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XIX
BRICK HOUSE

As I unlocked the door to Thomas' office, I never imagined who I would find in my secretariat, sitting at my desk, drinking a cup of tea she had made herself.

I would have expected Lizzie, with her killer instinct on and ready to attack me; I would have expected Ada, pissed off and aware of what had happened in the office, but I found Polly Gray. She brought her black eyes to me and analyzed me from head to toe, noticing every detail that loudly confessed what her nephew and I had been doing, although she decided not to say anything at all.

Thomas's gasps and groans had been too loud and for a moment, I had the urge to ask Polly how long she had been there but I held back. After all, there was no need to inquire: the steaming tea and the neat, stocked tray on my desk suggested that she had been hanging around my secretariat for quite a while.

"Good morning, Elizabeth", I greeted her but she didn't answer me. "If you need to talk to Thomas, you can come in. He's unoccupied".

"No, my dear. I didn't come to talk to my nephew. I came to talk to you", Polly blurted out and I couldn't help but be surprised. "If I wanted to talk to Thomas, I would just walk into his office and, although I tried to do so when I saw that you weren't here, I noticed that he was busy with something", she added, using sarcasm.

I decided to ignore the attack and, in agitation, I sat down opposite her. Trying not to disturb her tray of tea and biscuits, I set up the typewriter and prepared to pretend I was working.

"What did you want to tell me?" I asked, realizing that Polly wasn't going to speak if I didn't goad her on. She kept looking at me like the dialogue was a silent conversation with my face.

Suddenly Polly took the kettle and poured another cup. Placing it in front of me, I saw her force a smile and in the thick blackness of the hot drink, I watched the tea grounds float.

"We have to talk about what happened the other day at my nephew's house", Polly finally said.

"There's nothing to talk about", I hastened to say. At the time, I was sure where she wanted to lead the conversation and now I see how stupid I was. "I fully understand the resolution you made regarding Gina", I tried to show integrity, although I still hadn't fully assumed what I had witnessed at the Shelby family meeting.

"You're wrong, Olivia. No one is going to talk about Gina because that's a settled issue and no one, except for Thomas, cares about your opinion on it". Polly grabbed a biscuit and bit it. She simulated calm but in her gestures I noticed that she was tense. "I want you to understand why I know you weren't the one who tried to kill Tom".

"I thought my explanation had been enough". I looked back at the tea in the cup. It seemed so charged that I could almost feel the metallic taste on my tongue.

"No, it wasn't enough. For the Shelbys, the words of an intruder are never enough", Polly continued. "And, if it's any consolation, let me tell you that even Grace wasn't very accepted in this family".

To be honest, that surprised me. Until then, I believed that Grace had been the most adored member of the Shelbys, the most benevolent woman, the most faithful follower in Thomas's cause. I knew nothing about her past or the bond she had had with the Peaky Blinders, except that she had been murdered, I believed, because of the intrinsic danger that came from being the wife of a mob leader. I still hadn't gotten the courage to ask Thomas about her, and I didn't want Ada to be the one who tell me, since I knew that her words would be accompanied by a warning.

"Aren't you going to drink your tea?", Polly asked with narrowed eyes. My silence and stillness seemed to make her nervous.

"I'm not thirsty".

"Drink it", she demanded and before I could protest, she drastically changed the subject. "I know it wasn't you, basically, because I was attacked by a beast too".

I frowned and was silent for a couple of seconds, analyzing her words. Polly looked at me, as if she expected to see something in me that would let her know that I understood what she was referring to.

"I don't understand", I finally managed to say.

"I was attacked by a man too, Olivia". The simple fact of having to explain herself seemed to annoy her and, when I heard that, I raised my eyebrows. "Yes, be surprised. And be even more surprised knowing that I wasn't as lucky as you. Nobody saved me. I couldn't even save myself".

I heard her voice break for a moment and, being aware of it, she forced herself, once again, to seem firm. I, for my part, did not bother to hide my bewilderment. I have already written several times about the impression Elizabeth Gray makes on me, about how strong she seems to me and how I envy, in a certain way, her personality and maturity. I was extremely surprised to learn that she had been raped and I was truly saddened by the fact that she could only give in. I understood then, that even the strongest women succumb in character when a monster comes upon them and they are paralyzed in terror.

"I'm so sorry", that was the only thing I could think of saying.

The laughter altered me and then, I saw her laughing in front of me, with the cup of tea in her hand and her eyes flooded with tears.

"Of course you are", Polly said. There was no irony or sarcasm in her voice. "I also was sorry for you when, while you defended yourself from us at the family meeting, your face puckered with sadness and disgust showed me how much what happened hurt you".

"I don't think I'll ever get over it", I found myself confessing and almost desperately drank some tea.

"You'll never get over it", Polly agreed. "You'll live with it until the day you die. One day, you'll be so happy that you'll be convinced you have forgotten it but that same night you'll wake up terrified in your bed, feeling his dirty hands on your skin in such a real way that it'll seem that he is there, next to you".

We both sipped our tea, surrounded by the chilly, funereal silence, and the moment she reached for another biscuit, an impulse caused me to grab her hand. Polly was surprised, and so was I. At first, she looked at me strangely and with distrust but she did not take long to respond by grabbing my hand too and it was then that she allowed herself to cry.

"You can't possibly be Mosley's ally", Polly released my hand and wiped her tears in shame as if out of nowhere she was uncomfortable crying in front of me. "I wanted Michael to understand".

"Michael doesn't need to understand anything", I tried to lift a weight off her. "It was obvious he was going to defend his wife".

"Michael doesn't defend his wife, Olivia". Again, Polly managed to make me feel confused. "Michael defends himself and his interests which he, by chance, shares with Gina. She's his only ally against Thomas and the rest of the family, and he doesn't want to lose her because he would find himself alone".

"I think he's in love". For some reason, I really believed Michael was.

"My son doesn't know what love is", Polly snapped. "What he feels for Gina is such a lust that he allows her, in one way or another, to control him. It's a relationship that is convenient for both of them, as you can see. It's convenient for Michael because he has someone else who thinks like him. It's convenient for Gina because Michael is the bond that keeps her close to the family she swore to destroy". As if in dire need to stop talking about her son, Polly hunched over the table a little and pointed to the cup of tea I was still drinking from. "Pour the tea into the kettle", she demanded, out of nowhere.

"What?", I blinked a few times, trying to understand what Polly had told me. A few minutes ago she had practically forced me to drink.

"Pour the rest of the tea into the kettle", she repeated uneasily, "and then give me the cup".

Without uttering any question, I did as Elizabeth Gray told me, and once I fulfilled her mandate, she snatched the porcelain cup from my hands and stared at the remains of the tea leaves as if trying decipher some kind of message.

At that point, I had already been able to recognize what she was doing. Polly was reading my fortune on the tea cup and she was doing it without consulting me or saying me of what she was seeing at the bottom of my cup. I tried not to be alarmed, since, as I have said several times, I'm skeptical when it comes to the mystical, but when I saw that her face was loaded with concern and her brow furrowed, I had to ask.

"It's something wrong?"

"No", Polly tried to evade me but she didn't bother to hide her expression.

"What do you see?", I insisted in dismay.

"I see death", she snapped, and a chill ran down my spine, "but not yours, precisely. I see two men. One, it's Thomas, there's no doubt", Polly said and showing me the cup, she pointed to a black spot that I couldn't recognize. For Polly it seemed quite obvious that silhouette represented her nephew. "The other man...", she stopped herself.

"Who is the other man?", I asked. "And whose death are you referring to?". The anxiety was real. Now, I wanted to know everything that cup said about me.

"I'm not sure about it", it seemed as if Polly refused to accept what she saw and that only made me more nervous, "but you'll have to choose."

"Choose? Between Thomas and the other man?"

"No. You'll have to choose between life and death".

/

Arthur cleared his throat trying to get Tommy's attention and, in a way, he succeeded.

"We're here, Tom", he said, seeing that Tommy was still absorbed in reading the diary.

"I know".

Tommy looked out the car window. In front of him, he saw the brick house and it remained the same as he had known it. It seemed as if the building had not been a participant in the many moments he had shared with Olivia, as if it was not guilty of his greatest grief and protagonist of his recent nightmares. The red bricks covered in dark green mold made it look gloomy but cozy at the same time. On the other side of the small windows Tommy could see the yellowed curtains and on the windowsill of one of them, Tommy could glimpse the small plant that Olivia used to water; it was obviously dry.

Fighting back a groan of pain, he got out of the car. Tommy could feel his joints giving way with every step he took but getting to the old wooden door was more important. When he was in front of it, he reached into his jacket pocket for the copy of his key.

"I'll go with you if you want", Arthur said from the car. Apparently he was concerned about Tommy's condition.

"No need", Tommy simply answered, and finally entered the brick house.

He was greeted by loneliness and the particular aroma that old books used to give off. Since Olivia's 'death' Tommy hadn't been brave enough to set foot in that house again, and now he understood why: every corner was a memory. The small dining room still had Olivia's kettle and Tommy's ashtray on the table. On the coat rack was a scarf that had belonged to her and below it, an umbrella that had been his. In the hall, there were two picture frames. In one, it was the only photograph the two had taken together. The other was empty.

Tommy got hold of the empty frame, knowing full well that the last time he had been there, it contained a photograph of Oliva, which was now missing.

"Michael".

Michael had been in the brick house recently, just as Polly had been able to confess. He felt anger ignite inside him as he imagined Michael swarming in the sacred space that had been his and Olivia's, snooping through their things and stealing photographs that belonged to them.

Furious, Tommy asked his body for some vitality, and climbed the stairs. He came to the room that he had shared with Olivia and in the bed in which they had both spent so many moments, he searched for something, any detail, that would reveal to him that Michael had not been alone.

'I see two men. One, it's Thomas, there's no doubt. The other man...'. The other was Michael, and in the entry Tommy had read, Polly still couldn't accept the fact that her son was competing with Tommy for the love of a woman.

'You must choose between life and death'. Had Tommy been 'death' and Michael 'life'? Could it be that the reason Olivia left him was because she had chosen Michael over him? Just imagining it made him snort and his half-solidified ribs crackle in rage.

But there were no signs of anything in the bed. If Michael had slept there, alone or in company, he had bothered to leave the sheets spotless, as if the brick house was going to receive more guests at some point. It was possible that Michael too had done it to hinder the search for him, knowing that sooner or later Tommy would find out the truth.

Tommy sat down on the mattress and, mind bogged by theories, he lit a cigarette. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, and so, so overwhelmed, that he could not put all the attetion needed in every detail. It had been two months, almost three, since Olivia had been pushed away from him and in that time, many would have already been in the brick house. The clues would already be lost, altered, disappeared.

Then, as if he had suddenly been enlightened by some kind of divinity, his eyes drifted to the shelf in front of the bed where both he and Olivia used to keep their books. He recognized all the works stored there because they were books that he had bought for himself or for Olivia and they had all been read. Olivia kept her collection of novels by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Poe, Woolf, and Lawrance there. Although she was a poet, Tommy had never seen her read poetry and for that reason, something inside him ignited when he visualized the spine of a book that he did not know and whose title was: 'Poems for a broken man'.

His heart raced as if he already knew what was to come and almost strode toward that book. He took it and couldn't contain his surprise when he read the name of its author.

Beatrice W. Jones.

"Beatrice". That was the name of Dante's beloved, whom Tommy had so often compared to Olivia because of her ethereal, caring nature. "Jones". That was the last name Michael had proposed to him when he had brazenly suggested that Tommy retire from the business.

As if he were in a dream, Tommy went to the last page of the book looking for information about the edition. He let out a crazy little laugh when he verified that this was the first edition, which had been released just a month and a half ago, and the publisher was located in New York.

'New York' was nervously underlined in black ink.

Olivia had put that book there, on that shelf, so Tommy could find it. She knew that no one but him would notice the books they had shared and realize that there was a different piece from all the others he already knew. She had put her newly released collection of poems so that Tommy would know the name she now held with her new identity and had indicated the city where she was now, knowing that Tommy would search for it on the last page.

Olivia had been in the brick house rather recently and Tommy didn't care if she had been with Michael or not. She knew him so well that she had known that Tommy would be able to connect all the dots and now, he had her new name and location.

It only remained to get to her.

Struck by sudden vigor, Tommy descended the stairs with the book of poems under his arm, just as it was the Holy Grail. His lameness caused him to kick a small metal object that was lying against the the wall when he reached the last step. Tommy watched as the object bounced in front of his eyes and once it stopped near the front door, he reached down and took it: it was a 38 caliber shell casing.

His excitement had practically made him forget the existence of the shot that had been heard the night of Olivia's 'death'. That shell casing that he now caressed with the fingers had managed to contain the bullet that for so many weeks he believed had taken the life of Olivia.

Undoubtedly, someone, whoever it was, had been pushed to fire and he wondered who the recipient of the projectile had been.

Before leaving the brick house, Tommy got hold of the photograph and took the abandoned scarf from the coat rack and slung it over his shoulder. A tingling overwhelmed him to discover that the wool still carried Olivia's perfume.

"Tommy?", Arthur looked confused when he saw him leave the building carrying a lot of things. "Did you find something?"

"Yes. How many times did you come to this house when I was at the hospital?" Tommy had to ask.

"Four times".

"And in none of those opportunities did you find this?", Tommy showed him the shell casing and ignored everything else. He recognized that the collection of poems could only have been noticed by him and the scarf and the photo were souvenirs that he wanted to take with him in case Michael returned there and decided to steal them.

"A bullet?", Arthur blinked in confusion. "Wait, wasn't she alive?"

"She's alive, Arthur. They didn't shoot her". It seemed incredible to him to have to explain that. "Someone else was shot or Olivia may have been the one who shot".

Arthur was about to say something but, suddenly, they were both interrupted by the roar of a car heading towards them at full speed. Tommy and his brother turned and found a red convertible, which was driven by Finn. In the passenger seat, was Isaiah. The boys were grinning widely, and the people walking along the squalid gray sidewalk stopped to stare at them. When they parked in front of Tommy and Arthur, a couple of kids ran over excitedly and patted the red car body.

Tommy sighed pissed off.

"Here's your new car, Tom". Finn kissed the windshield. "A Buick, this year's model. A beauty".

"You should drive it". Isaiah rubbed his hands together. "It purrs like a whore".

"Finn", Tommy rubbed his eyes, "I told you no flashy colours".

"Red isn't a flashy colour", Finn protested, looking at him like he was disrespecting the car. "Red is red".

"Well, fuck..." Tommy muttered wearily.

Between Arthur, who four times hadn't been able to find anything in the brick house, and Finn, who had bought a car that screamed 'I'm a mobster', Tommy couldn't choose who of them would win the incompetence award.

"Tom, if you don't want it, I'll take it", Arthur added, sitting behind the wheel of the red car, as if that circus needed his participation.

"You keep it, Finn", Tommy resolved then, and his little brother's surprise made him feel something akin to tenderness.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, I'm not going to need it anyway".

"Do you need me to continue being your chauffeur, Tommy?" Arthur seemed more offended by not having received the vehicle instead of Finn, than by being the one in charge of transporting his brother around until he recovered.

"No, I don't". Tommy waited for both Finn and Isaiah to get into the red car and look distracted enough. "I'll take care of finding another chauffeur in New York".

"New York?" Arthur narrowed his eyes.

"I'm leaving, Arthur," he informed his older brother in a low voice. "I'm leaving England and I intend never to return".