Paradise Court

by Jenny Oldfield

  The cross man checked a list. ‘He’s in E Ward. Third on the right,’ he barked. ‘You a relative?’

  ‘His sister,’ she confirmed.

  He nodded her down the wide corridor straight ahead.

  Hettie trod quietly, chin up, refusing to look to left or right at the men in their beds until she reached the sign which told her that this was Robert’s ward. By now the smell of disinfectant had seeped through her clothes and into her pores. Sickness, disease, pain were all around. She hesitated, then pushed the door.

  She saw a man in a wheelchair, one leg stretched out and resting on a metal platform, his hands shaking, his dark head sunk forward on to his chest. Another lay immobile on his side, bedclothes up to his chin. Another was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Hettie looked quickly away from a fourth patient wandering slowly towards her, one side of his face a mass of burned flesh, scarcely healed. Then a nurse came quietly down the central aisle. She smiled at Hettie.

  ‘Robert Parsons,’ Hettie whispered, low and nervous.

  The girl nodded and led the way down to the far end of the ward. ‘Don’t expect too much,’ she warned. ‘And try not to tire him.’

  Hettie flashed her a look of panic, but met no response. Instead, the nurse gestured to Robert’s bed and went on her way. Hettie approached the bed, afraid and at a loss.

  Robert lay propped against pillows, his eyes closed. His face ain’t been touched, thank God, was her first reaction. She would have nightmares about that other poor man’s burned face. But second thoughts snatched away this reassurance. Robert opened his eyes and she saw that his face had changed beyond measure.

  He was Robert, but not Robert, the same in form only. His moustache was shaved, his dark hair very short. His eyes opened in a blank stare which took in her presence but snowed no recognition. His hands lay trembling on the folded-down sheet, a wire frame made a tent of the bedclothes.

  ‘Robert!’ Hettie rushed forward with a mixture of relief and apprehension. She wanted him to be the same, or at least have a sign that he would be the old Robert eventually. ‘It’s me, Ett!’ She grasped one hand and kissed his cheek.

  He submitted to the embrace. She felt his whole frame tremble. There was nothing in his expression to show he knew where he was or why.

  ‘Pa sends his love, and everyone at home.’ Hettie struggled for normality. She smoothed his pillow. ‘Don’t worry, no need for you to talk to me if you’re not up to it.’ He seemed to be looking at her in bewilderment. ‘I’ll have a word with the nurse on my way out. She’ll put me in the picture.’ She drew up a wooden chair and sat close by the bed.

  Robert’s head rested back on the pillow and he gave up the struggle to make sense of his surroundings. He gazed emptily at her face, unresisting as she stroked his hand, unresponsive to her news.

  ‘We’re all keeping well, and baby Grace is thriving. You should see her now. Pa keeps plodding on. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Auntie Flo’s settled herself in good and proper, and Ern’s just about bearing up.’

  Robert sighed and turned his head to the wall.

  After a few minutes, the same young, fair-haired nurse returned. ‘That’s all for today,’ she suggested. ‘Come back and see him tomorrow.’

  Hettie jerked to her feet. She bent to kiss her brother and blindly followed the nurse up the aisle between the beds. ‘He ain’t always gonna stay like that, is he?’ she pleaded. They’d reached the radiator where a group of men sat and played gin rummy.

  ‘Shh!’ The nurse glanced at her other patients. ‘Your brother’s suffering from shock, that’s all.’

  ‘It’ll wear off, won’t it?’

  The nurse nodded. ‘In time. He needs to rest.’

  ‘He’ll know us if we come back tomorrow?’

  ‘Maybe. It might take longer, considering his injuries.’ She studied Hettie’s face. ‘Weren’t you told?’

  Slowly Hettie shook her head. ‘We ain’t been told nothing, only that he’s wounded.’

  ‘Well, it was bad, I’m afraid. He lay in no man’s land for quite a time, apparently. He lost a lot of blood.’ The young nurse saw she’d better get the news over with. ‘Someone went over the top to get him and bring him back. He owes his life to that friend.’

  Hettie nodded. ‘It’s his legs, ain’t it?’ She remembered the wire cage that lifted the bedclothes high in a ridge shape.

  ‘One leg in particular. The right one. They had to amputate it there and then. There was no hope of saving it.’

  Hettie hid her face in her hands.

  ‘There are deep shrapnel wounds to that side of the body as well. He was in a lot of pain, but he’s well sedated now.’

  ‘Is that why he don’t know me? It’s the stuff you give him for the pain?’ Hettie clutched at straws.

  ‘Partly.’ The nurse was reluctant to commit herself. She touched Hettie’s elbow. ‘Listen, why don’t you go on home now and come back tomorrow. Wait and see.’

  Hettie nodded and walked mechanically through the doors up the corridor to the main entrance.

  The porter at the desk spotted her. ‘Bad news?’ he asked.

  Tears came to her eyes as she nodded. ‘Worse luck.’

  ‘Never mind, I seen it day in, day out,’ the man said. ‘Poor bleeders, won’t none of them ever be the same again. It’s a bad business, if you ask me,’ He wandered from his office and saw her through the door. ‘You get a cab, girl,’ he advised. ‘Blow the expense. You don’t want to be walking home in this.’ He stuck his hand out into the rain which pelted into the dark puddles. ‘Here, I’ll go and get hold of one for you.’

  He signalled to a taxi idling at the gate, went up to the driver and thrust his head close to the window. ‘Take the girl home. She’s had a bit of a shock.’

  The cabman nodded. Hettie saw the back door swing open and remembered it was Robert’s ambition to own a taxi. She got in. ‘Paradise Court on Duke Street,’ she said. The taxi jolted forward through the rain. What am I gonna tell Pa? Hettie wondered. This’ll break his heart once and for all. The thought of it choked her with more unshed tears. All too soon the taxi rolled past Coopers’ and drew to a halt outside the Duke.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Annie saw Hettie walk, head bowed, from the taxi to the pub door. She’d positioned herself by the window as lookout, and she could see from Hettie’s bearing that the news wasn’t good. She went out quickly to meet her in the corridor. ‘How bad?’ She grasped Hettie’s wrist and stared anxiously into her eyes.

  Hettie reported the bare facts.

  Annie gasped and nodded. ‘Poor bleeder. Now, chin up, girl. I’m right beside you. You think you can manage to tell your pa?’ She had an arm around Hettie’s waist for support. ‘You go on up while I fetch him.’

  Glad to be relieved of at least part of the burden, Hettie did as she was told. Her limbs felt heavy, her head light as she climbed the stairs looking pale and shocked. Frances, Sadie and Jess welcomed her in silence.

  ‘I’ll go get Pa!’ Sadie stammered. She looked wildly at Frances.

  ‘No, Annie’s fetching him.’ Hettie shook her head and stood as if in a dream. ‘I can hear him now.’

  They waited for what seemed like an age as Duke’s heavy tread came upstairs.

  ‘He ain’t gonna die, is he?’ Sadie cried, terrified.

  Jess held her tight. ‘Hush!’ she said.

  Duke appeared in the doorway, Annie hovering behind. He knew from Annie’s manner that he should expect the worst, so he came up grim-faced but prepared. ‘Sit down, girl,’ he said to Hettie. Frances brought a chair from the table and sat her down. ‘Now take your time, just tell us what he got.’ He was determined to stay calm, whatever the news.

  Hettie looked up at him and took courage. He was strong enough to take the blow, after all. She saw the set of his jaw, the broad shoulders. ‘It ain’t just a Blighty one, Pa. He never even knew who I was. He looked straight through me!’

  Duke nodded. �
�But what’s he got?’

  ‘Shrapnel down his right side.’

  He nodded again.

  ‘And his leg.’ She pointed to her own right thigh with a shaking finger. ‘They had to take it off.’

  A shudder gripped them, but Duke was the first to recover. ‘Anything else?’

  Hettie shook her head. ‘He’s full of stuff for the pain. He don’t even know where he is or nothing.’

  Duke remembered his own fighting days; the wild, rolling eyes of men too close to bullet and blade, the death-haunted look of those who crawled back to consciousness as their shattered bodies were lifted on to stretchers off the battlefield. He knew enough to realize that the horror would fade. But he drew a choking breath and looked blankly at Annie.

  Her eyes widened in a defiant challenge. ‘Now don’t you give way, none of you. It ain’t like you, Duke Parsons!’

  Her words were a key to action. Frances went straight down to Florrie to hand on the news. Jess took Hettie’s hat and coat, Sadie went to make tea. Duke talked of Rob getting well enough to come home and told Hettie not to worry, the shock would wear off; Rob would soon be his old self again. Annie nodded in satisfaction.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ she said, as soon as Sadie brought in the tea.

  Duke followed her on to the landing. ‘Thanks, Annie,’ he said. He bowed his head in embarrassment.

  ‘Ain’t nothing to thank me for,’ she said, a touch too quick and sharp. There was a catch in her voice.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway.’ Duke rested his arm on the banister and stared down at the patterned carpet. ‘Robert!’ he said with a sigh and a shake of the head.

  ‘Yes,’ Annie agreed. ‘Robert.’

  Duke looked up. ‘You know he was the best boxer around here, Annie. The best by a mile.’

  ‘He was.’ Her eyes filled with tears. Quickly she grasped his hand, then turned and went downstairs.

  The round of visiting Robert in hospital began next day. They went in shifts, with a determined cheerfulness, bustling down the ward with fruit, flowers and messages from half of Paradise Court.

  Robert gave a sign of recognition as Duke bent over him. Next time, he reached out his hand to Sadie. Then he asked to be propped up and he spoke to Jess. Each visit saw such an improvement that the good cheer grew less forced and began to spread to other casualties in nearby beds.

  ‘Bleeding hell, mate, how many sisters you got?’ The man with the burned face, a sergeant from a cavalry regiment, asked enviously.

  ‘Four.’ Robert looked up the length of the ward, waiting for the influx of visitors. It was his fifth day in the hospital. His head was clear now, but each day opened up fresh memories of the moment when the shell landed with a soft whistle and a thud before the whole world exploded in a cascade of mud and stones. He preferred to keep talking about other things; anything to keep his mind off that moment. So he looked for the day’s visitors with visible impatience.

  ‘Blimey. Ain’t none of them married?’

  ‘No. Why?’ He was prickly with the other men. Their scars and injuries reminded him of his own.

  ‘Nothing. You can lend me one if you like.’

  Robert glanced at the man’s disfigured face. We’re all in the same boat, he thought. ‘You’d better ask them, pal,’ he grinned. ‘Here they come now.’

  Sadie and Frances hurried down between the rows of beds with bright hellos to right and left, Frances brought him a book on the motor car from the library. Sadie sat on the edge of his bed. She stared critically at him. ‘I been thinking, Rob,’ she began.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ he reproached.

  ‘No, I been thinking. You should grow back your moustache.’

  He laughed. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes. You look ever so much more handsome with it, don’t he, Frances?’

  The older woman entered into the spirit. ‘You do, Rob. Irresistible.’

  He felt the stubble on his chin. ‘How about a beard to match?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Sadie gave a little shriek. ‘That’s old hat, that is!’

  ‘Old hat, is it?’ He winked at his neighbour. ‘A great big bushy beard?’

  ‘You’d look like some old grandpa, wouldn’t he, Frances. Don’t let him grow a beard.’

  The teasing went on from visit to visit, though sometimes there was a more serious interlude. Hettie explained her decision to join the Salvation Army after Daisy’s murder, and she gave news of the O’Hagans. Eventually, Robert asked Jess about Ernie.

  ‘His trial comes up on the tenth,’ Jess told him. She described her fruitless visits to Teddy Cooper and Freddie Mills. ‘I ain’t got nowhere, and the coppers are playing things close to their chests.’ Now that Robert was prepared to talk about things, she leaned in close to the bed. ‘Rob, there ain’t nothing else that you can think of that might help, is there? I know you told it all once already in the written statement for Mr Sewell, but if you can bear to think again and go through it, not missing a single thing!’ She spoke urgently. ‘Ernie goes blank when he gets to the part about waiting for you outside the stage door. He keeps on saying he’s sorry. That don’t look good, you see. But we can’t get him to remember what he did next. No one can. And then they’re gonna ask him why he just ran off and left the place, instead of waiting till you showed up.’

  ‘He can’t remember that neither?’

  She shook her head. ‘And there’s one other thing, Rob.’ Jess checked up and down the ward. ‘If they get me up on the stand, they gonna ask me how Ernie was when he got back home.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’m gonna have to say how I cleaned him up.’ She explained about the blood on Ernie’s boots. ‘If I swear on the Bible, I won’t be able to tell a lie, will I? Then they’re gonna ask me why I ain’t said nothing sooner.’

  Robert threw back his head and pinched the skin on his exposed throat. ‘Bleeding hell!’ he said. Then he looked directly at her. ‘How many weeks have we got? Two? Three?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Get me out of this bleeding bed!’ he cursed. ‘Tell Mr Sewell I’ll get myself to that bleeding court if it kills me. Tell Ern not to worry, I’ll be there!’

  Jess soothed him and promised to give Ernie the message. ‘It’ll make a difference to him, Rob, honest to God. He’ll want you there to help him.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Robert promised. ‘I’ll be in a bleeding wheelchair, but I’ll be there.’

  Ernie’s trial began at ten o’clock on Tuesday, the 10th of December; a peculiar cross between entertainment and reality. The newspapers had got hold of it as an example of what can go wrong in a family if rules of conduct are too lax and discipline not maintained. The Express in particular painted a picture of a motherless boy dragged up in rooms over an East End pub, daily witness to drunkenness and all lands of brutish, hooligan behaviour. Duke was picked out for special blame. ‘Modern parents should not allow the art of flogging to pass into the limbo of forgotten achievements,’ the paper intoned. Flogging would have set the accused on the right track and prevented the tragedy at the Southwark Palace. Such families, knee deep in vendettas and street fights, were a hotbed for violent crime.

  They printed a picture of Ernie above a caption which read, ‘It’s a fair cop!’ It set the courtroom buzzing with expectation as people crowded into the public gallery, awaiting the arrival of the accused.

  Quickly the court filled up. Men came in with bundles of official-looking papers, which they laid out along tables in precise order. A woman came to sit on a high stool behind a typewriter. The jury-box was soon occupied by two rows of serious men, more at ease behind shop counters or desks in banks and offices than in this heightened atmosphere where life and death was at their disposal.

  There was a stir in the gallery as Duke Parsons entered below into the main body of the court. He pushed his son in a wheelchair, with all four of his daughters following behind. A ripple of identification ran through the ranks of spectators, then one of p
uzzlement. This didn’t look like the ruffian family depicted in newspaper accounts.

  Duke was dressed in a dark suit, a heavy watch chain slung across his broad chest. His starched collar, the shine of his boots could attract no whiff of disapproval. There was even something dignified about him as he manoeuvred the wheelchair down the central aisle, then stood to one side to let the women pass into a row of seats kept vacant for them.

  Frances didn’t allow her gaze to flicker. She looked straight ahead, as if in church. The story in the paper had sliced into her soul, then brought out her proud resistance. By her presence she would prove every word a filthy slur a lie. Hettie followed, holding Sadie’s hand, each taking their tone from Frances. They’d taken care to dress up, not flamboyantly, but decent and smart, to give Ernie a boost and to prove the reporters wrong. Even Hettie had shed her Army uniform, to appear in court in her best green outfit. She felt it would attract less attention, and she didn’t want to risk offending some members of the jury with her teetotal stance. Jess bent to speak a word with Robert, nodded, then proceeded to her seat. Duke set the brake on the wheelchair and sat down at last, shoulders back, head up.

  ‘Wounded in France,’ ran the whisper around the gallery. ‘Oldest son . . . volunteered for action . . . saved by a pal.’

  Robert took the force of their concentrated gaze. He wanted to meet expectations. How would a proud, wounded hero react? He felt unsure, aware of the gap between their perception and his sense of the truth as it happened, there amongst the roaring guns and stuttering rifles. So he resorted to a stiff glare at the empty judge’s seat. It seemed to satisfy. You could almost hear and touch public opinion as it shifted and swung behind the whole Parsons family.

  Up in the gallery, Annie Wiggin and Florrie Searles, strange bedfellows during this crisis, helped things along. They conferred over the quality of the jurors; one looked pinched and mean, another too full of himself, but one, two, three on the right looked solid, decent sorts. Dolly Ogden, standing behind, poked Annie to draw her attention as the lawyers came in. Then a door rattled out of sight and two police officers preceded Ernie out of the cells. They walked impassively ahead.