For the first time in years, perhaps the first time ever, the Bennet clan were all in the same room together at Thomas Bennet's townhouse, the living room full to the brim with his collection of misfits, orphans, lost souls. An emergency meeting had been called by Lizzy and Jane, the seriousness of the situation impressed in every phone call. However, as was common when a large group of such individuals who called themselves family gathered in a tense environment, arguments were breaking out and common purpose was proving difficult to find.
"I told you it was a mistake bringing her in!" Mark, a normally cautious man who mostly worked the Badger over in Bethnal Green brought to uncharacteristic rage by the turn of events, was pointing his finger at an uncharacteristically quiet Frances "All she's done is cause trouble after trouble after trouble. I've bailed her out of the cells twice, Jane's done it three times, we're always cleaning up her mess!"
"Yeah, cos you're such a fucking angel," Kitty sneered at him, the change in her over the last few days remarkable, from the quiet shy one to a barely concealed simmering pot of anger and frustration. "Didn't hear you complaining when she was pretending to be a hooker for your grimy little scam. You made triple the cash you normally do with her involved."
"Who asked the kid?" Mark attempted to belittle, looking around at the crowd, but Kitty was up in his face in a heartbeat, squaring off nose to nose.
"Don't push it, Mark," Kitty warned with a snarl, pushing her forehead up against his, like an animal jutting for a scrap. "Cos I'm really not in the fucking mood."
"That's enough, Kitty." Jane, who'd remained silent through all the accusing and finger pointing so far, sighed, Kitty acquiescing with a huff but not before a final baring of teeth towards her adversary, rewarded with a conciliatory nod from the man.
"I'm not losing everything for Lydia," Paul piped up. "Not everything we've built."
"And what have we 'built'?" Lizzy got involved finally. "What's this all been about? You don't need us to play the Pigeon Drop, the Monte, you don't need us to make money, Paul, you can do that yourself. Ask yourself why we did this, why we took on the same name. We did it for ourselves and each other, so we had people to rely on when things went wrong. We wanted a family so we made one. We can't turn our backs on one of our own, otherwise it's all been pointless."
There were a few murmurings of agreement, but there were more derisionary snorts. After all, this wasn't one of the more popular members of the family they were discussing. This was Lydia. Lydia who'd fallen out with, offended, been a dick to pretty much everyone here at least twice over, Lizzy included. She looked over at Tommo for some support but as she suspected it was in vain. He was just sat by the fireplace, staring into the nonexistent flames, blowing the smoke from his cigarette up the chimney, seemingly not listening and uninterested.
"There's a 'we' now, is there?" Paul spat back at her, his tone angry but hurt at the same time. "Tell me, Lizzy, where the fuck have you been for the last year? Cos it ain't here with us."
"I've been working." Lizzy looked him in the eye, the challenge reflected back.
"Not with us though," Paul was now talking to the room, working them like only a short con player could. "We've been working too. Working together. As Bennet's. Whereas you've been swanning off with the Ton, calling yourself Lizzy Walker. So please, don't start spouting about family when you don't believe in it yourself."
"I didn't realise you needed mothering, Paul," Lizzy sneered at him. "I go and work with a few other people and you start crying like a baby. Pathetic. Or are you just jealous cos I'm making more P than you?"
Just as Paul was about to hit back Jane stood up and held her hand up, every eye automatically drawn to her as was often the case. All families had their problems, had those who just didn't get on with each other, but Jane was the one that united everyone. The glue that held them together, shit she'd recruited half of the people in this room. They all liked her. Because she was decent, fair, funny, self deprecating, and above all a fantastic Grifter. Not technically the best, no, that prize still belonged to Lizzy and they all knew it, but in other ways, more important ways, she was better. Because she was generous. Generous with money, with time, with people. Lizzy wanted to be the rockstar, the one who soared, and she had the ego and selfishness to match those ambitions, but Jane? No, that was never her. She just wanted the best for her friends. Lizzy remembered the times when they were first starting to move away from the Bennet's, she and Jane together. Jane would always be off helping out someone from the family whether it be because they needed an extra pair of hands in a score or simply somebody to talk to, putting her own plans on hold for days at a time. That was her sister, the selfless Grifter.
"Both of you, stop it now," Jane said, not raising her voice but the steel behind her words caused everyone to take pause. "Lizzy, don't show off about money, it's patronising and beneath you. And Paul, we all work with other people all the time so don't twist things."
"He started it." Lizzy muttured churlishly, Paul giving her the finger before sitting back down and lighting a cigarette with a resigned huff.
"It doesn't matter what has happened," Jane pointed out. "What matters is what happens next."
"And what happens next, Jane?" Tommo finally spoke up, his voice thin but with something behind it Lizzy hadn't heard before. Resignation.
"We're not asking you to help her," Jane replied. "At least not in the active sense. It's suicide, I wouldn't ask that of any of you. So what we're saying is…"
"You all have to leave London," Lizzy butted in, having to raise her voice to continue as the groans began. "Laska has the Bennet name in his sights, if he doesn't get Lydia he'll come after someone else here and I don't exactly get the impression that he's a man to forgive or forget. We saw him smash a man's face in just to prove a point. I imagine he'll do the same or worse to any of us that he finds."
She let the information sink in, let her friends turn to each other and express their shock, agreement, confusion, whatever. She understood. London was as much a part of them as anything. For some of them, it was the anchor, the one constant in their broken lives. For others it was the haven where they'd finally found their place in a world that had done it's best to break them.
"You want us all to leave the city?" Mark said incredulously. "Are you serious?"
"I just want you to be ok." Lizzy replied in a smaller voice, the hard won sincerity softening even the most granite of eyes.
That was the crux of it. It wasn't about Lydia anymore. It wasn't about her. It was about all of them. If the Bennet name had to die then so be it, the price of fighting to continue it was going to be too high.
"For most of you it'll only have to be for a few months," Jane pounced on the blunted atmosphere, playing the only card she had to sell this to them. "We'll divide the cash we raised for Lydia amongst you and you can go anywhere you choose. Travel, see the world, or just go grift in Glasgow or something."
"Even I don't have the balls to grift in Glasgow." Lizzy attempted to joke, rewarded with a few half hearted laughs.
"Good point, maybe choose somewhere a bit more friendly," Jane pushed on. "You leave the Bennet name behind, don't travel in groups of more than three, have an adventure, and then you can come back when all this has died down."
"You said Laska doesn't forgive or forget," Gypsy Mary pointed out perceptively from behind her fringe. "A couple of months and this is over? What if we come back and he's just been waiting?"
"It's a risk," Jane admitted. "But a small one I think. He doesn't know your faces, doesn't know your names yet, if you're careful then you'll slip under the radar. And perhaps a solution may well be found in the interim. However, what this means is that…."
"It's the end of us," Tommo finished for her. "The Bennet's are done."
Sharp intakes of breath.
"It's true," Jane sighed heavily. "If or when you choose to return to London you can't use the name anymore. Can't hang out at your old spots, keep as low profile as possible."
"We had a good run," Lizzy shrugged quietly. "More than most get in this fucking city."
Lizzy knew they'd sold it as best they could by the silence that fell upon the room of this usually rowdy motley crew. A silence that only an ending could bring.
"Well then," Tommo finally reanimated himself, flicking his cigarette end into the fire where it lost itself amongst the coals and standing up with a sad smile. "It would appear we have a decision to make. As always I will not force you to do anything but I fully agree with your sisters. This is a battle we cannot expect to win, not this time. Sometimes the smartest thing to do is to run, however against our nature that may be."
"We're Grifter's," Lizzy snorted, again attempting humour in deflection. "Self preservation is in our very bones. Running away is not new to anyone here."
"Perhaps you're right," Tommo smiled at her before turning to the room. "So are we all in agreement?"
Finally everyone nodded, some forcibly, some half heartedly, some in disbelief. But they still nodded.
"Ok then," Tommo ran a hand through his hair. "Begin making your plans. No goodbyes, no farewells to anyone outside of us. Friends, lovers, you'll just be putting them in danger. I expect to see you all back here tomorrow morning and we'll divide the money then. Lizzy, a word in private please."
She wasn't surprised. Despite the fact he'd given every appearance of not listening and being defeated earlier, he was too sharp to have not picked up on some of the subtext to what Lizzy and Jane had been saying. Some of the unspoken truths. She acquiesced with a slight dip of her head and made her way through the crowd of people towards the hallway. She tried to avoid eye contact with her brothers and sisters, she knew it would hurt too much and she couldn't afford that right now. Exhaled a breath in relief once she was out in the quiet of the hall and the door was shut behind them by Tommo who had followed her. She stood still for a moment before he put a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her.
"Come on, let's go to my study."
"No." Lizzy shook her head, fighting to stay in control.
"You want to talk out here?" he raised an eyebrow.
"I don't want my last memory of that room to be a bad one." she replied, looking down at the floor.
His study held so much resonance for her. Hours spent talking with him, laughing with him, planning scores with him, everything in between.
Tommo cocked his head to the side and looked through her like he always had been able to.
"You don't mean to run, do you?" he said, perceptively. "You and Jane are staying, Kitty too after her performance there."
"Someone has to find Lydia," Lizzy shrugged. "She's out there now, right now, scared for her life."
"I expect she sees this all as an adventure," Tommo chuckled, but there was no humour behind it. "Perhaps Mark was right, it was a mistake bringing her in. I should have done more, should have reigned her in…."
"Lydia wasn't built to be reigned in," Lizzy pointed out. "She's chaos."
"Indeed. It's no good trying to change your mind I presume. Tell you that three lives are worth more than one?"
"You don't believe that so don't even try it."
"You see straight through this daft old man as ever, Lizzy." Tommo laughed wearily.
"Where will you go?" Lizzy asked.
"God knows," Tommo ran a hand through his grey hair. "London's all I've ever known. I remember when my old friend Raymond went to New York … he seemed to do alright for himself. Maybe we'll try there. But I imagine Frances would prefer the French Riviera or somewhere equally as pretentious."
"Tell her no." Lizzy narrowed her eyes.
"I've never been good at refusing that woman," Tommo laughed. "It's always been my weakness and as I grow older I fear it will just get worse. But don't trouble yourself with an old man's failings. Go and find Lydia and get her away from all this. But please, don't let yourself get hurt in the process."
"I'll do what I need to," Lizzy shrugged. "This one last time, I'll stick to our rules. Total loyalty remember, Tommo? Total fucking loyalty."
"I'm proud of you Lizzy," Tommo said softly. "Of all the people who have come through these doors, that angry girl with the mouth on her has always stuck. The way you've changed so much in some ways but in other ways not at all. You're unique, Lizzy, so delightfully singular."
"Stop it, you'll make me blush." Lizzy half grinned at him, touched by his words but weighed down by the crushing sadness of it all. The sadness of their lives. Just when you think you've settled, you've done it, something always comes along for people like them, something that messes it all up. Maybe they deserved it, maybe they didn't, but that didn't matter really. What mattered was that they were finished.
"I never wanted it to end like this," Tommo said, his voice finally cracking a little. "I just wanted to help people….."
"By making them Grifters?" Lizzy teased, deflecting the real emotion she was feeling away, putting it back in its box.
"Funny old life, isn't it?" he ignored her, plucking a roll up from behind his ear and sticking it in the corner of his mouth, making no attempt to light it as he walked over to the windowed alcove in the hallway, gazing out over his little corner of Shoreditch. Lizzy stood next to him and wrapped her arm around his waist, leaning her head into him one last time.
"At least we lived it." she said, the finality as true as it was tragic.
AN: Never been away...