A/N: i was struck with inspiration for a chapter and due to some busy few days ahead i will try to edit it more thoroughly when i have the time. otherwise thanks as always for feedback!
twelve
Sitting behind his table, its surface engulfed in endless papers and documents slopping from piles, the workroom seemed distant and fuzzed behind the windowpanes which surrounded me. I chewed idly at the tip of a pencil and stared out into that blurry mirage of workers rushing around in a wild flurry between the tables, arms laden in sacks or carting bottles stacked on carts, clinking against one another. Often, I looked out there and thought of that old factory that Esther and Butcher maintained, before bullets had sliced through their skulls, shot by top-dogs who had been more rabid and ferocious than them.
I thought, too, of that delicate scale which balanced between us and the Italians, momentarily dipping in our favour but soon to tip for them; it was all about the tipping of that scale and all about whoever stood at the other end and all about what weight sat upon their shoulders, and I knew that that scale had been there long before Alfie had ever stepped onto it.
"Willa?"
Stirred from my thoughts, I looked toward the door and saw Ollie there with an unfamiliar figure huddled behind him. I beckoned him into the room. The woman shuffled in with her cloak around her, a headscarf tucked around her light-brown hair which floated around her in wisps. I could already tell that she was Jewish, from both her outfit and the respectful manner in which she held herself, stood proud, politely dismissed Ollie and his offers of tea with biscuits. Instead, she settled into the armchair on the other side of the table. I prepared myself to stand and walk out, expecting Alfie to follow soon, but Ollie quickly stepped forward.
"Mrs Allman would like to speak with you, Willa."
I had never attended a meeting in which Alfie was not the person sought out for a discussion. Ollie had anticipated my confusion. He stepped backward and closed the door but hovered outside for a moment as if to ensure that all went well. Alfie frequently had meetings in the evenings, bordering into the night, meetings with all sorts of people. Even if these meetings were supposed to be held in privacy, Alfie never asked that I remove myself from the office. I mulled over what Franny had said when she had come to clean my wounds: Alfie doesn't trust me – doesn't trust anyone. He trusts you. Maybe he trusts Ollie.
Whittling out shirts, aprons and decorated skullcaps all day meant that I sometimes skipped sitting in those meetings with him and chose to take a car with Ollie to the house instead. I wanted only to drop into the warm comfort of our bed. Still, I remained there some nights with him even if I was tired because I knew that Alfie hated it if I went home without him. He hated it so much that sometimes it soured his temper. He took it out on the lads, and those meetings festered in a dark tension which also meant whatever the person asked of him was either denied or offered with numerous strings attached.
"Mrs Solomons," the woman said, "I waited until I knew Mr Solomons would be – preoccupied."
She had become more and more prominent, this Mrs Solomons; the nurse had mentioned her and almost all of the lads out in the courtyard called me that, unaware that I had never married Alfie and there was no sign of proposal. Alfie was reluctant to meet with Johnny Dogs after what had happened in the hospital, and he typically scoffed before he said that a piece of paper was nothing more than a formality, that we were bound in ways more powerful than paper.
Esther had always said that marriage was only ever about possession for men; his wife became part of the property which came with it, like the house and the furniture within it – men never married for love, only for possession. Yet whenever I heard that call of Mrs Solomons, I felt some attachment to this elusive woman from some other world, who possessed a ring, possessed that paper along with it; possessed him.
Because did it not work both ways?
Alfie was an enigma in his beliefs. He was firm in his faith, believed in God, especially if he suffered from what he considered to be some form of punishment – he thought that the fact I had been shot outside of the bakery was his punishment for having made rum there in the first place, that blood had to be spilled there and that it could not be his own because God knew that it would not hurt Alfie as much if the blood had come from his own veins; he had spilled enough of it in France to settle his dues with God, he said, and it would hurt much more for him if it was my blood which soaked the soil than if it had been his.
He was liberal in a lot of ways that most men were not, my Alfie. His workers were male, all of them, but that was for protection and lugging around large barrels of rum, although he had recently considered maids for the house and it had lingered between us, if only because I was hesitant about it. He never told me what I should or should not do if it was not directly linked to some fear for my safety with the Italians. In almost all aspects, I was equal – apart from occasionally asking that I remain cordial, if not entirely cold around other men, but that came from both his faith and certain attitudes attached to it, as well as his own pride and jealousy.
Alfie never treated me as if he possessed me at all; he had always said that I was his, but no more than I ever called him mine.
And so Mrs Solomons floated there in my peripheral.
"How can I help you, Mrs Allman?" I asked, clearing my throat. "I'm sure there must be a reason you didn't want Alfie around."
"Indeed, there is, Mrs Solomons," she replied. "Are you Jewish, Mrs Solomons?"
Alfie rarely discussed his faith with me, but sometimes small details came through the cracks, especially if he attended what he called shabbat, which he sometimes did. Usually, it came more from candles which appeared around the house for special weeks of observance and he would sometimes attend ceremonies, unmentioned between us. I never prodded him too hard about it. I knew Alfie well enough by now to know that if he really wanted to tell me, then he would have said the words already; it was simply a question of patience on my part.
Despite all this, I also knew that Alfie probably would like to ask if I might convert for him, if I might consider donning that scarf that most married women around these parts wore after their wedding, if it ever did happen between us, and if I might attend some of those ceremonies with him.
I had tried not to think too much about it. I thought about scales loaded with Italian weights instead.
Mrs Allman watched me before she lifted a hand to brush at her mouth. She nodded as if I had spoken, but the silence had evidently confirmed enough for her. "I am a devout woman myself, Mrs Solomons. Always have been. Proud of it, too," she continued. "But lately it has been hard to understand just what these trials I endure are meant to tell me – is this punishment or is it a sign?"
I was a little thrown by her words, unsure of her intentions. "What trials, Mrs Allman?"
She lifted her eyes to meet mine and I was greatly disturbed by that frothing misery held in the sheen of her stare, the curl of her lip into a snarl, her hands gripping her handbag with such ferocity that her knuckles whitened. "The war – that dreadful war which left my husband an invalid in all senses but physical. He drinks, Mrs Solomons. His hands tremble something terrible. He lost his job. What does he tell the kids, when nothing is left in the cupboards for dinner? 'Eat the dirt, like we did in France', he tells them."
"Then what do you want from me?" I asked softly. "What could I possibly do for your husband?"
"I wanted Mr Solomons to offer him a job here," she explained, her words cracking in the strain of her conviction, "...it would put him on the straight and narrow, Mrs Solomons. He is afraid of your husband, very afraid of him. But he respects him, too."
"Why would you not ask Alfie himself?"
She hesitated. "My husband is a proud man – just about the only thing the war did not manage to take from him is that damned sense of pride, you know –…" – her pink lips lifted into a bitter smile, sapped of all humour – "…and he would never think to come here and ask Mr Solomons even if it meant the betterment of his family. He speaks to ghosts, in our house. It frightens the children, how he speaks. He asks the ghosts for his rations, lifts some imagined can. He sits beneath the staircase and holds his arms over his head and tells them that the bombs will fall soon. He flinches, Mrs Solomons. He flinches."
Silent tears slipped along her cheeks and her eyes never left mine, not once. I was unsettled. I turned to pull open the drawer of the table if only for the chance to look away from her on the pretence of finding tissues. My fingertips ghosted over some cold metal and I glanced down to find a gun there, tucked beneath the folds of an envelope. I looked at Mrs Allman and found that my throat had become oddly dry so that I swallowed in painful gulps and strained to lift my tongue from its place, so that it slapped and flopped against my teeth, now numb.
I had forgotten about the tissues.
I was more focused on the fact that Mrs Allman was too close in age for comfort; she looked to be in her late twenties or perhaps the earliest part of her thirties, she had a husband affected by war, she had seen ghosts in his eyes and the only difference was that Alfie rarely spoke to his own if I was around. He spoke to them in his sleep, sometimes. I never told him about it. He knew that it happened, knew that I knew about it.
Alfie had his pride, too.
"I will speak with Alfie tonight, Mrs Allman."
"Judith," she corrected. "Thank you, Mrs Solomons."
"Willa."
Judith stood from her seat and nodded in acknowledgement. As she reached for the handle of the door, I blurted out, "I'm not married to Alfie, Judith. I'm not really – not really Mrs Solomons."
Judith turned, her skin soft and warm in the orange glow of the office in the evening with all its candles and lamps. I fiddled with my hands in a failed attempt at nonchalance. I had felt compelled to tell her, felt that I was fraudulent if I did not say aloud what bothered me so much. Yet Judith only smiled and said, "Oh, but you are, Willa. Mr Solomons has made our community more than aware of it – especially our men."
Startled, I found that my words were consumed by that familiar dryness and only a tight, uneasy smile twitched at my lips, contorted by the spasm of my muscles. Judith was escorted out and I sat in silence without her, mulling over men cowered beneath staircases and unusual candles until there was another knock. I looked up at Ollie, his hands then clasped in front of his apron, always diligent and burning with some mute awareness in his eyes. Sometimes, I wondered if Ollie was clairvoyant, for he seemed to sense and predict things before he should – and I saw in his dark stare that he had foreseen Judith Allman and her problems.
Especially our men, Judith said. Had Esther been right? Had it only ever been about possession?
Ollie watched me, his eyes glinting in the dim light.
I drew my eyes away from him, looked toward those lads still swarming outside the office, shifting documents and rum while Ollie ordered them about in the absence of Alfie. I recalled each anxious exchange that I had had with those lads, whose hands had remained firmly bolted against themselves, whose eyes often found the floor beneath us to be more interesting and whose lips sometimes trembled in speech if I approached too much. I had always contributed these blunders to religious faith or maybe some respect for me. Perhaps it was nothing fear.
"Did he warn them away, Ollie?" I asked quietly.
Like an owl, his eyes blinked slowly, knowingly. "Yes."
I had expected some effort to mask what Alfie had done or at least some attempt to soften it. Because he had not done either, it stung just a little bit more. "Does he not trust me, then? He thinks that I might run off with some other man?"
Ollie remained incredibly neutral in his expression. "Very silly of you to assume that Alfie did any of that out of distrust in you, Willa."
Drinking in his odd choice of words, I understood that Ollie was dropping his usual hints. Yet I had always preferred bluntness. "Have it out, Ollie."
"Alfie had warned all men in this bakery to stay away from Jewish women – lined them up in the basement, made his rules clear. He does it for all new lads when they start in this place, too. And he doesn't do it out of any distrust in you, Willa. He does it because he knows what runs through their heads, sometimes. He knows what happens when one man thinks he can hurt another man – if even indirectly."
I turned from him, looking at the cabinets. It was too hard to look at him. "I am not a Jewish woman."
Ollie licked his lips and shifted his weight. I narrowed my eyes at him. He finally relented, mumbling, "He might have mentioned you, specifically."
Ollie had prepared himself for fury and found only quiet acceptance. I understood the reason for which he had expected some anger, some indignation that Alfie had spoken on my behalf – but the truth of the matter was that I preferred it like that, with men afraid of me, even if it meant through fear of Alfie. I had never told Ollie about Yaxley and memories of that pantry swirled within my chest and furled upward into my mouth. I felt the wetness of my own eyes once I turned them toward him, and I saw the genuine surprise in his own at the sight of such vulnerability in me.
Ollie had seen me in some of the darkest hours of my existence, but he had never stood in that pantry alongside me. He had never been reached for like another jar amongst shelves upon shelves of others. He had never been called kitten, with hands prowling into parts unknown. He had never been reduced; because it had felt like that, a reduction, a shrivelling of all that had been inside of me into some darkened spot in the pantry where his hands could not reach me – but he had reached for me, reached into me, and I had been kitten and I had been shrivelled, reduced.
"Willa?" Ollie called worriedly. "Are you all right?"
"Backwards and wrong," I mumbled absently to myself, transfixed on some scuffmark on the carvings of the cabinet cross from me.
"What?"
I looked at him and there was a coldness on my cheek from a tear which bled into the skin, absorbed and forgotten. I let out a slow, rattled breath and wiped away the tears, smiling weakly at him. "Never mind, Ollie. Never mind. Alfie is a good man, is all."
Uncertain of what had made me react so weirdly, he only nodded in response. Gently, he said, "Alfie called earlier. He said he might be late, but he wants me to ask if you want to be taken home now. Getting a little late. He says you're an awful crank when you're tired, Willa. Very bossy, too."
Warmth spread through some deepened part of my chest and cast light on that other half shrouded still in the darkness of the pantry, drove away all fear of it. "I'd like very much to go home. And you know, Ollie, you can get rid of that smug look on your face – Franny tells me things about you, too."
His lips parted, his shoulders straightening out. He cleared his throat. "Right, well, no need for us to go into depth, is there, Willa? I'll bring the car 'round. Grab your coat."
"And I'm the bossy one, eh?" I called out as he bolted for the hall.
While he fetched the car, I looked at that scuffmark on the cabinet and tried not to sink into that black spot within myself, made of embarrassment and resentment and bitterness and the strongest sense of hatred; it was so intense, that hatred, which came whenever I thought that pantry so many years ago and it hurt more because it had been so many years ago, so why were they still here, those feelings?
And it hurt all the more because I held that hatred for Yaxley as much I hated myself for having gone into the pantry at all, that evening. I had been warned about him, told not to step into secluded spaces. I heard something that Charlotte had once said then, her words coated in slick fear, echoed against the coldness of the tiles in the bathroom.
How could it happen to me?
ii
Rustling around the bedroom, I heard him shrug off his coat and grumble beneath his breath while he pulled off his boots. I scrubbed the sleepiness from my eyes to find his silhouette in the inky blackness of the room before I reached for the lamp. I also heard him curse once the yellow light of the lamp bloomed, because Alfie always tried not to disturb me in the night. I sat up from the bed and felt him approach. Blindly, I plucked at the buttons of his shirt and mumbled something incoherent when he pressed his lips against my cheeks while I worked, pulling the shirt off and tossing it aside. He unbuckled his own belt. I fished around the drawer for a familiar jar of mush. He came around to his side of the bed and settled there, rubbing at his own eyes.
Delicately scooping out some of that sweetly-scented, grainy mush from the jar, I spread it across his shoulders and along his spine, taking another dollop for his hip and pecking his neck once I finished. I went to the bathroom to clean my hands, because the mush sometimes stained my skin, padding across the bedroom to slip back into bed alongside him. I smiled to myself once he pulled me against him, feeling the bitter chill of the night on his skin before the blankets warmed him.
"Thank you, Alfie," I whispered.
His brows furrowed, eyes already shut. "For what?"
I scooted upward to kiss him and smiled at his sigh, full of content. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."
"Bossy," he mumbled.
"Too right."
I brushed his hair from his face, tracing his eyebrows and lips with my fingertips. He drifted off, his breathing slow and gentle. I remembered how I used to dream of Alfie during the war; outlined his shoulders, scratched the shading of his arms and legs, spent hours on the details of his eyes, all within my own head. So, I watched him a little while longer. I stroked the pads of my fingertips against his hairline and stilled at the rough patches of skin there, that I had not noticed just at the very tip of his forehead, little patches of reddened skin, dried and sore.
It had not been there, in those old paintings of him that I had made mentally before the war. I touched them softly, afraid to hurt him or wake him from his sleep. I felt the crack of his skin, like scales; a small dot of blood oozed out onto my own skin and I thought, that woman on Ripley Lane will have something for that, just like she made that mush for his bones – she'll make him right, right as rain, as he always says even if he thinks it is just horseshit and leaves mixed together by some Gypsy witch in a wagon.
I leaned forward again, pressed my lips against that dried skin. "I'll make you better, Alfie," I told him softly. "Make you right as rain, my love."
iii
In the morning, I took a long stroll between the market stalls of Kensington Avenue and turned toward Crescent Street with the intention of finally cutting through an alleyway onto Ripley Lane. I weaved between these streets that I had always known, because I used to be chased by coppers into darkened strips of cobbled footpaths and thrown myself over fences into gardens, scattered into alleyways and hopped large barriers onto other streets, blended into thresholds and ducked beneath bridges. Esther had always taught us to prepare an escape-route before our hands ever twitched toward pockets unprotected. Crescent Street had a crop of paths in between its shops and I paused to look into one strewn in old newspapers, drifting about in a light breeze.
I had been beaten down there, once. I never anticipated the fence at the end with wires poking outward from its length, pricking the bare flesh of my legs and catching on the folds of my skirt. I had been torn off it by a copper, beaten and thrown about by the arms, bruised and battered; ten years old, I had been.
I had never told Alfie about that, I realised. I could count the alleyways in London in which I had been beaten by coppers – ten, eleven, twelve, I could have listed the ages along with them, apart from those fuzzy dates with came from a skull which had been knocked about a little bit too much. I thought of the other streets around me and figured out that Salem Road was another couple of streets from here. I had danced there once, leapt and twirled about as Gypsy Girl.
Had it really been that long ago?
I was jostled between the crowds dipping in and out of the shops on Crescent Street, bumped around at the shoulder. I looked into the windows of each shop and felt an odd disconnect in myself, knowing that I could now afford those jewels sat on velvet cushions, whereas before I had only ever been able to steal them, although I had never strayed into shops too often – people had been able to spot a Gypsy child and soon chased me out of it. I saw a ring sat upon one cushion in particular and pressed myself against the window for a good look at it; it was a simple golden band with little grooves which looked quite like the letter W lined together, like a chain. Alfie liked rings. He liked gold, too.
The bell tinkled. I felt a rich rug shift beneath my boots. I felt the prickle of wary eyes along with it, aware that customers and workers looked at me alike.
Gypsy child, those eyes called out accusingly, what are you doing in our midst?
Scuttling toward me, some hunchbacked jeweller tried to humour me. "Good morning. Might you like to see our recent collection – although it is all rather expensive, I must admit –…"
I felt him follow me about the shop, frantic in his movements and with a beady stare latched onto my hands in particular. Inwardly, a rational part of me rationalised his worries by reminding myself that I had been a thief for most of my life. I still had all the skills for it. I could have taken jewels from his very hands if I wanted it – and that was the more logical side of me, telling myself that, because the other side hissed: I am not the savage between all of us here today.
"I want the ring on the red cushion out on your window," I told him.
"Limited edition, very expensive," he wheedled, nodding repeatedly and hurrying toward it.
I pulled apart the folds of my coat and dragged my hand along its inner-lining to find the slit, watching his stare trail along with my hands, swallowing nervously. I found the slit and reached into it, pulling out thick wads of cash rolled together. I tore off the rubber-band, threw a handful of notes onto the table alongside me and watched him dance instead, made him parade about in his skirts and twirls and leaps like I had once done.
Suddenly, I had become madam and my lady and may do I do anything else for you today, madam, my lady?
I leaned over the table and looked into his eyes. "Yes, actually. You can get fucked."
He blinked, his skin ashen and pale. I pushed away from the table, taking the bag holding the ring with me and stepping out onto Crescent Street once more. I was still frustrated from those foreign eyes, looking at the old Gypsy Girl and awaiting – almost anticipating – some altercation and excited calls for coppers to cart off this wild creature, and it reminded me too much of those old days of oh, look at the little savage, darling!
Distracted, I bashed into a man. I let out a small grunt of pain from the throb in my shoulder, turning on my heel to apologise. I had seen him once before stained in beetroot; that same dark colour soon flushed his pallor once his eyes latched onto mine and recognition filled them. Struck mute and motionless in horror, my eyes followed his arms to find them latched around a younger lad with a sash around his left eye, the other swivelling around its socket to find his father; the pale, colourless nature of his good eye rippled through me in waves of nausea, its constant bloodshot stain around its lack of colour only making it look white and blind, but the boy could see through it, for he saw me there and I thought that I might collapse.
"'ark, Adam, the Gypsy bitch has bought 'erself jewels with 'er blood-money," his father crooned bitterly, his lips locked in a horrid grimace. "Did your man Solomons pay you to lie in 'is bed again, did 'e?"
"Dad, please," the younger boy whispered, gripping at the wrinkles in his father's shirt. "Please –…"
"A whore is a whore, son," his father said, "but a Gypsy is somethin' different all together, lad – she is whore and thief and bog-trotter all in one. Show us, then, what my son's eye was worth in jewels for you!"
Mumbling apologies and confused words, I was tripping backward away from him, aware of all those eyes around us, asking once more, Gypsy child, what are you doing in our midst? Gypsy whore, thief, bog-trotter, savage! I remembered his spiteful glare from the street that night when he had approached Alfie and screamed at him for what had happened to his son, whose sashed slipped downward in his struggle to control his father and pull him away – and I saw the crinkled line of skin there, the eyelid split over raw flesh, socket exposed, saw into some darkened pit in his skull and I really tripped then, bumped into a brick-wall, scraped my hands against it.
"Pikey bitch!" the father yelled. "'ow much was his eye worth? A bracelet, a ring? Will you melt it down and sell it onto your cousins over in Ireland, will ya? Or will you wear it when you fuck Solomons and consider it your pay like all the rest of it, I bet you –…Will 'e try and bash my skull in again, will 'e? Let 'im do it, let your man come and kill me, like 'e kills all that 'e touches. Your man is a disease, like rot in wood, 'e rots the people of this city, corrupts them as much as 'e is corrupted inside 'imself –…"
"I'm so sorry," I told his son; it came out chattered from the rattle in my teeth. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry – I am so, so sorry –…"
It was drowned out in the cries of his father. I pushed through the crowd which had swelled around us and spun around in my confusion, breathing wildly, lathered in sweat and disgust and there was that hatred for what had happened all those years ago in the pantry and now for what had happened to that boy with one eye, whose sash had fallen and shown me socket and skull, such bitter hatred that filled my mouth and I had to spit it out, but it came out in thickets and waves from all that nausea in my stomach, spewed into an alleyway and I looked around myself in a daze.
I looked around myself and realised that I had stumbled into the same alleyway in which I had been beaten, all those years ago. I felt the same now as I did then. I felt curled into a ball and kicked, thrown around and punched and I was pikey-bitch now just like I had been pikey-bitch then. I fell against the wall and dropped onto the ground, sat in the wet puddles and felt them soak into my skirts, soak into my skin so that I trembled.
I dipped a hand into the puddles and scooped out black dirt, smeared it onto my cheeks and looked up at the bluish clot of weeping clouds beyond the towering flats around me; I was born in soil like this and I will die in soil like this, I thought, and when it comes, I will dream of black water, because there can be no colour, after that, there can be no –…
iv
Stepping into the bakery with its heady scent of rum washing over me, I could already spot Alfie on the other side of the room, nestled behind the windows and walls of that office. Butcher had sat in an office like that once, too. Esther had been there beside him. I caught sight of myself in the reflection of a windowpane and wondered how I ever thought that what I did was any different than her. I sewed aprons for him like I had sewn aprons for her. The only real difference was that he never asked for any snow to be put placed inside the linings of the aprons.
But would he ask for that, one day? Would he speak to ghosts aloud and ask them for rations? Would he hide himself beneath the staircase?
Would he hide himself from me?
I saw him moving around the office and wondered what he was doing in there, because he was bending and dipping behind the wall as if scouring the floorboards for something important. I took aching steps toward him, watching him shift around the room in a wild scramble. I had an awful knot in my stomach, sprung tight so that each step was stilted and wounded, more like a limp. It was late, I realised. It was just him in here, in all this emptiness, darting around his office. I felt my eyeballs crack around a dried-out skull – like his socket had been there on Crescent Street while his father had screamed, only deep and black and void.
I hated this bakery, suddenly. I despised it. What had drawn us here? Some faint dream of Margate, it had been, and –…
"Love?"
Startled, I jumped in fright and stumbled backward and that was perhaps the worst reaction of all, for his arms quickly found me and he smoothed my hair away and he tried to calm the ripple of my lips with his own, foreheads pressed together. He was rubbing my arms and I realised that he wanted to rid me of this awful chill, but it had seeped into my marrow. I wanted to tell him, there is no getting it out now, Alfie.
"Willa, sweet'eart, I need you to answer me, yeah?" he whispered against my ear. I had not heard him speak before, although I had seen his mouth was shifting around and that his tongue had pushed out those sounds which seemed too difficult for mine to produce on its own. So, he coaxed them from me. "Did someone 'urt ya, darlin'? D'you need me to call Francine, love? I-I can call 'er now, bring 'er down 'ere, have you right as rain –…"
Make you right as rain, my love.
Alfie had stuttered, which was not normal for him, and the tears came hot and dense and stuffed my nostrils so that my next words came out smothered. "No, I'm fine, Alf. I was thinkin' about Charlotte. I want to visit her again, you know. And –…"
And I am lying to you, because if I tell you, you will kill that man.
"And I just miss her," I croaked, continuing onward. "I really miss her. And I needed to ask you about a man called Mr Allman, too. His wife came and asked if you might offer him a job, because –…"
Because he is too afraid of you to do it himself and I know that his fear comes from stories of boys who lost their eyes for this bakery and for the ring in this bag and for your pikey-bitch to lie beside you at night.
"So, maybe we can talk about that in the morning," I finished, smiling at him as much as I could.
Alfie looked ghostly in the moonlight which streamed through the windows overhead, his eyes drained of colour from the silvery aura spread around him; it made his eyes pale, colourless. I could not stand to look at him because of it and tried to step around him, but his hands were hard around my arms, painfully hard and I knew that I had treaded into that cold and detached part of Alfie which came from the trenches, which came from the war and from those moments in which he thought the enemy had stolen the sun from him, too.
"I want you to start over, Willa," he ordered, his tone lathered in warning, "and I want you to tell me the truth, this time."
"Please, Alfie –…"
He shook me very harshly and I let out a frightened cry from it, so worn from what had happened that it weakened me and left me more tearful than ever – and I hated those tears like I hated this bakery now, when before I had loved it like I loved that house on Ivor Square. Had I not called it home, just this morning? And had I not warned Alfie that I would walk out if his temper ever resurfaced, like it swirled between us now?
"I bought you a ring," I started slowly. "It has a carving on it that looks like a W – for Willa. I wanted it for you, even if the jeweller thought that I looked like a thief, because I am a thief, Alfie, and a Gypsy thief at that. I came out of the shop and bumped into a man. His son lost his eye. Do you remember that man and his son, Alfie?"
His lips were deathly white. He resembled a corpse. "I remember 'im."
I was silent, unable to pull the words from a throat which had slowly tightened. I looked away from him and it sparked him off, because he pushed around me and went for the door and I had to scramble in front of him to hold him at his chest and force him backward.
"Please, Alfie – Stop, just –…"
"You won't tell me," Alfie hissed, "…so, I'll go and find this fuckin' prick and I'll get it out o' 'im before I break 'is jaw, make sure 'e don't ever speak to ya again, I'll fuckin' snap 'is neck along with it –…"
I was really pushing him now, hands pressed flat against his chest with all my might and he was still moving forward, until he tired of my shoving and his hands gripped my wrist in a tight hold and I wondered how we had gotten here again, after all that had happened in the house, after he had moved around me, afraid to touch me because of it.
"You can't hurt everyone who hurts me," I screamed hoarsely.
He caught me at the throat like he had done that night, too. He held me with his grip loose, but with enough force that we were thrown into a standstill. "Yes, I fuckin' well can, Willa – and I will, and nothin' you do will ever stop me from doin' it, neither. You do that for the people you love."
"You don't hurt them by doing it, though, do you?" I spat out, my hands reaching to latch onto his and pull them away. "If you loved me, you would –…"
He let out a harsh bark of laughter. "If I loved you? If I fuckin' loved you? Don't you start that fuckin' shit with me, Willa Sykes. I 'ave always fuckin' loved you and always shown it, too. Who bought the 'ouse for us, who got this bakery runnin', got us an income and some fuckin' protection goin' –…"
"Protection from what you bring to the door of that house, of this bakery?" I retorted. "Who took the hit for both of us, hm?"
I lifted my shirt, showed him those dark stains on my stomach from a bullet torn out and he drew in a sharp, wounded breath. "Willa," he whispered. "Please, don't – don't do that to me when I already do it to myself, baby –…"
"Do what?" I screamed. "Do what, Alfie? He was right, you know. He said that I'm no better than a whore because I take the money you make here and I buy you rings and I buy myself nice things and we live in a nice house Alfie, in a neighbourhood that never would have accepted us and still doesn't – and it's always gonna be that way for us, isn't it?"
Alfie was staring off into the distance and it infuriated me all the more, because I wanted to know just what it was that he was seeing when he did that, where he was looking and what he was thinking. He looked oddly infantile when he did it, his shoulders hunched. I pushed at him, slapped his chest.
"Are you even listening to me? He said you pay me like men pay whores," I choked. "Pikey bitch, old Gypsy whore. I hate that it hurts, Alfie, but it does. And I still don't want you to hurt that man or his son any more than we already have."
"Allman. I know 'im. I remember 'im. I was 'is Captain in the trenches," Alfie mumbled in a daze. "Almost got hit by a shell, 'e did." He blinked, his eyes finding mine. "I got you somethin', sweet'eart."
Confused by his change in demeanour, I watched him walk around me and toward the office. He paused halfway there, turned back to look for me, and seemed more distraught that I had not followed. Still, he went over and pushed open the door, stepping backward and looking down at the ground. I watched him with my eyebrows scrunched.
"Think you scared 'im, with all that shoutin'," Alfie called out softly. "Good lad, that's it. Come out and meet your Mummy, eh?"
Out scarpered a little body with paws clicking against the floorboards, a small bundle of fur barrelling toward me and only stumbling to sniff around the barrels before he poked around beneath my boots and brushed his nose against my boots. I stared at this little puppy, its rolls and wrinkles, wet snout and dark muzzle. I had asked for a dog.
If you loved me, I had said. When did Alfie ever deny me anything?
Suffering from a thumping headache, I dropped backward onto the staircase and held my head in my hands. The pup struggled onto the first step, its legs too short to steady its balance and I bent forward to scoop him into my arms, but Alfie was faster, picking him up and plopping him onto my lap. I felt his comforting warmth and his wet tongue lashing at my throat in excitement, tail batting against my legs. Alfie stepped onto the staircase and sat beside me. The dog shifted between us and Alfie scratched absently at his ears.
"I'll find a place for Allman," he said quietly, eyes still lost in that faraway place where I could never reach him. "And I'll 'elp out 'is fam'ly in the meantime. Nathaniel – the fella what yelled at you 'bout 'is son – I gotta send someone 'round to talk to him, darlin'. Talk. Not 'urt. Not kill. Ollie is diplomatic, 'e can do it, if it makes you feel better, yeah?"
"Alfie," I whispered. "I am so sorry."
"I'm sorry too, darlin."
"I love you," I told him. "I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to fight with you. I was just afraid to tell you."
"I know, love."
I could feel the sting of tears anew. "I just wanted to get you that ring and not let them tell me that I couldn't just because I have Gypsy blood in me."
"And I'll wear it every day, sweet'eart," he said, "…every fuckin' day o' the year, 'til they gotta chop off me finger to get it off me, yeah? When I'm old and pissin' me-self in some 'ospital bed, that's what they'll 'ave to do to get it off me."
I let out a small laugh and it only encouraged him.
"I'll 'ave you beside me, o' course, snorin' your pretty 'ead off like you always do," he went on. I slapped his shoulder lightly, rolling my eyes and mumbling that if anyone snored between us, it was him. "Suppose the stray'll be with us – Ollie, that is, and the dog too. Proper little fam'ly, we'll 'ave. Won't matter to us what some poxy fuckin' dick'ead said to ya on the street one day 'cause we'll be better off by ourselves, eh? And you won't cry anymore, Willa, won' ya? Please don't cry anymore, treacle. 'is tongue ain't big enough to lap up all them tears yet. I'll 'ave to do it for 'im, won' I?"
Alfie leaned forward, sticking his tongue out just like the puppy and I burst into laughter despite myself, pushing him away. I brushed his cheek with my thumb and asked, "Can we go home then, Alfie? I want to show him his new bed. You'll have to take the guest bedroom, now."
"Charmin'," he muttered, his eyes dropping to the dog. "I knew she'd prefer you. But you wait until I tell 'er that you pissed on her fabric what she makes aprons with, eh?"
I smiled, scratching the dog behind his ears. "What will we name him?"
"Little shite," Alfie muttered. "No, that don't work, I use that for Ollie. But I was thinkin' 'e looks like a Cyril. Good name for 'im, I think."
I hummed, holding the dog against my chest and feeling him burrow against me for warmth. "Cyril," I agreed, kissing him between his eyes, on that little dip in his forehead. His eyes blinked tiredly up at me, his little snout still sniffing around. "Come on, Cyril. Let's show you your new home, eh?"
