheumatics is better, thanks to the sea air, Tom says.’

  The letter stormed Jess’s sensitive heart. She was a burden, a disgrace. If not only Frances but others saw it that way, it must be true. She would go into Kent soon and lie low. Everything was arranged through the friend of Frances. In the meantime, Jess kept to her room, except to cook and clean.

  Florrie in Brighton wasn’t the only one to be troubled by prospects of war. If it wasn’t bleeding Ireland, it was that demon Kaiser, the bar-stool politicians in the Duke muttered darkly. Joe O’Hagan shuffled in one evening, furnished with a sixpence from his daughter Daisy’s purse. He was a depressing enough sight in himself pale and drawn, with a listless eye. Daisy had given him the money to spare her mother the sight of him for an hour or two. ‘Go drown your sorrows, Pa!’ she cried.

  Mary sighed after his retreating footsteps. ‘Go ditch them on some other poor fool, you mean.’

  Arthur Ogden saw Joe enter the bar. He was at a terrible loose end himself, having read through the Daily Express headlines. His glass was empty, as was his pocket, so he hailed the newcomer with a faint hope of some improvement there. ‘Hello, Joe. Some bleeding bertie’s got himself shot, it says here,’ he said as he thrust the newspaper under the illiterate newcomer’s nose. ‘And it says the whole of Europe’s turned upside down over it.’

  ‘That beats me,’ Joe said in his nasal drawl. He ordered two pints of half and half; one for Arthur. ‘All I know for sure with this shambles you call a government is that they can’t even sort out the mess in their own backyard.’ He sat by Arthur to make up a gloomy pair. The cellarman Joxer was there to serve them their drinks, and he scowled from under dark brows. Joxer had nothing particular against them. He never smiled and he never spoke to the customers at the bar, preferring a shadowy existence in the cellar. No one knew where he slept or how he lived. He was a drifter who’d found an unexpected soft spot in Duke’s heart, and was accepted as such.

  ‘By “backyard” I take it you mean Dublin?’ Arthur took up the conversation with a self-important air. ‘You mean your home turf?’

  ‘Certainly I do. It’s in a state of chaos, I’m telling you here and now. And we’ve no need of any Kaiser to go complicating things.’ Joe spoke bitterly and brought the short conversation to an abrupt end.

  ‘Drink up,’ Robert encouraged. ‘And cheer up, for gawd’s sake.’ He was taking over from Joxer and found himself rattled by the dreary talk. An army career didn’t appeal, not when there was a good chance of being shot at into the bargain. He’d disagreed with Duke about it recently, resenting his father’s patriotic talk. He certainly wasn’t as keen as his father’s generation had been to fight for king and country. ‘It’s the twentieth century, Pa. We do things in a different way now,’ he insisted.

  ‘Tell me that when the fighting starts,’ Duke replied. ‘And if you do I’ll say you’re no son of mine!’

  ‘Anyone’d think you’d just got your call-up papers,’ Robert told Arthur and Joe. ‘You two are out of it whatever happens, ain’t you? So bleeding well cheer up!’

  Joxer’s mouth bent in a sarcastic grin as he passed by. His night’s work done, he was drifting off to wherever he spent his lonely nights. But instead of heading off down Duke Street, he turned and swung open the door again. Trouble!’ he announced. ‘Up the street!’

  As word went round, people crowded out of the pubs and houses into the street. It was a clear June night when curiosity could be satisfied without the dampening effect of cold, wind or rain. ‘What’s happening?’ Annie asked, darting quick as a flash up the court to the pub corner. ‘What’s all that bleeding noise?’

  Dolly and Amy Ogden rushed up the street after her. Whatever it was, it came from up near Coopers’. They could hear shouts organized into a kind of high chant, then the crash of splintering glass. Amy broke into a run; more than her mother could manage. Ahead of her she saw Robert Parsons with Frances at his side. Even Duke had come downstairs and strode along, leaving Jess and Sadie with Ernie to look down from the window. He strode along, right up the middle of the street past a stationary hansom, the horses champing at the bit.

  ‘Window-smashers!’ someone gasped. ‘It’s them suffragettes!’ A mob had gathered on the corner of Duke Street and Meredith Close. Now everyone converged on that focal point-Frances heard the word spread like wildfire.

  Frances heard the word spread like wildfire. ‘Window-smashers!’ The sound of splintering glass grew louder. Soon it was plain that the mob was made up entirely of women. Some of the men in the crowd of onlookers pushed their hats to the back of their heads and whistled in amazement at the sight.

  Terrified by the violence, but thrilled by their daring, Frances drew level with Coopers’ sho
p front. She held her breath. She’d never seen a sight like this in all her life. Twenty or thirty women pelted stones and rained hammer blows against the plate glass. They’d broken through in several places, so the windows were crazed in giant spider’s web patterns all along the length of the department store, which was twenty yards or so fronting on to Duke Street. Now they’d run down the side into Meredith Close. As one woman succeeded with her hammer blow, another would dart forward and add her own force. Glass caved in on the expensive goods on display, glinting like dangerous jewels under the street-lights. The women cheered, their faces savage with delight as they surged down the close together. Then the police arrived, whistles blowing, truncheons at the ready.

  ‘Police!’ women’s voices cried, sharp and hysterical.

  The onlookers stood back to let the men in uniform through. ‘You need bleeding strait-jackets, not truncheons,’ Arthur Ogden warned. Amy and Dolly stood speechless at his side, joining in the crowd’s lust for action. It looked like none of the women would go quietly. Trapped down the close, they fought tooth and nail.

  Then there was a hush in the crowd as Jack Cooper and his son rolled up in their big black motor car. They both jumped out and pushed roughly through. Faced with a devastated shop front, the older man stopped dead in his tracks as if the life-blood had suddenly drained from him. He stared in disbelief at the expanses of shattered glass. But Teddy strode angrily over the shards and turned the corner into the close.

  The women outnumbered policemen by about three to one, and although one or two had been manhandled off up the street into waiting vans, the gathered crowd hadn’t lifted a finger to help. They stood passively, waiting to see the police get the better of the law-breakers, but by no means determined to see it over quickly. So the women were able to fight back by kicking and scratching, shouting all the while at the tops of their enraged voices.

  Frances found herself at first roused and then moved to tears. She stood back from the main crowd, watching the struggles of the ones who were roughly taken off to prison.

  But Teddy Cooper, beside himself, began lashing out at the women still at large. He lunged at one whose face was already bleeding from frying glass and caught her off balance. Down she went on to the pavement amongst the scuffling, stamping feet. Frances heard her scream. She saw Teddy Cooper poised to smash his boot down on her. Two policemen turned and moved to restrain him. Then Amy Ogden rushed forward.

  The woman screamed again. For Amy, the sound brought back a terrible memory. She flung herself at Teddy, yelling his name and sobbing at him to stop. He had time to wrench himself free, there was time to recognize dawning contempt on his face as he made out his assailant, before the policemen took hold of him and dragged him dear of the two women; one knocked full length on the pavement, one desperately calling his name.

  It was only a matter of time now before reinforcements arrived and the mob of women was subdued. More uniforms swept up Duke Street and into the close. The crowd saw it was all over and broke up. The last women were carried off. Still Jack Cooper stood there staring at the ruins of his shop, while the police took details from Teddy. Amy was led quietly away by a puzzled Dolly.

  Duke and Robert stood their ground as the crowd melted. Regardless of his like or dislike of the local employers, Duke’s sense of fair play was upset. He was against the mayhem caused by these women and had to feel sorry for a man whose livelihood stood in ruins before his eyes. So he went up to Cooper. ‘You’ll need a hand to dear this lot up,’ he said Robert was sent to round up a few fit and sober helpers, along with brooms to sweep up the mess.

  Cooper nodded slowly, emerging from his daze. Teddy had gone inside to assess the damage. Unnoticed, Frances stood and watched as the men set to. She felt nothing now after the shock of events; just a coldness round her heart towards these men.

  There was a story her mother told her when she was very young about a girl whose heart was pierced by a fragment of glass, and the glass froze her heart so she could no longer love and no longer cry. She became the Ice Queen’s child.

  The story settled in Frances’s mind again now. Robert and her father had no right to help Frank Cooper. She saw it dearly as she turned and walked home. It was the women, driven to desperate action, who needed help. Who cared about the state of a few broken windows when women had to fight these mighty injustices? Frances’s rebellious thoughts took shape from this one violent episode. She went slowly back to the Duke, but she felt the ties with her home, her family, her whole history break with each step she took.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Them women need a good hiding,’ Duke grumbled when he got back from sweeping up the glass. ‘That’s what they need.’

  Frances couldn’t bear to hear him lay down the law. Her hair came loose as she swung round to confront him. ‘How can you say that? Do you know what they do when they get them to Holloway? They sack a tube down their throats to feed them! Think of that. It’s downright disgusting!’

  But his own code was violated. ‘Women who go about smashing windows need the feel of the birch on their backs!’ he shouted. Teach ‘em their proper place.’ Duke roused was a terrifying spectacle.

  Frances sobbed ‘It ain’t right. They’re sticking up for all us women, not just themselves. And look what happens.’

  ‘You ain’t telling me that what they did was sticking up for other women?’ He stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘I am! That’s just it, Pa. We need to be treated equal; that’s what all this is about!’

  A look of scorn slowly crept on to his face. He refused to follow her wild reasoning. ‘It ain’t no wonder you’re on the shelf, girl,’ he said quietly.

  ‘What!’ she screeched in disbelief. She was the one out of control now.

  ‘You heard. I said it ain’t no wonder you can’t find yourself a decent man like all the other girls.’

  He regretted the words even as he spoke them. Frances looked as if she’d been stabbed in the chest. Jess ran in from the bedroom to stop her from Ming in a dead feint. He could hear Sadie sobbing. But a stubborn voice reminded him that women would always try to gain the upper hand, either by worming their way in or by outright defiance. You had to fight it for all you were worth. ‘I’m off downstairs to finish up,’ he told Jess gruffly. ‘You sort her out and get her off to bed. She’ll come to her senses tomorrow.’

  Jess took Frances’s full weight as she half fell against her. She called out for Sadie to stop crying. ‘Lend a hand. Help me get her to our room.’ She struggled, but Frances pushed her off.

  ‘You heard him!’ she gasped. ‘How can I stay here now? You heard what he said about me!’

  ‘He don’t mean it, Frances. Just give him a chance to calm down. Everything will look different tomorrow.’ Jess put one hand to her belly as she felt the baby twist and lack. There was a sharp stab of pain low in her abdomen. She sat down and gripped the edge of the table.

  ‘Frances, it’s Jess!’ Sadie rushed forward to drag her oldest sister away from the dark window. ‘She’s gone white as a sheet, look!’

  Frances was still gripped by a blind determination to cut loose, to live her own life and begin to fight for the cause she believed in. Her lips were set in a straight line as she stared at her own reflection.

  ‘Frances!’ Sadie let out another terrified cry. Jess had used both hands to push herself upright. She began to stumble towards the bedroom door.

  ‘Get help,’ she gasped. ‘It’s the baby. Go on, fetch someone, quick!’

  Frances spun round and ran towards her. ‘Oh, Jess, no! Not yet! For God’s sake, Sadie, do as she says! No, help me get her into bed!’ The sight of Jess doubled up in pain pierced her heart. Selfish, selfish! she told herself. My fault, my fault! ‘Oh God, no, Jess. Just hang on. Sadie, run for Dr Fry. Knock until you get an answer. Tell him what’s happened.’

  Sadie ran wild-eyed down the stairs, out into the street, while Frances used all her strength to lift the fainting Jess safely on t
o her own bed. She loosened her clothes, then ran to the airing-cupboard for rowels. ‘It’s all right, Jess. Everything’s fine. Sadie’s gone to fetch Dr Fry.’ She stroked her sister’s forehead, cold and wet with sweat. ‘Is it bad? Is it, my dear?’

  Jess turned her head. ‘Make this baby live, Frances. Make her live!’

  ‘Oh!’ Frances moaned. She could hardly meet Jess’s pleading gaze.

  ‘Not your fault,’ Jess whispered. Then she turned to grip the bedstead as the spasm of pain came strong and sharp.

  Frances felt another hammer blow to her heart. She called out for more help. Robert came running and was sent to boil up water in the kitchen. Duke came up in alarm. He rested a forearm against the door jamb, then retreated He’d seen it before; a woman struggling in childbirth, fear in the air, the doctor arriving brisk and businesslike because things were not as they should be. The closed door. The cries.

  Long into the night Jess struggled Weakened by loss of blood, faint with pain, she gave birth to a daughter.

  Dr Fry cut the cord Frances gave him a clean square of linen in which he wrapped the baby tight. ‘Here’s your little girl, Jess,’ he said as he handed her over. Frances wept She leaned over the bed.

  Jess’s hands shook. She saw the face of her daughter, her own child. She held her close. Dark eyes opened towards her. She looked up at Frances and smiled.

  ‘Now we’ve work to do,’ Dr Fry said, his voice low and kind. ‘Let your sister take the child, Jess. She’ll take good care.’ He took the baby away from her.

  Jess’s world was empty. Her head swam with pain.

  ‘We have to stop the bleeding,’ the doctor told Frances.

  ‘She will be all right, won’t she?’ Frances felt the light weight in her arms.