It was nearly time for Arthur's medicine. The brown liquid came packaged in a green bottle with large letters printed around the label. Sorcha kept it safe by the bed, their bed.
As she padded on soft footfalls down the creaking stairs, three startling knocks came at the door. The cool knob felt hot to the touch and the cold wind that rushed in swathed her like a blanket as she stared down at Tommy Shelby.
"You're going to London a week early."
Sorcha looked back into the house where Arthur quietly sat in the next room. In a voice smaller and less imposing, she spoke. "You said I was responsible for him."
"You're taking too long."
"It's been two weeks, Tom," she implored, wishing he could see reason.
"I need him ready."
A pained expression pulled on her face. "You're sending me off so you can put your hooks back into him."
Tommy blinked at her, unsurprised that she had seen through his poorly constructed ruse. "Consider it a compromise."
"How is it a compromise if you're the only one benefitting?"
"He'll join you in a few weeks. After the business is done, you both can fuck off for a month or two. You cure him and come back."
Sorcha shifted uneasily, still palming the vial of medicine she held in a fist behind the door. She'd have to give Polly or Ada instructions in her absence. There was no knowing if Tommy would throw it out again. "D'you have anything else to say?"
"No."
The door slammed in Tommy's face. He had been briefly distracted reaching for a cigarette when the slam came, and he bit back anger at being caught unawares. His blue eyes stared daggers into the wooden grains before stepping back into the street and disappearing down the cobblestone.
Inside, Sorcha stood still at the door with bated breath. Had Tommy demanded she face him again, surely she would have wrapped her hands around his throat and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Shame overcame her at the impulse. The hands that held Arthur's medicine were taught to heal, not kill. But just like the war, Tommy Shelby was a cancer that taught saints to grasp blindly and desperately for cruelty.
"Who was that?" Arthur's voice drifted dully from where he sat.
Sharply releasing her breath, Sorcha plastered on the mask she'd learned to wear and went to his side. "It's time for your medicine."
A heavy tension sat like a rock between Sorcha and Tommy as they drove down to London at dusk. Soon the darkness would creep in and there would be nothing to discern Tommy from it. Sorcha pressed herself against the door, hoping the weight of her body would unlatch the lock and send her careening into the ditches where she could run, run, run back to Ballycloughduff.
Sorcha missed the little rivers, the fresh air after a rain shower, the moss-covered stone walls bordering green fields dotted with livestock. She may have had no family left, but she could have stayed under her familial roof and lived. Truly lived.
Now, she choked on cigarette smoke, on streams of sewage, on the unyielding power-mongering of the man beside her. She had nestled herself between unfamiliar men and their rotten business.
While she ladled spoonfuls of medicine to Arthur's mouth, who would find the medicine she needed?
Sorcha pulled and twisted her own fingers, shutting her eyes so as not to see uniformed corpses groping through the inky roadside. Nightmares came more often. Grotesque faces flashed through her mind when she stood over her morning tea. Boiled flesh yanked at her skirts when she counted percentages at the betting table. And Tommy was the most frightening of them all. He was a walking corpse. Though pink flesh wrapped around his bones, something putrid festered inside him.
The suffocating smell of his cologne strangled her. Sorcha weakly pulled at the strap to lower the window. Her lungs were heaving for fresh air but it, too, smelled rotten and cold. She grew desperate now. Her foot twitched. Her knees shook. If she closed her eyes to rest, surely her body would forget how to breathe, then she would become a walking corpse too.
"Cigarette?"
Through the limited visibility from the headlights, Sorcha carefully turned to inspect the half filled packet being held out to her. She shook her head, tilting herself out the open window to feel the wind press flush against her cheeks as it swept by.
Rushing wind covered Sorcha's ears like the waves of the ocean. It drowned out the voices in her head. It separated her mind from the body she dreaded to carry. Rank as it was the gusts that filled her mouth, Sorcha felt comforting pockets of air kiss her face as they passed crowded trees, still warm from the rays of the long-set sun.
The further she reached for those tall trees, the more her neck strained to stay up. If Tommy hadn't yanked at her arm, Sorcha surely could have slept for a moment, wrapped around the exterior of the car.
"Shut the window!" he barked.
With shaking hands, Sorcha strapped the glass back in its place. In a split second the roaring winds echoed in her ears then disappeared. She could feel Tommy's gaze move between her profile and the road. Even in the darkness, she knew his open mouth was slung open to speak. So, she spoke first,
"We're just dead bodies."
Tommy closed his mouth to process Sorcha's words. "Who?," he finally asked.
"You. Me. Arthur." The list grew into the space between them. John, Danny, Freddy, Jeremiah, Billy, Alfie…
"As I said to Arthur, nurse, you learn to shut the door on it."
Sorcha managed a weak laugh despite herself. "Shut the door," she repeated in mocking imitation. "Shut the window. Shut away the ghosts because we're living and they're dead. Tell me, Tom, if they're really dead, why do they still touch me? Why do I see them standing at the shop to buy bread, at the corner to go to work, at the edge of my bed when I try to sleep? How can I shut away what I am, as well?"
Tommy was ready to disprove her. He nearly reached out for her hand again, to lift it and shout that she was alive. Just as the action took form in his muscles, Tommy held back. The words prodded at his brain, coming to life and taking an ugly form. This was supposed to be extra, this life. Tommy vowed to make the most of it, to live desperately because he was a ghost given a second chance. Shut the door on it. It meant, live because we can.
Why couldn't they understand?
Why couldn't she understand?
What business did ghosts have in London, Tommy thought as the car drifted closer and closer to the looming capital. None, he decided all at once.
"We're not ghosts, Sorcha." The weariness in his voice was lost on her. "I'm a businessman, and you are my collateral."