As a general warning, I do not own the characters of the Peaky Blinders. The creation of the original character is my own work.
Ghosts of Our Past: A Dying Promise
Part One:
Birmingham, England
January 1919
The smoke from the freshly lit cigarette on the tips of my fingers seemingly mixed in with the smoke and smog that lay heavy within the Birmingham air. Although the residents of Birmingham seemed well accustomed to the thick smog and smoke of the atmosphere, the air was overwhelming to outsiders: this air could suck the very life from your lungs in an instant, threatening to choke you before you even dared to take your first full breath of the morning.
And yet as I took my first breath as I stepped off of the train that took me from Southampton to Birmingham, I dared to imagine that the heavy air seemed to represent the freedom and new life that was taking place for me. I imagined that this was a fresh start, away from the death and carnage that took place on the fields of Flanders. I tried to imagine the happiness that seemed just around the corner for me. The crushing reality of the situation, not the Birmingham smog, seemed to suck the air from my lungs with a jolt. As soon as the fantasy slipped my mind, I shook my head as if to get rid of the childlike hope. Truth be told, my capacity for hope had died months before.
Clutching the small piece of paper that held the address of The Garrison, a local pub that I soon hoped to call my home and occupation, I began to walk with my small suitcase and handbag to the destination. I had no idea where I was going in the moment, but I wanted to get away from the train station, away from the reunions of loved ones taking place around me. In the moment, I would have rather been transported back to the makeshift hospitals in France, away from happiness and love. It threatened to strangle me, as I picked up the pace down the Birmingham streets.
As a last dying promise from David, my husband, I was told that his closest mate, Harry Fenton, would take me in as his own as soon as my nursing duties had ended in France. In David's final moments, I had only taken the piece of paper and letter of instruction without a word of protest because of the fierce determination that he held giving me the paper with the address with his last letter. I knew in that moment that he would die. My reassurances of his survival had meant nothing to us as the minutes dwindled. My unanswered prayers to a higher power would be just that: unanswered. Minutes later, David had died in front of my own eyes, holding my hand.
Truth be told, I did not want to have any connections to the very life that lay in carnage on the fields of the war of attrition. The Great War, as they called it, had left the greatest hole within my heart and soul. In an attempt to absolve myself of the shame of living following David's passing, I threw myself into tending to the sick and wounded soldiers-the honorary brothers of David-to make sure that no sister, mother, or wife would ever feel the carnage within their hearts as I have.
Once I was dismissed from my nursing duties, I finally felt the crushing weight of my loss and the loss of the life that I once had. I could not return to my family, living within the United States. The day that I had signed up for the American Red Cross as a nurse on the Western Front was the very day that I had died to my family. I had turned my back on the family business. I had left Chicago for something unforgivable: love in the shadow of war.
The absence of my return would only confirm to my family that I had really died on the front. In all honesty, I had died during the war. I did not want to return to the world as Antonina Paltrowicz. I would fulfill his dying promise of going to Birmingham, to the city that he once called home in his wayward youth.
I would set about my new life as Antonina Casey. I would continue to preserve David Casey's memory through his namesake: vigilant, watchful in war.
I wonder if God had used his namesake as a sick, irony the day that the attack occurred against David's squadron. In the weeks leading up to the attack that would eventually take him, David had written ominously about something bad coming. I thank his premonition, though. He had written a letter, with the Garrison's address in the event that David and I could no longer begin our new life. Tears sprung my eyes as I recalled the last days of his life, spent in a goddamn makeshift hospital on the western front. I dropped my suitcase, as I pulled my cigarette case from my overcoat to spring a match. I needed the nicotine to clear my head. What an irony it was for me to be smoking, as a former nurse. If life wouldn't take me yet, I had the only hope that the cigarettes would speed up the process.
"Excuse me, miss?"
A man's voice had jolted me from the perilous thoughts and I dropped my match in response. I was annoyed, though grateful, for the interruption to remind myself that it was unsafe to meander around a town that I had no grasp upon. I turned to the man, with a cigarette in my mouth. Piercing blue eyes met mine. I dropped the cigarette from my mouth and I involuntarily gasped. His eyes. They reminded me of David, so much so that if I was drunk with whiskey I would have sworn it was him through foggy eyes. I straightened my back, meeting his gaze with my own. With as much bravado as I could muster, I answered David's ghost.
"Yes, may I help you?"