A/N: i'm back with a new chapter! as i always like to say, every bit of feedback is very much appreciated even if it's just expressing heart break because im so cruel and love drama lolll also tommy was a nightmare to write i almost gave up completely on even writing the scene with him bc man he's a tough one but i did my best!
fifteen
Thomas Shelby drew faint memories of a bridge; its metal had been crusted in brown flecks from rust, its rafters overhead caved into what resembled a ribcage with beams bowed and bent, along with wooden planks spat downward into the river below with its surface coated in thick patches of algae. It had been on the outskirts of Galway in a field somewhere, consumed by the earth so that all its arches had been swallowed.
It had small ladders along its bottom stones that we could clamber onto and pull ourselves onto the bridge. I could distinctly remember how Tommy had woven his fingers around one another and allow me to push my muddy boots against his palms and push myself onto a ladder with him close behind.
His oldest brother, Arthur, had been there, pushing their only sister upward and holding himself behind her to ensure she could not fall. I had never liked heights, but Ada had never been afraid of anything – all her brothers had learned that before Ada had even reached the age of four. I never remembered much about that trip apart from the jump into the river below.
Arthur had leapt first, his hand latched around Ada so that he would not lose her even in the calm ripple of the water. I had balanced there on a ledge with nails sticking from loosened planks, shards of metal poking from great sheets stripped from the arches, looking into the murky waters beneath and thinking that perhaps I might just climb the ladders until I felt soft, crinkling grass beneath my feet once more.
But Thomas Shelby had held my hand before the fall; its cool dryness had been a comfort.
I turned my head toward him and saw that same coolness reflected in his stare – and his lips twitched upward into a smile made of total mischief before he tugged at my hand and then came the sudden rush of wind whipping against a smile of my own. His hand was still wrapped around mine once we hit the water, drawn into its depths.
I swam through the billow of my skirts around me, dense and like heavy weights soon shed once we reached the muddy shoreline, scrunching our clothes and turning our boots around to drain the puddles of river-water which lined the soles.
Before the war, that had been. Before his father had come into that field in a drunken stupor and tried to haul Ada out by her sleeves and slapped Arthur around the face for stepping between them. The eldest Gypsy men had drawn him away with Johnny leading them far from the children. I could not recall where his brother John had been or what had sparked that cruel tirade from his father.
I suppose those small details had never affected me in the way that moods and atmospheres affected me; the heaviness of the turf and its billowing smoke cast between the murmurs of the Gypsies who spoke of the Shelbys had remained more prominent than the whereabouts of John and the rotten illness of the Shelby father.
Tommy looked at me now. His lips twitched, but there was no smile there, no faint sign of recollection for that river on the outskirts of Galway in a field somewhere – perhaps he could recall moods and atmospheres better so that all that came from that trip onto the bridge and that leap into the river had been his father asking if Arthur wanted another slap or the sniffles from Ada before she was swept into the arms of the Gypsy women, cooing and clucking and smoothing ruffled sleeves.
Nobody had soothed Tommy whose cool stare drifted far over the fields, beyond his drunken father. I always wondered what he had seen out there on that day that we had leapt from the bridge.
He never told me and I never saw him after that, anyway.
Ireland had whittled into a distant, hazy dream for him. His father had taken them back to Birmingham, never more to set foot on our wet fields and never to answer letters nor calls from certain members of our kin who had tried to calm his father that day. Johnny had become quite blue after those months in which he heard nothing about the Shelbys and refused to even speak about them for a while.
Another thing that I could not recall was the moment in which he had begun to talk about the Shelbys; that had been another mood which looked much like the murky water had just before the fall, and that was all there was to it.
"Willa Sykes," he breathed out in a cool swirl of cigarette-smoke, "sends me a letter, out of the fucking blue, in which she asks for my presence in a posh little restaurant in London, where the gin is strong and the music rattles in my skull from all that drumming and snapping. And so here we are, the pair of us together in this place. Yet she waits for me to speak first, for Willa Sykes has not changed in the years since we last saw each other."
I smiled, amused. "Perhaps I am simply surprised that you came at all, Tommy."
His eyes drifted toward a bar situated behind me, its lavish chandelier dripping strings of golden beads and sprinkling light on the women stood beneath it. "Are you, Willa? Because it seems to me that the only rational deduction that I can make from your sending a letter in the first place must come from the fact that Kelly Lee was recently in London on my behalf. It is widely known in our community that Kelly Lee has never formally married, for his heart is still taken by the young girl who lived with him in our fields many years ago."
Slowly, he ground his cigarette into the pile of ash and leaned forward, his eyes flashing in the dim light overhead. All the noise behind him faded into a muffled din. His tone was terribly harsh, like the tip of a needle pressed against bare flesh, penetrating into it, drawing blood. I could no longer see the glittering sheets of lights behind him nor hear that droning drumming-and-snapping either, for all I could understand in that moment was Tommy.
If there was truly a scale which tipped between the Jews and Italians in London, then Tommy Shelby stood at its centre and used his own weight to push it to one side, then pushed it to the other when it best suited him.
"Kelly Lee," he resumed, "had been asked to return to Birmingham soon after he came to London with Johnny Dogs, a fact that I am sure you were well aware of before ever sending that letter. Kelly Lee – again, as I am sure you are aware, Willa – did not come back to Birmingham, because Kelly Lee is soft of heart and sentimental. He clings to the fantasy that you, someday, might marry him because he still remembers you as that little girl in the fields, the same girl who he gave daisies to all those years ago."
His eyes flashed and I knew that he was aware of all it. I knew that he could, if prompted, describe each step that I had taken through Bell Road that night when all the girls had been murdered and how the staircase had creaked beneath me and he could also trace those weeks before it happened. He could probably count the spools of thread used for the scarves that I had made for Alfie, detail just how the moonlight had felt the night that Alfie had walked me back to the flat, the same night that Esther told me about that man shot which set off the war.
Tommy could do all of that, if prompted, because he was like a tree with all its roots spilling outward, spindly and trickling out from his place in Birmingham and just now touching the other roots of London; intertwining, overtaking. He knew all of this because he had researched it all before he had come to London and he had already had boys here from the Lee family. The tipping of the scale had stilled.
"It was this fantasy that loosened his lips on matters which would normally not have affected him," he concluded. "It was Kelly Lee who told you that I have plans to establish myself in London, but it was you who wrote that letter, Willa, because those plans might benefit you in this war with the Italians."
Finally, Tommy lifted his hand, his tall form slumped in his seat as if all that speech had deflated him, and he murmured to the waiter who quickly scuttled over to take his order. While we waited in perfect silence, watching one another, I thought that Tommy seemed oddly agitated and I was not entirely certain that it came purely from this reunion between us after such a long time apart. His fingertips tapped more frantically against the tablecloth and he pinched his nostrils with the other hand, sniffling and then using that same hand to pull out another cigarette.
With his whiskey placed in front of him, his eyes met mine and he asked, "Did I miss anything, then?"
"Well," I hummed. "You forgot to say whether or not I was right to think like I did."
He let out a sigh that reminded me of the sighs that had come from Alfie during those late, quiet evenings in the office spent pouring over documents with lists upon lists of things to be done, all those requests from the people in his neighbourhood and all those threats from those around it. Those things-to-be-done never stayed in the office once its door was locked, but rather rested on his shoulders and came home with us in the car.
"Did you ever think that two Gypsies like us could sit in a posh little restaurant like this one in London, where the gin is strong and the music rattles?" I asked him softly.
"Different world now, Willa," he said, his stare distant and glazed. "But it seems like there was always some kind of drumming and snapping in it."
Tommy had aged through more than just time.
I had the sense that what was resting on his shoulders was more than I had anticipated and it was much more than lists of things to be done, for him. I said, "I never sent any lackeys after you, Thomas. I never asked them to check if you had come, never asked them to sit around us now and watch – and for what, anyway? In case you might shoot me? Cross me? I have been shot and I have been crossed, for what it matters. No, Thomas – I did none of that. I knew you would come."
"And how did you know that, then?"
"For you are soft of heart and sentimental," I told him. "And because Kelly Lee was not the only boy to bring me daisies."
His lips twitched again. "Well, Ada lives here now. I thought I could come and visit her, make a little time for you, too. And now all your cards are on the table."
I glanced at the table with an eyebrow raised. "I see cards, but certainly not all of them."
"Is that right?" he mused.
"Tell me, Thomas, just what you plan to do in London. Establish yourself, you said. But just where, exactly? Camden Town all through toward Harrow is taken by the Jews. Owned it since the death of Benny Butcher, the Jews, and then you reach Preston Street. Suddenly, you have that little strip of path that separates us from the Italians, South Chester Street. Only Farringdon Road has been an issue between them for quite some time. I think it would suit you quite nicely, that road. Pubs, offices – what else could you want for Shelby Company Limited? But if not, would you go to war against the Jews and the Italians?"
Thomas was silent for a while. Then, he said, "Us."
I frowned, eyebrows drawn in confusion. I felt a hot rush spread from my throat and splotch my cheeks in a rosy shade once I mulled over my words and realised that I placed myself with the Jewish people, against the Italians. Even separate from him and kin, through my phrasing of it.
Thomas must have had some kindness still left in his heart, for he simply continued, "So, you think all those roads and streets and avenues that the Italians will lose, could be offered to…us."
Or he had no kindness left at all.
"It seems to me that Alfie Solomons is on the losing side of this war if we were to tally up the scores. If memory serves, Solomons killed a good few Italians, particularly one of Sabini's best men. Left him outside his front door, I'm told. Solomons bombs his pubs, shoots the kneecaps of all his best jockeys. Sabini, on the other hand, has shot more Jewish men, prevented the remaining Jewish men from working Epsom and other racetracks, burned Alfie's pubs. And most of all, Willa – he shot you."
Inwardly, I was fuming at his insults against Alfie, implying that he could not handle some war with the Italians. Still, I tried to maintain an indifferent expression.
I said, "War has casualties, Thomas. I thought you of all people might know that. Did your war with Kimber not have them, too? Always some kind of drumming and snapping in this world."
He licked his lips, but said nothing more. I knew that if we continued, it would only be another round of back-and-forth with him. So, I stood from my chair and fixed my coat around my shoulders. He watched, drawing from his cigarette in a slow inhale.
"When you next come to visit London, Tommy – and it will be very soon, this visit," I told him, "then you really ought to consider bringing your brothers to show them the sights. Especially Arthur. I think they would very much enjoy visiting the Eden Club while in town."
He blew out all that smoke which licked at his skin in tendrils. "I'll keep that suggestion in mind."
"And Thomas –…" I leaned toward him, hands placed flat on the table – "…Alfie keeps a gun in the drawer of his desk. But don't think it's the only one."
He smiled; it was one of his warmer smiles, much more familiar and much more like that smile which had followed our jump into murky waters.
ii
Slipping into the hall, I peeled off my scarf and set it on the stand, shrugging off my coat and brushing aside my damp hair. I had walked from the meeting with Thomas, too intent on reciting his words in my mind to care much about the drizzle and damp seeping through the cobbled stones and into my boots. It was already quite late, around ten.
I could hear a faint sound from the kitchen and walked toward it, realising that it was a harsh, crackling static that filled the room and poured outward into the hall. I pushed open the door and found Alfie sat at our table, his hair stuck upward from tossing in his sleep and his skin deathly pale. He had a hand pressed over his mouth, his glazed eyes staring blankly ahead.
It was the radio behind him that buzzed with static, occasionally spitting out words soon swallowed in the sound. I crossed the tiles and turned it off before I finally stood in front of him.
Bending in front of him, I whispered, "Alfie? Are you all right, love?"
He never blinked. He only said, "Did 'e call ya kitten, hm?"
Hot, horrid nausea flushed through my stomach when he lifted his eyes and looked at me. He stood and caught me at the arms so that I never fell in my surprised stumble, but rather the small of my back bumped against the counter-top and he blocked me.
His hands were still around my arms, loose but present. I was not afraid of Alfie, exactly. I was more afraid of his temper and his inability to think ahead once it clouded him, left him in a fog like that which had rolled across the trenches and filled his foxhole.
"In the car, before you passed out," he said slowly, "you told Ollie that 'e 'ad called you kitten before 'e fuckin' kissed ya. Who, Willa?"
I saw the perspiration on his forehead, felt the heat of his skin on mine. "Alfie, you're not well, you need to –…"
He shook me, just like he had done in the bakery that night and it shook me more to think that this was not the first time that we had fought and that it had become physical; I had slapped him, he had held me against walls and I had pushed him and he had thrown me aside in fights and – and wasn't it always like that for me, in all the places I had lived before? Johnny had never slapped me, never thrown me about – but Esther – Esther had always hurt and thrown and punched and screamed and – and I did it now, too, pushing him and shoving him just for some space, because I did not like to be held, contained –…
"Fuckin' tell me, Willa!" he yelled.
I winced from it, it came too close to my eardrum and set off that tinny whistle. I bent from him, hands held over my ears as if that might muffle it and drown it out – like a jar held over a candle with its wick still burning, so that the flame flickered and spun and finally died.
Alfie tried to haul me up and I rolled uselessly against his tight hold, too limp from the whistle to hear him at first, until it came through that whistle and hurt me even more.
"Did you meet Franny, did you? Anyone else there? Before Sabini came along, maybe, spoiled your little date –…"
I recoiled from him, disgusted. "What are you saying, Alfie? I was with somebody else when Sabini – another man? Ollie tells you that and the first thing you think is –…"
"The first thing I think when I wake up, right, is that I look 'round and only Cyril is fuckin' lookin' back at me," he snarled. "And I ask Ollie – 'e don't know, but what's fuckin' new there? And 'e calls Franny, but she ain't 'eard from you neither – and you come back smellin' like whiskey and cigarette smoke?"
I almost laughed; almost, but held it in because his expression was thunderous and I had always feared thunder as a child, rolling over those mountains, rolling toward me. He was still holding me and I knew that there was little point in pushing him away because he only ever moved if he wanted to move. He allowed the pushes and the slaps, a futile attempt to shove him off, but Alfie was bulkier. I was so hurt, too, that I looked at him and felt the bitterness build from somewhere in my throat.
"I have only ever been loyal to you, Alfie Solomons," I croaked. "Faithful."
"Then where did you go, hm?"
"I can't go for walks now," I said. "I can't go to market-stalls, either, not like I used to. I get accosted by men whose sons lost their eyes for you. I can't go to bars, because your enemies come and find me. I can't come home, because you stand here and accuse me of terrible things. Where should I go?"
"I'm sure Kelly fuckin' Lee would take ya in," Alfie snapped. "Followin' you 'round more than Cyril does, that fuckin' pikey –…"
His mouth moved but the sounds did not come out, because he had heard himself and his eyes filled with instant regret. He stepped away from me. Finally, he stepped away from me. He hit the table behind him, bumped against it and looked oddly lost, his eyes lowering to the ground, dazed.
I let out a small hum. "He would. He would take me back to my pikey family in our pikey fields and I would have all his pikey babies. I would steal for us, because that is what pikeys do, isn't it, Alfie? In between making the pikey medicine that soothes the ache in your bones, of course, the same fucking medicine that I have rubbed into your skin for months. But I'm sure that in between all that, I was off gallivanting with all the pikey men, because maybe that father was right – a Gypsy is only ever a bog-trotter, a thief, a whore –…"
"Stop it," he whispered, still not looking at me.
"All the time you spent in France, did you think I was with other men, too? When you came back in that first month and never spoke to me, was I with them then? Kelly Lee and Mitchell Lee and all the fucking Lees on this earth, every last one of them – to have all their pikey fucking babies, Alfie –…"
I was rattling with anger, so riddled with it that I was cornering him instead and he contorted against the table, his skin now completely flushed and his breath panting from the effort of standing, from his pain.
"Your jealousy consumes you but it will never consume me," I spat at him.
And I was hurt. It stung so badly, his jealousy and distrust, that I cried from it and I hated to cry from it, this hatred only inducing even more tears from rasping sobs. I sat on the chair beside the table, scrunching the cuffs of my blouse to brush away the tears. I watched a clock in the corner, unseeing, my eyes sore and tired from tears.
"You will never be happy with a Gypsy," I told him. "You should have found yourself a Jewish girl. Still time for you to do it."
He was very quiet. He pulled out another chair and dragged it toward mine, set it just in front of mine and sat there, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward.
"Don't want a Jewish girl," he murmured weakly. His hand reached to squeeze my thigh, and his chin dipping against his chest when I did not respond. "Got me girl right 'ere, don' I?"
"Do you?"
He sucked in a breath. "We'll have Margate, Willa –…"
I let out a low, pained groan and hid my face with my hands. "Margate, Margate – fucking Margate – always with this fucking fantasy in your head. I want it too, Alfie – but what does it matter when you never trust me? You trust Ollie more than you trust me!"
"Don't trust Ollie to 'old a loaf of bread, me," he replied, maintaining a light and dismissive tone in an attempt to placate me, "and we ain't even got any in the bakery, mind –…I told Franny, don't let 'im 'old that sprog of yours, can't even 'old a pair o' scissors without doin' 'imself a mischief, our Ollie…"
"We'll never have kids of our own," I said absently.
Alfie was very stiff, his eyes flighty and unsure. "D'you want 'em, Willa?"
I was not sure why those words had come out. I was combing through other things, thrown by Alfie's accusations and from seeing Tommy for the first time in a while, from thinking that Alfie was dead at the hands of the Italians, finding out Franny was pregnant – all of these things swirled together and the words had simply fallen out in the midst of it all.
"Neither son nor daughter, in this world," I told him, grinding my clenched fist against my forehead to smooth out all the thoughts crinkled there. "You said that."
"Willa," he mumbled weakly.
"It was a copper," I said suddenly. "Sabini sent him to beat me in the alleyway after we spoke in that pub and the copper held me up against the wall and tried to kiss me. I tore off his lip with my teeth. He called me a pikey, too. A pretty one, he said."
Alfie fell from the chair on his knees and pressed his hands into mine, drew them against his chest and listened with fury furrowing through his jaw, grinding it, filling him up until he spilled over.
"And I bit his lip," I continued slowly. "I felt his blood in my mouth and I swallowed it. He wanted to kill me. He put a gun to my head and if it were not for one of the other Italian men who stopped him – he would have done it, I know. Because he hates pikeys like you hate pikeys."
"I don't," he protested. "I don't, love –…"
"And you know, maybe you're right. Kelly Lee would take me in, all right. I would have all his pikey babies, like I told you. Because we will never have kids of our own, Alfie, never hold a child made of me and you, together. And maybe Kelly Lee and I would be happy, in our little caravan somewhere. I would be Willa Lee like I was before, as a little girl. And you would still be here, Alf, and the world would go on anyway, like it went on during the war. But it was a copper who kissed me, who called me kitten, like –…"
I choked on it, felt it constrict my throat, that dreaded name.
"Like what?"
"Like Yaxley did." I ducked my head from him, ashamed. "I never wanted his name to be said in this house, Alfie. I wanted it cleansed of all that he did. I wanted one part of me to exist, just one part that he hadn't spoiled. But here he is."
"Yaxley is gone, Willa," Alfie hissed. "Dead. And if 'e ain't, I'll find 'im, and I'll –…"
"Kill him," I finished for him. "And what difference would it make, Alfie? He's up here" - I tapped at my head - "So, just leave it, now."
"I'm sorry."
It was rare for him to apologise with proper words rather than gestures.
"All right."
"I mean it."
"I know."
I stood from the chair and left the kitchen before he could say more. I reached the stand where my scarf dripped a blooming puddle on our floorboards and glanced up to see that he was still there. He knelt on the ground and his hands tore at his hair, scratched at the skin of his throat as he looked up at the ceiling and then slammed his palms flat against his temples.
I turned and left him there.
iii
In the morning, I rolled onto his side of the bed and found it bare; his familiar warmth lingered across those wrinkled bed-sheets, his scent pressed into the pillow. I lay there for a little while, arms out-stretched. I scrubbed my hands over my sleepy eyes and finally hauled myself from the bed, padding toward the bathroom for a wash. I opened the wardrobe afterward and pulled out a lilac dress, soft and gentle against my skin.
Then, I noticed a couple of dresses were not there. I looked around for newer boots, plucked from their spots. Still, I went downstairs and he had already left. Fiddling with the bent collar of my coat, I opened the front door with one hand and stepped out. I had not noticed him at first, until I fixed that collar and glanced up with a huff to blow aside a frustrating strand of hair from my face.
Alfie stood at the bottom of the steps with suitcases around his feet. I felt my stomach clench in fear, my hands clammy and my legs turned funny. I thought of all those dresses torn out from that wardrobe while I slept and my boots along with them.
I'm sure Kelly fuckin' Lee would take ya in.
"Get in the car, Willa," Alfie called out. "Been waitin' ages for ya, me trotters are achin' and I wanna get us on the road, don' I?"
Taking a cautious step forward, I replied, "Where are we going?"
"Margate."
"Margate," I repeated dumbly. "What about the bakery, the house, Cyril –…"
Popping his head from the backseat, Cyril panted and drooled all over. Alfie reached through the open window to scratch him, letting his drool drip all over his wrists and soak his cuffs. Alfie had never cared too much about things like that.
"Ain't a thing to worry 'bout with the 'ouse and the bakery. Got Ollie for that lot, don't we?"
"Last night you said you wouldn't trust him to hold a loaf of bread."
Alfie looked around himself. "Well it's a good thing I ain't got any bread on me, ain't it?"
I laughed, rolling my eyes at him. "Alfie, you don't have to –…"
"No, Willa, darlin' - I ain't always fair on ya," he said. "I know that. So – let me be fair to ya for once. Let me take ya to Margate. Won't be some poxy fantasy then, will it?"
Cyril whined and dipped behind the door where I could not see him.
"Besides, if you leave me with the fuckin' dog, I'll do me nut in," Alfie added. "All 'is fartin' and snorin' – be like I brought Ollie with me instead o' you. Proper nightmare. Got all your dresses in the suitcases, but you can go starkers if you like, I wouldn't complain…"
"All right, Alfie."
He grinned and opened the door of the car for me. "In you pop, my lady."
iv
Gushing through the window, a warm, salty breeze brushed through my hair and swept over my skin, my lips lifted into a bright smile, a hand held over his while he drove us between country lanes toward Margate and Cyril stuck his head from his window, slobbering and panting against the heat. There had been sun in my childhood and small glimpses of it in between that old time before womanhood had come, but here it was and it set my soul alight.
I felt like gold; shining, powerful. The sunlight poured over him, too, brought out those faint blond strands in his beard and made him smile more than he ever had.
He pulled over for strawberries sold on the side of the road, shared between us; the juice ran along our chins and all down our wrists, staining our shirts, but never did we think to care about it. Afterward, we wound through a street dotted in small, cute little shops with stalls in front; huge crowds strolled by, couples linked at the arms, ice-creams shared between them. I saw the sign, printed bright before us: MARGATE.
v
Sinking into the sand, I took out my boots and went barefoot for the first time in a while, leaping about and kicking at it, wanting to feel every grain against my skin. All over the beach, large sun-chairs were thrown around with people lounging beneath the first glimpse of summertime in this country. It was rare in England for there to be even a drop of heat, and it seemed that Margate kept all the droplets in her fold. Boats drifted over gentle waves in the distance, so that I had to scrunch my fists over my eyes against the harsh sun, looking at those distant sails in wonder.
Alfie was behind, the bottom of his pants rolled up and Cyril plodding alongside him. He had bought us ice-cream and I took mine from him, snorting once he bent to let Cyril take a lick from it. Alfie never cared for stuff like that, either. He had never cared what others thought of him, not that anybody knew him then. He had strolled along the beach and looked out at that horizon. I hopped onto a small, cobbled wall and balanced there.
Automatically, he lifted a hand for me, helping me to hold myself on its rocky parts. I slipped slightly, skimmed my kneecaps. He pressed a kiss there and onward we went, until we had looped the beach and started back again onto the pier.
I went to jump from the wall, but his arm looped around my legs, just beneath my bottom and he spun me around onto the sand, grinning at my startled shriek.
"That one," he said, his stubble scratching my jaw.
I looked down at him. "What d'you mean, Alfie?"
"That 'ouse up there," he replied, pointing up at a house settled on a hill far beyond the shops. "That will be ours, when we move 'ere."
Seagulls flew overhead with soft caws and old newspaper fluttered across the street in a crisp breeze. Beneath that wooden pier, I watched the water lap at the shoreline in wisps of foam. Eventually, we sat at the very end of the pier and looked at that blanket of endless blue ahead. He brought cotton-candy in lilac cones that matched the colour of my dress.
Melting in our mouths, I remembered that hazy time before the war when we had spun around a carousel and the world had spun with us, around and around until it all blurred together.
I pulled off strips of cotton-candy and fed him, laughing when he tried to bite at my fingers. It became a little game between us, to pull away fast enough that he could not catch me. It bloomed into a proper game then, like children, when I stood and tried to dart around him, but he soon caught me at the waist and spun me right back around. Cyril ran around us, tail wagging back and forth, barking as he tried to jump at Alfie.
"Oi, fuck off, you," Alfie tutted. "I feed ya every fuckin' day and still you prefer 'er over me, don't ya, ya little traitor –…"
"Put me down, Alfie," I laughed breathlessly, slapping at his hands. "You'll do your back in again!"
"Oh, don't be worryin' 'bout my fuckin' back – I'm still 'ere, ain't I? Can carry you an' all, I can," he grinned, spinning us around wildly. "And the day that we move 'ere, I'll carry you up that fuckin' 'ill an' all to that 'ouse up there, I'll paint all its walls whatever colour you want, yeah, I'll even let you pick your side o' the fuckin' bed – not that you won't just push me outta it when you're sleepin' like you do now – and then I'll put in all the furniture –…"
"Or you'll get the boys to do it," I grinned at him.
He stopped our spinning, settling me on the ground and helped steady me. "Won't be no boys with us just like there ain't none now, Willa. I meant it – I won't do the bakery no more, won't sell rum. I'll sit in an armchair, right, and 'ire someone to do some massages for me back and 'ip –…"
I slapped his shoulder. "Hire who, exactly? A woman, is it?"
In a higher pitch, he replied, "Your jealousy consumes you –…"
"Oh, that is not how I sound! You always do that voice, I sound nothing like that."
"Right, well, it's me and Cyril what 'ear you shriekin' the most 'round the 'ouse, so I feel like we'd be the best judges o' that, wouldn't we boy?"
Cyril had become distracted by some chips left in a newspaper wrapping at the far-side of the pier. He had stuffed his face into that newspaper which slapped at him and we could hear his loud slobbering.
Alfie rolled his eyes. "Sounds just like Ollie when he's chompin' on a butty in the mornin'."
"You leave him alone. Run ragged, is Ollie. Could do with a holiday to Margate of his own."
"In 'is fuckin' dreams is Ollie comin' 'ere. No. I'd throw me-self off that fuckin' pier before I let 'im 'ere, 'specially when Franny pops out that sprog and it follows us 'round screamin' and shittin' and –…" He caught my warning glance and pursed his lips. "And we will 'appily look after it, to give 'em a small break – very small, that is, with a bakery to run."
I reached up to kiss him and stroked his hair, resting my hand on the nape of his neck and pulling our foreheads together. "I knew you were soft."
"Soft," he nodded. "Made me that way, you did."
I patted his stomach. "Think that was all the ice-cream and cotton-candy that you ate, Alf."
"Oi, cheeky fuckin' mare," he grinned. "Bring 'er to Margate and what does she do? Break me fuckin' 'eart."
There had never been a war, I decided, neither one in Europe nor another in London with the Italians. Instead, there was only a distant hum faraway over that horizon, but it never mattered because nothing could reach us on this beach in Margate, where sandcastles were made and washed away in the tide by smiling children, where lovers stretched out across their chairs to drink in the last of the dying sun; we were there amongst them, because all the sunshine in our lives had been held in Margate.
