After Hours by Jenny Oldfield Page B

pa. ‘Listen here, Em!’ Annie went and seized him by the hand. ‘I ain’t going far. Ask your pa; he says it’s for the best. And I can carry on working behind the bar. So cheer up, things ain’t as bad as they look!’
    She repeated her own advice to herself later that evening when she sat down at her own lonely fireside, amid the smells of carbolic soap and lavender polish, with only the silver-framed portrait photograph of Duke smiling down at her from the mantelpiece.

Chapter Eight
    The women of Paradise Court approached the Christmas of 1923 with a mixture of dread and determination. This was the time when finding presents for the children and a bit of extra meat for the table became a pressing burden to people already working through the night to exist, taking in washing or going out to clean in hotels and restaurants. Those who could bring home leftover bread and a knuckle of boiled bacon considered themselves lucky. The others took in still more outwork. Katie O’Hagan, for instance, sat the little ones around the kitchen table with cardboard and paste, where she supervised the making of matchboxes. She was set on buying their mother, Mary, something special for Christmas out of the one penny per hour which made up each child’s average earnings.
    Some of the men tried hard too to make this a time of seasonable enjoyment. But many were demoralized by chronic unemployment in the docks, and they took refuge in the pubs, often staying till well after midnight. Joe O’Hagan, his health failing, struggled to keep on his porter’s job at Jack Cooper’s drapery store, but nevertheless was one of the Duke’s regulars, along with the unemployed Arthur Ogden. On the Monday of Christmas week, he came in with twelve shillings worth of hard-earned tips, laid it on the counter and demanded a supply of drink to keep him going through the festive season.
    Annie looked at him tartly from behind the bar. ‘What’ll it be, Joe?’ To her mind, a man wasn’t a proper man unless he could regulate his drinking and put his family before his own need to block out harsh reality.
    â€˜The usual.’ Joe sighed and rolled his cap to fit in the pocket of his worn jacket. ‘Times are bad, make no mistake,’ he told. Arthur in his flat, sad voice. ‘A man in work is a lucky man, believe me.’ Over the years, Joe’s hangdog look had increased; he stooped under the weight of his responsibilities, his pale, thin face was lined as tissue-paper, and his wide mouth had turned down in a permanent scowl.
    Annie noticed his hand shake as he raised his glass to his lips.
    â€˜Go easy,’ Duke warned Annie under his breath. ‘Make sure he can get home in one piece.’
    â€˜I’ll see him on his way,’ she promised. Under the brand-new arrangement of Annie living at the bottom of the court, she could easily walk Joe home to Eden House.
    Dolly Ogden’s sharp ears picked this up. Tingling with curiosity, she leaned over the bar for a confidential chat. ‘You made a nice job of them front windows of yours, Annie. I seen you out there yesterday afternoon with your leather and bucket. Shining like a new pin, they are now.’ She nodded her approval.
    Annie sniffed. She intended to give nothing away.
    â€˜Took me aback a bit, I can tell you.’ Dolly creaked still closer, her old-fashioned stays straining against the bar-top. Like many of the older women, she stuck to the clinched and corseted look of her own youth. She derided the new, flat-chested style, showed off her cleavage and hid her girth behind strong laces and whalebone. ‘I never thought in a month of Sundays that I’d be seeing you move back in down the court!’
    â€˜I seen you on your doorstep, Dolly.’ Annie went on steadily serving. ‘I never seen you offering to lend a hand though.’
    â€˜I never liked to butt in, Annie.’
    â€˜Since