A/N: Hello again everybody! I wanted to say that we are finally in Season 3. I have an idea of how I want to end this story after some heavy brainstorming today but I will not say more than that yet ;) I hope I can finish it, sometimes I lose motivation, but I really want to have a proper ending for this story eventually. Thanks for all the feedback. I would also like to thank the guests who review but to whom I cannot directly send a message. It's really appreciated!
twenty-two
TWO YEARS LATER
Breathlessly rushing behind him through a labyrinth of halls, I gripped his hand even tighter and followed him into yet another kitchen. Wild laughter bubbled from my chest like smoke whipped from a frothing cauldron and I looked behind at long stretch of hall behind us where a maid stood with her arms crossed and her expression pinched in frustration. I rushed behind him, slapping his arms to hurry him forward, excited by the sudden sound of her kitten-heels cracking furiously against the floorboards.
I felt his arms slither around my waist and lift me to throw us into a closet. We crashed against mops and stray brushes which smacked against his face and bumped my arms. I yelped from the hard thump of a handle against my cheek, but he soon clapped a hand over my mouth and shushed me.
Strained against the door, I heard the familiar tip-tapping of those heels while she passed our hide-out.
Slowly, his hand fell from my mouth and he relaxed against the wooden walls behind him with a sigh that bloomed into heavy laughter, his pale eyes alight in the dim, yellowish light of this closet. I laughed with him deliriously. I leaned backward too, unaware that a bucket of soapy water was behind my boot until it sloshed all over the floorboards and drenched both of us around the ankles and feet. I stumbled, falling backwards.
In his blindness, he reached to catch me and bashed his forehead against a shelf overhead. I was half-bent against the walls, arms spread out and he was awkwardly balanced to avoid falling into me – and our laughter returned, great barks of laughter even from how we stood in that closet with limbs contorted.
Suddenly, the door slammed open and I trailed my eyes from those kitten-heels upward along a pressed skirt and starched apron to find that maid stood there with her scowl set even deeper.
"Fuck, did we miss the lovely couple cuttin' the cake, eh?" Alfie asked her. "Pity. Well, why don't you wrap us up a slice, yeah, plop it in a napkin and we can eat it in the car – 'ow does that sound?"
I felt my boot slip from underneath me and I bashed my bottom against the floorboards, the fabric of my dress immediately soaked in that lukewarm water. I moaned from the pain. Alfie stepped forward to help me only to clap his forehead against that shelf once more and I was struggling to help him through gulping fits of laughter.
"Twice," he grumbled. "Twice, I bashed me fuckin' loaf off that shelf – and me poor wife 'as only gone and pissed 'erself from the stress o' it all. She 'as these accidents, see, gets proper embarrassed and I was only tryin' to find a nice quiet bathroom for 'er –…"
"You bloody liar!" I shrieked at him, slapping his legs. "I spilled the –…"
Innocently, he looked at the maid and moulded his features into one of great pity for his ailing wife, one hand pressed against his hip and the other held over his forehead as if he was so stressed and worried. "She gets very upset, y'know. I think you oughta give us a moment 'ere, I need to clean 'er up – you won't tell Mr Shelby, will you? Very embarrassin' for me wife, like I said –…"
Glancing between us venomously, the maid turned and marched off down the hall. I stared at the spot where she had been and then thumped his leg with my boot. He was laughing too much for it to have even bothered him. He stopped to scoop beneath my armpits and haul me from the floorboards, but then he crashed against me when his shoes went slack against the water and I cried out when his forehead battered mine.
"Oh, fuck – that was the last o' me brains in there, knocked right out," he grumbled. "Look 'round them floorboards and see if you can't find bits o' them brains down there. Try shove 'em back in 'fore I go all soft and funny on ya, darlin'."
"Too late for that."
"You're a cruel fuckin' woman," he retorted. "When they cart me off to one o' them places where they keep them simple-minded people, you'll be fuckin' sorry, won't ya? Sittin' in me armchair, droolin' all over me-self! You'll be sorry –…"
I pushed at his shoulders, giggling madly. "Get off, Alfie, you're crushing me!"
"Oh, you got me all sensitive now, wonderin' if I ain't gained a few pounds from eatin' three plates worth o' starters. Though I suspected I would throw it all up once Tom made 'is little speech 'bout fam'ly. Spoutin' all sorts o' nonsense, 'e was. I think Tom mighta bashed 'is thick skull off this shelf a few times 'imself, what d'you reckon?"
"I reckon," I grinned, "that we should get ourselves some of that cake like you said and go home. I miss Cyril and my own bloody bed."
"All right, all right," he replied. "I got a plan in mind, yeah, to get us outta 'ere without lookin' too rude 'bout it. 'Cause y'know 'ow it can look for business partners if you fuck off in the middle o' their weddings. I'll bring Tom over real nice like, tell 'im we loved all them fancy fuckin' songs in the church and I thought them swans were a nice touch for the shape o' them napkins."
Snickering at him, I brushed aside his hair and smiled at him, nodding along. He kissed my wrists and I laughed at him again, amused by the funny expressions that he made just for me.
Smacking his lips and raising his eyebrows, he continued, "Then you can piss yourself again, and I'll say, 'Oh, I am terribly fuckin' sorry, Tom, my lad, our Willa just can't control 'er fuckin' bladder and she's only gone and wet 'erself over your Persian rugs and we ain't brought spare clothes for 'er, so we must be off now – thanks for the shitty fuckin' 'our we spent waitin' for you and your missus with all them screamin' fuckin' children and them old biddies chattin' shite into me ear at the church, yeah, okay? Bye, Tom' –…"
I slapped his chest and my head fell back while I groaned. "Alfie!"
"Ain't nothin' to be embarrassed 'bout, love, 'appens to the best o' us, don' it?" he replied. "That maid 'ad a fuckin' look o' thunder on 'er face though, didn' she? Thought she'd 'ave Tom 'imself chasin' after us."
"Well, we weren't supposed to be down here at all, Alf," I smirked. "And Tommy has very dedicated staff in his mansion, it would seem."
"Too fuckin' right – d'you think I could replace Ollie with that fuckin' maid? She 'ad a face like a slapped arse, but she'd get them lads movin' in the bakery, wouldn't she?"
"And what would Ollie do?"
"Follow you 'round with a mop an' clean up your messes," he answered.
"Yeah, well, your own pants are wet now, too," I told him.
Confused, he glanced down, because he had landed on his knees and so the rest of his pants had been left dry – but I gripped the bucket beside us and splashed the last puddle against him, grinning at his shout of surprise.
"I will tell Tom that you had an accident and then we can get out of here."
"Right, well, only if you can get me three slices o' cake. I only told that maid I wanted one 'cause I think she saw me scoffin' down them starters, too. Don't want any nasty rumours spreadin' 'bout me eatin' 'abits."
Struggling from our slumped spots, I patted around the walls to find anything that I could pull myself up with, still giddy. Only I slowed when I noticed Alfie was terribly still, his shoulders hunched, his face creased from pain. All that laughter left me, and I shifted around the mops and brushes to settle in front of him, cupping his cheeks.
"Alfie?" I whispered. "Are you all right?"
"Just me fuckin' back," he mumbled.
"Is it that pain going up your spine?" I asked gently.
He chewed at the soft, fleshy inside of his cheek and nodded tightly. "Will pass in a minute, just – just wait a second, love."
I leaned forward and kissed his forehead where he had bruised himself. I waited like he said; waited for that blistering spike of agony to roll along his spine, which he said was like the tyres of a car pressing along each bone and ridge that lined his back until it finally petered out into echoing rounds of a fainter, lesser pain. I stroked his hands until I watched his mouth loosen and his legs straighten. Then I stood and helped him.
"Alf," I mumbled, "I really think you should see the doctor about it, sweetheart. I know you hate visiting the doctor, but I'm really worried. It's happened more and more this last month."
Hobbling out into the hall, he leaned against the wall and let out a slow sigh. We had discussed this visit to the doctor many times over, but he had always dismissed it and denied that the pain was too much even if it made him stand like a statue. He dragged his hands over his face and said, "Fine."
I blinked. "Really?"
"You bring me four slices o' cake and I'll call for an appointment tomorrow. And not them scraggly slices what them other fuckers picked at, mind – strawberries and icin', the whole works."
I beamed at him. "You got it."
"And you're tellin' Tommy that we're fuckin' off."
"Fine, fine. You call for Caleb."
"In my condition? No, no, I think I best stay 'ere an' wait for me cake."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you know you really milk it every time, Alfie."
"What's that 'bout milk, darlin'? Me vision is goin' on me, I'm feelin' fainter with every word – I see a great big white fuck-off light down that 'all there. D'you see it too? Oh, if only I 'ad some bit o' cake to keep me strength up."
I fixed my dress. "All right, all right."
"And I would recover much faster if it was cake with them strawberries and icin', like I said," he called out as I walked away from him. "And make sure Arthur ain't touched it, I don't want the clap!"
ii
Sweeping arches led out into the driveway of his mansion. I found him there between the pillars, looking out into the blackness of the night as he smoked a cigarette. I wondered if he felt comforted by that blanket of pure coal over the fields around his home, because it only unsettled me. I had become accustomed to the sparkling lights of London and the fuzzing hum of lamps and the movement of neighbours in the houses around ours. I was comforted by it, but Tommy seemed to prefer silence with only the faint, intermittent croak of birds or a glimpse of foxes slithering between the glittering leaves of the shrubbery around him.
"It was a beautiful wedding, Tom," I called out. "Grace is a very lovely woman."
"And nothing to be said for the groom, eh?"
"He has a terrible smoking habit, if that counts."
"If only that were his worst habit," he replied. "Are you off, Willa?"
"Alfie finds it hard to tolerate fresh air," I told him. "Prefers the dense fumes and misery of London."
Somewhere in the fields, a horse nickered, and hooves were stomped into dirt. Tommy was quiet for a long time. Then, he turned and hugged me briefly, before he said, "Perhaps I am not the only one with old habits, then. Goodnight, Willa."
"Tommy?" I called out.
"I'm happy for you, you know," I told him.
In truth, I had wanted to ask him: what haunts you now, Tom? Did it start in France or had it been there long before all that?
He stood just a couple of feet away from me in the hall of his own home and somehow, I felt that distance more than ever. He had married this Irishwoman whom he had always loved and yet his eyes held that fog which rolled over the black fields behind us and I always felt that more words lingered in his mouth that he wanted to say, words with much more meaning, but that the smoke muffled them. I glimpsed those words there at the cusp of his tongue, but they never came out.
Instead, he nodded, and I watched him disappear into those looming halls that seemed much too large for him; he was swallowed by them, and I was left out there with the foxes and the birds.
iii
Held in a beautiful golden frame, I placed the ketubah in the bedroom, wiped all smudges and fingerprints from its glass and kissed its edges. I showed it to Cyril as if he might understand its foreign letters, its promises written in columns, its gentle pattern of trees and branches all around. Curling against Alfie with blankets piled around us in the bitter chill of winter, I felt the crackling warmth of the fireplace and the comfort of his rumbling murmur while he read portions of the Torah aloud alongside me.
My eyes trailed toward that little frame to drink in its scripture – because it was scripture for me, the purest and most devout form of gospel that I had ever acknowledged in all my life. There was a pilgrimage made through every paragraph and revelation came at its end.
While he spoke in Hebrew, I imagined that he was reading the promises in that contract, envisioned those sounds etched into my skin as words that I could read, its beauty contained in those soft breaths taken between verses, those quiet swallows made in his throat for those harsher syllables which dragged along his tongue and plopped from his mouth in rasps.
I had never thought much about those things beyond the clouds, but in those moments, whenever Alfie whispered in Hebrew and his hand absent-mindedly reached to rest against my thigh while he did it, I understood holiness in a way that I never had before.
Carefully, he pulled himself from me and placed the Torah on the drawer alongside our bed, then stooped with muffled grumbles to put out the fire and scratch Cyril just before he slipped back into the sheets and shuffled me against him. He kissed my temple and his hands quickly reached for the blankets to tuck around our bodies pressed together, ensuring that I was comfortable and safe like he had written in his contract, but that was just another thing never mentioned between us.
It was never mentioned in the same way that we never mentioned how Alfie worried that I had become too cold in his absence and tried to wrap the blankets around me more than him nor how he had chosen the side closest to the door because he said that he preferred it and never was it mentioned that I had felt every single one of those kisses placed by him upon my temple from the first night that we had stayed together in this house.
iv
Stepping out into the backyard, I felt my boots sink into the mud, torn back out with vigour. I followed behind the men, breathing in whitish wisps which burst from my lips and floated upward to line the edges of the clouds overhead. I shuffled behind Ishmael and Eli Allman with my heavy coat bundled tight around me, gloved hands latched around a clipboard which contained a list of numbers and names for each barrel due to be delivered.
I was meant to scratch off the number of barrels lowered from the truck and then follow into the basement once finished to tick each name and assign a number, a task which was usually assigned to Ollie, but Franny had come down with an awful flu and needed a hand with Elijah.
Smouldering in a thick, yellowish fog which curled from the lamps in echoing breaths, the basement was composed of mud and damp from the barrels rolled across its floorboards. I glanced at Allman, who chatted with Ishmael and I smiled to myself, pleased that he had fit in well ever since his wife had first visited me in the office and pleaded with me to find him a place here.
I trailed behind them with my clipboard and then danced around the entrance to warm myself the moment we stepped in the basement, earning a couple of amused snorts from the men who had done this same job every morning for the past few months.
Shooting them a playful glare as I pulled off my gloves, I stuttered through blue lips and told them, "All right, I'll start on making some gloves and scarves for you all. Aprons hardly seem enough to warm you out there."
"Liftin' the barrels soon warms us, Mrs Solomons," Eli grinned. "And Mr Solomons offers a good portly bottle of rum sometimes."
I snorted. "The brown stuff?"
"The brown stuff," Ishmael answered.
"If your mother knew you drank that, Ishmael –…"
He blanched, looking fearfully at me from behind the rim of a barrel held in his arms. "She would break me arms and put me in one of these barrels 'ere, y'know."
Dropping the clipboard, I looked behind him, drawn by a pair of legs which appeared behind the banister, legs dressed in a powder-blue suit, a pale hand lifted to plop a cigarette between paler lips. I watched a stranger settle at the bottom of the steps with his eyes ghosting around the basement and I thought that he was Irish. It was something familiar in him that made me think it. Alfie had not mentioned anything about a meeting with another buyer and it made me wonder if there was a good reason for that – there was no meeting.
Yet this man had walked through the courtyard and made it this far without much fuss.
So, I approached him.
Peeking from his cap were strands of black hair, cropped and tight against his skull. His eyes were cool-green in colour, set against dark lashes. His eyebrows were wide-set, his nose straight and narrow. He was fairly handsome in his own way. He was much taller, too, made taller from the confidence that came from being in his twenties and wearing a suit that rich. I craned to look at him and he glanced down at me, curling his lips into a smile that seemed far too friendly already.
"Mrs Solomons, I presume? My name is Jack Murphy."
I recognised that accent, a funny blend of an English tone mixed with Irish parentage that produced some lilt that balanced in-between, tipping toward Irish in his emotion and ticking back toward English in his slang.
"Pleasure to meet you, Mr Murphy. Is Alfie expecting you?"
"I heard you were pretty," he mused, clicking his tongue. "And I heard you were a Gypsy."
"And looking at me now, what would you think for yourself?" I asked testily.
"I would think," he replied, "that there is no smoke without fire – and you are very fiery, Mrs Solomons."
I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest. "D'you try that with all women, Jack?"
"Oh, I try a lot of things. But I do prefer it when a woman takes charge, you know," he shrugged, flicking the cigarette from his lips and letting it fizzle on the dirt beneath us. He leaned forward, his lips stretched into a wide smile, as if he was in the midst of a very exciting game and the ball had just rolled into his corner. "Like when a woman decides to call me Jack rather than Mr Murphy – now that drives me proper mad, that does. In a good way, I should say."
I kept my eyes locked on him and never returned his smile. Instead, I called out, "Ishmael, would you be so good as to stell Alfie that he has a guest?"
Jack flicked his eyes behind me, presumably looking at Ishmael. I heard the boy set down the barrels and walk toward the office. Jack clicked his tongue again and murmured, "Ishmael? Now, you don't hear that kind of name 'round Poplar, I can tell you that. We have a hundred girls named Mary and another hundred boys called Patrick – but an Ishmael, you will not find."
Beneath his light, casual tone, I heard that mockery. I snarked, "Must not be creative people down 'round Poplar then, Jack."
"Got us there," he smirked. "Now, a name like – like Elijah – that seems on the rise 'round your parts, eh? I have heard of lots of babies named Elijah 'round here."
I stared into those pools of cool-green and my stomach swooped as if I had fallen from a great height; he had used that name as if it had been plucked from his brain at random, but it had left his lips in a trail of knowing – knowing that Ollie and Franny had a baby named Elijah, knowing that the name would bother me, knowing that I could not accuse him of anything more than having chosen it out of the blue.
But his smile was enough for me to know that he was no buyer or seller – that he was no friend of ours.
I heard the familiar tap of a cane behind me and my chest swelled in relief, because Alfie was right there behind us. Ishmael stood with him purposefully, because the boy was tall for his age, broad around the shoulders and arms, having carted barrels around this basement for months. Eli Allman had paused in his work to stand with them, looking over Jack Murphy like he was made of the same rot that soaked through the rafters overhead.
Alfie always had an act around new people. He brought that cane even if his spine was untouched by that spasm in his nerves and he often rolled up his sleeves for this casual touch, as if he had not even bothered to prepare himself for an introduction. Jack Murphy looked at Alfie, but Alfie looked at the dirt and then pursed his lips while he glanced over at the barrels.
"Mr Solomons," Jack began. "I just met your lovely wife. She does you great justice, you should know."
Alfie shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, well, mate, I picked me wife the same way I did all this rum – best quality, sweet an' all, makes you loopy after a while."
Another gimmick that he pulled was this playful, disinterested response to men like Jack Murphy. But his eyes then dragged across the barrels to look directly at Jack and there was that cold, disconnected sheen that had birthed itself in France all those years beforehand. Jack saw that darkness; it was reflected in his own eyes.
"Willa, darlin', did you offer 'im a bit o' our rum, hm?" Alfie asked. He licked his lips and it was like I could hear what he wanted so badly to say, but which he could not when Jack watched him so closely. He wanted to say: come away from this man, Willa, 'cause you are not safe 'round Jack fuckin' Murphy.
Alfie had always had good instincts and I moved forward, just a couple of steps. I cleared my throat and said, "No, Alfie."
"Then I will offer you a sample of me own in the office, yeah, Jack Murphy?"
Jack had never told him his name. It made him preen in delight that Alfie knew it.
Slinking around me, Jack turned and walked backward in order to face me for just a moment longer, his lips still held in that frustrating smirk. He called out, "Pleasure was all mine, by the way, Mrs Solomons. You are as pretty as they say, all right."
Behind him, in the dim and flickering light of the hall, Alfie slowed until he stopped completely, and my breath caught in my chest, afraid that the snipe had upset him enough to act rashly. But he rolled out his shoulders and continued forward into the office. Jack turned to face the direction in which he walked, hands stuffed into his pockets with a casual saunter.
"Are you okay, Mrs Solomons?" Allman asked.
"Fine, Eli," I replied distantly. "Thank you."
"I don't like that bloke," the older man huffed. "I do hope Mr Solomons sends him packin'."
"I'm sure he will." Eli walked off into the backyard and I finally looked at Ishmael and saw how worried the boy looked. It softened that dread which washed over me after I had first spoken with Jack and I felt touched that the boy cared for Alfie in the way that he did. "Ishmael, I think you should take one of those brown bottles tonight. Share it with some friends, eh?"
He startled, looking at me in surprise. "Really?"
I smiled at him. "Be quick about it. If Alfie ever finds out, tell him that I let you have it."
"T-Thank you, Mrs Solomons!"
Ishmael rushed off into the cellar and I leaned against a barrel, my eyes latched onto the warm orange colour of the office; a bitter chill had filled the basement and it came not from the winter outside but rather from a powder-blue suit and pale lips parted.
v
Lined in wooden panelling, the office was small and clustered in all sorts of odd photographs and artwork, paintings of abstract figures stretched around one another, colours blended into one blob of murky green washed out into pale reds. I sat with my legs crossed, nervously scratching at the scar on the back of my hand. It was oddly soothing to rub those ridged, pink furrows and then press hard against it to feel that faint, muted bubble of pain underneath it. All around me, women and children sat in chairs and men stood around the desk behind which a secretary sat, a sporadic melody clacked from her typewriter, folders shuffled like a chorus in-between.
Alfie had wanted a Jewish doctor. It just turned out that most of his community had wanted one, too.
Once Alfie had shuffled into this small, watery-blue space with its funny paintings and slick chairs, many men had shaken his hand and many women had kissed his cheeks, whispered gratitude for recent donations for their babies or grandchildren. I had trailed behind him and those same women pecked my cheeks, too, and the men tilted their hats toward me respectfully.
It had been like that ever since I had officially become his wife. I had to let my wrists be held by elderly Jewish women with leathery skin and return delicate smiles and memorise the names of children and retain this strange persona of Mrs Solomons as she was viewed by the community. I actually quite enjoyed it, for the most part. It was wonderful to be looked on fondly by the people within his community.
Suddenly, the door clattered, and Alfie stepped back into the waiting-room with a cheerful smile. I stood from my chair and stepped toward him. The doctor spoke to him in a low rumble, clucked out his goodbyes and shook hands with Alfie before he called another name and a pale slip of a woman passed into the office. I waited for speech or some sign, but he only rested his arm around my shoulder and guided us out of the practice. I saw smudges of murky greens and pale reds and then the beige of the hall muted my vision.
"Alfie?"
The doctor had his practice overhead the office of a solicitor, so we had to shuffle downstairs into another hall and open the front-door of what looked like a house on the outside. I reached for the latch, but Alfie pushed me into that hall and hugged me against him, hugged me so tightly that I could only put my hands on his arms.
Frightened, I peeled his arms off me and whispered, "Alfie? What happened? What did he say?"
"Told me it was me sciatica – a problem with a nerve in me back, what runs down me 'ip and all 'round me spine and arse, like," he explained bluntly. "And it acts up sometimes. Told me I could do some kinda exercises for it, take a bit o' medication, use ice or warm cloths to settle it."
"Did you tell him about that stuff I got from Ripley Street?" I asked worriedly. "I told you to ask him, I think it really helps –…"
"It's all right, Willa," he murmured, cupping my cheek. "Didn't I tell you not to upset yourself? You was goin' mad over this bloody appointment. It's done, now. The old man gave me a list o' things I can put on it tonight – creams like that one what you got off Ripley Street. Be right as rain, tomorrow. I'll be carryin' them barrels with Eli and Ishmael by next week, just you watch."
I breathed out, my hands wrapped over his own. "Okay. Come on, we can pick them up on the way home – I want you to start using them tonight, Alfie."
He groaned. "Willa, I thought if I went to see this fuckin' doctor, you would stop all this fussin'."
"It isn't fussing!"
"Franny doesn't worry 'alf as much 'bout Elijah as you do 'bout me."
"Yeah, well, Elijah is more capable of looking after himself," I smiled. "Needs less attention, too."
"Cheeky."
Leaning against the bonnet of the car, Caleb watched the passing crowds, bored out of his mind. He had really grown into his gangly limbs and lost that boyish fat in his cheeks, but he was still a young lad for me. He dropped his cigarette from his mouth when he glimpsed us coming out of the practice, but Alfie only waved him off and told him that we could walk to buy these creams just down the street. Caleb settled back against car and looked forlornly at the waste of his still-smouldering cigarette.
"Jack Murphy made a comment about the name Elijah," I started hesitantly. "D'you think that was just coincidence?"
Alfie glanced around for cars before we stepped down onto the cobbled streets. "Nah. Nothin' is fuckin' coincidence with that Murphy lad. But we ain't sayin' nowt to Ollie 'til we got a reason to worry 'bout it."
"What did you talk about, in the office?"
"Oh, daisies and lilies and sunflowers," he answered. "And which flower best brings out the lovely colour of me eyes."
"Alfie."
Reluctantly, he said, "Jack Murphy only came 'round to remind me o' the recent struggles what Sabini 'as been goin' through with them lads what trashed 'is businesses and battered 'is men up at the races last month. I told 'im that I 'ad very intently been followin' every misfortune what followed my good and dear friend ever since the first 'it on 'is bar."
"That was it?"
"It were in 'is tone," Alfie added. "What 'e really wanted to say."
"And what was that?"
"That Sabini's misfortunes could spread," Alfie muttered. "That 'e ain't the only fella what got people lookin' at 'im for protection."
I noticed how his hands tightened around my arm even if he was unaware of it and I felt that those people that Jack had mentioned included me.
"You have coppers and more men on your side," I told him, brushing my hand up and down the sleeve of his chunky coat reassuringly.
Alfie nodded. "S'what 'e said. But 'e also said that the Irish are a resilient people against all oppression and efforts to undermine 'em. I told 'im that the Jews and the Irish 'ad that in common, all things considered."
I looked down at the cobbled stones beneath my boots. "So, he's part of an Irish gang, then?"
"Plenty o' those in London. But 'e works with the Titanic. Got a little more footin' in the game than most Irish gangs 'cause o' what went down with Sabini. Left a gap that Jack Murphy is more'n 'appy to fill."
"Then we can wait until Ollie is back tomorrow and figure out the next move, Alf."
"Next move?"
"Well, Jack made his by coming into the bakery, didn't he? So, what?"
"So, you want us to go to fuckin' war with 'im for that? Ain't smart, Willa. Gotta do more research into 'im, find out 'ow 'e operates."
I huffed at him. "I would have made a much better Captain," I joked. "Go in there, guns blazing –…"
"Yeah, send your men right into a fuckin' battle without seein' what the enemy might 'ave on 'is side."
I squeezed his arm and smiled at him. "I can bet there are a lot more people on yours."
Alfie looked away. "Yeah. That's what I'm worried 'bout."
vi
Milton Avenue had not changed much in two years; its shops were still bustling with Londoners dipping between each door and glancing in the windows, its street lined in stalls and vendors who shouted out into the crisp air. The Rothman café was sat at the very corner which turned onto Galton Street. It was painted in a delicate mint-green colour with beautiful cakes displayed in its windows.
I stepped into its warmth and heard the tinkle of the bell which rattled overhead. Daisy was already sat with Ada and Franny, sipping from steaming cups of tea. Daisy stood and shuffled behind the counter to prepare a fresh teapot for us.
"Sorry, sorry!" I called out.
Ada grinned. "What kept you, Willa? Oh, don't tell us – Alfie swept you into his arms and –…"
"I got stuck in a line behind a lot of older Jewish ladies down on Baton Road," I huffed, flopping into a chair alongside her.
"Oi, nothing wrong with old Jewish ladies!" Daisy shouted from behind the counter.
I grinned at her and pulled off my gloves. "Nothing wrong until they see Alfie and surround him. Can't get away for all the things they want to tell him."
Franny took a biscuit from the plate left out by Daisy. "Oh, I think Willa sounds a little jealous of some old women chasing after her husband."
"Does Alfie like them better when they have no teeth?" Ada asked, spitting through a mouthful of cake.
"No, he likes them better with their mouths closed," I replied, tapping at her chin.
She grinned. "I thought we were with friends, here! No judgement, eh?"
A couple of months beforehand, I had remembered meeting Daisy Rothman in a bathroom in a bar called The Diamond and I had thought it might be a good idea to thank her for her kindness. I had asked Ada and Franny if they wanted tea in a café owned by the Rothman family and then found Daisy there with her crumpets and cakes. She had been a little unsure of herself, at first. She had looked at me and thought that I was just Mrs Solomons, that sniffling woman she had met in a bathroom, whose skin she had dusted in powder. But I convinced her to take a tea-break and sit with us for a little while.
And somewhere along the line, it had just become tradition for us to meet every few days in her café.
I thought it had worked out much better than it ever had with Ruth and her tea-parties because it never felt like I had to peel away parts of myself just to be there. Ada had Gypsy blood just like me and Franny had never looked at me as anything other than a friend. Daisy was the youngest of us all, but she had fit right in with us.
"Arthur got rightly fucked at the wedding," Ada told us.
"Linda was that good, was she?" I asked.
Ada rolled her eyes. "If God asked her to part her legs, she would – if Arthur asked her…"
Daisy blushed. "What's wrong with being a little religious, then?"
"Daisy, you're Jewish. Linda is just crazy," Ada replied. "There's a big difference."
"Well, it sounds like she's good for your brother," Franny said. "Didn't you say he was lonely?"
"I said he was fucking braindead," Ada smirked. "But you're very kind to pretend I said something nicer, Fran."
"I heard Arthur sang a few songs with Johnny," I added. "Johnny loves to sing old rebel songs whenever he has some whiskey in him."
"Oh, he sang rebel songs and gospel songs and any other bloody song you could imagine!" Ada snickered. "And he still got himself a woman at the end of the night to go off with him!"
I groaned in disgust. "Ada!"
"What, you can get some, but Johnny can't?"
"Not if I have to hear about it!"
Daisy placed a fresh teapot in front of us and sat on her own seat beside Franny. "I would love to find myself a lovely fella, you know."
I shared a look with Ada. "Well, if you think Johnny sounds lovely –…" I started.
Daisy scrunched her face in disdain. "Not Johnny Dogs! No offense, Willa."
"Oh, none taken. But I could always ask Alfie about the most eligible men left in London," I winked at her.
"And have my father throw a fit?"
"Your father is only protective," Franny said. "He thinks those lads are only looking for one thing –…"
"Yeah, and they rarely find it," Ada interrupted. "Rubbing and pawing at you like you're an old bottle covered in dust and surprised when you can't cu-…"
"Ada!" Franny scolded.
I cleared my throat. "Right, well, we all know how Ada's sex life has been going."
"It hasn't been 'going' anywhere," she huffed. "Stagnant, that's what it is. Men hear the faintest whisper of Shelby and they run."
"Then I have the perfect solution for you, Ada," I grinned. I raised my teacup out to her. "Marry a fucking gangster."
vii
Padding around the bedroom in my slippers, I chatted to Cyril while I folded our clothes and placed them in the wardrobe. He was slumped across his bed, paws stretched, his muzzle pressed into wrinkled folds. I told him all about that afternoon spent with the other women and hummed in appreciation when he yawned and rolled himself onto his side. I smiled fondly at him and moved to close the doors of the wardrobe. I gathered a clinking bag of jars for Alfie and swept downstairs to find him. I had heard him shuffle around the living-room and caught him with a book in his hands, his glasses slipped low on the bridge of his nose.
"Alfie."
"Hm?"
"We're supposed to be putting on your creams and you should be taking your medicine now. I found some cloth that I can warm up so we can put them on your back, too, like –…"
"Oh, God," he moaned. "That does make me sound fuckin' ancient, don' it? Me fuckin' medicine and warm old cloth! What bloke my age 'as to say that, eh?"
I rolled my eyes at him. "The doctor told you –…"
"I know, Willa. Can't we do it later?"
"What, after you fall asleep on the couch, drooling on yourself?"
"Right, well, that certainly reassures me that I ain't an old fuckin' man," he retorted.
"You promised you would put it on tonight."
"Love, why are you so fuckin' insistent on this, eh? The doctor said it weren't nothin' but me nerves."
I stepped around the sofa to stand in front of him. "Because, Alf, it worries me. Whenever it happens to hurt you, I can only –…"
Shattering behind me, the windows of our living-room cracked inward from the force of a brick thrown against them, a brick which thumped against the rug and sat there. Frightened, I had flinched from the sudden sound but turned to look at that brick in confusion. Then came another brick thrown through the window which bounced against the first one and rolled into the corner of the living-room, closer to a bookshelf there. I squinted at it and realised that it was not quite shaped like a brick at all.
Thrown into the hall, I felt him push us toward the kitchen until he grabbed me and forced us against the floorboards. I cried out at the pain which radiated from my arms when he crushed me. Even on the ground, he tried to shuffle us toward that kitchen, and I was not sure of the reason for it until there came a wild burst of sound behind him – an explosion burst from the living-room behind us and ruined my ears. I heard only that screaming whistle in them, but he clamped his hand around my head and pushed my face into the hollow of his throat, held me there with his body curled around me.
Eternity passed; he moved only to look behind himself and I saw those roaring flames, like some breathing creature which licked at the hall and scorched the floorboards just by his boots, searching for us in its hunger. His mouth moved, his hands pulled me like a puppet from the ground and he pushed me back toward the kitchen.
The first thing that I heard other than those crackling flames behind him were faint, howling whimpers. I found strength in my legs and tried to stand, tried to push around him, but he gripped my waist and shoved me back toward the kitchen. I slipped and fell against him, frantic in my need to get around him.
"No – No!" I whispered hoarsely. I could not hear myself speak, but I knew that he could, because Alfie looked down and shook his head. "Cyril is still there – Please, Alfie, I have to get him –…"
"You go out into that fuckin' garden and you wait there, Willa – do not go out the front yet, you understand? They could still be waitin' for us there! Please, Willa – I'm gonna go get 'im, yeah? But I can't go until I know you understand me –…"
"Y-You can't go –…"
"Willa," he roared, "stay out there and wait for us!"
And finally, I nodded. I nodded and I nodded.
He kissed me and I thought that it was the first time he had said goodbye like that since those fuzzy days just before he left for the war.
Like the maestro of an orchestra, he raised his arms and I carefully followed, an instrument plucked to his movements. I unfolded myself from my crouch, straightened out my spine like a resounding chord. Pushed out toward the back door of the kitchen, I fumbled with its latch and fell into the narrow strip of path that we had out there, rarely used and which only held a few plants and a patch of grass. It led to all the other gardens behind us and I saw those houses sitting quietly, undisturbed, while ours flickered and burned.
Soon, I heard the wail of sirens and looked upward at the stars like I might find some help there instead, but I only saw fiery embers fill the clouds and burst in cracks of colour which soon fizzled downward toward me, resting on the dewy grass and dying out with faint sighs.
I tore at my scalp and tried to peel myself open to release the agony and terror which flooded me, bubbled up, spewed over in a scream when another bang rattled through the house. I moved forward to that back door and I wanted to rush into it. I wanted to find Alfie and Cyril in its blazing orange stain. But Alfie had been in France, he had held grenades and guns and he knew about fire. He had breathed it, lived it.
I thought of Alfie in that house, made of embers, cracks of colours, soon fizzled out. He would rest there and die out with a faint sigh. And if he died in there, I would have let myself choke on fumes to be with him anyway.
Because who other than God would know about it?
I bolted for the back door and touched its handle. In my blind fear, I had not thought about the heat behind it and I ripped my hand away with a scream of pain. I kicked at the door with my boot and tried to look into the kitchen, but it was clogged in blackened clouds. I choked on it, reeled back and tried to push forward again, but I saw a silhouette pool from the hall and drop against the floorboards, its arms laden with a whimpering shadow.
"Alfie," I breathed out, but it soon turned to a scream. "Alfie!"
Stumbling out the back door, he dropped Cyril and the dog scarpered with his tail between his legs. Our poor boy was unable to understand the flames and he barked as if that might squash them out. I fell with Alfie and touched his chest, leaned against it and heard his wheezed breaths. His skin was coated in a thick layer of soot and he trembled badly. I tried to rub away that soot with my hands, but they were shaking so much that I smeared it around his sockets and saw that he was awake, aware.
"Stay in the garden," he croaked. "Don't go out front, Willa –…"
I nodded. "I'm here, Alf, it's all right –…"
His eyes rolled up. "Oh, fuck –…"
He turned and vomited into the grass, spewed out a thick and blackened string of drool. He reached under his shirt and tugged at something slipped beneath his vest. He pushed them into my hands and fell back onto the ground, his breathing much more ragged. He pulled a tattered, half-burnt fabric from his waistband and held it in his hands, gripped tightly as if someone might steal it from him. Cyril had stopped his barking and whimpered all the more, spinning himself in circles. I looked down at my hands, blinking stupidly at the papers which he had put there.
Alfie had saved them; the ketubah, the letters that I had written for him during the war, the photograph of us from the fairground – the fabric in his hand was the first shirt that I had ever made him. He had saved them before he had saved himself.
"I'm here, Alf," I rasped. I breathed soot, tasted it, felt that I was made of it. "I'm here, sweetheart. Can you hear me, Alfie? Please, just – if you can hear me –…"
More words lingered in my mouth, words with much more meaning; the smoke muffled them.
