Paradise Court

by Jenny Oldfield

  This was Syd’s star part. He leaned even further out of the box. ‘We seen Ernie Parsons.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘He was running up out of the side alley from the stage door, going hell for leather. Never seen nothing like it. He was moaning and yelling something, I couldn’t make out what. First we heard him, then he comes pelting out on to the street, a proper bleeding mess.’

  ‘In a panic, would you say?’

  ‘Not half.’

  ‘You say you couldn’t make out what he said, Mr Swan?’

  Syd paused. He caught Chalky’s eye up in the gallery, certain that his standing had shot sky high with his leader and all the rest of the gang. ‘Just one word,’ he told the court. ‘I just made out the one word.’

  ‘What was that?’ Forster stopped pacing and rested one knuckle on top of his pile of papers. He looked directly at Ernie as Swan gave his final answer.

  ‘“Daisy,”’ came the reply. ‘Lots of times, over and over, before he runs off like a mad thing. “Daisy. Daisy. Daisy.”’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  An unofficial jury gathered that evening in the public bar at the Duke. Some felt that the first day of the trial had gone as well as could be expected. They liked Mayhew’s style; he came across straight, unlike the puffed-up, insincere Forster.

  ‘I reckon him and Sewell make a good team,’ Dolly told Florrie, who stood staunchly behind the bar while the rest of the family pulled themselves together upstairs. Joxer too had come in as regular as clockwork through all this, steadily minding his own business and never missing a day. ‘Frances did well to find them two.’

  Florrie nodded. ‘They got Ernie’s best interests at heart. They’re thinking of leaving well alone and not dragging him on to the stand as a witness.’

  ‘Why not?’ Amy couldn’t see the point. Surely they’d want to get Ernie to stand up and say he wasn’t guilty for all to hear.

  ‘They think he might panic.’ Florrie couldn’t make up her own mind about this. On the one hand, she thought Ern could win the jury over, on the other hand he might well go to pieces.

  ‘If that bleeding Forster gets at him,’ Annie explained, ‘he can twist things round and make them look bad. Poor Ernie ain’t no match for him.’

  Everyone nodded uneasily.

  ‘But we’ll have other witnesses speaking up for us.’ Florrie tried to rescue the mood.

  Arthur Ogden, well dug in by the pianola, agreed. ‘We got Robert home for a start.’

  ‘They’ll take to him all right,’ Dolly said. ‘They’re gonna have to see they ain’t dealing with a pack of ruffians when he gets on the stand. He’ll wear his uniform, I hope?’ She glanced at Florrie for confirmation. ‘Well, he still looks big and handsome, poor bloke, and very decent. He’ll stand up for Ernie.’

  Several bystanders picked up on the awkwardness of her choice of phrase, and stuck their faces deep into their beer glasses. Amy wondered privately how they would manage to get the wheelchair up the steps into the stand. Walter Davidson frowned and shook his head in Maurice’s direction.

  ‘Ain’t Hettie done well?’ Annie put in to change the subject. ‘There ain’t a drop of cunning in that girl. Nice and clean and honest, she came across. And not going on about Jesus neither, thank God.’

  Dolly turned up her nose. ‘It’s all right, Annie Wiggin, everyone here knows you ain’t been to church in a month of Sundays. If you ask me, Ett should’ve worn her Army uniform and all.’

  Annie disagreed. ‘It’d put them off. They’re all fond of a drink or two, I bet.’

  ‘Who is?’ Arthur was slow to follow.

  ‘Them geezers on the jury. They like Ett the way she was, an honest, good-looking girl.’

  No one mentioned the police evidence and the weight it must carry. ‘That Syd Swan’s a bleeding smarmy bastard,’ Walter said with unusual force.

  Amy felt her face glow red. Walter realized he must have missed something. When no one put in a word in Syd’s defence, Amy stuck her head in the air and waltzed out.

  ‘You put your bleeding foot in it there, mate,’ Annie told Walter. She nudged him and looked over her shoulder at the swinging door.

  ‘Serve her right,’ Dolly said. Her relationship with her daughter hadn’t improved of late. There were fewer rows, but each pretended she couldn’t care less what the other thought. Dolly said Amy could go out with whoever she bleeding well chose and get herself done in, like poor Daisy O’Hagan. Amy said she could look after herself and do as she liked. ‘Walter’s right. Syd Swan’s a nasty, creeping sort. Look how he tried to put the blame on Ernie today,’ Dolly said. She looked at her beer as if it had suddenly turned sour.

  Just then, the door opened again. Jess held it wide horn outside to let Robert wheel himself through. The awkward silence broke as Walter moved forward to greet his old friend. He admired the man’s nerve; shot to bits, just out of hospital, but wheeling himself in to see the old crowd. Walter caught Robert’s eye and shook hands with genuine warmth. ‘What’ll you have to drink, Rob? The usual?’

  Jess managed a smile as she joined Maurice at the bar. The deep affection between them grew day by day, despite the poor circumstances. An important step had been taken when they first allowed people to notice them as a couple at the Town Hall dance. Now, whenever Maurice called into the Duke for a drink, the shout went up to go and tell Jess that her young man was here. ‘You on your way to work?’ she asked him as he looped an arm around her waist.

  ‘Yes, I gotten minutes though.’

  ‘How do you think it went today?’ She looked up into his face.

  ‘We was saying, well as can be expected,’ Maurice’s own feeling was gloomier and perhaps more realistic than the general opinion. He’d picked up the police evidence from a fellow spectator, and seen the reaction to Syd Swan’s dramatic testimony. But he didn’t want to dash Jess’s hopes.

  ‘Hm.’ Jess looked worried none the less.

  They switched to safe small-talk, and as Maurice got ready to go, he crossed paths at the door with a crowd of new drinkers, including Syd Swan and Chalky White. They came in off the street with careless bravado. Instinctively Maurice ducked back into the room to keep an eye on things and to make sure Jess could cope with the unwelcome intrusion.

  Chalky and Syd were all dressed up. They strode in as if they owned the place, knowing smiles passing between them. Whitey Lewis went up to Florrie to order drinks. Someone went over and fingered the keys of the pianola, setting up a tuneless sprinkling of notes.

  Florrie’s glance darted towards Robert. He’d picked up on their entrance right away, though his back was turned. His jaw was clenched tight. Walter put one hand on his shoulder. Behind them all, Duke came through the double doors.

  ‘Give the men a drink, Florrie.’ He sounded matter of fact, striding across the bar and lifting the counter flap. He reached up to a high shelf for clean glasses, lining them up for Florrie to fill. All the while he kept his eyes fixed on Syd Swan.

  Some of the regular drinkers began to mutter. Dolly led an exodus of women away from the bar to the furthest corner of the room. But the gang enjoyed this demonstration in a thick-skinned, inspiring way. It proved they were having an effect.

  Duke switched his gaze to Robert. The boy’s suffering was too much to bear. ‘Pa!’ Jess cut in. ‘You gotta get rid of them!’

  He took a deep breath. A fight was the last thing he wanted. But he was landlord here, and he could sense everyone was behind him in slinging them out. He would keep it calm, but he’d get them out. He counted five of them, then nodded firmly in the direction of each one of his own supporters; Walter, Maurice, and if it came to it, Arthur Ogden and some of the older men. Joxer lined up alongside his boss. One look at his grim face and iron-hard frame would send most men running for the door.

  Syd looked uneasily at Chalky for direction. He’d agreed to this for a lark, and because Chalky had been set on carrying it out. ‘It’s my local,’ he’d
bragged. ‘Ain’t no reason why we can’t go in for a quiet drink, is there?’

  ‘You want to set the bleeding cat among the pigeons, you do.’ Whitey had woken up to the possibilities. He was keener on a good scrap than Syd.

  ‘You’re right there, Whitey. What’s wrong with reminding them Parsons that they got themselves in a spot of bother when their boy done that poor girl in?’

  Out on the cold street the gang had laughed at Chalky’s false concern for Daisy. Majority opinion went with their leader’s plan, so they dived into the Duke, grinning like monkeys, scattering the kids hanging round the doorstep for crumbs of news about the trial.

  Now there was a serious possibility of a fight.

  ‘You just drink that down, gents, and then you can leave the premises,’ Duke said loud and clear.

  ‘Or else?’ Chalky checked around the room and guessed that numbers were evenly matched. ‘You don’t want to throw us out, old son. It won’t look good when it gets out. More rough stuff. As if you ain’t got enough bother already.’

  Duke didn’t hesitate. Chalky’s cheap taunt roused him to anger at last. He slammed open the bar flap and moved out to face Chalky. ‘I’m the one who decides that, mister, and I’m chucking you out, no matter what!’ With Joxer, Walter, Maurice and Arthur lining up behind him, he stood his ground.

  Chalky snorted. He took a long, slow pull at his drink, draining it to the dregs. All eyes were on him. Jess had crossed over to Robert, who wrenched at his chair, trying to drag it into the centre of action, restrained by Dolly and Annie. Chalky withered him with a pitying look, then he turned back to Duke. ‘Listen, we don’t want no trouble.’

  Duke’s fist ached to smack Chalky’s jaw. He held it ready clenched, but he could see they would slither out of a confrontation now that they’d thrown the place into turmoil. He felt Walter drop his guard and Joxer shift to one side.

  ‘We’re on our way!’ Chalky derided them with his insolent cheeriness. All five men put down their empty glasses and turned away. Arthur made a grab at Whitey’s coat sleeve, but Maurice pulled him back. Someone spat on the floor as the gang left.

  Duke went straight over to Robert for a soothing word. ‘Easy there,’ he told him, ‘you gotta do your bit in court tomorrow.’

  But the humiliation had been too strong. ‘What bleeding good will it do?’ Robert demanded. He pulled his chair out of their grasp. Walter and Maurice came over, while other customers resumed their drinking. ‘They already made up their minds Ernie done it. And for all we know, he did!’

  Duke turned sharply away. He looked lost for words.

  ‘He don’t mean it, Pa!’ Jess leapt forward.

  But Robert was hurting too much. ‘We don’t know, do we? Me and Ett was on the scene that night and even we can’t say for sure that Ern never did it!’ He was beside himself.

  ‘He never did it!’ Jess clutched both arms across her stomach and fended off all doubt. Her face went wild with shock.

  ‘No, he never.’ It was Walter’s calm voice backing her up. ‘It stands to reason, Rob. Ernie never done nothing like that.’

  Jess grasped his hand with relief. ‘See!’ she said. ‘We gotta keep hold. Ern’s innocent!’

  ‘Well, who did it, then?’ Robert had subsided into sullenness.

  Duke sighed, bent to unhitch the brake on his son’s wheelchair and began to wheel him out. ‘If we knew that, son, we’d be home and dry,’ he said.

  Frances’s sense of duty had taken her along to the hospital to enquire after Ada Wray. It was the first evening of the trial; reason enough to get away from the Duke and to try to keep calm. She was averse as ever to bar-room gossip and found herself uneasy with her neighbours’ sympathy, however well meant. So she hurried along the rainy streets, intent on seeking out her friend, Rosie Cornwell, for news of Billy’s wife’s condition.

  But it was Billy himself she met first in the hospital grounds. She recognized him, thinking it odd that he should be sitting outside on a bench in the cold, dark evening, staring ahead. They’d not met alone together since that evening in the coffee room at the Institute, and at first she almost redirected her track so as to miss passing close by. But then she changed her mind.

  ‘Billy?’ She went and stood by the bench, waiting for him to stir. ‘How’s Ada?’

  Billy sat forward, resting his arms on his thighs, his cap slung between his hands, head down. Without giving any sign of recognition, he told Frances that Ada had died that afternoon.

  Frances sat beside him. ‘Oh, Billy, I’m sorry.’ To her Ada had been a shadowy figure whom she’d met only once at a social evening; a faded but evidently pretty woman with a plump, pale face and carefully arranged light brown hair. She was quite pleasant but uninterested in Billy’s ‘causes’, as she called them. Her mother lived in the house with them, and the two women were friends and allies.

  Billy nodded. ‘You came a long way out of your way to ask after her.’ He kept his head down. Any effort seemed too much.

  ‘I wanted a breath of air and a talk with Rosie,’ Frances explained.

  He glanced up at last. ‘How’s the trial?’

  ‘I don’t know, Billy. We just had one day of it.’

  ‘I been thinking about you.’

  ‘Don’t, Billy,’ she interrupted. ‘Thanks, but don’t say nothing.’ She stretched out her hand in the dark and put it over one of his. Then she quickly withdrew it. After a few moments more she stood and said goodbye. They parted in the glimmer of dripping lamplight, with no witness to their sad, lonely scene.

  Next morning in court, Mr Sewell came and drew Duke to one side to inform him that they’d decided against cailing Ernie to give evidence. ‘We don’t think he’s up to it, Mr Parsons. I’ve had one last talk with him, and I’m afraid he still insists that he can’t remember anything that took place beyond that stage door.’

  Duke didn’t look surprised. ‘He blocked it out, I should think. When he’s upset he goes into a world of his own; that’s just Ernie.’ He was aware of the crowd outside shoving down the corridor for the second day of the trial; idle spectators, newspapermen, supporters.

  Sewell agreed. ‘Yes, I understand that from my talks with him in prison. It’s like getting blood out of a stone.’ He sighed. ‘No, we can’t take the risk of letting the prosecution have a go at him. He’s easily led, you see, into saying what he thinks you want to hear.’

  ‘No need to tell me that,’ Duke argued. ‘He’d put his own head into the noose, is that what you mean?’

  Frances slipped her arm through her father’s. Sewell looked uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that, Mr Parsons. But tactically it’s best if we rely on the evidence of others, don’t you agree?’ He disliked any whiff of defeatism until the case was finally over. ‘It really is going as well as we expected.’ His own confidence was vital once the family started to go downhill like this. He turned to Jess to check final details in her account. ‘Don’t let Forster frighten you,’ he warned. ‘Stand up to him. Don’t let him think you’ve got anything to hide.’

  His unwitting words followed her on to the witness stand, the first to be called that day. Everyone sat or stood in place exactly as before; all the court officials with their own special piece of ritual to enact, the all-important Judge Berry presiding in his crimson robes and white kid gloves.

  Forster got to work right away. Jess was the final witness for the prosecution, with information relevant to the state of mind of the accused when he returned home. She felt her fingers tingle to the touch of the calfskin cover of the huge Bible with its big gold cross. Her voice emerged faint and unfamiliar to swear the oath.

  ‘Now, Miss Parsons, we want to hear how your brother, Ernest, behaved when he got back home from the music hall. He was alone, was he not?’

  ‘No, sir. He came in with Frances.’

  This was a bad start. Forster looked irritated by the contradiction.

  ‘Frances is my sister, sir.’ Jess offered to hel
p.

  ‘Quite. You have a large family, Miss Parsons?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But it was you who dealt with your brother and got him to bed?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How did he behave?’

  ‘He was upset.’

  ‘How, “upset”? Was he raving and moaning?’ Forster reminded the court of Syd Swan’s last account of seeing Ernie outside the Palace.

  ‘Oh no, sir. More dazed. Upset in a quiet sort of way, sir. Frances found him outside on the street looking lost, and she brought him on up. Then I took over.’

  ‘Quite, again. You say he was dazed. Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He said he’d lost Robert outside the theatre. He looked for him everywhere, but he never found him.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Now, Miss Parsons, what time did your sister, Frances, bring the accused upstairs with her?’

  Jess faltered. ‘About midnight, sir.’

  ‘Speak up. About midnight, you say?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And we know that the audience came out of the music hall at five minutes to eleven.’ Forster included the jury in his calculations by walking close to their box. ‘Does it take more than an hour to walk from the Palace home to Duke Street, Miss Parsons?’

  ‘If you’re lost, it could do, sir.’ She wanted to point it out as a fact, but the barrister turned it into a facetious remark with a frown and a sigh.

  ‘Let’s say he was pretending he’d got lost, Miss Parsons. Let’s just suppose. If you came straight from A to B, from the Palace to the Duke of Wellington public house, how long would it take you? Walking briskly, as the crow flies?’

  ‘About twenty minutes, sir.’

  Forster placed his fingertips together and looked directly at the foreman of the jury. ‘More than forty minutes unaccounted for, by my reckoning, sir.’ He raised his eyebrows, then turned with a swish of his silk gown. ‘Now, Miss Parsons, we’re almost there. We’ll return to your brother’s distress when he did finally make his way home. Didn’t you think it might amount to something more than his simply getting lost?’