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1 – Saturday 24 April 1926

When Lenny saw young Albie Joyce on the doorstep he knew he was in for a long night. He liked Albie, he was a good lad and a hard worker, but there was only one reason he’d be knocking on the door at nine o’clock on a Saturday evening.

‘It’s Percy.’ Albie was a little out of breath, his collar was turned up and rainwater dripped from his cap. 

‘Isn’t it always?’ Lenny sighed and looked over Albie’s shoulder at the teeming rain. The house lights and streetlights reflected gold in the growing puddles, and chilly air, thick with the acrid smell of the gasworks, drifted into the hallway. ‘What’s he done now?’

‘He’s got in a brawl with some posh chap in the Bell and Crown.’ Albie took his cap off, shook off the water and nervously smoothed back his thick, dark hair. ‘It wasn’t his fault this time. The chap was with a load of fascists. They were calling us all Bolsheviks and boasting how a strike might be coming but they were going to break it. Then one of them started on Percy. I think he saw his scar and knew he’d been in the war. Anyway, he started spouting all this stuff about Tommies who joined the strike being traitors to their country and how being a communist and going on strike was like tramping on the graves of the brave men who died in France. Percy went mad. If Harry Smith, Arthur Fisk and Jimmy Pothecary hadn’t been there I think Percy might have killed him. The other fascists all scarpered.’

‘Is he still at the pub?’

‘He was when I left. Harry told me to come and get you.’

With an exasperated huff, Lenny went to get his coat and tell Laura where he was going. The steady drip of water falling into the bucket on the upstairs landing reminded him that the hole in the roof was getting bigger. He’d had a hard day at work. He was tired. The last thing he wanted to do was go out into the rain and cold but there was no way round it. Worrying about Percy and bailing him out of trouble came as naturally as breathing. He’d been doing it now for almost ten years.

‘Not again.’ Laura looked up from her sewing and shook her head when he told her what had happened. ‘That bloody brother of mine is more trouble than he’s worth. I swear I’m going to swing for him one of these days.’

He loved that she never minced her words almost as much as he loved her plump prettiness, her eyes like dark chocolate drenched with honey and her quick smile. On the outside she was so soft and curvaceous but she was as hard as diamond on the inside.

‘I’ll try to bring him back in one piece. Don’t wait up though.’ He picked up his coat and hat and pecked her on the cheek.

The Bell and Crown was only at the end of the road. With any luck Percy would still be there, and he wouldn’t be so drunk he’d need Albie to help carry him back. 

‘Was there much damage?’ Lenny asked as they marched up the road, heads down against the rain.

‘Not much as far as I could see, maybe a few broken glasses and some chairs turned over. Percy didn’t have a mark on him either. The bloke barely had chance to get a punch in.’

‘Sounds about right.’ 

When it came to fighting Percy waded in as if he was immortal but he never seemed to get injured. It was almost as if he’d used up all his bad luck in one go over in France. 

Although it was no more than three hundred yards, Lenny was soaked through by the time he pushed the bar door open. The place was packed to the rafters, mostly with dockers celebrating the end of another working week. The air was thick with a fug of smoke and the smell of damp, sweaty bodies. Someone was playing Don’t Dilly Dally on the piano, although he couldn’t actually see them through the crowd. A few people joined in with the chorus.  

‘I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied, lost me way and don’t know where to roam. And you can’t trust a Special like the old-time copper when you can’t find your way home.’ 

He wasn’t much of a drinker but he’d dragged Percy out of this pub enough times to know it well. He shouldered his way through the crowd. As he went, he looked around for Percy, or any sign that there’d been a fight. He found neither but he did find Amy Medway, the landlady, pulling pints at the bar. 

‘For once it wasn’t his fault,’ she gave him a wry smile. 

With her shock of molasses brown curls and meaty arms any docker would have envied, it was hard to tell her age. He’d have put her somewhere between forty and fifty but she could easily be far younger or far older.

‘Is he still here?’ He looked up and down the bar, as if Percy might suddenly materialise.

‘No. Harry Smith and Jimmy Pothecary took the toff off somewhere and I told Arthur Fisk to take Percy off too in case the coppers turned up looking for him. Broke one of me chairs, they did, and half a dozen glasses, but Harry Smith took a couple of quid out of the toff’s wallet to pay for it all. He had more’n a fiver in there believe it or not. What’s a rich chap like that doing round here anyway? Harry told me, “If anyone comes asking about this, it never happened.” So I says, “I’ll tell ‘em these chaps came in and started busting the place up for no reason and me regulars threw ‘em out on the street.” They’ll all vouch for it and they’ll all swear Percy was never here tonight too.’

‘Do you know where Percy and Arthur were heading?’

‘No but I know Arthur lives in Chapel Road. He sometimes drinks in the Apollo and the Durham.’  

He thanked Amy and pushed his way back out into the rain with Albie trailing behind him like a lost puppy. With his head down against the icy air he splashed his way towards Chapel Road. It wasn’t a long walk but the streets were sloshing with water. It always flooded here when it rained heavily. Now his feet were wet to add to his misery. Without the benefit of alcohol to dull his senses he was cold, weary and more than a little angry at being dragged out of his warm house. How many times would he have to bail Percy out before his debt to him was repaid? If it wasn’t for Laura his bond to Percy might have been broken by now. Then again, who was he kidding? If he lived to be a hundred he’d be beholden to Percy for what he’d done in France. He’d never get over the guilt of walking away unharmed from the shell that ruined Percy’s life. If Percy had been paying more attention out there, instead of being intent on looking after him, he might not have been hit at all. 

Finally they reached the Apollo but there was no sign of Percy. He wasn’t in the Durham Tavern either but Dan Painter said, ‘If he’s with Arthur Fisk I’d try the Railway Tavern on Albert Road. He’s got his eye on the barmaid in there, not that she’d look twice at a chancer like him.’ 

With a pub on every street corner and Percy’s habit of drinking in all of them until he got thrown out or barred, it looked like being a long, wet night. Lenny and Albie made their way through the sodden streets towards Albert Road. It was anyone’s guess whether they’d have any more luck there.

‘You and Percy were in the army together in France weren’t you?’ Albie asked when they reached the brief shelter of Central Bridge. 

‘We were.’ 

The lad was not yet twenty, with a string bean body that looked to be trying hard to grow into his head. He was too young to have gone to France. Lenny looked at his fresh face and innocent hazel eyes and found it hard to believe he’d been shovelling up rotting bodies in No Man’s Land at a similar age.  

‘What was it like?’

‘Hell on earth.’ 

Hieronymus Bosch sprang to mind but the reference would have been as lost on Albie as it would have been on everyone he knew. Not even Laura understood his love of art. It was hardly a normal interest for a docker.

‘Is that why Percy’s like he is? He was badly wounded wasn’t he?’

‘He almost lost his leg. A man is never the same after a thing like that.’

Despite the rain, men spilled out onto the street outside the Railway Tavern. They all looked crumpled and grubby, as if they’d hit the pub straight from the dock gate. They most likely had and were now too full of drink to care about getting wet. They pushed their way into the pub. Lenny spotted Percy at once. There was no mistaking that tall, muscular physique, the mop of shaggy hair the colour of roasted coffee beans or the face that might have been handsome if it wasn’t for the puckered scar running down his right cheek from the corner of his eye to his mouth. He stood at the bar with Arthur Fisk. Percy’s height and Arthur’s dark, cheeky cockiness made them an intimidating pair. If the toff at the Bell and Crown was itching for a fight he couldn’t have picked on a worse target. 

‘You’re for it now Percy,’ Arthur leaned back against the bar and wiped beer froth from his thin moustache with the back of his hand. His round, cherubically chubby face and wide blue eyes gave him a look of innocence belied by his sneering mouth and quick fists.  ‘Your sister’s sent the cavalry out to fetch you home.’

Lenny curled his lip. He didn’t care much for Arthur. He was too full of himself by far.

‘If our Lor wanted me fetched she’d come herself and she’d make mincemeat out of a young whippersnapper like you Arthur, so less of your cheek.’ Percy turned and grinned at Lenny. ‘If it ain’t my old pal Lofty, come to join me for a pint before last orders.’

‘I’d rather just go home.’ 

The use the old army nickname was a sure sign that Percy had had more than enough to drink already, although he was still standing so he’d probably be able to get him back home on his own.

‘Oh come on. Just one for the road.’ Percy pulled a handful of coins from his pocket and slapped them down onto the bar. ‘And one for young Albie too for his trouble.’

Lenny knew this was a battle he couldn’t win. He’d been down this road too many times before. 

‘Just one,’ he nodded. 

As he did he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, a pale gaunt face and a shock of damp blonde hair, half a head taller than everyone around him. He looked worse than he felt and that was saying something.

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