A/N: *IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN SEASON 5 PLEASE DON'T READ THIS NOTE* we are coming to the end of this story and i'm still as stuck on how to end it. season five really knocked me for a loop on my original ending lol many people want a happy ending so im considering that. i don't know alfie's role in season 6, if any. i don't know if he has cancer (the make-up artist on this show supposedly said he did and that's why his skin was so bad but how on earth is he alive?)

so whether im supposed to include cancer or not, i dont know. how could he be alive that many years later. was he lying about it to get to margate? idk. anyway these are questions for me to dwell over as i figure out the best way to close this up. anyway, thanks for all the feedback! :)


twenty-six


So, there it was: another thing never mentioned between us for a short time, the death of a young boy in the black fields while the Gypsies watched from afar, smoking cigarettes and drinking in the pale slip of the lad whose head rocketed back against that bullet shot through his forehead, whose tied hands lifted somewhat as if to catch himself even then, whose thin, lanky body fell into a pit. Caleb moved no more, after that.

I glimpsed that pistol lowered in a flash of silver and skin, tucked into his waistband. He plucked the first clump of dirt from the pile alongside him, then tossed it onto the body – because Caleb was a body, now, no longer a boy. He whispered in Hebrew and those foreign words floated over the sloping hills, swept off someplace else where they could be better understood.

Finally, he looked at me. I saw his shame and I saw his resolve. And I turned away from it.

I turned away from it, because I felt the heaviness of mud and something else caked beneath the soles of my boots, holding me against the earth, forcing me to acknowledge it; to breathe it and know it and be unable to scrub it off with cloth nor brush in that moment. It was there like it always had been, before birth and after birth – it touched me only to remind me that I came from it, was made from it.

I heard his squelching footsteps follow behind, but I was loathe, to look at him. I wanted to be by myself.

I wished we still had our house. It was a space where I could hide myself away from those pearl eyeballs which glittered beyond the fields, from the foxes and the Lees who looked down at us.

Kelly Lee held out his hand for me to take, gently hauling me up the crest of a slope. Not one hand was held out for Alfie, for the Gypsies closed ranks around me, dropping the sizzling butts of their cigarettes onto the slick dirt-road that stretched beneath us like a furious river, its mud having turned black and watery from the downpour. I avoided those dark stares, too mortified that my own husband had not even paused to listen to me, that he had waited until I had turned from him to do it.

"Willa," Alfie called out. His gruff, rasping voice echoed around me.

I stopped in my tracks, looking upward at the clot of silky grey clouds overhead. "Take the other car."

I imagined his fallen shoulders and his wounded ego, especially beneath the eyes of the Lees who looked at him with darkness stitched into their smiles. It was not them who bothered him, but rather the fact that I would not look at him – could not bring myself to look at him. Instead, I was grateful for the Lees, grateful that they fell into step behind me. If it had been Jewish men, his word would have triumphed.

But I was surrounded by kin and he was shuffled off toward some other car. I hardly even checked. I was made of tiredness and sadness and I wished that we still had our fucking house.

I wished for my house while a Jewish mother in London wished for her boy, perhaps peering through curtains onto their street for the slightest glimpse of him out there, his pockets flush from another tip.

But he was in the pit. He moved no more, now.

ii

I only realised that my hands were trembling when Kelly Lee reached out and gripped my wrist, his eyes looking deeply into mine.

iii

At the hotel, I asked for another room. It seemed dramatic, unnecessary. His throat flushed red and lined with veins threading from his tightened jaw. He accepted it, though, and we walked through the halls until I went left, and he stayed where he was. I heard the rustle of his shirt and coat. His boots clocked against one another as he watched me.

I hesitated at end of the hall, where the door was, the door that matched the key held in my palm, and I hoped that he remembered to put on those creams that soothed his aching hip and spine, hoped that he would not forgot to take his glasses off before he fell asleep because he sometimes did that, whenever he read a book and became too invested in it, so much so that he hardly noticed himself drift off.

I was always the one to put on those creams for him and I was always the one to take off his glasses, in the rare moments that he fell asleep before me.

I was tempted to remind him, but I thought of pearl eyeballs and dark smiles. I took the key, opened the door to this new room and closed it behind me. I ran myself a bath, soaked in its steaming ripples for an hour and sank beneath its surface for a couple of seconds before I stepped out and wrapped myself in a towel. I always thought about those baths in the old flat on Bell Road, stood in the hall and hopping from foot to foot in the cold while I waited for another girl to finish. I lay in a bed much too big for me. I missed his warmth and Cyril at my feet, but I was stubborn and moody.

I dreamt of a pit made from dirt.

iv

Pink shades of light pooled on the floorboards. I stared at each line until my eyes bled from it and I thought about something that had been said in the car, the night beforehand, when I had been more than numb and more than tired. It had been said between two bumps on a dirt-road that jolted us around in our seats, made us slop from one side to another and then back again, like ragdolls thrown between the rough hands of children in a playground and I remembered looking at the dead, silver branches of trees around us.

It had been Kelly Lee who had spoken. He said, "The sycamore trees are singing tonight, chey. Pearl eyeballs, those lyrics go."

v

I had been afraid to answer him, afraid to acknowledge him. I had become afraid of many things, lately, afraid of loss and death and that mud caked beneath my boots. I rose from the bed, eyelids blistered in a whitish flash from that blinding light which had soaked the bedroom in the first rush of dawn. I found my boots strewn by the end of the bed, laces pulled open, worn mouth coated in fuzz and strands peeled open from years of use.

Alfie had offered to buy more boots for me. He had offered all the boots in the world, if I wanted them. But I had only ever wanted this old pair, scuffed and marked from all my time running through London streets with the girls.

It had been a long time since they had left me, but I still found myself running, sometimes.

vi

I perched on the edge of the bathtub in a flimsy nightgown hiked around my thighs, balancing one boot between my knees and scrubbing at its bottom with a brush. I loosened with every chunk of dried dirt dropped onto the tiles, found myself lighter with each crusted shred of grass and leaf torn out along with it. Though I had not noticed it, the dirt had eventually fallen away, and I was scratching at the soles of these boots as if it was still there.

There had been a tension laced like string around my bones, all around the vertebrae of my spine, and an unseen hand had tugged at its end poking from my tailbone, gently pulling until it had slipped out and I could straighten more than I could before, stretch out my arms and crack my neck, reveling in each pop. I dropped the boots and smeared my hands over my face, through my hair.

I stood and looked into the mirror; dirt stained my cheeks and temples.

vii

Shrugging on a coat, I left early in the morning, before he might step out from his bedroom. I took to the staircase and into the street with my freshly-cleaned boots smacking against the wet streets. I remembered, only when I took a bite of toast, that Alfie had promised to help Tommy, somehow. Tommy had worked with some Russians in the past few months, though Alfie had not elaborated much on what exactly this whole affair was about. When pushed, the only thing that he had really said was this: "Tom will learn, soon enough."

I found that familiar door in a row of other houses and climbed its steps, slapping my palm flat against it. I bounced around in my boots against the bitter cold that filled the streets in a white fog, blowing through my lips to see if I could still feel them.

Finally, the door opened. And there was Franny with Elijah on her hip, her face pinched in uncertainty.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I'm sorry, too."

"Right," I said. "Well, good."

I felt awkward and unsure of myself in a way that I never usually was, especially not around Fran, who had always been a friend. I nodded at her, turning around with my hands stuffed in my pockets, but then I heard a whine and the rustle of clothing – Elijah kicked his legs and leaned forward from his mother, his hands stretched out toward me, his little face stained in red around his cheeks. I melted like I always did for him, but held still, because Franny hovered there as if she could not quite decide what to do.

"Have you had your breakfast?" she asked.

A small spark of hope bloomed in my chest. "I had some toast."

"Toast," she scoffed. "That's not a proper breakfast. You're wasting away, Willa."

It was not quite so dire as that, but I had definitely shed a few pounds over the last few weeks, so worn from the loss of the house and Alfie's time in the hospital and all that worry about Jack Murphy that I had forgone a few meals.

"Take him, then," she said. "And I'll make you something that will actually fill you."

Gratefully, I held out my arms and let Elijah clamber into them. I had never felt such a rush of love than when he clicked his little boots against me in delight and burrowed into me, babbling idly about his morning and his new toys and I listened intently, smiling so widely that I forgot all about the night before – until Ollie stepped into the kitchen and his eyes met mine and I knew that Alfie had probably called him and told him about Caleb, that he probably knew all about those fields and Murphy buried out there with him.

The kettle whistled and split through the silence. Ollie took the chair on my left, and his son soon scooted off my lap to find toys in the living-room, eager to show me his new figurine of a horse.

"D'you want some tea as well, Ol?" Franny asked.

"Go on, then," he murmured, clearing his throat. "I heard that that business with Murphy is sorted, Willa."

Franny clacked a spoon quite violently against its cup and his eyes flashed toward her, swallowing nervously. She muttered, "Willa can have her breakfast without talking about 'business', can't she, Ollie?"

She dropped a plate in front of me, laden in buttered toast and eggs and beans. I felt obliged to take a bite beneath her heavy stare, stood right behind me. She finally took her own plate and sat on my right. Fran had always been quite bubbly and soft around me. I had rarely seen her very annoyed and especially not angry, so I was uncertain how to handle her. I never liked unfamiliar anger; that is, not knowing how it affected a person, if it made them violent and mean and quick to slap or pinch.

I doubted Franny was like that at all. But Esther had been, and it lingered in me even after all these years.

"Daisy wants the girls to come 'round to the café tomorrow," Franny said.

"That sounds like fun," I smiled weakly.

"Well, I asked her," she replied. "Because I wanted to talk to you all."

Anxiety stitched itself into the lining of my stomach and scrunched it into a tight ball. I imagined, all of a sudden, that Franny wanted to end this friendship and she would gather all the women to inform them of it. It was such a bleak and miserable thought for me that I lowered my toast and left it on my plate, preferring not to eat at all.

"I wanted to tell you first, but the last time that we saw each other – well, it wasn't the best timing."

I glanced at Ollie, who was curiously blank, but his lips twitched. I looked back at Franny, confused.

"I'm pregnant," she said. Almost as a reflex, with an uncomfortable laugh thrown in, she added, "Again."

There was a moment of silence that followed in which she reflected the worried, pained look that I had probably had myself only a few seconds earlier, her eyebrows drawn together, and her mouth knotted, tapping a fingertip against her teacup, half-shifted in her seat to look at me, one leg tucked beneath the other. She had been nervous to tell me after what had happened the last time that we had spoken, when she had pointed out my own childlessness and it had stung so much that I thought the blood and pain of an imagined wound might never slow and I might always feel its wrath each time I recalled her words.

And there it was, that wound which opened; unfurled like a flower, sore and tender and bruised.

So, I smiled at them both and stood to hug them. "Does Alfie know?" I asked Ollie.

"Not yet. I haven't really had the time to tell him," he answered. "Been a little busy. Maybe you should break the news to him."

I nodded and smiled some more, while teacups were refilled and biscuits brought out and Elijah waddled in with his horse and I held him on my lap and my cheeks ached from it, from wishing that he was mine and that this heavy lead in my stomach might just weigh me down enough to drown me at some point, the way that I felt then, and it was all that I had to say thanks and hug them all and slip on my coat again to take off into the streets.

viii

I had already placed flowers on graves and pricked myself on enough thorns while I did it, but somehow, it never seemed to matter, because the punches came stronger than ever and I sat on a bench in a park to take the load from my bones. I peered upward, watching the bluish lines of clouds pull apart and push together again. It had come to me very suddenly, this remorse and regret and guilt.

It had come to me because I dared wonder if the bakery and the money and the promise of two years was worth it – if there was not something more to be found in a small house on a pleasant street, with a weight cocked on my hips and small fists bunched in my blouse and babbling chats made between breakfast. I was sinking low, lower and lower.

I would like some rum, I thought. I would like to float.

I tried to be reasonable, too, and say that all this blueness had come only because we had been through a lot in the last few months – the kind of trauma that would break most people, but here I sat in a park in London and I was not broken, not fully, bar a few cracks in certain places now crudely patched over. I was still there, and I could wipe the onslaught of blubbering tears that stained my cheeks and I could dream of a bathtub in an old flat where I could drink until the world blurred into smudges of blue and streaks of pink.

It was an awful thing to feel so sorry for myself, because that had never been allowed around Esther. She used to hear a sniffle from a girl smothering her sobs and it would ignite some fierce storm within her, shock her limbs into movement and make her smack the girl around, shake her by the shoulders and sometimes rush her into the bathroom and tell her that if she came out before Esther allowed it, she would break her legs and leave her in front of a poor-house someplace.

I had been made to sit in that bathroom many times myself. I had counted its tiles and rubbed circles over my reddened skin with crescents embedded in it from her tight grip.

But that was another never mentioned, not even in my own mind. I tried never to think about it; that was the trick to staying afloat, when rum would not do. Even if I had not even tasted a sip of it, I still felt that bleary film over my eyes, that left my eyelids sticky and hard to pull apart, but that was just from tears that had dried me out, left me hoarse and raspy even if I had not spoken, lips parted, looking dully around myself at this world of green and grey.

I was lucky to have gotten this far at all. There was no reason for moping, no reason for blueness. But it was there all the same.

ix

Slinking back to the hotel, I slept in my own room again. I knew that he was still with Tommy, because he had left Cyril in my room. Almost as if completely disinterested, Cyril lifted his head from my bed and looked at me for a moment before he returned to his sleep, snuggling deeper into my blankets. I spotted some dirt marks on the bedsheets that I was sure would infuriate the manager, but Cyril was so lazy that he rarely bothered to clean his own paws after a stroll around the block. He much preferred his sleep.

I plopped onto the bed beside him, smiling when he blinked at me expectantly, nudging his head back at my arm as if to ask why I hadn't yet rubbed him – what else are you there for, Willa, other than giving me sausages and tummy-rubs?

"Do you miss your old bed, eh?" I asked him. "Do you miss it like I miss mine? Only a house, everyone tells me. But it felt like more. The first real start for Alfie and me after the war. I never lived in a house when I was in Ireland, only ever lived in a flat when I came to England. There was something different about it, not for its structure but what was inside it. And the fact that Alfie had bought it for us. He had already been planning, then."

Cyril snored and I had to smile, knowing that he only heard my murmurs and it had lulled him back into sleep. I lay beside him.

"Franny is having a baby, Cyril," I said, looking at the ceiling. The corner of my eyes dampened and spilled over. "I'm really happy for her, too. I am. And Ollie and Elijah. Elijah would probably like a little brother, I imagine. But he won't want to share his little toys. He loves that horse that Ollie bought him. I think Tommy's son's birthday is coming up soon, too. I'll have to think of what to buy him. I'd like to make it special. Little boys, eh?"

The room ached in its quietness, apart from Cyril snoring. In some horrid moment, I wondered if this is what it would have been like, if Sabini or Murphy had ever managed to kill Alfie; it would just be myself and Cyril in borrowed beds, him fast asleep while I spoke in rambling speeches, desperate to fill that gaping space around us.

x

In the morning, I tapped at his door. He was not there. I knew he was not there because he would have answered within seconds, if he had been. I knew Alfie very well. I took out my own key and opened the door myself. I found our clothes tucked into separate suitcases and I settled on the end of the bed, dragging my hands through my hair, a new habit that weirdly comforted me, scratching my nails along my scalp. I hoped that the suitcases meant that he had finally accepted that Margate was meant to be ours, that the bakery could be left behind.

That we had had enough, now.

I looked around at his books and saw a piece of paper folded, poking from the edge of his Torah. I hesitated, unsure if it was really meant for me, until I saw he had marked it with a scratchy W.

Willa – Tom called. Wants to meet. Will be back by tonight.

Two lines beneath it, as if an afterthought, he added the words: I'm sorry.

xi

I took Cyril for a walk around the park nearby. He had been moody and unwilling to accept that leash. It had taken three sausages to coax him into sitting still long enough that I could find the loop on his collar beneath his rolls. He lolloped at my side, sniffing at every bench and stray newspaper found tumbling along the street. He liked to sit at the worst times – when crossing a street, for example, just as a car rolled toward us, he found the cobbles quite comfortable and dropped right where he was.

I pulled at his leash and pleaded with him, smiling awkwardly at the amused stares of passers-by and waving my hand in apology at the driver of the car, who often leaned from his window to look at Cyril. It was a toss-up whether the driver shouted abuse or laughed at the dog who never wanted to budge no matter how much I tried to make him.

"You're too much like Alfie," I told him. "Stubborn and unwilling to do anything unless he wants to."

I could not help the warmth and fondness which bled through my words when I said it.

xii

Snapping at the loop which attached his leash to his collar, I let him free once we reached my room and he immediately rushed to his bowl, scouting for sausages he had already eaten that morning. Disappointed, he found his favourite spot on the sofa and crashed there, one giant paw drooping from the edge. I smiled at him, dropping his leash on the coffee-table and turning toward the bedroom.

Alfie was already there, still dressed in his coat and familiar black hat, hands clasped over a cane. Its rim obscured his face just a little, since he looked downward at his shoes and scuffed them against the floorboards. I took in his rings, plentiful and glinting on his large hands, a pocket-watch draped from a golden chain against his chest. I saw that ring on his finger, engraved with the letter W. He had never taken it off.

"Met Tommy," he said. He never mentioned how he had gotten in my room without a key, but I knew that there was little point in bringing it up.

I felt as uncertain around him as I had with Franny just a little while before. "How did it go?"

Alfie hesitated, chewing at the flesh of his lower lip for a moment. "Tommy's boy was taken. It's all right, now. Tom got 'im back."

The prickling of fresh worry and relief mixed together trickled around my nape, scuttled along my throat and tightened it. It cut off my words and cut off my thoughts, for all I saw was Grace holding her son, cupping his head with her hand and pressing her lips against his cheek before the maid took him at the wedding, settled him for the night. And I thought of Elijah, too.

Alfie stepped closer, his face blooming in warm yellow from the lamp nearby. It harshened those scaly patches which lined his mouth; they had always clumped around his hairline, but recently I had noticed smaller dots around his nose, near his lips, pulled upward whenever he laughed. Though he had not done much of that, lately.

"I told 'im a long time ago," Alfie said, "that they'd take what they could. Babes an' all."

He never said who 'they' were, but I knew that it was some horrid, monstrous creature made of different parts, the arms of Sabini and the body of Jack Murphy and, for Tommy, all those other enemies from his past, the loud mouth of Kimber and the kicking legs of coppers who liked to stick their boots between our ribs.

"Franny is pregnant," I told him. "I met her and Ollie earlier. Saw Elijah, too."

He nodded, seeming distracted. "Good. I'll – I'll send 'round some flowers and gifts for Fran. If she don't rip 'em all up and push 'em back through the letter-box, mind."

"She'll come 'round," I said. "She'll forgive you."

"I'm lookin' for forgiveness from a lot o' people lately," he murmured. "You, Fran, Ollie."

"Ollie didn't seem very upset with you –…"

"I blamed him first," Alfie said suddenly.

I stared at him. "Blamed him for –…For what Caleb did?"

"I was bein' stupid. Paranoid. In the bakery – when you were off with Franny – I were fumin' and stewin' over it, that someone would cross me like that. And Ollie were there, weren't 'e? Tryin' to 'elp, to reassure me, and I turned 'round and asked if it weren't 'im what chatted to Jack, y'know. Never even meant it. Just said it."

"Did Fran know? Is that another reason she was so mad?"

Alfie shrugged. "I assume Ollie told 'er, yeah. I reckon 'e did. But I talked to 'im last night. I wanted to – to apologise. Make it right. 'Cause Ollie is just about the only man on this earth what ain't turned 'round and tried to stab me in me back. Every other man looks at me with envy, y'know. Wants what I got – money and a bit o' respect 'round these parts. But not Ollie – only ever looked at me like – well, like a friend, I suppose."

I saw how it hurt him, his own remorse and regret and guilt. It weighed him down, let him sink right in front of me.

"You can talk to him," I said gently. "He'll understand. Ollie is a good man, he has a good heart. He'll know that you never meant it."

Alfie nodded again. "Yeah. Yeah. I'll talk to 'im. In person, mind." He drew in a sharp breath and clapped his hands together. "Right, well. Get your kit on proper, darlin', I want to take you out."

Surprised by the shift in conversation, I asked, "Where?"

"Out."

"I'm not in the mood for dinner or a night out, Alf."

"Are you gonna come with me or not?"

I sucked in my cheeks and then blew them out. "Fine. All right. Why are you doing this now, Alfie? Isn't there something more important to do than go out?"

"I'm doin' it," he said. "That important thing. I'm doin' it now."

xiii

Sitting on the street was a van that was usually used in the bakery. It only held two people anyway, and I was surprised that he drove – but Caleb was gone, and I was not sure that Alfie was in the right mindset to hire another driver so quickly. Still, it was amusing to watch him take the wheel and glance over at me. Cyril sat in the back, once again bothered that his sleep had been interrupted.

"What's that grin on your mug for, eh?"

I snorted, looking away from him. "Nothing, nothing."

"Yeah, nothin'," he snarked, smiling himself. "Perfectly good driver, me."

The car lurched forward, smacking us back against the seats. He pursed his lips. I opened my mouth, but he uttered, "Not a word, Willa."

"All right."

"I mean it."

"All right."

He heard me snicker and cursed beneath his breath before he pulled away form the curb, taking the first street on our right.

xiv

There was a row of houses on Primrose Avenue that looked a little like our old place. I suppose that was the hint that told me he had bought another house. I had tried to muster some excitement, but it was not quite the same, despite all its beige paint and golden trimmings. I let him help me from the car, because Alfie always insisted on that, even though it took him a while to hop from his side, grumbling as he often did.

I followed him into the garden, which was much longer in length than our old one had been and finished with three large steps leading up to the front door. I closed the gate behind us and let Cyril run around the garden, sniffing at its shrubbery and immediately lifting his back leg.

Trailing after him once he opened the front door, I said, "It's very nice, Alf."

"But it ain't like our old one," he said. I was surprised that he had been so blunt about it, that he had not tried to dance around the matter with his usual theatrics. "It'll do us, for now. We'll make it enough for us, won't we?"

I smiled at him, but it dropped quickly. I wanted to talk about Caleb and Murphy and all the things that had happened, but Alfie turned and went toward the kitchen. The floorboards were very pale, almost bleached, and the whole house seemed too clean, purified almost. The kitchen was skeletal, with a couple of cupboards and blank spots in between, only two chairs and a round-table coated in dust. He sat on one chair, taking off his round hat and placing it on the table.

One thickened patch of red, scaly skin cracked and bled behind his ear. He didn't seem to notice it.

"I sent fellas out to that field," he said. "I got 'em to take Caleb's body back out. Bring it to London and 'ave it buried proper."

I took the other chair across from him, watching him. "Why?"

"When me Mum first came to England, she 'ad trouble orderin' at shops, barely understood what them shop-keepers were sayin' to 'er in these thick accents, talkin' too fast for 'er. Caleb's got an aunt what saw me Mum in trouble, one day. Saw that it weren't easy for 'er. And Caleb's aunt, Margaret, she 'elped 'er 'round, got 'er sorted with shoppin' and 'elped me Mum out all sorts o' ways."

It was not that Alfie had never spoken about his mother. He mentioned her, usually in moments of great sadness or reflection on his part. He found it hard; his throat tightened, and it meant that all his words came out coated in that thick gravel tone that I liked.

"She got to understand them accents through Caleb's fam'ly. Saw she was Jewish 'erself and took 'er to meet the other Jewish women they was friends with – and that was why I thought 'bout encouragin' ya to go meet Franny and 'er friends. Thought it might 'elp you – make you feel part o' my faith without forcin' you into nothin', let you find friends that could make it easier bein' round me business. Anyway," he breathed out. "Caleb's Mum, Rosemary – she were always good to me, y'know. Always offered me biscuits and tea and all owt, even before she 'ad 'er own kids."

I swallowed thickly. His hands were on the table, his eyes lost in a distant haze. I reached for him, even though it meant grinding the edge of the table against my chest quite uncomfortably, but it was worth it for how his eyes finally focused and he looked at me properly.

"Don't sound like much, to most people," he continued gently. "But after I started workin' for Butcher, there weren't too many people what looked on me fondly. Thought I were some thug or somethin', when I only wanted to make money."

"Caleb wanted that too, Alf," I said. I spoke quietly, still wounded. "And I wished you had only listened to me."

"I know, love. I know what 'e wanted. And I did listen to you, too. I 'eard everythin' you said. But I were thinkin' o' the future, darlin'. I always want to give you what you want, y'know. Prob'ly me biggest weakness, that." He paused, smiling fondly at me and my cheeks turned pink and tingly. "But I were also thinkin' 'bout 'is mother."

"I don't understand."

"If I had let 'im off with it, Willa, it would 'ave looked bad for me business. Would 'ave made me look weak, yeah? Like I can't take care o' spies in me own bakery. Like I don't 'ave the spine for it. But I weren't even thinkin' 'bout that, not at first. Nah. I were thinkin' 'bout 'is mother. I coulda told the whole o' fuckin' London what that boy did, told 'em that I put 'im in a grave and made some example out o' 'im. And what good would it 'ave done 'er, eh?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, still pressing the pad of my thumb against my lips.

"Word would get 'round. People talk, don't they? 'Specially 'round these parts. They would ostracise 'er and she'd be standin' 'round them markets like me Mum did. Only Caleb's Mum can understand their accents, she can understand their language just fine, no need for learnin' there. She'd understand all them nasty comments and looks, too. They would treat 'er with all the spite and 'atred that they couldn't put on Caleb if I let 'im run outta London or told everyone what 'e really did."

He sighed, pulling away and brushing his hands over his face like in the mornings, when he stood before the sink, splashing water over his skin and chest to rid himself of sleep. I often watched him when he did it. I was not sure why, but I did. I liked to watch him do those little mundane things between those other great spectacles made for enemies and appearances and everything else aside.

"I can't leave the boy there, in them fields. She'll want to see 'im and 'old 'im. Got a lot o' traditions to follow," he finished tiredly. "So, I'm sorry for what I did. But I ain't sorry for lettin' 'er believe 'er son died doin' somethin' good. She 'as the right to bury 'er son – the right to say goodbye to 'im."

I wanted to hold him more. I wanted to make things better, in some infantile hope that had settled in me.

"I gotta stand at that funeral and lie to 'is mother. But it ain't all a lie. Caleb weren't a bad lad, not like they would say 'e was, if they knew what 'e did."

I stood from my chair and swept around the table, brushing my thumbs over his cheeks. There it was again, that looming 'they' – made of these shadowy figures who hovered somewhere behind us. I hugged him, curling my arms around his head and holding him against my chest.

"I'll be with you, Alf. I'll stay with you the whole time, sweetheart."

When I pulled away from him, I saw that the blood from behind his ear had stained my hand.

xv

There was a Jewish tradition of bathing the body. I was not sure just who did it, or how it worked beyond that, but I worried about that minute, blackened dot that must have made a crater in Caleb's forehead. The casket was made of a rich mahogany wood, surrounded in lavish flowers. His mother, Rosemary, walked behind it, watched it lowered into the ground. She stared at it, unseeing. I thought that Caleb looked very much like her, and I had to turn away from her. I turned away from a lot of things and it made me feel shameful.

But I felt his hand in mine and I knew that he needed more strength, so I squeezed him tight and leaned my head against his shoulder.

xvi

The Jewish women who attended the funeral kissed his cheeks and hands, spoke to him in soft, lilting whispers and patted his arm. Most of them had known him when he was a little boy, and I suppose that had never changed for them, thanking him for his kindness. He had paid for it all. He had paid for the funeral itself and he had paid for the family to have a small gathering at their house and he turned up for it, shaking hands with other men. He kissed Caleb's mother on her cheek and leaned close when she whispered in his ear.

He pulled away from her and nodded. Then, he turned – like I had turned, but he moved quickly between the crowds and went toward the back of this small house where little trays of food had been placed on a table and he almost banged into Caleb's youngest sister, Alma, who looked over him with a coldness in her eyes. Caleb had wanted to take her from this city.

And I wondered what she knew, for her eyes to be so full of spite like that.

Alfie pushed around her, out toward their garden. He went further still, opening its small, wooden gate that led into a back-alley. The houses had been built narrow and tall, slumping against one another so tightly that it seemed as if the entire row was just one long house in itself, with all rooms connected, rather than individual homes.

"Alfie?" I called out.

He had made it to the end of the alley, leaning against a brick wall, his skin pale and flush. "Leave me be, Willa."

I had heard that once before, when he had sealed himself in the kitchen and blocked me out. But he could not do that here.

"You did the right thing."

"Did I?" he laughed bitterly. "'Cause I thought I did, too. But when 'is Mum were talkin' to me – lookin' me in the eye, like I were – fuck, what does it even matter, eh?" He breathed out, smacking his head against the wall. He turned his head to look at me. "You know, Willa – I want Margate, too."

"I know you want it."

"I do," he insisted. "You doubt me, but I really fuckin' do. When I saw Tom – I knew it. I made a deal with 'im and I was gonna surprise you with it."

"With what?"

"A Fabergé egg. I was gonna work it out so that I could get one off Tom and give it to ya. But it weren't goin' right for us. Some other things…got in the way, I suppose."

I stared at him, completely lost. "Why would I want an egg?"

Alfie blinked. "You what?"

"I said, why would I want an egg? I don't even really like eggs, you know that. I only ate them at Franny's because I thought she would only become angrier if I didn't."

Alfie's eyebrows knitted together, then smoothed out when he burst into laughter, bent double. "Willa, they ain't proper fuckin' eggs – they're worth thousands, jewelled and done up and – well, most women on this earth would die for one o' them eggs –…"

Rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms, a little embarrassed. "If I can't wear it, then I don't see the point of it."

Alfie had a goofy smile still plastered on his face. He looked up at the arch overhead. "That's the first fuckin' laugh I've 'ad in ages, y'know. Feels very fuckin' good, it does."

I dragged my boots against the ground as I walked toward him. "We should be able to laugh, Alf. Laugh and not fight over territory and stupid eggs, however much they're worth."

He chuckled. He looked at me, and his smile slowly dripped away. "You're right about Margate, love. I know it. It's the only way out for us. I want it. Never to be drawn into this squabblin' and fightin' with fellas what take everythin' ever again. Tommy should understand that, now."

"Tommy needs fights like that," I replied. "He needs war. Otherwise he thinks too much."

Alfie hummed. "Yeah. I thought I did, too. But lately I been lookin' 'round me-self, and I've been seein' resentment in the eyes of me loved-ones. I saw it in Ollie, after I said all them 'orrible things. I saw it in Franny, too. I see it in you, Willa."

I felt exposed and it made me shrivel away from him, hugging myself tightly. "I don't resent you."

"Not yet. Not fully. But it's there, innit? It's startin'. It's growin'. I know it." He smiled again, but there was no humour in it, this time. "And it ain't no one's fault but mine, if you do all end up resentin' me. So, I'm doin' what I can to stop that 'appenin'. Can you trust me, love?"

"I've always trusted you."

His chest rose. "Yeah. You 'ave."

I reached for him, taking his hand and pulling him from the wall.

"Y'know, Willa," he said, "most wives ask to move to Paris or Berlin, all them big places out there. I could 'ave taken you to them cities. But you ask for fuckin' Margate."

I laughed. "What can I say? I really like the fish and chips there."


xvii

A couple of months later, I fixed his collar and smoothed out the lapels of his coat. He tilted back his hat and I pushed aside strands of hair there, making sure he looked as handsome as he really was. I straightened out my own skirts, checking that I had sorted the fuzzing laces on my boots before I pushed him into place, giggling at his typical, gruff moaning and groaning. I put him right in front of the large sheet that hung behind us.

"Fuckin' ridiculous, all this preparation for what will only take too fuckin' seconds."

"Please, Alfie?"

He glanced down at me. "All right. I'll do it proper."

Grinning, I kissed his cheek and smiled at how he pretended to wave it off, feigning annoyance in front of the photographer who waited for us. Finally, Alfie straightened out his own hat and posed with more effort, letting me loop my arm with his before we faced the photographer. His expression was more stern: I ain't gonna let some prick see me smilin' like a little-fuckin'-girl in these fuckin' photographs, Willa.

I stood beside him, fully turned toward that camera with a small, bright smile. I had a photograph taken of each of us, alone. Separated. I had more taken of us together, his face still stern and mine still lifted in a smile.

It was not quite like it had been at the fairground all those years beforehand, when we had been kids and the world had not seemed so vicious, because that had been before the war had come; before the world had its war and before we had had our own in London. Before I had known true blueness, before I had bled the way that I did now. But I still loved him as much I had then.

And I was thirty-one or something more, now.

I told myself that there was no resentment in my eyes, not like he had described it in the alleyway. He had stomped it out. It would not be there, in our photographs, if I smiled hard enough. If I loved enough, if I left that blueness behind. And it was easier, then, to smile, because I only had to say to myself: two more years.

The flash was blinding and clouded my sight for just a moment before colour drained back into me.