Paradise Court by Jenny Oldfield Page B

from her forehead and twisting it into a tight bun as severe as any workhouse warden’s. Her face had a fine,birdlike quality, with rapidly changing expressions. In repose, her eyes were big and dark, the skin tight over her high cheekbones. But seeing herself as the scourge of all errant men had served to fix frown lines on Annie’s forehead, and the corners of her mouth were set down. No man alive would have called Annie Wiggin attractive, but a woman might stop to look at her and declare she was wearing well, considering.
    Duke caught Annie giving him the eye as usual and shuffled off down the bar. He never knew why she bothered, since he gave her not one word of encouragement.
    â€˜What’ll it be, Annie?’ was the longest sentence he’d addressed to her in all the years she’d been patronizing the establishment; through his being married to Pattie and the mourning period after, through her own marriage to Wiggin, who scarpered without paying his bills, and through all the years since he ran off. ‘What’ll it be, Annie?’ he said as he reached for her empty jug in the early evening. ‘What’ll it be, Annie?’ when she called in by herself late at night.
    Yet whenever he glanced her way, Annie had her eye on him. He alone of all men must have been excluded from Annie’s list of hopeless cases. She sat there rolling her eyes and smiling; an unusual expression for Annie on the whole. If Arthur Ogden attempted so much as a remark on the weather as he passed round the back of Annie’s stool, she’d spit at him like a cat. A broad-shouldered navvy lodging in the Ogdens’ spare room would feel the lash of her tongue, and she reserved special venom for anyone bearing the look of the sea. They were the happy-go-lucky, often handsome and feckless men who drifted in and out of the tenement rooms, sometimes American, sometimes Polish, with dark walrus moustaches and heavy brows.
    Why then in God’s name did Annie Wiggin roll her eyes at him? He was Duke Parsons, a decent widower of sixty, weighed down by family care and struggling to keep business afloat during the strikes and troubles. Duke shook his head and backed off in search of Robert, Frances, even Ernie. Anyone would do. He ducked out the back way into the corridor and yelled upstairs. It was Ernie who appeared on the landing, a smile on his face.
    â€˜Come on down, son, and give us a hand with the empties,’ Duke said. ‘It’s last orders, so look sharp.’
    Ernie nodded and came eagerly down with his flat-footed, heavy gait. He hadn’t developed the controlled, springy stride of the average youth. Instead, his legs straddled an invisible ditch, and he thrust them forward like an awkward toddler as he rushed along the corridor into the bar.
    Duke grinned and stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. He was a good son, young Ernie, without a bad bone in his body. But his great, open features made your heart ache in this wicked world.
    â€˜Clear the bar for me, Ern,’ Duke said, pointing carefully. ‘And mind how you go.’
    Ernie took each glass between his two large hands as if it was the football cup. He gently deposited them in the sink. Annie sat and watched him. She drank her own glass to the dregs and held it up. ‘Here, Ern, take this one from me.’ She gave his hand a tiny pat as she handed it over.
    But both Annie and Duke noticed the shine go from Ernie’s face when his chore took him along the bar towards the corner with the pianola. He’d just lifted another glass when he spotted Daisy with Chalky and his crowd. They were singing their heads off.
    Hettie had managed to give Syd Swan the slip and head straight upstairs as they came into the pub. So Daisy stood alone surrounded by young men, head high, face flushed. She’d taken off her coat and wore a blouse as white and thin as any Ernie had ever seen. It was adorned with tucks and frills,