A/N: (very long note copied from my AO3 account because these are the final chapters!) sooo here is the penultimate chapter...it took me a long time to write it and a lot of writer's block. i have to admit that in my previous ff account (full of a lot of embarrassing stories i wrote when i was 13 LOL but hey we all gotta start somewhere right) i rarely finished stories. i was determined to finish this one. i care for willa (you might think otherwise with what i put her through) but i wanted her journey to have its conclusion. more notes at the end to say thank you for the feedback in a more detailed manner.

before that, though, i'd really like to thank all of you who have taken the time to encourage me and comment. you have no idea what that means to me, it was incredible to recognise usernames for people who actually took the time to read my story and then say what they felt about it. i know i was sometimes cruel with my twists and turns here lol. i hope (really, really hope) that this ending satisfies you all. it was not what i had originally planned (we know season 5 had its own twists that outmatched mine) so i had to do a little re-writing. personally, im happy with the ending. like i said, i can only hope you will be too.

twenty-nine

Somehow, it had become another one of those things rarely mentioned between us, his sickness, though I still lathered his skin in that mush scooped from jars and kissed each scabbing patch which oozed and wept beneath my touch. He disliked baths. Even the most lukewarm soak rubbed at the sorest spots which bloomed between his shoulder-blades and towels scrubbed him too harshly beneath his armpits, where blacker dots speckled his skin. I always waited for him and helped him, dried him and tried to delicately place shirts around him, though he went without during the night, because even the bed-sheets bothered him.

I imagined myself plucking off each sore, like magic; all his pain taken with it.

ii

One Sunday, he sat in the bathroom, stooped on a stool in front of me. I ran a comb through his oily hair, followed with a scissors chopping off those unruly bits which stood and curled. Some spots of his scalp peeked through. Those patches had even reached him there, as if there was no part of his body left untouched. It flowered in whitish scales around his hairline, dipped along his nape.

It grew like my bump, almost inconspicuously, like it had happened only in those fleeting seconds when we dared look away from it. He was afraid to touch me. He had convinced himself that his illness could spread even if the doctor told him otherwise. He looked at my bump from afar, his stare always soft and coated in a funny sheen that he inevitably denied having been there at all.

I cried very little around him. I waited until he was in meetings or off somewhere with Ollie. I cried only then.

iii

I felt I had failed him as a wife, for I could wash his skin with rags and smooth his sores in those Gypsy creams but could not cure it. I watched him move about the house and wondered how I would ever do without him, as if his limbs had become attached to mine, his organs were mine, too. His seams had intertwined into mine like two dolls made together, so that I felt the popping of every stitch as if a child pulled us apart carelessly, and the pain was so immense that I thought I might drown beneath it. I dreamt of rum and wished I could have drank myself until I floated in its fuzzy lightness. But I was not here for myself, anymore.

And how brutal it was to know that if I had not been with child, I might have followed him into that other place.

He wore heavier shirts, shrouded his body behind a dense coat and a hat dipped lower against his forehead, all patches covered and veiled in black as if he marched at the head of his own funeral. I was not to be a widow. I could not wear a veil for him, I could not hold a wriggling bundle if he was not there with me. I dreaded it, the thoughts of those nights without him, with only our child for his memory. I was grateful to have even that – but I was terrified of it, too. I had been more devoted to him than I had ever understood until I thought that he was dying.

I was made bitter. I frothed from it. I bowed alongside the bed in those days before my bump had grown too large and I spoke aloud to ask some distant figure if this was punishment for all those times I had taken rings or bracelets and sold them, if it was punishment for all those times he had made rum and killed in France and if we were both punished for what had happened with Caleb; had it truly just been random, as if a wheel had been spun somewhere and it had been decided that my husband should fall ill when before he had been perfectly fine, and he was still young –…

I slumped lower onto the floorboards and screamed on nights like that.

iv

I had a dream which bordered on a nightmare, for I stood in a house that was not mine. I looked around at its books in a language I could not read. I gazed at its sheer curtains fluttering in a breeze wafted from a distant ocean. I dreaded that house and its rooms composed of loneliness; it was there in the lining of its furniture, as if every cushion and pillow was filled with it and not feathers. There was no dark creature lurking in its shadows. Only sunlight and space and the cawing of seagulls somewhere far away.

So, it was not quite a nightmare. But it felt like one.

v

I felt how large that bump of mine had become. I looked over at the scaly blotches on his temple and saw how large they had become, too.

vi

I could not tell anybody about it apart from those who already knew and that was only Franny and Ollie. It seemed to gnaw away all strength in my hands, for they had become terribly shaky and jerked in spasms whenever I did the most mundane tasks. I dropped dishes, once. I frightened Cyril with that loud clatter of shattering glass, and his eyes watched me move around the kitchen to sweep it away, his ears turned downward. I talked to him frantically, obsessively. I told him that there was surely a Gypsy on Ripley Street who could do better than his doctor. There was more for him than creams and tablets.

I accidentally cut myself on a shard of glass. When Alfie came home, he cleaned the cut in a small bowl and pressed a bandage over it, kissing its beige colour. I cupped his cheek, leaned my forehead against his own and felt all his tiredness swirl behind it, the cogs of his brain ticking and ticking and ticking – he never rested, never really slept, even if his eyes were closed.

"I love you, Willa," he said.

"You really must be ill," I murmured softly, smiling at him. "Much too sappy. But I love you, too, Alf."

"I do," he said, his words hoarse. "I really fuckin' love you."

I felt the bandage shift. There was a sharp pain. I had pressed my nails into it; it was not accidental, that time.

"Willa," he whispered one night, into the blackness of our bedroom, where his words tickled the nape of my neck, "we need to talk, love."

vii

I imagined him pale and trembling more than he ever really did, because Alfie was so stubborn that not even a disease could weaken his resolve in the mornings when he strode into the bakery and made deals with other Jewish men around Camden Town and shook hands and shared rum with those who congratulated him on his soon-to-be-born child while I wondered if he would even be there for the birth and if his doctor had some miracle cure and if I would ever be able to breathe normally again and not just in stuttered gasps when everything became too much.

But I never told him. I cried and I screamed in places where he could not hear, because it was his sickness and it was his pain. It would have been selfish, otherwise. He had always said that he was the selfish one, though sometimes I wondered – he still brought sweetened pots of tea for me in the evenings, still helped pull off those boots of mine before bed, still read to me in Hebrew so that I might fall asleep to the lulling murmur of his voice.

viii

There was one night that he read to me and I felt funny flutters in my stomach, an odd shifting that stirred me from sleep and made me blink stupidly into the yellowish smoulder of our bedroom with one hand placed on my bump as if it might speak to me and tell me what that all meant. More shifting followed and Alfie paused in the middle of a paragraph to look at me, eyebrows raised.

"Willa?"

I took his hand. Those dried sores speckled his wrist, too. I tried to unfurl his fingers and lay his palm flat against me, but he flinched as if burned and wrested his hand from mine. I did not scold him. I held his hand a little while longer and leaned my head against his shoulder, stroking my thumb over his hands. I had never loved another person the way that I loved Alfie. I wanted only to show him, to take care of him, to be with him in all senses.

Then, I felt him shift, and I thought perhaps my love had breached his fear, for he untangled us and turned toward me. He swallowed thickly and tenderly reached out to touch my stomach. His stare had become wet and wide at the first flutter that he felt there.

I breathed out a laugh, smiling brightly at him. "Isn't it the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine?"

His own lips rippled as if he tried to smile and speak, but his disbelief overwhelmed him and stole away his words and he looked at his own hand as if it was not part of him. I felt the heat of his palm and his hesitation, shifting his weight as if he might pull back again, but I squeezed his hands and he calmed. Slowly, I sank lower into the bed and he sealed himself behind me, arms around me. I lulled him into sleep with those flutters instead of whispered parables.

For once, we did not awaken from blankets against his skin or dreams of houses poised precariously on cliff-edges.

ix

Pushing against the door, I felt the first crashing heat against my cold skin and yanked at my scarf. Snow fell in faint wisps, though it was brown sludge that filled the streets and made Londoners look like foreign blobs of dark colour in their coats and thick boots. I heard a sudden cheer and glanced up in surprise at the girls stood around a table laden in lavish presents, carefully wrapped and piled upon one another like a tower. I glimpsed a sea of cupcakes and cakes lined around them. I sniffled with my nose stained in red from that bitter chill and then glanced behind myself, wondering if I had stepped in front of someone who was meant to celebrate some kind of party here in Daisy's café, but Ada, Daisy and Franny stared right at me as if I was mad.

"Willa!" Ada laughed. "What on Earth are you doing? This is for you!"

"For me?" I repeated, my mouth still slack. "What for?"

"Well, perhaps that little bump right there might give you a hint," Franny snorted.

"Those gifts are for me?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll enjoy the bibs I bought you," Daisy grinned. "Shall I pop one on you now, then, if you're going to eat cake with us?"

I looked between them, so stunned that I only dimly realised that I had not even closed the door behind me; a brisk wind lapped at the tablecloths and doilies around the countertop and rustled at my skirts, licking my calves so bluntly that I shivered and hastily pushed the door shut. I held the latch for a few seconds more, before I turned and approached that table full of gifts, full of cupcakes and little trinkets. I stared at each silvery package and counted those neat bows plucked and strung in curls as if I had never seen a present in all my life, as if the concept was hard to understand.

"Thank you," I said.

Then, I burst into tears.

There came the sudden scrape of chairs and hands clutching mine and that clucking comfort all around, settling me into a seat of my own. I had never known my birthday. I had only slipped through years unaccounted for and I tallied the score when I felt like it – and this was not a birthday, but it was something like it, surrounded by my dearest friends and so much effort and warm kisses on my cheeks that I felt thank you was not nearly enough.

"I was just like you, Willa," Fran said matter-of-factly. She plucked a cupcake from the platter in front of her. "I cried all the time when I was pregnant with Elijah. Smallest thing set me off."

"I did, too," Ada added.

"I have a lot to look forward to, then," Daisy grimaced. "Sounds so wonderful, having babies."

I snorted at her. "I think I would take crying over the birth itself. Franny has told me some horror stories."

Ada shot Franny a sharp glare, eyes narrowed. "Fran! Stop trying to frighten her!"

Fran plopped another chunk of cupcake into her mouth and shrugged. "What? And lie to her?"

Ada smiled despite herself and laughed. She looked at me and reached out to brush my wrist. "Well, it'll be worth it, Willa. You'll hold your little one and wonder how you ever lived without them before."

"D'you want a boy or girl?" Daisy asked.

"I don't mind."

"I bet Alfie's hoping for a boy," Daisy mused. "Couldn't handle a girl. She'd have him wrapped around her baby-finger before she could even speak."

I felt another flutter in my stomach that came not from the baby but rather a sinking stone thrown into a well which had formed in my stomach and stretched further and further away from me. Beneath the table, I felt a hand wiggle itself into mine and I glanced over at Fran. She never looked away from the other women, but she squeezed my hand all the same and passed her strength onto me.

"She'll be all right," Fran said softly. "She'll be all right."

"Willa," he whispered on that same night, into blackness, into the nape of my neck, "I don't want you to become my nurse, my carer. I don't want you to wait around with me to die."

x

Tommy sent a bouquet of flowers and chocolates, perhaps both as a kind gift upon hearing our news and a small apology for all that had happened out at his house not so long ago. He had been distracted. I heard that he had become withdrawn and moody once more, but then he was still hit hard from the death of his brother, and now he had more problems with the Americans. I imagined that Tom had had enough of death for this life, but there was still many things to be done for him, so he continued even in his blueness.

I found Alfie in the front-room inspecting the box of chocolates with furrowed brows, a curious stain of brown around his lips. When he handed them over, I lifted the lid and saw that he had eaten most of them. I turned my eyes toward him with great annoyance and he quickly wiped his mouth.

"Makin' sure they weren't poisoned or nothin'," he said. "You never know with them Birming'am lot."

I raised an eyebrow. I was entirely silent, lowering the box onto the sofa. He grimaced, watching me with his hands awkwardly brushing crumbs from his shirt. I walked toward him. He straightened and pressed himself against the wall as I passed him, holding his gaze the entire time. He cleared his throat once I stepped out of the room and peeled himself from the wall.

"I were just checkin', love," he called out. "Love? It was for your own good! Some would call me a martyr – a man takin' a risk for the woman 'e loves – romantic, some would call it –…"

xi

Within the hour, another box of chocolates was placed on my lap. I glanced down at it and then back up at him, forcing my expression to remain blank.

"Proper stuff, that," he said. "Jewish."

I shrugged and feigned disinterest. "Okay."

"Cost a good few quid."

"I'm sure it did."

He hesitated. "Better than what Tommy sent, too."

"I wouldn't know. Never had the chance to try what Tommy sent."

He threw his eyes toward the Heavens and muttered words that I could not understand. "Right. I'll bring you some tea, shall I?"

"That would be nice." His shoes scuffed the floorboards, and just before he left, I called out, "Do try not to drink it before it gets here, though, would you, Alf?"

His footsteps paused. I heard another grumble before he continued to walk forward.

I smiled triumphantly and ate those chocolates that really were much nicer.

xii

Black gusts of wind rippled over the fields and blew away the dead petals of old flowers replaced by the fresh bouquet that I brought. I could not bend very well myself, but I let the flowers flutter onto the old, slanted headstones made of wood and rot in this poor English weather. Ishmael stood in that muddy dirt-road behind me, watching the rolling clouds overhead, unaware that this field was where Caleb had been shot; unaware that all the girls from my childhood were buried here in its slopes of sludge, bubbling beneath hard smatterings of rain.

"I miss you all," I told them. "I wish you could see what's become of me. I want this baby to be happier than I ever was when I was a kid – but that's enough of that, now. It happened so long ago that it feels like some other life that I lived, like I stepped out of some costume and left it behind. Maybe that sounds funny. But I mean it. And I wish you all could have had the same thing."

I glanced once more at Ishmael, but he had not moved. He only watched the clouds. I kept my eyes fixated on him, because there was a heavy wetness pooling behind them.

"I won't be able to visit you anymore, but I'll ask a friend to bring flowers when they can," I said. I felt a hoarse rasp along my throat. "I hope you'll be able to forgive me for it. There are things that need to be done, and not a lot of time to do them. Alfie is not well. He hasn't been well for a while now. And I will do whatever it takes to be with him and make him better. So, I'm saying my goodbyes the same way he did, before the war. He never said the word like I'm saying it. It hurt him too much to say it. He always had the softest heart."

"Mrs Solomons?" Ishmael called. "Would you like me to fetch you an umbrella?"

"It's all right, thank you," I replied. "I'm fine."

I turned my eyes toward the last headstone, further from all the others. Esther watched, sullen and spiteful as ever, with her own headstone sunken into the soil, half-swallowed in its own blackness. I rarely approached her. I wondered what she would have thought of my happiness. I knew, deep down, that it would have infuriated her. Only she would have been delighted by the fact that his sickness had dampened it. She would have taken pleasure in it.

But it hardly mattered now. She was long gone, and the world had moved on without her, just like it had during the war.

"Thirty-three, Esther," I said aloud. "And you said that girls in our world never made it beyond twenty-eight. Well, you told me a lot of things, you. I believed you, too. What else would I have done, when I was just a girl? I only knew what you told me about the world. But I know a lot more now. I know that you never knew love. I just never realised how much you never wanted us to know it, too. But my child will know it. My child will know nothing else. And my husband will be there. I have to believe that."

I drew in a deep breath and felt the chill fill my chest, spreading around my lungs. I felt more awake than I had in days, because those dreams came more often and stole my sleep from me.

"I said goodbye to you a long time ago, Esther. I understand that now. And nobody will visit you, nobody will bring you flowers. I can't think of anything more miserable than that – to be forgotten in a blue place like this, without a tear shed nor a gentle word said about you. I always did better without you. I'll keep doing better, too. So will Alfie. I know it."

Whitish wisps left my lips from the cold, my words swept away with those same tendrils. It felt liberating, like those words had blocked my mouth and stuffed my throat for decades and only now could I push them out, spit out that spite that Esther had tried to stitch into me. I shook my head and let out a sudden, bubbling laugh. I let out another – and soon I was bent-double in some madness that overwhelmed me. I imagined Ishmael behind me, bewildered and unsure if he should really just take that umbrella and make a run for it before I could notice.

Only he was a good lad, kind and gentle in nature. And he feared his own mother too much to do anything that might put him in too much trouble; a good Jewish boy, Alfie called him.

I felt lighter.

I felt like the lining of those clouds bopping along – even the blackest of clouds had linings that not even Esther could ruin with her sickly-sweet blackness. It poured out of me, left me through each barking laugh and fled into the dark, bristling trees all around us. I heard the froth and foam of an ocean stirred from the dreams that I had, as if I stood on that balcony in Margate and looked out at waves swirling beneath me. It was a sort of freedom, I thought, as if all that horrid pain in childhood had been swept out somewhere far from me, onto another shoreline that I could not see.

Because even if he was poorly, he was still mine in this world and all others that had ever been; and in all those alternate worlds, it had always been us, together.

xiii

Sitting in the back of the car, I watched Ishmael take shooting glances at me through the small mirror beside him. In the past month, with the prominence of my bump and more time spent with him, I realised that Ishmael was oddly anxious, and it was worsened by the slightest cough or sigh from me, because he seemed to think that it meant I was in labour and I had simply forgotten to tell him. It was so endearing that I found myself unable to scold him too much for thinking that him brushing against my elbow a little too roughly meant he had somehow harmed the baby.

Even then, the car rattled against the rocky gravel of another road, and Ishmael looked at me frantically in that small mirror. Amused, I asked, "Ishmael, are you all right, darling?"

"Y-Yes, Mrs Solomons," he mumbled. "Are you? I can pull over, if you need a minute."

"I'm better than ever."

"Can I ask what you were laughing at?"

I shook my head, still smiling. "Oh, it was something silly. But important to me, you know? I just thought about all the things I want for this child, things that I never had when I was a little girl. I want to make sure they have what they need – all the things I never had."

"That doesn't sound very silly, Mrs Solomons," he replied warmly. "Mum told me that she always wants the best for me and my little brothers and that's why she's so tough on us. Only wants us to understand."

"Then if I have a lad like you, I'll just have to be tough, too, because your mother did a wonderful job with you and your brothers."

His cheeks turned pink. "Oh, Mum would be well pleased to hear that."

"I'll be sure to tell her when I see her. Or better still, I'll have Alfie pass on the message."

The pinkness reached the tips of his ears and he resettled in his seat, because any praise from Alfie around his mother would make life a lot easier for Ishmael. His mother would have everybody in the Jewish community informed of what Alfie had said within an hour, tops. I rested a hand on my bump and turned back toward the inky surroundings on this road.

I barely heard Ishmael until I glimpsed him shift in his seat to catch my attention. "Oh, sorry. Head in the clouds, lately."

"I just said that I think you'll be a good Mum," he said shyly. "A great Mum."

I felt a blush of my own. I grinned from the swoop in my stomach set alight in a spark of excitement. "Thank you, Ishmael."

"And I'm glad you're happy. Because you and Mr Solomons deserve it."

My lips wobbled; I looked back out at the sycamore trees waving in glittering shimmers with smiles of their own.

"Willa," he whispered, that same night, when blackness reigned and my nape tickled from his words, "I wrote a letter for the baby – just in case. And I want you to read it to 'em. Read it like I taught you. Will you do that for me, darlin'?"

xiv

In an Irish pub he whistled a tune with a paddy-cap laid before his tattered boots. I was enveloped in his arms and hauled through crowds who patted my shoulders upon hearing that I was the niece of Johnny Dogs and he beamed with a pride that warmed me. He shoved an old friend from a proper seat and playfully dusted its old scuffed lining before he helped me sit. He snatched a stool for himself and pulled it close enough that our knees bumped together whenever he leaned close to talk to me.

There was some sort of party behind him; either a wedding or a funeral, but for the Irish, there was never much of a difference, because there was always that same call for silence and the most drunken man of all warbled out the first folk tune of the night, so it ended the same way no matter what the occasion.

Between the tearful howls and shouts meant to be a song, Johnny said, "I meant to come sooner, but I was fair distracted, chey – had some business transactions, you know."

I watched him, deadpan. "Is that right? And this transaction – was it made with a woman named Marnie?"

His mouth moved, but he went silent. He ducked his head, then lifted it with a loud laugh. "Fuck. Who told ya? Was it our Tom?"

"Ada."

"Ah, then I'm caught out. Aye, chey. It was a woman named Marnie."

"From what I hear, Marnie put you up in Manchester. Then caught you with another lady and threw you out."

"Imagine the likes of it, chey," he gasped, thumping his fist on the table. "A man like me-self, when I'm gettin' on in me years – and she takes me suitcase and throws it right out the window. Could have killed someone in the streets walkin' beneath on the street, that could. And she's leanin' out the window – roarin' at me, she is, callin' me this and that and, sure, when only the night before she was –…"

I groaned. "Stop, Johnny! I don't want to hear what she did the night before."

"Ah, well. T'is only another one story to add to this long book of mine, anyway. Pity I can't write. I'd make me-self a nice fortune with the tales I could tell," he said. His eyes sparked and I knew immediately what he thought. "Perhaps you could write it for me, eh, Willa? I'd cut you in and all –…"

He rambled on, half-joking and half-delirious form the thought of such a fine book that would bring him so much wealth that he would live like he imagined the King lived – though I was not sure the King would stay with a woman named Marnie in Manchester with as much readiness as Johnny would. I watched him as he gestured wildly with his hands for his stories. I smiled fondly at those lines which formed and faded with every word spoken, his smile so bright and full of life for a man who had seen all that he had. He had dodged the war, but his daughters had drifted from him, and the only woman he had ever loved died alone and without him.

And he took all punches like he hardly felt them. He stood and marched onward to the next pub with cap in hand, thrown at his boots for the next song to be drawled into the night. I often wondered about him, on those same cold nights when I read books or talked to Cyril or ate dinner with Alfie. I wondered if Johnny would ever settle, but it seemed that that was not what he ever wanted. He liked to be temporary. He liked never to chain himself to one place for too long and maybe that was what made him float and sing and fly like he did.

"Now, I'm not sayin' that you have to name him Johnny," he continued. "But you're fit to pop, love, puttin' it politely and all, so it's time to be thinkin' of these things. And do think of it – a fine, strong name for a lad, it is, and you'd also think of John Shelby, God rest his soul – I'll have them sing a song for him, too, tonight –…"

"Who died?" I asked, glancing around.

"Oh, is it a funeral we're at? I thought it was a weddin' party."

I snorted. "Right. So, Johnny for a boy? I'll have to run that by Alfie."

"Well, what choice has he in it, chey? Who is giving birth, you or him? Right. It's you who decides. Rosella said to me, before she had our first lass, she said, 'Johnny, unless I misunderstood the birds and the bees, it's me who is being split in half by that fuckin' spawn you put in me, so I'm the one –…'"

"She was always very eloquent," I interrupted, taking a swift gulp of my water.

"Rosella is a good name for a girl, too," he said. "If it's a girl, your man is already fucked, chey. Girls are too clever, they run rings 'round ya. Marnie's not too bad a name either, is it?"

I heard the slur in his words and let out a laugh.

"Now, you were always the cleverest girl I ever met. Smart in the way books can't make ya," he said.

I nodded along. "We haven't even talked about names yet, Johnny."

"Why not? What else has your man to be doin'? Is he lookin' after you?" Johnny swivelled a curiously bloodshot stare toward me, though I suspected his focus was on the smudge of mahogany wood behind me more, because he blinked in confusion and tried to find me again. "I'll talk to him if he isn't."

"Oh, I bet you will."

"I fuckin' will, and I'll talk with these," he replied, lifting his fists. His elbow slipped and the table moved in a wobble. "D'you want another glass of water? I can get you something stronger, chey. It's all right, won't do you no harm. Your cousin Imelda drank like a sailor before she had her lad Jimmy. Fine lad, he is. Well, one of his eyes is a bit wonky, but sure, God never said that he made us perfect, did he? Christ. D'you know that they pay me in pints here, sometimes?"

I glanced over his ruddy cheeks and bleary eyes. "I never would have guessed."

"I'm all right, I'm all right. I'm glad you came to see me. I'm so proud of you, love. Look at ya – you were always meant to be a Mammy to a chey of your own. Right. I figure we best get a move on – if this isn't a weddin' party or a funeral, I think there really is one due later and I don't want you 'round them drunken lads."

He stood and the stool slopped beneath him, thrown aside. He reached for my hand, but my balance was much better. I hauled him between the singing mass with their arms thrown over each other's shoulders, and I almost lost him at one point because he had somehow gotten tangled into the last chorus of The Foggy Dew.

Outside, there was a mist which flew from the buildings overhead and shimmered toward us in delicate shreds. I saw Ishmael sitting inside of our car with his cap lowered over his eyes, probably asleep. Johnny almost tripped on the cobbles and continued to sing a song of his own, a blend of The Foggy Dew and some other tune he had made for himself.

"Is he good to you, your fella?" Johnny asked again. "'Cause if not, I'll talk with these –…"

I tapped at the window of the car. Ishmael blinked, his cap sliding from his face. He pushed his door out, then hopped onto the street to help lug Johnny into the backseat.

"Is this your uncle, Mrs Solomons?" Ishmael asked uncertainly.

"My uncle, aye," I nodded. "Among many other things."

"Where do I take him?"

"Well, I could put him on a train to Manchester, but I'm quite sure he wouldn't come back if a certain woman got her hands on him again." I glanced up at the night sky. "I'll get him a hotel room somewhere nice."

Ishmael looked at Johnny who rolled against the seats and drooled, humming and lifting his hands as if an orchestra stood in front of him and he was the maestro.

"Is he all right?"

"Hm. What? Oh, yeah. He loves weddings, is all. Or was it a funeral?"

"Dolly is a nice name," Johnny mumbled. "Or Dinah. I knew a Dinah from Kent, once. Oh, but wasn't she a fine-lookin' woman, and I gave her a good sha – …"

I quickly closed the door before Ishmael could hear him.

"Willa," he whispered, "I put the will in the drawer on your side of the bed. I'm sorry. I just – I need to know that you and the baby –…"

xv

Though I had always wanted a child, I had not really understood how uncomfortable the last month could be. I was swollen and sore and I liked nothing more than lying in bed. Alfie brought an endless stream of teapots. I heard the staircase creak beneath him and lifted myself from the pillows once he pushed in, carefully dodging Cyril who moved around his legs to find me on the bed. I scratched the dog behind his ears and smiled gratefully at Alfie. He sighed and settled alongside me, pulling off his black hat. I smoothed down his hair for him, cupping his cheek before I reached for a teacup.

"D'you want some, Alf?"

"I can't stay long."

"What? Why? Where are you going?"

"Doctor's appointment," he said.

I felt a hollowness in my throat and imagined all that tea spilling out through it. "Then let me find some shoes and I'll come with you."

I was pained by my old boots which had become too tight around my feet and I could barely button my older coat slung over a nearby armchair, but I still moved the blankets over and shuffled across the sheets until his hand took my wrist and gently pulled me back toward him.

"Don't trouble yourself, darlin'. I got more things to do after it, anyway. Busy man, me. Always gotta do somethin' with me-self or I'll go mad. Been that way for a long while, innit?"

He was in a funny mood, his eyes distant and fogged.

"What do you have to do, Alf?"

"Well, I got a call from Tom. Problems with 'is little Italian pals. I told 'im that it ain't no good messin' with the Americans. Them lot got some fuckin' arrogance bred into 'em and the Italians ain't no better. But does our Tom listen? No. 'Course not. From fuckin' Birming'am, in't 'e?"

I felt a hot, pooling fear slither along my spine. "You're helping him with the Italians?"

"I'm doin' nowt for 'im," he said. "Don't look at me like that, Willa. D'you think I'd really get back in this game now, eh? No. Not a fuckin' chance. Tom wants a boxin' match, and me nephew wants to fight in it – I can't let the lad go to Birming'am alone, not with them fuckin' animals. 'Sides, the lad is Jewish and there are some fuckin' fellas down them parts what would love to show their lack of appreciation for our beliefs, innit –…"

I sank against the bed, my whole body crushed by some invisible weight.

"It ain't like that, Willa."

"You like it too much to stop even when you're sick," I said. "Even when I'm pregnant."

"I told you it ain't like that," he insisted. "I ain't startin' war with them fuckin' wops, not again. I already told 'em –…"

"When?"

"Last week."

"The Italians came to see you?"

"I think they say Italian-American, now, hm. Best o' both fuckin' worlds, innit, for them, and the worst for the rest o' us –…"

"Alfie," I interrupted shortly. "What did they want? And why didn't you tell me? Haven't we been over this a thousand times?"

"I ain't losin' me wife and child to 'em, that's why I didn't say owt."

Tiredly, he ran his hand over his face and sighed into his palm. I scooted against my pillows and reached for his other hand still pressed into the sheets and held it, looking at him worriedly.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I just thought – it'd be a lot o' fuckin' stress on you for somethin' what ain't even important. Could – I don't know, coulda upset you and the baby. I ain't a fuckin' doctor, am I? But I ain't workin' with Changretta. I made that pretty clear to 'im."

"And – And will he – retaliate?"

Alfie looked at me, smiling weakly. "Love, d'you see? You're already feelin' the stress o' thinkin' Luca Changretta might come after us for tellin' 'im I don't wanna play with 'im. Like kids in a fuckin' playground, this."

"What did he want?" I repeated.

"For me to bring some lads to the boxin' match and let 'em kill Tom."

I breathed out slowly, eyes wide. Alfie snorted and lightly tapped my cheek. "Close your mouth, Willa, you'll catch flies."

I pushed his hand away with a scoff. "Well, forgive me, Alf – I didn't really expect that."

"I did. I knew it the minute I 'eard Luca Changretta were sniffin' 'round London. S'what I woulda done, if I were in 'is shoes. But you ain't gotta worry, treacle. I mean it. I ain't doin' it. I'll give Tom some information and I'll move on. I got other plans, remember? Other things to care about, now."

I brushed my hand over his cheek and rested it there, smiling at him. I knew what would make him smile, too. Quietly, I whispered, "My ears."

Soon, it came; his lips quirked upward. It was reluctant, but there all the same. "My toes."

I wrinkled my nose, scoffing at him. "I should hope not!"

"Oi! Cheeky. Fine, then. My smile."

The warmth of the lamp behind me smoothed out that whitish pallor which usually washed out his flesh as of late. Its colour made him look more like he did in his twenties, for just a moment, before there had been that war, that first one in France and then onward to all the others. I marvelled how at much time had passed and how many people had been lost; and there we were, still together.

I smiled at him, and his eyes ghosted over my lips, focused there as if he saw something that I did not. My cheeks flushed in a light blush, my hand lifted to hide my mouth.

"Your smile," he murmured, cocking his head in consideration. "Our sprog should 'ave your smile. Much nicer, yours."

"Don't be silly." I felt those patches around my throat. "I like yours, Alf."

He laughed, a gentle chuckle from the depths of his chest. "Y'know, I only play this little game 'cause I like watchin' your face light up when you think 'bout our little sprog and whose parts they'll get, who they'll look like more. But I reckon that they should look like you – 'e, she, don't matter to me so long as the babe is 'ealthy. But any part o' you is better, Willa. All parts o' you."

"Oh, give over."

"I remember when I was a young lad," he continued, as if he had not heard me. "I worked in this factory, right? All I wanted in the whole world were to make some money and impress this Irish girl what worked with me there. I said to me-self, yeah, I said, 'steady on, Alfie – she ain't gonna look twice at your ugly mug, not if she knows what's good for 'er.' But I could never stop me-self lookin' at 'er smile. Most beautiful eyes on God's green earth, too."

I had turned a terrible beetroot colour from that same blush. "And what happened?" I prompted.

"I got into this fight with a lad what called me a kike," he said. "The woman what ran that factory comes out, calls me somethin' like a thug or what 'ave ya. And she asks that girl – that beautiful Irish girl – to take me to the office where that woman can tell me off. Maybe give me the sack an' all. So, the girl brings me there, and she talks to me. She didn't know what the word 'kike' meant. Almost didn't want to tell 'er. Didn't want words like that 'round 'er. But she liked me."

"So, did it all work out then? Did you impress her?"

"Oh, she were too good for me," he tutted. "Always was."

"Well, I once liked a Jewish boy," I told him.

"Jewish, eh? Synonym for 'andsome, that."

I laughed. "Oh, very handsome. And funny. And very soft."

"Soft? Is that right?" he grumbled, feigning offense.

"Very soft," I repeated, grinning at him. "He was such a softie that he made sure all the stray dogs around my old neighbourhood had eaten before he had any food for himself. He always brings me tea and biscuits before bed, because he knows how much I like them. He kept all the photographs that we had taken together. He kept all my letters that I sent him while he was away."

"Foolish lad to leave a girl like you behind, it sounds like."

I smiled, full of light and fuzziness. "I was willing to wait. I would have waited even longer for him."

"Soft," he scoffed again, shaking his head. "Ruinin' 'is reputation, you are."

"I liked that about him," I said. "Never knew a lot of softness in my life 'til he came 'round. And he wore the first shirt that I ever made him, even though it was awful. He never said anything bad about it, because he was too kind for that."

"Weren't nothin' wrong with that shirt," he muttered. "Best craftmanship that I ever saw."

"Apart from the fact that it barely fit you! And the buttons were all wonky. It only proves that you were soft – too soft to hurt my feelings."

"No. Them buttons were fine. Adds character. I like character, me."

"Well, you certainly have enough of it yourself, Alfie."

He watched me, his eyes moving from my lips to my eyes. "I love you, Willa. I always 'ave. And I won't let you down. I'll take care o' you and this baby."

"I know," I whispered. I leaned against him, and his arms wrapped around me. He rocked me as if I was the child, but it soothed me, his hand rubbing my back.

"It'll work," he said. "It 'as to work. I won't let you down."

"I know, Alf."

"You waited," he said. "You waited."

xvi

I heard an idling car on the street outside, but I also heard the bedroom door push open and glanced up at him. He was dressed in his best coat and shirt, his scarf draped around him, his black hat dipped low. He had just been about to leave, I could tell. Yet in his hands, he held a platter with biscuits and a teapot. I felt as if the steam washed around me and made me melt at the sight of him.

I watched him as he crossed the room. "Alfie, love?"

"Yeah?"

"What was it you said earlier?"

"About what?" He lowered the platter and placed it on my bedside table.

"Something about not being very soft at all," I replied lightly.

He was still half-bent, though his eyes met mine and he pursed his lips. "You must be mistaken, darlin'. Don't know what you're on about."

"Oh, really?"

"Really. Fran did tell me that women suffer funny little lapses in memory like that when they're pregnant, though, so I can't blame ya." He leaned forward and kissed me. "Goodnight, Willa. I'll be back when I can, all right?"

I nodded, smiling sleepily at him. "Okay, Alf."

He looked as if he wanted to say more, because he stood there a moment longer. But his eyes lifted and looked out at the blackness of the night; he whistled for Cyril and left soon after.

"Willa," he whispered. "I am fuckin' terrified."

xviii

Alone in the office, I made little booties and socks even though I already had so many pairs. I made them obsessively, just for something to do with my shaky hands, and sometimes the fabric bunched beneath those odd tremors and sometimes I caught myself with a needle and sometimes I pricked myself harder on purpose. Ollie moved around between the basement and the office, rushed off his feet because Alfie had left him with a long list of chores. I had offered to help, but Ollie had only glanced down at my stomach before he dashed off. There were funny flutters again. I felt them more and more.

So, perhaps I was a little slow to realise that there was anything really happening until I felt a dampness and glanced down at my own slippers in surprise.

"Ishmael?" I called out.

Opening the office door, he peeped in at me. "Yes, Mrs Solomons?"

"Would you mind bringing the car 'round front, please?" I asked calmly. I stood, reaching out for my coat and scarf. "And would you call Alfie, if you could, too?"

"Oh, sure. What should I tell him?"

"That I'll meet him at the hospital."

He blanched and dropped his eyes in horror, his skin flushing a terribly white colour. He gripped at the door-handle with all his strength and mumbled, "Um – should you – should you be standing, Mrs Solomons? If – well, what if it falls out and –…"

"Ishmael," I smiled, "if it were that easy, there'd be a lot more babies on this earth than there already are. If all goes well, I'll bring you 'round to meet this baby the moment it comes out – not falls out – and then you and I should really have a chat about how this whole thing works, because I think your mother has spared you certain details."

He laughed uneasily. "Maybe. I just – Can I get Ollie? I think Ollie would know what to do more than I do. Oh, God – will there be a lot of – blood?"

His forehead was coated in a light sheen. I paused in placing my scarf around my throat. "Yes, get Ollie, I think that would be a good idea. Then you can go home, okay? I'll get Ollie to call Alfie."

Ishmael nodded in relief, his head bopping up and down, up and down. He stepped back into the hall. Through the windowpanes, I watched him take a step and almost trip over his own shoes, looking like he might faint there and then. I felt more twinges, sharp and wracking through me, as if my organs were scrunched and smoothed out, scrunched and smoothed out.

A couple of seconds later, Ollie burst into the office with a coating of flour on his cheek. "Ishmael told me – I'll get your things and we'll take it slowly up the stairs."

"Is Ishmael all right?"

"Oh, is it Ishmael giving birth?" Ollie retorted. "I must have made a mistake."

I slapped his shoulder. Then, a sudden pain gripped me, and I slapped his shoulder even harder, squeezing his arm so much that he went very white like Ishmael had – though Ollie held it together far better and moved with me, letting me cut off all blood flow in his arm until that pain rolled through.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, bent double.

"Franny did a lot worse," he replied easily. "Thought I'd lose all my limbs the first time she went through it with Elijah – couldn't open my hand after she held it throughout the birth. But I'll track Alfie down and you'll feel much better with him there at the hospital."

"Oh, Ollie. Only a man could think his presence would be the only solution to the pains of childbirth."

"Willa," he whispered. "It should be Ruby for a girl. Alfie Junior for a boy. Fuck whatever I told Ollie – I want me son to take me own name. I always told you I was selfish, didn't I, eh?"

xix

There was colour all around; from bleached white aprons to scuffed linoleum in lime-green and a harsh blue light overhead. I had turned a heavy red myself, lined in veins from the strain and later made pink from the puffs that came with each push and scream. I throttled Ollie more than once and asked over and over for Alfie. Poor Ollie rushed between this room and the hall, searching frantically for a phone and dialling all numbers to find Alfie in Birmingham. It's not supposed to happen without him, I said.

Crying through blistering pain, delirious from it, I felt a hand slip into mine and thought that it was him, but Franny smoothed a strand of hair from my sweating forehead and kissed my hand between hers. "I'm here," she whispered soothingly.

"He's not well," I told her. "He needs to be here – he needs –…"

"He'll be here," she nodded. "Ollie will find him. And he'll be here. Now, you focus on what the doctor is telling you, all right? Oh, Willa, my darling girl – that's it – Willa, my sweet –…"

xx

And it was midnight when I held her for the first time, because it was her; small fists scrunched tight against her face mottled in pink and eyes sealed shut, mouth held wide for little gargles. She had soft tufts of black hair and a button-nose that sniffed and sniffed. I had wanted nothing more in the world than to hold her against my chest and know her, sketch her like I had sketched Alfie all those years ago. I stroked her palm, kissed her plump cheeks and breathed that scent that Franny had always described to me. Soft and gentle, it was a scent I could not say I had ever known, because there had never been anything so beautiful. I was sore and tired and made of love.

Gently, I shook her hand as if she waved to me. "Hello, Ruby," I whispered softly. "Hello, sweetheart."

xxi

And it was a few minutes after midnight that Ollie told me that Alfie was dead; he had been shot by Tommy, though the details were blurred. It had been on a beach, Ollie said, with all that sand and saltwater. He was on a beach in Margate, Willa. He never went to Birmingham. Tom said that had been last week. He was on a beach in Margate.

xxiii

I blinked once in colour. I blinked again and saw only darkness.

xxiv

But he had made it to Margate; he had waited for his time to come, and he had made it to Margate.

Finally, he fell silent.