.

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V

FACING THE VOID

Grace's silhouette appeared from behind the smoke emanating from the ashtray. Tommy blinked a few times, confused.

"You miss her, don't you?" The ghostly voice seemed as sweet as ever. Dizzy and perplexed, Tommy nodded. "Olivia loved you. She still loves you."

"What about you, Grace?" He had to ask, and squeezed the small bottle of laudanum in his right hand. "Do you still love me?"

Grace smiled but didn't utter a word and that silence hurt him as much as a stab in the chest. He coughed when he realized he was drowning in imaginary blood.

"Remember, you can still meet her," Grace said, circling his desk until she was finally at his side and stroked his shoulder fondly. It was a hallucination, he knew, but it felt very real. The voice and the touch were there. "Whenever you want, you can jump the bridge. You can pull the trigger. You can… "Grace took the hand with which he held the laudanum, "drink whatever it takes to sleep forever. You'll sleep, Tommy," the ghost said. "You will sleep well as when you slept with me or Olivia".

"Please, Disappear" , he begged Grace in his mind.

He closed his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. The desperation to get rid of that torment was such that he broke the laudanum bottle into a thousand pieces and the crystalline liquid, mixed with the blood of his wounds, spilled onto Olivia's diary, blurring part of her writing. Between curses, he pushed the notebook away and pushed his chair away from the desk, looked at his palm and saw how small pieces of glass had embedded themselves under his skin.

"You're injured!"

The exclamation surprised him. Grace was gone but now, in front of him, was Olivia. It was the first time since her death that he hallucinated with Olivia. She wore the pearl-colored dress he had given her, the patent leather shoes, and a bullet hole in her forehead. He did not know why she dressed like that and why he imagined her with the wound that took her life away. He had never seen her corpse.

"Who did this to you? Who?" Olivia wanted to know. She was shocked and was repeating a dialogue that Tommy knew very well. "I'll call the police!"

"Don't call the police," Tommy replied. That same phrase had been said to her a couple of months ago, when she was still alive.

"What...?! Why?!"

"The police can't find out about this. And you know why." Tommy said.

Olivia lost all traces of expression on her face and remained serious. That made him somewhat amused because, the time she had found him wounded in his office, she had been far from indifferent and had continued to insist on calling the police. Her reaction, so opposite to the one she'd had in real life, was further proof that his hallucinations were nothing but bullshit.

"I ruined your diary, Ollie," he suddenly confesed. "Although the entry is still readable. What do you say? Do I start reading it?"

"You never asked my permission for anything, and now you're asking my permission to read my diary?" Olivia crossed her arms and looked certainly annoyed.

"I do it because you're dead and you won't be able to slap me," Tommy attacked intelligently. "Your slaps were dangerous. More dangerous than Polly's."

"When you die, I'll make sure to greet you with a slap" the hallucination attacked.

"And where will you receive me?" Tommy asked. "In Heaven or Hell?"

"You know very well where, Tom. In Hell."

...

April 13, 1931.

After shirking responsibility for several days, this morning I had to tell Ada that today I was starting to work as her brother's secretary. Needless to say, she did not like the news. At first, it seemed like a bad joke and she frowned at me as she put jam on her toast; When she realized I was serious, she huffed in disappointment and dropped the toast on the plate.

"Olivia, I told you ..."

"I know what you told to me," I interrupted, annoyed. Ada often forgot she was not my mother. "He is married and an asshole. I have checked both things," I said, holding back the surprise my own words caused me, "but I need money, Ada. Even more since the magazine has been canceled".

Bringing up the subject of the magazine was not a good idea. Ada stood up in fury, leaving me, Karl, Beth, and their nanny, surprised. I stood up also and followed her into the kitchen.

"I'm not going to sleep with him," I whispered once we were both alone. I didn't want the nanny to hear us.

"Are you sure?" Ada teased me "Every woman who gets my brother's attetion, ends up, sooner or later, in his bed. Without exception. It doesn't matter if they are spies of the Crown, millionaire widows, communists, aristocrats ... why do you think that with you it would be different?"

Her words hurt me, but they were necessary. For an instant, I felt like a teenager who discovers that the boy she likes has a questionable reputation in matters of the heart. It was not that I hadn't imagined or supposed it, due to the man who Thomas Shleby was, but her sister confirmed that to me, adding truth to what until then had only been a theory.

"I would say: why wouldn't it be different with me?" I questioned after a few seconds. "Your brother is married and knows that I am your friend. He wouldn't take the risk..."

"God, you have no fucking idea who Thomas Shelby is." Ada didn't let me finish. The language she used when she was angry was intimidating.

"So tell me who he is," I shrugged and waited anxiously for an affirmative answer. "Maybe that way you can convince me to stay away from him."

"You don't understand." My friend stroked her forehead in defeat. "I don't have to convince you of anything, you're an adult and independent woman. I'd hate to limit you in your decisions and you know it. I don't want you to think I do it because you owe me something." She sighed. "Just be careful. Tommy has had a thousand lovers but I have only seen him in love twice; every other woman received from him a broken heart."

I would be lying if I said that my desire to work with him did not falter at the time. Ada knew me and knew what I was beginning to feel but I couldn't say for sure if the same thing was happening to Thomas. His reactions had seemed too sincere for his interest to be limited to sleeping with me a few times and then rejecting me, but I couldn't rule out that possibility, either.

"The blonde woman and Lizzie, right?" I asked. I was genuinely curious about Shelby's lovers.

"Lizzie?" My friend was puzzled. "No, of course not. Tommy loved an Italian girl, when he was very young, and Grace, who was his first wife."

Grace. That was the blonde woman's name.

"What happened to Grace?"

"She died," Ada said simply, and was suddenly in a rush to return to the dining room.

"Of sickness?" I insisted and followed Ada in her footsteps when she left the kitchen.

"No," realizing I was following her, Ada stopped and turned to face me. She was sick of my questions. "She got killed" Ada blurted out and a shiver ran through my body. "At what time must you be at Tom's office? You need to know he doesn't like lateness. If you want him to like you, the best thing will be that ...

"Ada, what you are saying hurts me." Although my friend had told me that she would not try to limit my freedom, it seemed that she was trying to do it through her words. "If I wantyour brother to like me, it is because I consider that everything is easier if a boss likes you."

"Why are you fooling yourself, Olivia?" Ada looked disappointed "You can fool whoever you want, but you cannot fool yourself, nor can you fool me. We are talking about my brother and my best friend. I know them both and I know you're falling in love with him" Ada continued when seeing I was not able to refute such truth. "The only thing I'm going to ask you, I already told you: be careful".

The discussion I had had with Ada made me remain absorbed in my thoughts the whole time I was on the tram. When I got to my stop and had to walk, I did it with a light step, holding back my tears. I hated arguing with Ada, and even more so when I knew she was right and, beyond how hurtful it could be, she was only trying to protect me from an impending catastrophe. She had already seen me in love, just as she had also seen me suffer for love; It was to be expected that she would want to avoid martyrdom if the possible cause of it happened to be her brother.

Finally, I arrived at Thomas Shelby's offices. The reception was still as empty and pristine as the last time I was there, and the silence and neatness of the secretariat gave me a cold and unaffected welcome.

Apparently, Thomas heard me arrive, since within seconds, he opened the door of his office.

"Good morning, Miss Westerling," he greeted me. He had her glasses on and a book in his hand. I couldn't help but notice the title: it was Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.

"Good Morning. I'm sorry I was a few minutes late. The tram was..."

"I have no idea what time it is." Thomas wouldn't let me finish speaking and shrugged. "The important thing is that it is already here. Do you like your work area?"

I turned my eyes to the modest light wood desk. On top of it sat a typewriter and nothing else. The chair was just as sad and the walls were a raw color similar to that found in hospitals. For my taste, it was too empty and tidy, and lacked personality.

"It has everything I need," I said, trying not to sound ungrateful. "Although I am used to working through the mess, I will get used to it. They are artist hobbies whims, "I smiled.

"Adapt the place to fit you best," Thomas said, not giving importance to my discomfort. "You can start working whenever you like. Whatever you need, knock on the door," he said, and went back into his office.

Puzzled by the attitude of my new boss, I approached what would now be "my" desk and sat in "my" chair. Everything was so unknown to me, and I am not saying this simply because I was in a new place, on my first day at job, but because I felt that I did not belong there. I stroked the keys of the typewriter, expecting to find a significant layer of dust, but found them as clean as the rest of the reception.

"And now what?", I remember thinking.

With some embarrassment, I went to the door and knocked. Thomas Shelby had left me alone just five minutes ago.

"Come in" his voice told me from inside. Opening the door, I saw him sitting in his chair, leaning back, reading his book with a cigarette in his hand "What's it, Miss Westerling?"

"Excuse me but ... what I'm supposed to do?" I was embarrased of asking that question.

"The work secretaries usually do," Thomas said. For a moment, it felt like my question had annoyed him.

"I know, but for that you have to give me tasks to do," I said quickly. I didn't want to sound stupid. "What do you need me to do, Mr. Shelby?"

He stared at me for a couple of seconds, as if thousands of responses had occurred to him but he didn't put any words to them. Then he sighed and closed the book, and I trembled.

"Come in," he said, taking off his glasses, "and take a seat."

As a child who is called by a severe mother, I went to the same chair that I had occupied last week with my notebook of poems in hand, and sat down. I was surprised to notice that I was stiff again with the difference that now I had no idea what I was exposing myself to. Last week, I knew I was going to give Thomas Shelby some poems; At that time, my only certainty was he was going to fire me.

"Olivia," he said suddenly, "Can I call you Olivia? 'Miss Westerling' seems very long to me". I just nodded my head and prayed that my blushing wasn't so noticeable. My name sounded very good with his deep voice.

"Okay." Thomas cleared his throat and put the smoking cigarette in the ashtray. "As my sister's best friend and now my secretary, you'll understand that I've been forced to do a little inquiring."

I did not like that. I did not like the word "inquiring" because it involved searching, looking for something that someone try to keep hidden, and I had nothing to hide. I was sure that Thomas Shelby had many mysteries, which I did not know, but the fact he was a man with interests he was trying to hide, it did not mean that I was in the same position.

I saw him take from his desk a folder similar to the ones that the police use for criminal files and, noticing that it was very close at hand, I was aware that Thomas had been preparing that moment.

"Olivia Francine Westerling, born in London on January 2, 1900," he read aloud. "One day prior, and you were a girl of the new century" said sarcastically and I felt the anger grow inside me.

"Why is this, Mr. Shelby?" I wanted to know, clenching my fists under the desk.

"You can call me Thomas."

"I won't," I said curtly and frowned. "You are my boss and now, from what I see, a detective, too. How did you access to my birth certificate?"

"You had two older brothers, they both died in France." Thomas ignored me and continued reading that damn folder that apparently detailed my whole life. "My brothers and I were also in France. Has Ada ever mentioned this to you?"

"You may be surprised but Ada and I don't talk about you," I lied, and my discomfort worsened when I remembered the discussion with my friend. "Where do you want to go with all this?" I wanted to know.

I am a normal woman and I plan to continue being so. It is true that my life had been shaken by a couple of misfortunes but that was something that had happened to almost everyone during the war.

"You were engaged," Thomas Shelby suddenly said, and the shock of the memory made me look down "...twice."

"We have all failed in love," was all I could say. "Please, I'm going to ask you to stop reading, "I begged, knowing what was coming.

"With the same man" he finally added.

I looked to his eyes and found them fixed on me with something akin to compassion. That only increased my anger.

"Is it wrong to trust love, Mr. Shelby?" I asked through clenched teeth. I didn't allow him to respond: fury was crying out for me to ask a certain question: "Wouldn't you marry Grace twice if you could?"

For the first time since I met him at that not-so-distant gala dinner, I saw him deeply upset. He was a man who was used to taking charge of the business, the kind of guy who eats the world and never shows his cards, but in that moment, I witnessed how I beat him in his own game. And I felt firsthand how much Thomas Shelby hated to lose.

"How the fuck do you know her name?" He asked, almost in a whisper. His eyes had lost all trace of pity and had turned into two blue daggers.

"Do you think that you are the only one who has the right to do some 'inquiring'?"

I was scared and as I write this, I am scared again. At that moment I think I could hide my fear quite well, because my voice did not tremble and the rage that still had inside me made me stay unconscious enough to not run away from there.

"Ada told you," he said more to himself than to me.

"Now may I ask what is the reason you decided to rummage in my life?" More than curiousity, I had an immense need to divert the conversation to a place where Grace Shelby was not.

"For the same reason that you decided to rummage in mine," he attacked and stood up, putting the cigarette back on his lips. "I'm a man who goes directly to the point but you seem to be one of those kinds of women who like to beat around the bush a lot".

"I don't understand." I also stood up, so I was at his height.

"You don't understand?" He questioned almost mocking me and leaned against the desk. "Are you going to tell me that you aren't looking to fuck with me?"

The slap was so loud that it crossed the width of the desk to his face and blew the cigarette out of his mouth. Thomas stood still for a second, his face turned, trying to assimilate what had happened. Me, in the other hand, took a couple of steps back, realizing that I had slapped a dangerous man.

I almost ran out of the office but he didn't stop me, although I could hear him trying to tell me something. When I left the building, I realized that I had left my hat and purse in the office, but I was not going back there. There was no way I was going back there. More than terrified, I was disappointed, and felt so stupid to discover myself believing that there was a possibility that a man like Thomas Shelby would have liked my poems.

It was enough to speak to him for a couple of seconds to realize that he was not a man adept at poetry. He himself had told me that on the balcony. 'Why do you think that with you it would be different?' Ada had questioned and she was right: Thomas had tried to verify what Lord Pennington had put into words. He wanted to know if I was a cabaret girl, find out if I was as daring in bed as I was with the pen in my poems.

I hated myself. As I walked down the empty sidewalks of Small Heath, I hated myself so much.

...

The entry ended there abruptly, and Tommy knew that Olivia had cried while writing it. The disgust he felt towards himself led him to close the diary with something similar to shame.

"I never imagined I'd have hurt you so much," Tommy said to Olivia in front of him. The hallucination was different now: she was wearing the same clothes she had worn that April thirteenth and she no longer had a head wound. "I was a jerk".

"You were," Olivia agreed. She looked sad.

"I always liked your poems. I never lied to you about them and you know it " he tried to explain.

Olivia said nothing. She stood there, nervous as the first day of job and unable to keep his gaze. Tommy rubbed his eyes; they felt dry.

"Did you ever understand that I made those inquiries because I wanted to know everything about you? Because I needed to make sure I wasn't falling in love with a traitor... once again?"

Tommy turned his attention back to where Olivia was and found that she was already gone. He was alone again in his study, the cigarettes consumed in his ashtray, the empty bottle and the only company of the remorse. He looked at the palm of his right hand and remembered how much it hurt.

Tommy sighed. He was exhausted and she had left him once more.

A/N: Thank you for reading and I'm sorry I took so long to update!

I'm having a little trouble translating the story since there are phrases and words in spanish that don't have an english translation, so I'm getting frustrated. I hope the translation's okay, though.

I have noticed that there are people from spanish-speaking countries who read my story. If you are interested, the story is published in Spanish on wattpad (with the same title), so you don't have to read it in English.

:)