By popular demand - here we are! And of course, I started with the most emotional, rip-your-heart out moment. That's me all over.
1914 - Tessa is 10 years old.
They were going. She had known they would, but having them say it was… shattering. It felt like someone had picked her up from her bed, and thrown her out of her window. It felt like her bones and skin and insides were laid out in fractals on the road.
Tessa barely registered that she had stood up from the table. Didn't feel the hand try to pull her back or her name being softly called. She just walked, right out of the door, past her dead body on the road, and down through the terraces. They were empty, and silent, and full of people dying before they'd even left.
Someone was crying.
No one paid attention to the ten year old as she found herself at Charlie's yard. They were in their own heads, in their own hells. People were going to die. Families, just like that, would be torn from each other. Dads would die. Brothers. Uncles. Granddads. And she couldn't do anything about it.
Tessa looked up at her nook. There was plenty around her to stand on but she didn't want that. She didn't want it easy and painless. Instead, she retreated far enough so that her back was pressed against one of Charlie's sheds. Then she kicked off, ran, and jumped up. Her hands didn't manage to grab the ledge, as she knew they wouldn't. She felt the skin on her palms and knees split against the wall as she fell, landing on her back in the gravel.
The air was sucked from her lungs, leaving empty space in its wake. The emptiness solidified.
She couldn't breathe.
She stilled.
Then gasped, and slowly, dragged in a breath. With painful effort, she sat up and looked up to the nook. Hopelessness pulled on her gut. The whole thing. The whole fucking thing. Hopeless.
Holding back tears, Tessa dragged over a few empty containers and used them to get up to the nook. She climbed over the edge and shuffled to the furthest corner. Rainwater trickled from the balcony above, pooling at her feet. It didn't make her feel any better.
That was when she started to cry.
They weren't gonna come back. Of course they weren't. She'd heard what war was like, and she bet what she had learnt was tame compared to reality. As she grew older, Tessa found that often the case.
Her dad was going to die. And her uncles. They would be laid in the mud in a country that wasn't even theirs, and die in agony. While she was sat at home.
No. It wouldn't be home without them.
The unfairness of it all weighed heavily on her. She was ten years old. She was too young to be an orphan, too young to lose everything. She didn't want to see the day her family wouldn't come home again.
Her sobs grew harder as the rain thickened. In tune with each other's pain.
Tommy didn't panic when his daughter stormed out. He hadn't put too much effort in pulling her back either. He knew where she would go, and knew that was how she needed to cope. And he was a coward. He didn't want to see her cry.
But it was getting dark and after making sure Ada, little Finn, and Pol were composed enough, Arthur and John went to The Garrison while Tommy went down to Charlie's yard. He knew exactly where she'd be. Sure enough, boxes had been piled up to Tessa's nook. He climbed up and looked over the edge.
Tessa was curled in a tight ball in the far corner. Her wet hair covered her face. If he didn't know better, Tommy would have said she was sleeping.
"Just me, Tess," he said as he climbed over the lip and moved over to her.
He sat beside her, but not close enough to be touching. She didn't move. He could see the jut of her spine through her shirt. The sight filled him with sadness.
Always a skinny little kid.
Would he be around to see her grow into anything else?
He cursed the thought as soon as it came. Of course he would be.
"Tess," he sighed. "It's late. Pol's worried about you."
Nothing.
"Ada too. She wants to read you The Secret Garden again."
Tommy sighed. Throwing caution to the wind, he held out his hand and rested it on her back. If only she would face him, this would all be so much easier.
"We're gonna be alright, Tess. They say it'll only be a few months. I'll be back before you're eleven. I'll be back before Christmas."
"You won't if you die," she whispered.
He could hear the tears in her voice. She trembled beneath his hand.
"Come here," he said.
He moved his hands to her shoulders to manoeuvre her, but she did it herself. She spun and threw her arms around him, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He held her as she sobbed harder than he had ever seen her. If she had almost broken his heart when she was a toddler, she had finished the job now.
"Please don't go," she whispered into his shirt. "Please just stay here."
"I can't, Tess."
"Why?"
"I've got to keep you safe, haven't I? And Pol and Ada. And Finn."
"How can you do that in a different country?"
He stroked her back.
"It's complicated, love."
"But…"
She hiccuped and lifted her head from his shoulder. He looked down at her, seeing how sore her eyes were. She'd been crying all day, he had no doubt. Her hair stuck to the sweat on her forehead and her wet clothes clung to her skinny frame.
What the hell was he doing, leaving her alone in a place like this? In the hell that was Small Heath?
"I don't want you to be alone, Dad."
"I won't be. I'll be with John and Arthur. And friends."
"What if you get split up?"
"We won't."
"What if one of them dies?" she asked, her eyes awash with fresh tears.
Tommy tried to brush them away.
"Then it happens. But I'll do everything I can to prevent it. Eh?"
He tipped her chin up.
"I'm going, Tess. I'm sorry, but I am."
If possible, her face fell even further.
"Okay," she said, her voice breaking.
"Want to go for a walk?" he asked, holding out his hand.
She nodded. They both clambered down from the nook. Tommy wasn't surprised when Tessa kept hold of his hand. She hadn't done it since she was very young but these were exceptional circumstances.
He turned her hand over and found the cuts on her palm.
"Tripped," she said, monotone.
They both looked at the blood for a long moment before Tessa grabbed his hand again. They walked along the canal, in silence. Her tears had stopped, an exhausted blankness covering her expression now. He was about to bring it up again, try to reinforce that he was going to come back, when Tessa turned her head up to the rain.
The words caught in his throat. The familiar sight brought tears to his eyes. He blinked them away as Tessa led the way to the stables.
"Hi, Brownhouse," she said quietly, stepping into his stall.
She stroked a hand down his nose.
"You'll have to take over looking after him," Tommy said.
Tessa nodded.
"Be afraid, lad," Tommy said, patting the horse's neck.
Tessa gave him a brief, half-hearted smile.
"Come on," he said, holding the stall door open.
Tessa hesitated, continuing to stroke the horse.
"Tessa."
She shook her head, turning away from him. She lifted up a hand to brush at her eyes, then turned back.
"Bye, Brownhouse," she murmured.
Tommy closed the door behind her, then took her by the shoulders.
"Okay, Tess. I know this is shit. I know. But I need you to keep it together, now and after I've gone. I need you to be the man of the house, eh? You need to look after Pol and Ada. I know you can. And you need to look out for Finn, too. He isn't going to understand."
"Okay."
He cupped the side of her face, something he'd never done before.
"I want you to promise me you won't get into trouble. Not just little stuff, but… I'm not gonna be here to fix things. And I don't want to come back and for you to be gone. Promise me."
"Promise," she said solemnly, and he knew she meant it.
"Okay… You ready to head back?"
She grimaced, but nodded.
She held onto his hand on the way back, through the dark, eerily quiet streets.
There would be no one to hold her hand when he was gone. She'd need to learn to hold herself up. Hold her family, their reputation up.
It was time to be a Peaky Blinder, for real. And that thought, the one she'd coveted for years, now stung. She was holding her family's future in her skinned palms. She wasn't ready.
Tommy glanced down at her when she paused. She looked up at him. There was a mutual understanding in that stare.
"You'll be okay, Tess," he said, squeezing her hand. "I promise."
She nodded, and they carried on walking.
She'd do it for him. She'd make him proud, and survive. She just hoped he and her uncles could do the same.