Paradise Court

by Jenny Oldfield

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Sadie tugged at Charlie’s sleeve. ‘Leave him be, Charlie!’

  They halted, and Tommy headed on without breaking his stride. They heard him whistle a romantic tune and saw the derision of the unattached and fancy free in his swaggering walk. ‘Blimey!’ Charlie shook his head. ‘He ain’t half in for a shock.’

  It made Sadie cry all over again, to imagine Mary’s haggard face as she told Tommy the news about Daisy. Charlie’s hug contained nothing of the screen hero this time; he was finding it hard to hold back tears himself.

  Maurice Leigh had also done some hard thinking since his golden walk in Hyde Park with Jess. In the cool light of day, the problems of being involved with a woman who had a kid in tow shone clear and sharp. He summed them up in the dreaded word, ‘ties’.

  For Maurice this wasn’t the callow reaction of irresponsible youth. At eighteen or nineteen, perhaps, being tied down went against a natural spirit of fun and denied the opportunity all young men needed to play the field. But he was now in his late twenties, smart and successful, and outwardly in a position where a man might want to settle down with wife and family. However, life had made him wary of such a move. His Jewish background, strict and claustrophobic when his father was alive, had invited bad name-calling at school and turned him into a poor attender. There was a particular hatred of Eastern European immigrant Jews, to which group Maurice’s family belonged. They survived in small, isolated pockets in areas like Bethnal Green, and he recalled all too well the heavy sentimentality of family ties and the strict moralizing which held him almost in chains and apart from other boys.

  Since the work in the book-binding shop kept the family hovering only just above the desperate poverty of the homeless and jobless who roamed the East End streets at the turn of the century, Maurice quickly learned to suspect the value of his closed community. His father worked for an uncle who ran the small business; his mother’s brother. He paid the men a pittance to make them stoop all week over glue and leather, doling out gold leaf for the page edging with miserly caution. His meanness eventually cast the fatherless family on to the street; he needed the garret to provide lodgings for his new employee, he said. Maurice’s mother begged for Marcus, Maurice’s oldest brother, to be taken on in his dead father’s place, but the uncle refused to consider it. So much for family loyalty. The brothers lived on their wits to support themselves and their mother in a series of run-down rooms until she too died of tuberculosis when Maurice was just fourteen. Then he was alone and free.

  Working to survive, he primed street-lamps, got birched so regularly at his industrial school for hopping the wag that he soon gave up going altogether, and eventually fell in with Monty Phillips, the pawnbroker who also ran a stall selling secondhand clothes on the railings down the rag fair. From here life took off. Decently dressed in other boys’ clothes, he used his spare time to gamble over cigarette cards or to pinch a bicycle for a day to ride out into the countryside, when he showed off his athleticism by storming ahead up the hills and freewheeling down the other side, hands in pockets. Ditching the bike back with its owner, he would buy a fish supper and retire to bed under the counter at Monty’s. No complications. No ties.

  From this start, he’d moved on through a mixture of opportunism and hard work into his present respectable job. He was still convinced that his motto held good. What did he want with a woman and a child? The difficulty was, this wasn’t just any woman. This was Jess.

  He was annoyed with himself for prolonging the unfamiliar state of indecision, which had now lasted more than a month. He and Jess danced around each other whenever they met, half longing, half afraid. He took her out once or twice a week, and at times the passion was intense. But the relationship seemed to have stalled. She felt she didn’t want Maurice to see Grace; the commitment would be too great. And she worried about Ernie. For his part, Maurice worked hard at the picture palace and bided his time.

  On the day after Tommy O’Hagan turned up in the court, he decided to shelve these things and go to join a session at Milo’s gym. It was the nearest place to Paradise Court for a good, strenuous training bout. He was as quick with his fists as with his brain, and straight away impressed regulars, including Walter Davidson, with his clean punching and neat footwork. Maurice had finished his work-out and stood chatting with Walter and Milo himself, when Chalky White approached to introduce himself.

  They shook hands. ‘Nice piece of work,’ Chalky said. He stood, arms akimbo, clutching the ends of a towel which was slung like a scarf around his neck. His own singlet was damp from a work-out on the weights.

  Maurice immediately resented the condescending tone. In the code he had been attuned to all his life, ‘Nice piece of work’ signalled, ‘This is my turf’. It was an unasked for seal of approval from the gangland boss. Maurice felt he didn’t need it, so he nodded once and kept quiet.

  Chalky pumped him for information on where he lived, where he d come from, what he did It didn’t take him long to work out the Jewish connection, and this put an extra edge of superiority into his conversation. ‘Maybe I’ll bring my girl down your place this Saturday,’ he told him, as if bestowing a favour. He’d found a replacement for Daisy in yet another girl from the chorus line at the Palace, but he didn’t usually meet up with her until late at night. So he also went out to pick up a casual girl earlier in the evening, in a pub or at a dance, and he and his mates would parade the streets, girls in tow. Meeting up with Maurice gave him the chance to angle for free tickets to the Gem; one of the up-and-coming places to be seen.

  ‘It’d be nice to see you there,’ was Maurice’s noncommittal reply. He kept his eyes on the pair who’d just stepped into the ring and begun to spar.

  ‘Reckon I might put a bit of business your way,’ Chalky boasted. He’d already taken against Maurice as a tight-arse.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Me and my mates, Syd and Whitey up there.’ He pointed to the two boxers.

  Not so tough, Maurice thought, casting a critical eye. Neither would last two minutes in the ring with him. If Chalky was only as good as these two at handling himself, there was not much to worry about. ‘Best come early and miss the queues,’ he advised. ‘The place gets packed out and I have to turn people away these days.’

  Chalky rubbed the towel across his face. Jumped up tight-arse, he repeated to himself. Leigh had just made a bad move, treating him like a nobody. Chalky would show him different as soon as he got the chance. He spat a ball of phlegm on to the floor and strode off.

  Milo, still standing nearby, pulled a face at Maurice and went about his business. ‘Bad move,’ Walter said later when Maurice went to the changing room to put on his outdoor clothes.

  ‘I ain’t bothered.’ Maurice combed his hair in the speckled, steamy mirror. ‘I can deal with his type no trouble.’

  In this reckless mood he went straight up to the Duke to invite Jess to a dance that Friday night at the Town Hall. ‘I’ll get time off,’ he told her. She looked doubtful, glass and tea-towel in hand Duke kept an eye on her from the cellar steps.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I ain’t been to a dance in ages. I’ve forgotten how.’

  ‘All the better. That means I can teach you; the Tango, the Turkey Trot!’ He looked animated. ‘Go on, Jess, say you’ll come!’

  In the end she nodded. ‘I’ll see if I can.’

  ‘This Friday, eight on the dot. Make a date!’ He drank up, chatted amiably with Arthur and Dolly at a table by the door, then went on his way in high spirits. ‘Babe! Come along! O, kid! O, kad!’ He hummed the latest American dance. ‘Hug ‘em. Hug ‘em. Put your arms around me, Babe!’

  In the bar, Florrie warned Duke not to be a misery. ‘The girl needs some fun, just like everyone else.’

  Duke concentrated on tapping the new barrel. ‘I ain’t said nothing.’

  ‘You don’t have to, your face says it all. You’ll put her off going if you go round looking like that.’

&
nbsp; He sighed. ‘I ain’t exactly feeling on top of the world, Flo.’

  ‘Same as the rest of us, Wilf. It ain’t no better for Jess. And she’s doing her best for Ern. In fact, she’s more than pulling her weight if you ask me, getting the sewing off the ground with Ett. She’s a good girl if you did but know it.’

  Duke grunted. ‘But do you think he knows about . . . you know?’ He tilted his head sideways, glancing up through the cellar ceiling. ‘He ain’t in for a shock when he finds out, is he?’

  Florrie tutted and shoved him to one side while she turned on the tap and let beer froth into her jug. ‘No, she told him about Grace weeks since. He took it well, she says.’

  ‘It makes me mad!’ He went behind the gantry and put his shoulder to a second barrel, wedging the chock up a notch with angry force.

  Florrie stepped back in surprise. ‘Steady on. What got into you?’

  ‘I’m just thinking of him what done this to her. I tell you, if I could get my hands on him, I’d throttle him!’

  ‘Yes, and you won’t even let on to your one and only sister who it was, and that’s a fact!’ Florrie stood, arms crossed.

  He shook his head. ‘No. Frances said not to. They don’t want no one poking their noses in.’

  ‘Including me.’ Florrie sniffed and folded her arms, doing her best to assume a wounded look. ‘It ain’t for want of asking, Duke Parsons!’ In fact, she’d nagged them to death to get at the truth.

  ‘Jess says it ain’t important no more.’ He clenched his teeth and hammered at the chock with the edge of his massive fist.

  Florrie regained her momentum and began to badger him once more. ‘Well, he ain’t gonna be a father to the kid, is he? So in a way she’s right. And the sooner Jess gets out and about and finds herself someone else who will be, the better. Tell her she can go to this dance, Wilf. She needs your blessing.’

  ‘First time for years,’ he grumbled. Then he straightened up and shrugged. ‘He seems a decent sort at any rate.’

  ‘Go tell her!’

  Florrie stood and watched her brother’s broad back, stooping a little as he eased his stiff legs up the steep cellar steps. He carried his troubles well, considering. Sewell had recently warned Frances not to hold out too many hopes for the trial, just in case. She’d come home white as a sheet and passed the message on to Duke. ‘Don’t tell the others,’ he said to Florrie. ‘There’s no point dragging them down no more.’

  She knew he nattered and worried about Robert too. It was a couple of weeks since they’d had a letter from him. Two sons in the firing line, if you looked on the black side. Poor old man, he needed all the help he could get.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Annie Wiggin did brisk business on her haberdashery stall during the week leading up to the dance at the Town Hall. She sold silk flowers for head-dresses and corsages, all shades of ribbon to thread through lace collars and cuffs, tiny buttons of pearl and glass, filigree buckles and the inevitable yards of delicate lace.

  Late on the Friday, Jess sent Hettie down the market. The mission was to, ‘buy something to brighten up this bodice when I’ve finished running it up on the machine’. Her feet treadled hard and her hands steered the silky jade-coloured fabric through the swiftly stabbing needle. She held a clutch of pins in the corner of her mouth, and mumbled that it would never be finished in time. She would have to go to the dance in her ordinary day wear of white blouse and blue skirt.

  ‘Calm down, Jess.’ Hettie had finished her day’s task of altering waistbands on three pairs of trousers. She clattered her scissors down on the table and stood up. ‘There’s heaps of time. And it’s gonna look lovely on you.’

  Jess came to the end of a seam. She took the pins from her mouth and put them in a shallow tin. ‘It ain’t had no proper tacking. I just slung it together in a big rush.’ She held up the nearly complete garment for inspection.

  ‘It looks fine to me.’

  ‘It ain’t too low-cut?’ Jess asked. ‘You don’t think it needs a bit more lace round the neckline to raise it?’ The bodice was shaped and cut to show off both bust and arms.

  Hettie laughed. ‘I told you, it looks fine to me. I’ll nip down to Annie’s for matching ribbon, so we can ruche it up here around the shoulders. With my black skirt and belt to finish things off, you’ll be the best-dressed girl there!’

  Hettie rushed off to consult with Annie, who showed her which ribbon would best do the job. Jess’s dark hair, with its fashionable wave, needed a pale cream flower or two to set it off. ‘What about you, Ett? Ain’t you going dancing with your sister?’

  Hettie blushed. ‘No. Sadie’s going along early with young Charlie Ogden, but I’m staying home to help with the baby. Dancing ain’t for me these days, Annie.’ She paid for the ribbon and flowers.

  ‘Why not? It was, not so long since.’ Annie gave her a reproachful look. ‘Life and soul of the party, you was, Hettie Parsons.’ She launched into a well-meaning speech. ‘No need to chuck out your dancing shoes for good, is there, girl? We all know it was a terrible thing what happened to Daisy, and you had a nasty shock yourself, finding her like that. But it don’t mean you have to go overboard on the tambourine bashing and hymn singing, do it? Why not have a bit of fun as well?’

  Taken aback, Hettie defended herself hotly. ‘I signed the pledge, Annie. I’m not going near if there’s alcohol on sale, I promised.’ She regarded the oath seriously, taking it to earnest extremes.

  ‘That’s rich, with you living right over the Duke!’ Annie scoffed. ‘What’s your pa say about you saving poor sinners and helping to empty his till while you’re about it?’

  ‘He ain’t said much,’ Hettie replied quietly.

  ‘I bet he ain’t. I expect he’s waiting for you to grow out of it, girl. Honest to God, Ett, it breaks my heart to see you decked out in that bleeding horrible uniform, when I think of how you used to be.’

  ‘It’s vanity that lands us in trouble in the first place,’ Hettie insisted. ‘Anyhow, I made up my mind.’

  ‘Pity. It used to brighten my day, seeing your hats all trimmed up with the bits and pieces I sold you off this stall. Pretty as a picture!’

  ‘Well, I am sorry about that, Annie.’ Hettie smiled self-consciously and squeezed Annie’s hand.

  ‘Not half so sorry as the scuttlers round here. They miss you and Daisy something rotten.’ She looked wistfully at Hettie’s pale, serious face. ‘No hard feelings?’ she checked.

  ‘No hard feelings. I’m happy the way I am now. I feel I can be a bit of use.’ She set off home with Jess’s carefully wrapped trimmings, glad she’d stood her ground. They’d have m get used to her and her new mission; her Quakerish uniform and tambourine bashing, as Annie called it.

  Frances came in from work just as Jess was trying on her finished outfit. She took off her hat and coat and hung them in significant silence, avoiding looking directly at Jess.

  Already in a bad state of nerves over the whole business of accepting Maurice’s invitation, Jess’s confidence collapsed. ‘Oh, Frances, you don’t think I should go, do you?’ She came up close to her unresponsive sister, while Hettie and Sadie hung back frowning.

  ‘I never said that,’ Frances replied, sinking into a chair. ‘I’m all in. Sadie, make me a cup of tea, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘You don’t have to say nothing,’ Jess went on. ‘I can tell by your face you think it ain’t right.’

  Sadie had already jumped a few steps ahead. ‘Does that mean I can’t go neither?’ she wailed at Hettie. She knew Duke would only let her go to the early part of the dance if Jess was there to supervise things. She stood in her best blouse, hair swept up for the very first time, close to tears.

  Frances intervened with a weary shake of her head. ‘Don’t take on, Sadie. Just make me that cuppa, will you?’

  Miserably hanging her head, Sadie went off into the kitchen.

  There was an uneasy silence as Jess considered sending back word to Maurice. Frances�
��s disapproval would hurt her badly and bring a poor atmosphere into the house when they least needed it. ‘It ain’t right, is that what you think?’ she persisted.

  The phrase struck a chord in Frances’s memory. It was Billy’s phrase before he kissed her. Suddenly her rigid distinction between right and wrong began to crumble. It was true, she’d thought Jess’s affair with Maurice, coming close on the heels of the baby and in the very midst of their worries over Ernie, was ill advised. Better to wait at least until after the trial, she thought. As she stood all day and weighed, rolled and cut paste for pills, she divided moral issues into neat and tidy boxes, and thought life could follow prescribed patterns. Jess shouldn’t enjoy herself with a new boyfriend. Ernie should be at home, not in prison. Everyone should do what was right.

  But her memory played this sudden trick. She pictured herself in Billy’s arms responding to his kiss, not fending him off as she should have done. Love, longing, loneliness were enormous forces pushing people into one another’s arms. Who was she to judge? Humbly, Frances took hold of Jess’s hand. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she sighed. ‘I’m just tired out. Why don’t you go off and have a good time? You and Sadie with your Cake Walk and your Dandy Dance!’

  Sadie came in with the tea to hear the last part of this speech. Her face lit up, then she teased her oldest sister. ‘Frances, it ain’t the Cake Walk no more. That’s old hat. No, these days it’s the Turkey Trot. I been practising with Charlie!’ She went and dragged Hettie across the floor with her arms slung around her shoulders, walking with wriggling sideways steps.

  ‘Oh my Lord!’ Jess looked at Frances in wild-eyed alarm.

  ‘Go on, get out of here quick before I change my mind,’ Frances moaned. She put one hand over her eyes and squinted through her fingers as Sadie rushed for her jacket. ‘And mind you’re back by ten!’ she called.

  Sadie and Jess grinned, and sailed downstairs together.

  Maurice and Charlie met up with Jess and Sadie in the fuzzy halo of the street-lamp outside the pub. They walked four abreast up the greasy pavement, hopped on to a tram and joined the steady stream of young people heading for the Town Hall.