Daisy has worked hard enough and long enough in this industry to be able to pick and choose her customers. She has never really been that selective, but she is grateful for it after visiting Tommy that day. She has enough money to live comfortably without sleeping around again. This is brilliant in the few weeks after seeing him, because she doesn't think she'd be able to be in the presence of any man wanting sex ever again after being in the same room as Tommy Shelby. How, after all these years, can he set her alight, both mentally and physically? She doesn't argue, really, in her day to day life, but she argued with him. She doesn't cry, but she did. She doesn't shout, but she did. He brings out the best and worst in her all at the same time.
She doesn't know what to do with herself.
She sits in her apartment, making scarves and dresses, reading books that make her happy and trying to lift her spirits after what she'd seen a fortnight ago. The beautiful Grace being alone with her Tommy, loving her Tommy.
He'd always been hers and she'd always been his. And she always would be, even if he decided that Grace was who he wanted and loved now. She would accept this, because she owed it to him. She wouldn't protest if he chose Grace, the beautiful blonde, but she'd simply let him know how much she had loved him - does love him, still inexplicably adores him - and would move on. Perhaps set up a place where prostitutes could go for high quality accommodation and management; if there was one thing she knew, it was the whore industry. She knew how cruel men could be, how violent some of these girls' madames were. She could help them. Provide a safe place for them. Let them know someone cared.
She thinks she might do that anyway.
She won't go home to Birmingham. She can't. Not after what has happened. Why did Polly tell Tommy that she'd left with a man because she couldn't bear to wait for him? Daisy knew, surely Ada knew, that she'd have waited for forever and a day for Tommy to return if she had any kind of reassurance that he would indeed return. Any kind.
Polly had told her for sure he was dead. Missing in action when an attack had come. No survivors, she had said.
Why would Polly say that if Tommy had never even been missing? Why had she given Daisy no hope?
Daisy sighs into her hands. She's sat in her room all day sewing and now James Lewis, the man who is her friend as well as a patron, has persuaded her to come out. He's heard of this new club that has been doing well for itself and apparently she needs to spend some time there. She protests at first, but James is hard to say no to - this is why, of course, he is beyond wealthy.
The club is loud and full of life. Daisy feels like an imposter sitting on her chair, men crowding around her trying to make her smile, make her choose them. She is quiet and, if she is being honest, still sad. For the first time in years, she doesn't know what to do. For the first time in years, she is scared that she will be second best to another woman as per usual; she is used to being the one on the side - she is a whore, and these rich men who pay for her are usually always married. She is never the girl you marry. Except to Tommy of course; he had said he wanted to marry her. But that was before she started sleeping with people for money. Nobody in their right minds would have her now; she is damaged goods, she thinks. She is soiled. And dirty, so so dirty for what she's let happen to her over the years, for what she's willingly participated in.
These men crowding around her want her to choose one of them, maybe so they feel superior - they managed to be the one she singled out. Despite this, a man would never choose her. For herself. For the girl behind the facade. These men want Fleur, but nobody would ever want Daisy, and this is what makes her sad, for it is Daisy who wakes up every morning alone even if someone is next to her and it is Daisy whose head hits a pillow every night. It is Daisy who has these thoughts, these worries, these ideas… Fleur just fucks. She is like two different people, and neither of them are marriage material. She will always be alone.
As she sips on her champagne, only the best for my little Fleur, James had said, she tries to come to terms with this. Tries to smile at the men throwing compliments at her, tries to understand that she will always be alone. She snorts as she thinks, maybe Alfie will marry me when I turn thirty, just to make me feel better. They were friends; surely he would look after her once her looks and youth and allure had died out.
The place is loud when they all hear the sounds of glasses smashing and the tell-tale sounds of a fight breaking out. Her head whips around to the far corner of the room and sees familiar flat-top caps and distinctive haircuts.
Of all the clubs in all of London.
James starts trying to usher her out the back way of the room, the men she is with trying to get out of the line of fire rather than helping stop the fighting, but she manages to slip from James' grip and make her way to the glass panel that she leans on to see into the carnage of the dance floor. She needs to make sure he is okay…
A chair gets thrown by a manic Arthur at a man standing a few feet in front of the panel and, preempting the man's reactions, she quickly moves backwards so she doesn't get hit by the incoming chair. In the rush of adrenaline that hits her, she forgets that she is standing in front of a glass panel. She misses the chair, but the chair hits the glass…
It flies at her in a myriad of angles, and she quickly turns around and covers her head to reduce the impact.
She feels the shards cutting into the back of her legs, marking her skin in zigzagging patterns and completely dicing up her Parisian dress. Not that she cares. She falls to the ground along with the glass, her bleeding legs not being able to hold her weight any longer. She hisses through her teeth as tears of pain flood her eyes.
Blissfully, she loses consciousness, but not before hearing a frantic voice she knows all too well shouting her name.
Sorry this is a bit short; work and my masters are catching up with me right now! Apologies!