Chapter 113
"Please Rosie?" Tommy heard Katie begging - somewhat unlike his niece - when he opened the door of number six.
"Your Uncle Tommy has said he'll think about it," Rosie returned, "It's up to him so there's no point wheedling at me."
"But he does what you tell him!" Lily interjected, in the same begging tone Katie was using.
"Do I now?" he remarked, walking to the kitchen, standing in the doorway to look at the three of them.
Rosie glanced up from chopping carrots with mischief in her eye, "Not that I've noticed, that would involve a bit of common sense."
"Tommy, you do do what Rosie says!" Lily whined, coming to him and reaching up to tug on his jacket, her blue eyes big and round.
He lifted her onto his hip, "What is it I've said I'll think about?"
"Katie coming to ride Porridge tomorrow!"
"I've said I'll think about it - but that was about five minutes ago, you need to give me time to think on it," he told her, raising an eyebrow.
"Please Tommy," she returned, squirming a little under his gaze but not entirely put off.
He rolled his eyes, put her down and gave her a light smack, "You two will get off out the back and play until your dinner's ready, if you know what's good for you. Give our Rosie some peace and quiet or I'll give you something to be whinging about."
Lily gave him a half petulant, half sorrowful look and Katie gave him an outright dirty one - from the safety of being across the table from him, by Rosie's side for prime whinging, but by the door for prime escape.
He pointed to the latter, raised an eyebrow and snapped, "Out!"
"Is it actually them going on about wanting you to make your mind up that's bothered you or is it the insinuation you do as I tell you?" Rosie grinned wickedly at him after the two little ones had scurried out.
"You know fine well I listen to you you little wench," he said, coming over to her, kissing her head and patting her arse, "You mind your saucey looks or it'll be you I'm offering something to whinge about."
"So it's that you can't stand the idea of anyone knowing you listen to me then?" Rosie laughed.
It was almost strange, given his meeting with Moss, when he was waiting to hear what Campbell might or might not reference - who he might or might not reference - when he met with him, how on the money her words were.
"I mind their attitudes. I mind that they've been told I'll think on it and that they're trying to manipulate me via you."
She tutted and batted at him, "They're children, Tommy, it's what children do."
"Well children can be taught and they will be taught."
"Don't you go meeting Moss again if it turns you this grouchy," Rosie replied, rolling her eyes and picking her knife back up, renewing her efforts with the carrots, "I prefer you when you're…" she broke off, searched for the word, then settled for, "Normal levels of grouchy."
Tommy snorted and smacked her arse.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The next morning, when Lily had appeared downstairs dressed in her riding trousers after breakfast (which she'd spent squirming in her chair and glancing at him, though having sense not to ask him again) Tommy motioned her to come to him, took her up on his lap and said, "Right little miss - you still wanting to share your lesson with Katie today?"
She nodded, multiple little excited dips and lifts of her chin.
"Alright then - you can go fetch her, since you gave me peace about it last night," he said, reaching forward to kiss her head.
She squealed and wriggled, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek with wet little smacks of her lips, "Thank you Tommy."
He hugged her back, wishing he could hold her there forever, before reluctantly releasing her, "Off you go and get her then."
"How come she gets everything she wants?" Finn grumbled once the door had shut behind the child, having watched the exchange from behind a bacon sandwich.
"She doesn't," Tommy replied, lighting a cigarette and sitting back, eyeing his brother.
"But when she does, she hugs him and kisses him - maybe you could try that next time you get something you're after, might endear him to wanting to make it happen again," Rosie smirked from across the table.
"Is there something you're wanting anyway?"
Finn shook his head, his nose wrinkled.
"Not enough to kiss you for anyway," Rosie laughed, "Quite understandable, Finn, really it is."
Finn gulped down the remainder of his sandwich and went to leave - eager to get out on the street what with it being a Saturday but Rosie stopped him.
"Wait a second - even if there's nothing you want, there's something I want from you."
Finn cocked his head, looking a little wary - as if he suspected something fishy of favours Rosie might ask him for.
"There's a nip in the air and you know as well as I do that we get a day's warning then the properly cold weather's on us - gather up anything wintery you have that needs mending, I want to get it all done this weekend, alright? Just pull it out and bring it down to me."
Finn disappeared through the green doors with a relieved look on his face and Tommy looked under the table, then reached out and nudged Rosie's foot with his own.
"What?"
"Nothing," he replied, inhaling, "Just felt like touching you."
Had just wanted to go and kiss her, the same way he did every time he saw her attending to some domestic task, but with the shop staff starting to arrive next door for the day and Katie and Lily going to appear back any second, perhaps with John in tow, he didn't want to risk being caught doing so.
Rosie gave him a smile in return, then nudged his foot with hers.
It was daft, taking comfort from a foot nudge, but he did it nonetheless.
"So I take it you're going to be too busy with this mending to come with us then?"
"I'm trusting between you and Charlie that you can manage to keep a sufficient eye on them? Lily knows to behave in the yard."
Tommy snorted, "Yes but as soon as Katie's word comes into the mix I'm afraid mine gets somewhat demoted in rank."
Rosie laughed, "Tommy Shelby - intimidated by a seven year old."
"Never said anything about intimidated."
"Undermined then."
"You're asking for a hiding my girl."
"Oh hush," she replied, rolling her eyes at him - not remotely taking his threat seriously - "Katie might have spirit, but I reckon she's more sense than to deliberately rile you."
Still, when the two of them arrived back, he motioned them to stand before his chair and gave his most serious of faces, "Alright, I'm agreeing that you can come along to the yard today as a double act."
The two of them nodded, grinning.
"But it's on the understanding you do as you're told, you hear?"
"Yes Uncle Tommy," Katie said, trying to knock her grin down a few notches, probably trying to look more serious.
"Yes Tommy."
"Good. What I say goes, alright?"
They both nodded.
"Right then," he nodded too, sitting back, "As long as the two of you behave yourselves."
"We will, Uncle Tommy," Katie replied, her voice fervent, her eyes going wide - like men on opium when they were in a good mood with it.
He frowned, "What are you pulling faces for?"
"I'm looking truthful," she replied.
He tried not to laugh, wondering what in hell that was supposed to mean, and settled for asking, "Are you?"
She nodded, "Yes, cause I'm promising you the truth - we'll be very, very good!"
"I think you might mean earnest Katie, love," Rosie said, coming over with the tea pot in one hand, running the other through Katie's untidy hair, then leaning over to pour him another cup of tea - one for the road.
"Earnest," Katie muttered under her breath, frowning, like she was concentrating on the word.
"It means if you're being earnest, you really mean what you're saying," Rosie said, pouring herself tea too.
"I do mean it, we will behave!" Katie said.
"Good girl," Rosie replied, smiling fondly at his niece.
It was strange. Before he'd known her, he'd have sworn Rosie Jackson didn't have a soft, maternal bone in her body. Then he'd realised Lily existed and something had shifted. And now it made him happy to see her with his brother's kids, with Finn, see how she liked them, how they liked her.
As if she knew what he was thinking and wanted to show just how much she liked Rosie, Katie asked her, hopefully, "Are you coming?"
"No," Rosie shook her head, "I'm wanting to go through all the clothing and make sure everything's mended that needs any mending, the proper cold will be setting in in the next few weeks, no point in finding out that winter things are needing patched the day you go to wear them."
"Oh," Katie replied, looking a little put out.
"But I'll be here to hear all about it when you get back," Rosie offered, "You can come in and take my mind off my work, telling me how you got on, eh?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Doubts about the whole exercise kicked in as they arrived at the yard.
"Now, you two remember, he's a young horse and he needs to build his strength up."
"We know, Tommy!" Lily said, rolling her eyes.
She was getting bolshier with every passing day, he sometimes thought.
"Oi," he warned, "Don't think I won't turn you over my knee right here. I mean it, the pair of you, he's not full grown, he's not at full strength so if there's two of you having a go it'll be a short go, alright? And I don't want any moaning about it. You promised you'd behave and I don't take kindly to promises being broken."
As was usually the case, in spite of her growing spunk - which he wasn't entirely adverse to, as long as it wasn't aimed at him - his sharp words settled Lily right down and she was as good as gold, doing her little ride with no attitude, coming off when he told her to with no moaning, sitting down on a crate and watching quite happily as he lifted Katie up for her shot.
Katie, typically, pushed her luck, dropping her hold on the reigns and giving him small heart attacks every two minutes - giving him visions of her slipping right off the side.
He told her again and again, until he lost his patience and snapped, "If you don't hold those bloody reigns Katie, I'll take you off that horse and tan your hide so thoroughly you'll never get on a horse again."
She didn't seem particularly chastised, she glowered at him, so he glared right back at her until she began to look a little less comfortable than she had done, wriggling a little in the saddle and not daring to meet his eye again.
"Alright, glad we have an understanding," he grumbled, then started walking again at a very slow pace.
She held the reigns, though with a jutted, annoyed chin, for the rest of the ride, not letting go until he'd arrived back in the yard and he was lifting her down.
He put Lily back on Porridge for the sake of the few seconds walk from the spot where she was waiting - sat on the crates he and Rosie had sat on to watch the kids play the previous afternoons - into the stable, squeezing her little leg with pride as he noticed how straight and well she sat, how naturally she maintained it whilst rising and falling with the motions.
He looked forward to the days they could ride side by side, when he'd have a hundred horses for her to choose from each day - but for now, "Right, that's enough for him for today, he's been at it longer than usual and he'll be getting tired. Time to brush him down."
He lifted Lily down and handed each of the kids a brush, figuring if they'd both ridden, they could both pitch in with the afters.
"Uncle Tommy we've hardly had a shot!" Katie moaned at him as he unclipped the saddle.
"He's a young horse, he's needing to build his strength up. How would you feel if I made you piggy back Alfie and Jack everywhere without a rest?" he retorted.
"He's big though!"
"He's a foal still, even if he looks big to you," he growled, "Now you promised me you were going to behave, so behave and help brush him down - Lily can show you how while I put the saddle away."
He walked out of the stable block and down to the tack room, hanging the saddle back up and glancing around, looking at the various things they'd acquired - some stolen, some fairly won, some unfairly won - over the years, remembering his own adventures riding on each of the saddles, on the horses no longer with them. He'd been riding on his own by the time he was seven. Bareback too, if he liked. His dad hadn't had much going for him, but he'd been a good rider - and an even better horse thief.
Some of the only times Tommy had ever felt he'd been part of a proper family when he was younger had been when they'd all go riding - he could mind him and Arthur and their father cantering, racing one another, then his mother coming behind them, with John riding in front of her, the two of them holding the reigns, after he'd been born.
His mother had loved the beasts too. He half imagined that was what his mother and father had ever had in common to bond over, enough to make the five of them anyway. There never seemed to be much else.
He was pulled straight from his reminiscing when he got back to Porridge's stall and saw Katie lying across his back, having obviously pulled herself up through sheer determination and will power, her legs kicking and flapping in the air.
He strode forward, hoisted her off and landed a hard smack across her rear.
"What did I tell you?" he demanded, following his first smack with another.
How many times did he have to say it that the horse was young? Why didn't they think he meant it when he did say it? Horses were animals, they followed logical patterns - if he was tired and they were climbing up on him, Porridge (Tommy still wasn't sure he was comfortable with that name choice) was likely to decide throwing them off was a sensible way to get rid of his source of discomfort.
What did he have to do to make them take him seriously?
He shook Katie a little, trying to make up his mind if he should just dish out a full spanking right there and then, get it nipped in the bud. But they'd gone outside and Lily had kept her peace with the whinging the night before after he'd told them. And Rosie had said, 'it's what children do.' To push and push. That was what children did, assessing and reassessing their boundaries. It was just a case of trying to guess how firmly those boundaries had to be pushed back on.
"He's had enough," Tommy settled for saying, "Just do as you're told and get on with brushing him down."
It was against his better judgement, if he was honest, to leave it there - with a telling off and a few smacks. He figured Katie wasn't for stopping until she was made to most of the time. But he hoped it would have enough of an impact on Lily to make her behave herself - and he hoped Katie might follow her example.
It was easier to see the way Katie influenced Lily, the way Lily had gone from clutching at his trouser leg and following him around all the time to answering him back, her confidence growing, even little shades of cockiness showing up at times. But it went both ways. Katie agreeing to be held, even for the short amounts of time she would be, showing any interest in affection or softness, that was new - and he reckoned that was a result of Lily basking in it, in a way the boys wouldn't have. Lily was shaving away some of Katie's rougher edges, just as Katie was sharpening Lily's up - and both were for the better, he reckoned. Most of the time, anyway.
Still, he wasn't going to risk leaving them alone with the animal again, so he stood by the door and watched as the two brushed him down, letting them go at it for a few minutes until he decided an adequate enough job had probably been done.
He made a show of inspecting the work, running his hands across the horse, noting how Lily watched him, waiting for approval, and Katie stood with crossed arms as if trying to threaten him that anything other than approval would have its consequences.
He tried not to laugh at her scrunched face and ruled, "Alright, well done the pair of you." He went into his pocket, searching for the lumps he had taken from the tea stash that morning, "Here you go, you can give him some sugar."
He gave them a couple each, then motioned Lily forward, cupping his hand under hers, holding her gently around the waist as Porridge ate from her hand, then repeating the same action with Katie, holding her too, showing her how to uncurl her determined little fingers from around the sugar to offer it up to the horse, smiling when he saw how pleased she looked when Porridge took the sugar from her.
Ah, she wasn't so bad. Maybe if she liked it enough to want to do it more than once, he could look into trying to get a horse for her too, so Lily and her could ride at the same time, once they were capable enough.
"Alright, you two run off and play for a bit, Uncle Charlie and I have got some business to discuss," he said, "Just stay in the yard, alright?"
He let the girls get out of sight before giving the horse's back a proper brush down, where they hadn't been able to reach.
"What do you reckon, boy, you want a friend?" he asked.
"You handing out more of my stables in your head?" his Uncle Charlie asked, appearing in the doorway, leaning there and smoking a cigarette.
"Katie's not bad. If she sticks with liking it, it might not be the worst idea to get her her own," Tommy replied.
"Get a female and you'll find you have a supply," Charlie snorted, "One for each of you."
"I was thinking as far ahead as one more."
Charlie snorted, "It's you, you'll get one more, then you'll want another just one more. There'll always be something else for you, Tom."
"Something bothering you Uncle Charlie?"
His uncle glanced over to where the girls were playing, then nodded his head at one of the stores, "C'mon."
Tommy sighed and followed his uncle across the yard, ducking into the building.
"What're you keeping that gun here for Tommy?" his Uncle asked gesturing to the area where it was hidden.
"Did you really bring me in here to point at it?"
"I brought you in here so those girls wouldn't run risk of hearing."
Tommy clicked his tongue, annoyed by his Uncle's reprimanding tone, "It's a machine gun, too good an opportunity not to keep just one, even if I give the rest back."
"Yeah? And when you planning on doing that?"
"Once the business with Kimber is done," Tommy said, sounding bored, "You know that."
"And when'll it be done?"
"You're sounding like a woman, Uncle Charlie."
"Yeah? Rosie been asking you the same questions? Pol too, I imagine. And what about Ada?"
"I'm taking care of it."
"Aye. And I had a visit from one of the Lee's, whilst we're in here. Interesting conversation"
"What did you hear?"
"You're having a ceasefire. Truce is being negotiated. Marriage, being negotiated."
His Uncle paused, waiting for him to react, to speak - but he didn't.
"But the thing is Tom, not one of us on the Shelby side of this marriage knows a thing about it as far as I can see," Charlie scoffed, shaking his head at the silence.
Rosie did.
"It's not agreed yet - it's being negotiated."
"Who?"
"John's kids need a mother. John needs a wife."
His Uncle seemed relieved at that. Tommy wondered if Charlie had thought he was being offered up. He couldn't remember his Uncle ever having a woman, not even when they'd been little.
"And when are you planning on sharing the news of the negotiations?"
"Soon," Tommy replied, "But Kimber has to think we're his, I can't risk any tongues slipping until I have that license. And once I do, it's a timing exercise."
"Some people go through life without everything being a plan, an exercise, you know."
"And apart from anything else, the less time John has to get himself worked up about it, the better," Tommy said, turning and walking out the building, making his way to the crates by the river, sitting down and lighting a fresh cigarette.
"So what?" his Uncle demanded, following him, standing over him, "Your plan is to arrive the morning of and then tell him to go do his duty?"
Tommy raised an eyebrow.
"Oh for fuck's sake, Thomas!" his Uncle snarled, "You, boy, are the bloody limit. There are times I wish you were young enough for me to give you a good bloody hiding. Does Pol know? I'm surprised she hasn't given you one herself."
Tommy rolled his eyes, not bothered by his Uncle's stress. They'd all see in the long run that he was right, that this was the right thing to do, the right way to handle it.
He was bothered though, by the sudden wail that reached his ears - Lily's - coming from - coming from that bloody stable!
He dropped his cigarette and flew out of the storehouse to the stable, throwing the door open and grabbing at his heart as he felt it stop.
Lily was standing, clutching at her face, blood running from her nose, soaking down into her top, her eyes full of tears and confusion.
Rosie was going to fucking kill him.
Thank you as always for reading along. I don't know if anyone else is getting email updates anymore, all of mine seem to have stopped (I've checked my junk and they're not there either, they've just stopped coming altogether for whatever reason even though my ff settings have emails turned on!) but ICYMI, the events of this chapter and the last two are told from Katie's POV in my story 'Horsing Around' which you can access through my profile. I know a lot of my readers have a fondness for reading these sorts of escapades from the kid's side so I thought it was worth flagging!