A/N: Anyone see the newest episode of peaky blinders? i won't say anything to avoid spoilers but it's as blue and violent as ever...thankfully so is this chapter! thanks again for the reviews, favourites, etc... I'd also like to thank the Guest reviewers - I unfortunately cannot respond to you directly through PM but I am very, very appreciative and want you to know it.


seven:


Billowing clouds of blackened smoke sputtered from the towering chimneys of the factories all along Bonnie Street. The heavy drone of machinery swallowed its cobbled street. Men moved between the barrels, hauling large sheets of tarp between them or rolling carts into warehouses. Great spurts of fire crackled from pits scattered in the courtyard. I shrank from those abrupt licks of heat against my skin, eyes downcast, hands held in pockets and boots clacking against the ground.

Between those hot tendrils of smoke, the bakery unfurled in its red-bricked glory; its sprawling yard was much larger than the old factory had been. Its door was not made of a dense steel but rather wood, painted in a rich chocolate. Ollie stood alongside me. His eyes drifted from the barrels toward the trucks sat in front of the building before he finally looked at Alfie who strode just ahead of us, shoulders straight and hand latched around his cane.

Bundling into the soft folds of my scarf, I breathed in its floral scent. I spotted a couple of lads in the yard already, hunched from the large sacks slung across their shoulders. I noticed that almost all of them were Jewish and from the neighbourhoods around Bell Road, which soothed my nerves; I had made the very shirts on their backs, after all. I heard about mothers and siblings from idle chatter between them while handing out shirts, heard about fathers in trenches and brothers blown away. Therefore, I was not so nervous around them.

It was the bakery itself that made my nerves fizzle and spark beneath my skin.

I was nervous because we had been here before, we had seen bullets shot through skulls for a bit of scum and grime slathered across bricks, seeping from its pipes; that had been the factory which made aprons stuffed with little sachets of snow in the linings, that had been the factory run by Butcher and Esther. I had seen sickly-sweetness blackness bubble from splintered bone and slip between glazed eyes for factories like this – and here Alfie stood, arms held aloft as he spun in the courtyard, his light stubble glistening gold in the sunlight.

"Well, what d'you think, eh?" he called out, his words echoing around the courtyard.

I thought of the dogs shot in the fields. I thought of the girls shot in the flat.

I said nothing; he had not really stopped to listen, anyway.

ii

Tucked within the labyrinth of the basement, held between the endless towers of barrels, had been an office with oak cabinets and a rich rug which was soft beneath our boots. I saw, in the corner, a sewing-machine and rolls upon rolls of fabric neatly slotted into shelves behind it, made in a criss-cross pattern so that each roll could be easily plucked and then cut with all the utensils lain out across its beautiful table, its chair decorated in a very plump cushion.

I glanced around even more at the trinkets in this office, its green lamps with golden trimmings, baskets and countless drawers already stuffed with documents that I had not read. Alfie had done all of this quite hastily and without much explanation.

Yet I stood in its confines and felt much like I had whenever Esther had brought me into her office to discuss certain things – I had looked at the papers, been unable to read them at the time. I had also been left out of the loop so much that I was almost blind in all that was to do with that factory.

Only I could read, now. And still I felt utterly stupid.

I felt like that because I had been disconnected from the more intricate layers of his organisation. The boys flitted in and out of the office to bring other files, other papers, and I stood there motionless like a wax figure, limbs pressed against my sides. I noticed, too, that no boy would glance at me and I thought it odd.

In the flat, it had been an issue between myself and men of my own age, but here – well, I was not sure why the younger boys thought me so frightening that I received cursory glances and had to witness frantic scuttles out into the workroom.

"You want me in the same room as you," I noted, tilting my head toward the sewing-machine. "Won't the noise bother you?"

"Nah," he muttered. "Like the noise, me."

I caught his flighty eyes too, thinking that perhaps Alfie had not wanted us to be apart even in the most tame of settings. I also knew that Alfie did not like noise – not a lot of it, anyway, especially after he returned from France. He liked the house quiet, he liked it almost silent.

I turned toward the office and said, "Okay, Alf."

"What d'you mean?"

I blinked at his tone, looking at him. He had sounded defensive, oddly postured so that his fists pressed into the wooden table and his shoulders hunched forward. I had seen him look at the boys like that – never at me, like that.

"What do I mean by what, Alfie?"

"You don't sound like you like it," he replied. "But I tried to make it nice for ya, I did."

"I know, Alfie," I mumbled awkwardly. "I just – I'm worried."

"Worried about what?" he barked. "It's some fuckin' rum, Willa. Fuckin' 'ell…"

I watched him come around the table much too quickly and I saw frustration in the tightness of his shoulders. I saw the grind of his jaw and I looked toward his fist, still held in a scrunch so that the rings squeezed knuckles and those same knuckles turned white. I stepped away from it – from him. Alfie had never hit me, Alfie had never even been that rough at all.

It was not even him that I was even really afraid of, in that moment when he came toward me.

It was Esther. It was Yaxley. It was all coppers who had battered fists against my body curled in upon itself in alleyways.

I had seen all those other people who had ever cut me down stood there in his stance, saw a hand raised for a slap against my cheek already stinging, saw bruises in the earliest light of dawn, and I was trembling before him.

But his hands were at his side. He had never even raised them at all.

I was not even sure just what had happened to me. I had never felt that with him before, but perhaps it had come from the way he had spoken or how he had glared at me and how fast his movements felt to me, so that my head felt as if it was spinning, like it had after Esther had slammed my skull against the countertop of the kitchen in that flat on Bell Road.

Now it was Alfie who stood there; utterly stupid, disconnected.

"I weren't gonna do nothin' to ya, Willa," he whispered.

He looked hurt. He looked wounded by it, that I had stepped away from him so quickly.

"You know I'd never do nothin' to ya, Willa," he added. "Don' you know that, sweet'eart?"

"You came around the table too fast," I said, cheeks stained in red. "I-I don't know why I did that – I'm sorry, Alfie –…"

"Don't say sorry. Don't you ever apologise to anybody on this fuckin' earth, Willa," he replied fiercely. "They don't deserve it from ya. I don't neither."

His eyes were filled with an odd emotion, glistening in the strength of his conviction. He did not move toward me, but I could tell that he wanted to do it, that he wanted to hold me but had restrained himself because I was still in that in-between where his movements had mirrored Esther, mirrored Yaxley, mirrored the coppers.

He said, "I wanted to make it nice for ya, is all. I never meant to upset ya, darlin'. I'll find you another office, if you'd like. I could pay someone else for the aprons if you don' wanna work 'ere, Willa, you know that, don' ya?"

I felt very exposed. "No, I – I want to be here, Alfie, I was just -…"

"Scared," he finished. "Not just worried, Willa – you're scared, ain't ya?"

I thought of Johnny Dogs, suddenly. "Never enough to become top-dog, Alfie."

"Now you're speakin' riddles to me," he replied.

But his lips quirked upward like he knew.

Because he knew, I realised. He knew that this bakery – distillery – was the first leap into the pit with the other dogs snapping and snarling and he was baring canines of his own, but Alfie liked that. He had never liked too much noise.

Then I thought to myself, had it always been like that, before the war? Or had it come after it?

"You know it, don' ya, Willa? You know that I wouldn't ever 'urt ya," he insisted.

I had thought that I might lose him in the trenches on some field in France. I had been grateful to have him back at all – and he had all his limbs, although scarred and now often riddled in spasms of pain around his spine, but here he was – and I knew that if he liked noise now, it was only in the same way that he liked to fight other dogs snapping and snarling.

He liked it because it meant he never had to dwell too much on what had happened to him on those trenches on some field in France, the things which he had never even told me about, because it was always 'not now, Willa'.

So, I took a step toward him. I saw his eyes fill with warmth and relief. Usually, it was Alfie who held me because he was a little taller and he liked to be the one in charge, but he let me hold him, this time, stooped himself so that I could wrap around him, feel him against my collarbone while he inhaled, suddenly calmed.

I stroked his hair while I reflected on his temper, wrathful and abrupt, easily incited.

I thought to myself, had it always been like that, before the war? Or had it come after it?

iii

In the next two months, we filled the house with furniture; wardrobes, tables, chairs, flowers and paintings. I had never loved a house so much, never even thought it possible to love a house so much. I loved that feeling of shutting the door and knowing that it was just us, together – what had happened in the office had been mostly forgotten, lost in the swell of joy that came with the house and with him. Alfie bought me coats with lush fur and shiny buttons, he bought handbags and hats and all sorts of things that I had never really worn before, because I had never been able to afford it. I had only ever stolen it and worn it in the flat with the girls just before Esther came around.

We used to parade around in the jewels and pretend to be rich Duchesses.

Now, I wore the pearl-bracelet which he had bought me all the time. I wanted to sleep with it, I loved it that much. I knew that it was not even the bracelet that I loved so much, but rather the fact that it had come from Alfie.

Sometimes, though, I looked at the barrels of rum and I looked at the boys in the courtyard and I counted out each pearl from sudden spikes of anxiety.

iv

The old Gypsies had not called it anxiety; they had called it foresight.

v

Sitting in a park with Charlotte, I listened while she talked about her beau, George – and beau, Alfie explained, was not the word for boyfriend in French, after he had picked up some of the language over there. Esther had gotten that wrong. I wondered about all the other things she could have been wrong about and I thought about what had happened with Alfie in the office that morning so many weeks beforehand. It had not crossed my mind that often, but I wanted to talk to Charlotte. I always trusted Charlotte.

"George wants to find a proper job," Charlotte said. He was working in another factory yard somewhere in London, and she was still nicking purses in between. I didn't want it for her, but Charlotte had little options. I had thought about asking Alfie if she could work for him once he had fully established himself. She continued, "And he wants to get us a proper place, you know –…"

"Charlotte, do you ever think about how Esther treated us?"

Charlotte blinked at me. I had always thought her very pretty in a fragile sort of way, because her skin seemed like porcelain and her eyes were soft and doe-like. "Treated us?" she laughed. "What d'you mean?"

"All the slapping and the hitting," I said.

"Kids can be bold," she shrugged. "Lots of other kids got it like that, Willa. We weren't the only ones in Bell Road what knew what it was like to get a slap on the bottom. What makes you say all this, eh?"

"It was on my mind."

She watched me carefully, seeming confused by my words. "Esther fed us, clothed us. Taught us all we needed to survive, too."

"I know."

"She took care of us," Charlotte went on, "…even when she didn't have to. Could have thrown us out on the street, turned us out."

I wanted to say, she turned out Elsie, turned out other girls that you don't remember because you were too young, she let Beth hurt Daisy and Ruth, she pit us against one another, she – …

I said, "I know."

vi

Every night, Alfie stood from the table and came around it – slowly – toward me, shifting around me to pull our coats from the stand by the door and helping me put it on, before he ensured my scarf was snug around my neck. Only then would he loop his arm with mine. I liked these little walks because they reminded me a lot of our olden days, before the war, walking around Ivor Square back when we had worked in the old factory.

Then came the night that we stepped out of the courtyard and onto the street, taking our usual twists and turns and we heard a shout from behind us: "Solomons!"

Alfie had an iron grip on my arm. He turned us toward the man but held himself in front of me, stood taller and broader than he had been. I felt my skin become clammy and hot beneath my coat, felt red splotches on my throat at the sight of a man rushing toward us, his own skin beetroot in anger.

"You think you can make my boy do your dirty work, is that it?" he roared.

"Nathaniel," Alfie called out, his words coated in false amity. "Frankly, mate, ain't got the foggiest what you're on about, right, and I think you oughta think about what you're doin', mate –…"

"I almost lost that fuckin' boy out there in France! You think I'd let him be taken from me 'ere, in fuckin' London, in my own fuckin' neighbourhood, from you –…"

"I gave the boy an opportunity to make 'is own way," Alfie told him. I could not see his face, being held behind him, but I could sense it – he was full of anger and it vibrated through him, made him tremble from it. I was still holding his arm, but now I thought that I was only holding to keep him here. "And I think you oughta remember that you're in the presence of a lady, mate, with all this cursin', frightful behaviour outta you, Nathaniel – …"

The man let out a bitter, harsh laugh. "Oh yeah? Does the lady know what you've been doin', mate, sendin' them fuckin' boys out there to do your biddin', hm?" – at this, his eyes found mine and I flinched like I had been struck, struck by the sheer rage held within them – "…D'you sleep well, do ya, my lady? Oh, I bet you do, with what money my son brings to your man 'ere?"

"Alfie?" I whispered, squeezing his arm.

His lips were pressed tight together, but he glanced at me. "Ain't important, Willa."

"Ain't important?" the other man wheezed incredulously. "My son lost 'is fuckin' eye because you sent 'im out there! 'e lost – 'is fuckin' – eye – because of – you!"

Never before had I fainted in my life, but I thought that I might fall then, because my legs had become slow and fluid. I stepped away from Alfie like I had in the office. He was breathing very heavily, his body half-turned toward me, half-turned toward his man, as if he was not sure which way he was supposed to go.

I asked, "What did you do, Alfie?"

It came out hoarse. It came out full of fear.

"Go on, Solomons," the other man sneered. "Nothin'? I'll tell 'er, then, shall I? Your fella 'as sent out all our boys into these streets offerin' protection to the pubs and businesses 'ere, made 'em sell that fuckin' rum he's pushin on 'em – ain't ya, Solomons? Forced it on 'em – and it's our boys what 'ave to deal with them who don't wanna pay no fees to your fella, and when they don't pay, 'e sends them 'round to sort it. Only some o' them fight back, you know. Some of them know 'ow to use weapons just like you do, Solomons. They took 'is fuckin' eye out and 'e can't – and 'e…"

The man was lost in his sorrow, he spun away from us and screamed, and the sound rattled through me, cut straight through me, I was stepping further and further from him until Alfie caught me at the arm and said, "It ain't that simple, Willa! Look, just let me –…"

"Let go."

Alfie scraped his lower lip between his teeth. "Willa, you gotta listen to me, yeah?"

"Let go, Alfie. Now." I had spoken harshly first, but I was scared, and I was so, so disturbed by the wails of that man behind him, so that my next words came out softer, more pleading. "Please, Alfie, let go – just let go, now."

He did. He did, because Alfie was soft on me, always had been.

"You fuckin' kike and your bog-trotter bitch, right –…"

I had not immediately noticed that the man had started to scream at us again, his hands embedded in his scalp, pulling madly at his hair. He was wild from his anger. He spat out those words in a froth of spittle, thrown from his lips pulled into a hateful snarl – snarling and snapping and baring canines.

Alfie had been turned toward me, entirely toward me, but he heard those words and I saw a shift in his expression. He lost that warmness toward me. He blinked as if dazed, then turned away. He looked at the other man.

"What did you just call 'er?"

It was me, now, breathing heavily. I felt my fingertips ghost the pearls of my bracelet. I felt it there, felt each white, hardened bead, spun frantically, twisted obsessively, in my hands. I plucked and plucked at the bracelet. Alfie is not himself, I told myself, that snarling mouth is not the same mouth that kissed me earlier, those hands not the same as those that held me, too, not himself at all –…

"My son!" the man repeated.

"Say it again," Alfie ordered. "What you just called 'er, say it again."

"Alfie!" I warned.

I was far from him now and still he spun around and roared, "Fuckin' stay out of it, Willa!"

He turned back, turned from the hurt which filled me. He said, "Say it again."

"Say what? About you bein' a fuckin' kike?"

Alfie watched him, stalked toward him like some savage creature.

The man bared his teeth and laughed. "Oh, no! Not that, eh? You're fumin' because I called 'er what she is, ain't ya? A bog-trottin' fuckin' bitch, a little Gypsy slut-…"

Alfie was like an animal. He rushed at this man, whose son had lost an eye, and held him against the wet ground of the street, which was black and empty and now swelling in the sound of flesh against flesh. Purple veins peeled from Alfie's forehead because he was squeezing the other man around the throat, before he began to throttle him. He was punching him, over and over until I thought that there was nothing left of the other man's skull, just sickly-sweet blackness, but he was still alive. I saw him move.

Blood splattered Alfie's face. It dripped from his chin and stained the shirt that I had made him.

And he stood up and he turned toward me, and I thought, why are you so surprised, Willa? He had his teeth latched around another lad's throat when you first met him. What's so different, now?

There had been nobody around to stop him from doing it other than me. I had done nothing. I had been too afraid to do it myself, because he had been so frightening, so rabid.

I would never have been able to stop him, even if I had tried.

Had it always been like that, before the war? Or had it come after it?

vii

Slumped in the bathtub and soaking in piping-hot water that left my skin raw and pink, I could hear him shuffle around the bedroom on the other side of the door. We had not spoken since we left that street and he had not looped his arm around mine and there had not been much touching at all between us. In front of the house, he had tried to place his hand on the small of my back to guide me into the hall once I had unlocked the door, but I had stepped away quickly – and it was this stepping forward, stepping backward with him that had me tired. He took off my scarf, too. He held onto it longer than he had needed to, before he folded it and left it by the door.

After that, we had separated, moved around one another as if we could not see each other; I was stood in his blind spot and I was afraid to become visible. I could not scrape the image of that man from my mind, saw him always screaming, heard him always moving, like he was here in the bathroom with me, telling me, "My son lost 'is eye because of your fella!"

Alfie was outside the bathroom.

The man came closer to the bathtub. I saw him move. "Lost 'is eye! D'you 'ear me, you bog-trottin' bitch, you little Gypsy slut!"

Alfie was speaking – I heard him say, "I left your nightgown on the bed, yeah? I won't come near you, Willa. I'll stay in the other room, sweet'eart. I left your slippers out 'ere, too, be sure to put 'em on, yeah? Can't 'ave you catchin' a cold, eh? Just – just come out soon, all right? You been in there a while. You're gonna look like a prune, ain't ya? All right, Willa. I'm – I'm goin' now, darlin' – I ain't far. I'll just be in the other room."

And I felt worse because I never wanted him to leave.

viii

It was the first time since we had moved in that we had not slept beside each other.

ix

Around midnight, I heard him in the house. He was not sleeping either. I heard him in the hall, outside the bedroom. While he shuffled by, I heard him pause and my breath paused with him, until he slowly moved away and I was left to watch the ceiling, aware of him in all senses.

x

He was like this before the war. He is like this now, after the war, too.

xi

It was first time since we had moved in that I did not sleep at all.

xii

And nothing has changed except for me.

xiii

In the morning, I rose from the bed-sheets and drifted toward the wardrobe to pull out an old dress; not one that he had bought me, because I heard the screams of a father whenever I brushed the fabric, felt his grief catch in the threads and fall from between the folds. I took out a dress that I had worn while he was in France, black, simple, lined in large buttons. I heard him in the hall again. I heard him dither there, unsure of himself, before he spoke through the wooden frame of the door.

He said, "I'm gonna walk to the bakery now, Willa. D'you wanna walk with me, eh?"

I never answered him, but I was looking at the door as if I could see him there. Through each splinter, I could see him there.

"All right, love," he mumbled softly. "All right, Willa. I'll be off now."

He hesitated. I heard it in the creak of the floorboards.

"I meant what I said. You ain't gotta be afraid of me, Willa."

He sounded tired, remorseful. I heard that in the creak of his bones, too, heard it in the tap of his cane because his back had been hurting him more and more, lately. I waited until he was gone, and I went into the dining-room and brought some paper with me.

I wrote a letter to Johnny in my own words, wrote about how it was one of the best moments in my life to find him again. I told him about the bakery and my newfound job in it, with the aprons and jotting down little notes and messages for Alfie, that sort of stuff.

I reached the last paragraph in which I had planned to tell him a little more about Alfie, because I wanted Johnny to like him. I wanted it so badly, his approval of Alfie. Only I pressed my pen against the paper and the ink blotched, smudged from my hand. I looked at the stains on my skin and found myself frustrated by it more than I would have been on any other day.

I ripped up the letter, scrunched it tight in the palm of my hand and tossed it aside.

Eventually, I slid off my chair and threw that ball of paper into the rubbish-bin in the kitchen. I wished Johnny was closer. I wished that perhaps I really had considered Ireland more, because then I might have known more kin, had more advice for moments like this.

But I still had my Charlotte.

So, I went to find her.

xiv

From stalking around her neighbourhood on Milton Road, I figured out that she had long since left for Charterhouse and that is where I went, strolling between its numerous stalls and looking for a glimpse of red hair. I felt a harsh bump against my shoulder from an older gentleman stepping off a curb and I caught the flash of the pocket-watch out of habit, because it swung from his chest, attached to a small chain, and I had always been trained to look for shiny objects, like a magpie.

He swung around, which caused that glint of gold, until my eyes lifted, and I saw the sneer on his face.

"Watch it," he grumbled. "Pure ignorance, that is."

"You bumped into me," I replied testily.

"Well, be more aware!"

He was lost in the crowd and I felt a rush of anger flood through me before I followed after him. I was not intent on a fight – that was Alfie with all the fists and fury, but I did find him by a bookstall with his hands latching onto a book to lift toward his grubby face.

I took that opportunity to slip my hand into his pocket and unclip the pocket-watch. I felt a sick satisfaction that I never normally felt whenever I stole; there was no need for it, this time, I had plenty of spare cash from the aprons at the bakery and I had a house with Alfie – I had a home with him.

And yet I felt the weight of the pocket-watch in my palm and smiled to myself all the same. I always had a talent for it. If Esther had ever told the truth about anything, it was about that. I slipped off into the crowd but stayed close enough that I could watch him pat around his pockets, his reddened face flushing even redder once he found his pocket-watch had been taken.

I swung the pocket-watch around and around until it fell into my own pocket.

"Be more aware, you prick," I muttered to myself.

xv

I found Charlotte a couple of minutes afterward and I threw the pocket-watch toward her. She caught it with wide eyes, turning it this way and that in the sunlight to examine its lettering and golden numbers. She let out an excited squeal and threw her arms around me.

"Worth quite a lot, this, Willa – oh, you're a talent," she grinned. "Bring it to Bix, shall we, see what you can get for it?"

"All yours, Charlotte," I replied.

She looked at me in surprise. "You're kidding me, ain't you, Willa? That'll be worth a fortune!"

"Don't want it."

"Why'd you bother, then?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Just making sure I still have it in me."

Charlotte eyed me up and down, then said, "Was it your lover-boy who made you so moody today?"

I smiled and let out a laugh. She walked alongside me, our arms looped.

I said, "You must have Gypsy blood in you, Charlotte."

"Only Scottish and Irish mixed together," she replied easily. "So, just as bad."

I snickered at her and shoved her arm.

Charlotte continued, "I'm right then, am I?"

I became more solemn, shrugging my shoulders again for no real reason. "He's been doing things he hasn't told me about."

Charlotte looked over at me, dipping her head lower to catch my expression. "Slept with some other woman, has he?"

"He'd be dead if he had, Charlotte."

She hummed. "Then what could be worse?"

"That's just it – I'm not sure what it is, exactly. He's been running the bakery –…" – at this, her eyes flashed with amusement and I rolled my own eyes because I had told her all about this bakery – "…and I had been under the impression that all was going well, until some fella stopped us in the street to say his son had been attacked and Alfie had been using boys to enforce protection."

Slowly, we turned into an alleyway and stopped completely. Charlotte had listened all the while, then pursed her lips. "Butcher did the same thing, didn't he? You weren't so ready to denounce him, Willa. You made a good penny off of him, actually."

"But I didn't care for Butcher. Did you?"

"'Course not," she answered. "Didn't feel one way or the other, really."

There it was again, that odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Butcher had died, and nobody had felt anything for him. He was with the worms, now; it would all start anew.

"Esther did it too," I tried again.

"Hm. And she ended up much like Butcher."

"I don't want that for Alfie," I mumbled.

"You don't control things like that," Charlotte said. "You can't ever control things like that."

"This man who stopped us – he said his son had lost an eye trying to secure these businesses for Alfie. He said certain things about Alfie – about me – and Alfie just – lost it. He beat him, Charlotte."

"And what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Esther beat a lot of people. Butcher beat a lot of people. Coppers beat us, beat Esther and Butcher, beat – well, you get the idea. There's a lot of beatings in this world, Willa. What does it matter who they come from? Only matters what you get from it."

She pulled out the pocket-watch and tried to swing it around like I had done. She had always tried to learn how to do that but forever missed the edge of her own pocket, so that the pocket-watch fell and dangled in front of her. She let out an annoyed huff.

"I'm not saying it's right, Willa. Not even saying I like it or that you should accept it. I'm simply saying that that is how the world works, doesn't it? And we're just living in it. And you do what you can to survive in it. Like steal pocket-watches, for example. And during that lovely in-between, you try to enjoy it."

"But – it was so violent –…"

"Leave him," she stated.

I stared at her. "You what?"

"Leave him," she repeated. "And feel righteous for it. And move onto some other neighbourhood in some other place and find out that the men beat other men there too, and find that you're beaten along with them, and you're back to stealing pocket-watches. And you'll find there's not so much to enjoy during the in-between."

"I don't want to leave him, you know that."

"I do," she agreed, nodding her head. "Because you love the fella and he has a temper- so, what? Most men what came back from the war barely have any emotions at all, and the ones that do, have too much for them to cope with, you know. You'll be pressed to find a man what doesn't think of the war all day, every day, Willa."

"When did you become so worldly and knowledgeable?"

She smiled. "After I met Willa Sykes, who taught me that there are things such as hierarchy, pecking-order –…"

"Things which must be followed," we said unanimously.

"But is it right, Charlotte? Shouldn't I try to convince him that he shouldn't have beat that man, that we should –…"

"That we should bring this pocket-watch right back to the gentleman you stole it from, apologise, ask if he would like some help tying the noose around our necks or should we just wait for the executioner himself to do it?"

Lightly, I pushed at her shoulder. "I just – I felt bad about it. Like I should have done something."

"Probably should have," she nodded. "And maybe you can do it next time instead. Maybe set some rules, I don't know. You did enough of that in the flat when I was younger. 'Charlotte, do this, Josephine, pick up them towels, Rosie, get the dinner ready' – no wonder you went off with a Captain, Willa."

"I made a good Captain myself, didn't I?" I grinned.

"The best."

Her sincerity made me squirm and glance away from her for a moment, before I found the strength to look at her again. I asked her, "D'you ever miss the girls? D'you think about them as much as I do?"

"All the time," she said. "And someday, we'll end up there with them, Willa. You know what Esther used to tell us about this world. Until then – enjoy the in-between, yeah?"

I reached out for her and held her against me, cupped her head and let her rest against my chest like she had as a child. I took the pocket-watch from her once I pulled away. I spun it three times and let it fall into my own pocket, delighting in her dismayed expression.

I pattered her cheek with one hand and placed the pocket-watch back into her hand with the other. "Another thing that I taught you which didn't get through nearly as good as all that malarkey about hierarchy, Charlotte – it's about technique."

She tried again. The pocket-watch flopped uselessly against her stomach, having missed the mark, and she playfully glared at me, lips puckered.

I smiled at her. "Well, I suppose it does help to have Gypsy blood in you after all, Charlotte."

xvi

Orange warmth filled the office that night, around nine. I walked into the bakery, weaved between its barrels to find him. He had slipped low in his chair, hands strung together over his chest as he stared blankly ahead. I opened the door, pushing into the stifling heat of the room. It seemed he had locked himself away in here and not bothered with opening the windows or allowing himself a fresh puff of air. I stood in the doorway, left it open to clear out that stuffiness.

"I already told ya, Ollie, to fuck off," he uttered monotonously. "And I ain't tellin' ya again."

"I doubt he would listen even if you did," I replied. "You know how Ollie is."

He was still for a moment, but I saw it in the flicker of his eyes, suddenly alight. He licked his lips and sat up in his chair before he looked at me. Quickly, he tried to smooth out his messy hair all clumped together, tried to straighten his collar furled inward. I felt that familiar bloom of fondness in my chest for him.

He stood, uncharacteristically jumpy in his movements, and said, "Willa, darlin' – didn't expect ya. Would 'ave cleaned up a little more, if I 'ad."

"No, you wouldn't have, Alfie," I smiled warmly at him. It made him unfurl those shoulders just an inch, his own lips twitching upward.

"Nah, you're fuckin' right. I'd have made Ollie do it."

"Or one of these boys working for you."

He swallowed and licked his lips again. Perhaps it was low of me, but I knew what I wanted to say to him. I had practiced it all the way here, like I had practiced my speech with Johnny – and just like that speech, this one had not quite followed the pattern that I had anticipated, because he said, "Yeah, one of them. And I ain't gonna stop, neither, Willa."

It was not that I had expected him to grovel, but I had rather hoped he might try to consider why I was against it.

Apparently, he had.

"I know you didn't like 'ow Esther controlled you girls, but there is a difference, Willa, right. I ain't makin' 'em do nothin' – they don't live with me, I don't make 'em steal nothin' and I don't pretend to care about 'em when I don't, yeah?"

I recoiled at that, feeling hurt bloom in my chest. He saw it. He felt it.

"I don't mean she didn't care at all. I mean she didn't care enough," he continued. "I ain't offerin' these boys anythin' more than money, Willa. I'm givin' 'em the choice to work for me and it ain't on me if they choose to do it, all right? And yeah, people get 'urt, people lose – they lose parts, don' they, but lots of lads lost parts in the war, y'know. And nobody's screamin' at the fuckin' King in the streets, callin' 'im a kike, callin' 'is – …"

He trailed off. I would not know what he deemed me to be, exactly, in his mind.

I said, "This isn't war, Alfie."

He looked away from me and I knew what he wanted to say without him ever saying the words aloud: but one day it will be.

"I told ya I was selfish, didn' I?" he mumbled. "All them years ago at the fairground, I told ya. And I'll tell you now that I'm still selfish, and I'm still as fuckin' bad-tempered as I was then, but I'm tryin' to make somethin' good for us, Willa. Can you understand that?"

"I can."

His eyes shot toward me in surprise, eyebrows raised, having expected more of a battle. "You can?" he repeated.

"I can," I nodded, crossing my arms. "But this has to change, Alfie. I can't be left out anymore. I won't be, because then it'll just be Esther and Butcher all over again. I'll be working for someone without ever knowing what's really happening. I want to work with you – not for you."

He came around the table quickly. Almost immediately, he paused in his rush toward me and I saw how he slowed himself down, arms held upward in surrender. He had not come too quickly toward me. He had listened to me. He had understood.

I prayed that he would listen again. I prayed that he would understand.

"I want to know what you're doing, Alfie. I want to be a part of it, or this ends now," I told him. "You can trust me."

He was being very careful, holding his hands out so that they hovered over my arms before he finally touched me; and the relief which filled him when I did not pull away was enough to make me feel more than a rush of fondness but rather full-blown love for him.

"It was never about trusting you or not trusting you, Willa," he whispered. "I was afraid you might not want to – that you might –…"

I heard Charlotte as if she stood there between us: leave him.

"I ain't always thinkin' straight, y'know," he explained awkwardly, lifting a hand to smooth it across his forehead as if all his thoughts and feelings were bunched up there, held in the soft wrinkles which formed on his skin at his admission. "I ain't a good man, not even really a nice one."

I cupped his cheek. "I don't think that about you, Alfie."

"Only one that doesn't think that," he breathed out. "Only one that ever thought anythin' good 'bout other than me Mum, y'know."

"I know."

"Always cared for ya, Willa," he said.

"I know, Alfie."

"I'll tell you all of it," he swore. "I promise ya, Willa. Even if it ain't what I wanna do, if I'd rather keep ya out of it all. I know what you're sayin'. Just please don't be afraid of me again, yeah?"

I kissed his jaw, kissed his cheeks and kissed the crinkle between his eyebrows, soothing all those thoughts and feelings so that his skin smoothed out and he let out a soft sigh, his hands warm against my arms.

"I'm here, Alfie," I told him. "I'm here with you, sweetheart."

"I know," he whispered, his eyes shut. "I know."

He let me hold him again.