Chapter 8
"What on earth?" he heard Rosie mutter as she opened the door into the front room after work on Saturday. Tommy glanced up from where he sat sifting through a ledger, watching her eyes travel across the scene, taking in Ada sitting in front of the fire with her hair in a mess of strips, Polly sitting behind her and wrapping the hair round her fingers, Lily sitting beside them and holding a bundle of cloth, watching the process intently.
"This is Ada's Saturday night ritual of trying to get her hair to be like Mary Pickford's," Polly told the bemused girl in the doorway.
"Rosie!" Lily looked up, away from the hair and smiling, "I'm helping!" she told her, brandishing the bundle of cloth.
"Uh-huh," Rosie replied, glancing with softened eyes at her sister and shutting the door but still clearly not following any of the scene she was viewing.
"The new bed came," Lily babbled on excitedly, "It's huge! Tommy says you'll get a much better sleep now and Ada said your hair might not stick out in all directions as much if you lie down like a normal person instead of sleeping sitting up."
Tommy watched Ada jut her chin out defiantly at the redhead, as if she thought the girl would contest that her hair stuck out all over the place. Rosie didn't say anything, but Tommy noticed her hand flick and then be still, as if she'd been going to pat her hair and then thought better of it.
"Yeah, Ada did say that," he said, moving his eyes back to the numbers, "And Ada learned what happens when we're rude about family."
"Yeah but Tommy says and does whatever he likes," Ada said darkly, then, "Ouch, Aunt Pol that was tight."
"Sorry Ada, just trying to get your hair to keep the curl," he heard Polly reply sardonically, "Ada's hair doesn't take a curl, she's jealous yours does."
"I don't know if my hair curls so much as it does just stick out," Rosie replied evenly, her eyes meeting Ada's.
"The top of your hair looks like Mary Pickford's," Ada replied, an almost accusatory note in her voice, "It's just you don't have the pretty ringlets at the bottom. You might if you grew it longer, why don't you grow it longer?"
Tommy cleared his throat, not raising his eyes, but Lily chattered on, oblivious, which stopped him going any further.
"We got a yellow cover for the bed, Aunt Polly and me went to the shop to pick it out because she said you were no help when it came to picking out things."
"I said you hadn't even seemed to want a new coat when we got them on Thursday," Ada added in, her voice making it quite clear that she couldn't understand that at all, her eyes going up and down Rosie's body, still currently adorned with the old coat.
"And we looked for a green one because green's your favourite colour, but they didn't have a green one. Aunt Polly said it was a miracle you got a green coat, but it was a good miracle because it looks nice with your hair, and then she said she didn't really know the real miracle was that we got one or that you agreed to get one. And she said Tommy was daft to think I'd get a yellow winter coat and no wonder we didn't find one, but she said maybe when it gets warmer I could get a yellow raincoat."
"Hmm," was all Rosie offered in response, blinking at the girl jabbering away on the carpet.
"Aunt Polly says a lot," Tommy contributed, glancing sideways at the girl. He caught her eye and held it for a moment, before looking back at the figures in the book and saying, "You going to go see if you like the bits and pieces Lily and Polly picked? And take your shoes off, they'll be all wet with mud - Polly'll 'ave you if you trail it through."
She didn't say anything, but out of the corner of his eye he watched as she removed her boots - boots he fully intended to throw away if Polly had guessed correctly at the size of the boots she had bought for her in Rackham's earlier – and flicked his eyes down as she made her way across the room, carrying them with her.
She had been gone approximately two seconds when there was a loud, "Jesus fucking Christ!" and she reappeared.
He frowned up at her, to find her glaring at him. He glanced to Lily, who was looking at her sister with wide eyes, and back, raising his eyebrows. Without discussing it, they had come to some sort of agreement that she could swear around him and not around anyone else – and she had seemed not to swear around her sister as a matter of course anyway, other than the odd bloody.
"You might have fucking warned me Thomas," she growled, anger at whatever he hadn't warned her about – which he had expected to be the contents of the room upstairs and which he knew she hadn't got to in such a small amount of time – clearly outranking any care of language she had.
He heard Polly click her tongue, but neither he nor Rosie glanced at his aunt.
"Warned you about what?" he asked, shaking his head slightly and widening his eyes at her to show it was a genuine question.
She didn't answer, and he had the distinct impression he was supposed to know the answer already, but before he could push her for more of a response, they were interrupted by a soft thudding noise.
Rosie looked down and grabbed Lily's wrist to stop her hand landing again, "What do you think you're playing at?" she demanded, in a voice far harsher than she'd normally use with her sister - that he'd so far seen anyway.
"Tommy said to give you smacks for bad language," Lily said, a mischievous smile being offered to him from the younger sister.
He didn't return it, aware of Rosie glaring at him. Her eyes shifted to her sister, whose wrist she was still holding, and Lily stuck out her tongue in a childish defiance. The older sister noted the action, raised an eyebrow and turned her eyes back on him.
Tommy got up and crossed the couple of steps to be where they stood. Her eyes told him to get it fixed, and he owed her that, it was his fault.
"Lily," he said, his eyes on Rosie's as he crouched, moving them slowly to Lily's.
"Yeah?"
"I shouldn't have said that – it was a joke and I didn't make that very clear. I'm sorry. I knew you wouldn't do it when I said it, so I don't know what's changed between Thursday and now."
The child frowned, and he wasn't sure if he'd made himself clear or not.
"Lily – you can't smack your sister – you need to do what she tells you and you need to respect her, eh?" he said, his voice a little more stern, "I know what I said, but I didn't mean it and I thought you understood that. I thought you knew we were having a joke."
The girl started to look uncertainly between him and her sister, who still gripped her wrist. He met Rosie's eyes. She still wasn't happy. God damn it. He wondered if she'd had a particularly rough day at work.
He rubbed his nose with his hand then looked more sharply at Lily, "You can't be my best girl if you stick out your tongue at your sister and don't do what she tells you, you understand?"
The girl nodded slowly, her eyes suddenly looking watery.
"So - you won't do it again, will you?" he asked, softening his voice a little, not enjoying the look on her face at all.
She shook her head this time.
"Good, so you can keep being my best girl then," he said, giving her a reassuring smile, and taking her free hand to give it a squeeze. Bloody hell, he was round her finger alright.
"Will you say sorry to your sister then?" he said, not letting go of her hand.
The child looked up at her older sister and mumbled her apologies and Tommy looked to Rosie, checking with her if it would suffice. Something flickered in her eyes and he wasn't entirely sure it was okay, but she released the wrist.
"Okay, you go back and help Ada and Aunt Polly some more Lily love, eh?" he said, drawing her hand to his mouth to bestow a kiss on it and sending her back over to his aunt, who pulled her back down beside her, placing an arm around her.
Rosie's eyes stayed on her sister for a minute before flicking back down to him. He got up from his crouch slowly, not breaking their eye contact. She didn't say anything.
He cleared his throat. She still didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry about that," he eventually said quietly, deciding he would give in first and break the silence, "I shouldn't have said it – I didn't mean to undermine you.
"Did he just say sorry?" Ada said, loudly.
He thought about moving his eyes to glare at her, but he decided he wanted to sort things with Rosie more than he wanted to sort his lump of a sister out. And besides, he had apologised. And he couldn't pretend that happened often. He hedged his bets that Rosie knew that too.
She held his gaze for a moment, during which he didn't even breathe, and eventually she blinked and gave a small nod.
"Thank you," he murmured, meaning it.
She moved her eyes towards the door, not looking at him or the three by the fire. Part of him wanted to grab hold of her chin until her eyes moved to him again, but he realised he couldn't. Not with her sister sitting watching them. He'd have to be more careful.
He kept his voice soft, asking her, "Now, what do you think I didn't warn you about in the kitchen?"
She exhaled through her nose, loudly, then moved her eyes back to him and said, "Finn."
"Finn – what are you doing in there?" Tommy shouted through to the kitchen, his voice suddenly loud and stern again.
"I'm not doing anything Tommy," came the voice from the next room.
Tommy pulled a face at Rosie – inviting her to explain.
"He's not bloody doing anything but he's - he's bloody naked," she snapped.
Tommy looked at her outraged face for a moment, then rolled his lips to stop the laughter coming to him.
"It's bath night," Lily supplied, somewhat timidly.
Rosie moved her gaze from Tommy over to her sister for a second, before moving back to meet his eyes, still angry as far as he could see.
"Saturdays are bath night," he told her, still unsure what was angering her.
"Yes – well – I gathered!" she spluttered, "But you might think to – to warn people that other people are bathing before sending them into places unaware – bloody hell Tommy, I nearly saw – saw things that aren't appropriate."
Tommy couldn't contain his laugh any longer as he listened to Polly and Ada dissolve behind him.
"I'm not laughing at you," he said, trying to control it, "It's not – I mean – I can see you're upset. But we're all – we don't carry much shame around the natural state in this family. My mother would shove me and Arthur in the tub together when we were little."
"When you were little, sure – but Finn's not so little he's fitting anyone else in with him. I mean – Jesus Christ Tommy!"
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," he said, managing to contain his smile, "You just sit in here until Finn's done."
He sat back down and picked up the ledger, leaving the spot next to him on the couch open, but she crossed the room and sat in the single chair.
He ran his thumb over his lower lip, he could see she was still perturbed. He didn't know how to handle that. She didn't look at any of them or say anything. Polly exchanged a glance with him and he shook his head – telling his aunt to let the girl alone.
It was bizarre to him, but then – she had one sister. He had three brothers, a sister and an aunt who grew up next to them… And when they'd visited gypsy camps… And when he'd been at war… He supposed he had just never really gained any ideas of modesty, there hadn't been room for them in his life.
"Lily," she eventually said, her gaze focussed somewhere on the ceiling, "Did you have a bath?"
"Yeah," Lily said, her head cocked at her sister, who still wasn't looking at her.
"Right," came the short reply, with a small nod. Still no eye contact.
"I went first cause Aunt Polly said I was the least dirty, and Ada takes ages," Lily told her sister, a note of uncertainty in her voice.
The tone of her sister's voice obvious shook her a little, and Rosie moved her eyes down from the ceiling to the blond child on the floor and gave her a small smile, "That's good."
"Aunt Polly says she'll curl my hair like Ada's if I want, to see if it works any better on me than it usually does on her."
With some effort Rosie smiled properly then and said, "I don't know why anyone with nice tidy hair like yours would want it all curly and wild."
"It won't be wild," Ada said, rolling her eyes, "You brush it down. You heard of a hairbrush?"
"Ada's heard of a hairbrush," Tommy stuck in, "In fact, Polly's made sure she's right familiar with both sides of it. For all the good it seems to do either end of her."
Ada glared at him, but he ignored her, continuing to pretend to be interested in the figures in front of his face but listening intently to the room.
"Well there's no school tomorrow so I suppose if it goes like mine we can wet it down and it'll dry normally," Rosie said to her sister, ignoring Ada and Tommy.
She never seemed to rise to Ada at all, which he liked. But he wasn't sure that Ada wasn't still getting to her, without her showing it.
"It's for church tomorrow," Lily told her.
"Church tomorrow?" she questioned with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah. I got a new dress today for it."
The redhead sighed, seemingly before she could contain herself and ran her fingers through her own untidy head before saying, "So you're going to church tomorrow in a new dress, are you?"
He wondered again what was eating at her – something clearly was.
"Yeah, so are you," Lily replied.
She narrowed her eyes at him across her sister's head, and he met her gaze, realising it was no use pretending he didn't know he was in this conversation.
"Am I indeed?" she asked, her voice tight.
She ignored the response her sister gave and continued to look at him, "I don't recall discussing that."
"You're Catholic, aren't you?" he asked her, shrugging. He hadn't discussed it with her, but he hadn't really thought to.
"Not particularly," she replied, her voice biting.
"We are, Molly said so," Lily said, furrowing her brows at her sister.
Tommy looked between the furrowed brows on both sisters.
"Who's Molly?" Finn asked, appearing in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket.
Rosie raised her eyes to the ceiling again as Finn crossed to sit next to Tommy on the couch.
"Molly – she – she used to live with us sometimes," Lily said, concentrating hard, as if recalling something she couldn't quite remember, "She doesn't anymore though. But she said – she said we were Catholic because we had been washed of her sins that way."
"Lily!" snapped the older sister, the fiery eyes flashing down to burn into the blue ones.
Lily's lower lip trembled at the tone.
"We don't talk about her. She's gone. Forget her," Rosie said, leaning forward in the chair, holding the younger girl's gaze, her voice still hard.
Tommy recognised the tone. He used it himself, frequently, but he wasn't used to being on the listening end of it.
Lily burst into tears.
The older sister took a deep breath and then, her voice considerably lighter, "Lily, I'm sorry – c'mere," she said, holding out her arms for the girl to go to. "I'm not angry with you," she told her, pulling her sister into her lap, wiping her face with her hands, rubbing her back to soothe her, "Lily, it's okay, it's okay, I'm not angry. It's just better if you forget her, eh? Can you try and do that for me? Please?"
Realisation washed over him then. The girl had probably grown up watching men and her mother in various stages of nakedness. No bloody wonder seeing Finn naked in the tub had alarmed her. He began to wonder then if there was more to her oversized clothes and bobbed hair than he had originally thought. And if so - Christ, what had he done? A wave of panic followed the realisation. For what might have been the first time in his adult life since they had come home, Tommy Shelby confronted the idea he might have underestimated the situation he had waded into.
He glanced at Polly, and it was his aunt's turn to shake her head at him. He hadn't been going to say anything anyway, not now.
"Hey, Lily," Rosie was saying to the girl in her lap, who had quietened but not entirely calmed, "Do you want to go show me this bed cover you picked, eh? Yellow?"
Her sister sniffed and nodded, and Rosie got to her feet carefully, her sister still in her arms.
"You like green," the child said into her sister's neck, where her face was buried.
"Yeah I do," Rosie agreed, picking her way across the small room, stroking the back of the blond head, "But I like yellow too. Yellow makes me think of you Lily, so I might actually like it more than green sometimes…"
The voices trailed off as she carried her sister away through the shop and up the stairs, her low, hushing tones not carrying even through the thin walls.
"What was that?" Ada asked tactlessly, looking between her two brothers and her aunt.
"That was something we don't talk about," Tommy responded, standing, "And I swear to God Ada, you say one more single thing about her hair or her clothes and you won't sit for a month of Sundays, y'hear?"
She glared at him, her face obstinate, but he widened his eyes at her and she relented, nodding sullenly.
"I told you the other day when we went through it Ada, I don't bloody want to have to do that again – I didn't fucking enjoy walloping you with that brush. But I don't want an attitude from you to anyone in this family – and she's in this family now, alright?"
Ada nodded again, slightly less sullenly this time. His eyes left his sister, done with that interaction, and he picked up the boots Rosie had abandoned by the single chair in favour of filling her arms with her sister. He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, then headed out the room after them, walking slowly whilst he tried to consider what to say.