Chapter 15

The harmony within the house lasted far longer than Tommy figured he could have really rightfully hoped for. He was called upon a few times to harden his voice or dish out some quick-fire discipline – and that happened more and more as Ada got more and more carried away with her birthday plans – but as November came to its close and Ada's birthday week loomed he had settled into a more placid role in the house than he had ever occupied before. What surprised him was that he enjoyed it.

He started spending his more of his Saturdays at home – Polly would still come over during the day and keep an eye on Lily whilst he got some work done, but then he and Lily would walk over to meet Rosie from the tobacco shop at five o'clock when she finished, and he'd sit in with them on Saturday nights until Rosie went to her bed. Sometimes, after she did, he even went to his own bed instead of heading out.

He was still a regular at the Garrison, it was good business that he was out and about and there were still things – and people – needing taken care of, but he found himself more and more making the effort to get his business done during business hours where he could. And she had taken to making dinner every Tuesday night, so he'd taken to making sure he was in for that too. If there were night time deeds to be done, they didn't happen on Tuesdays.

He'd noticed Polly making her exits earlier as well, leaving them so he and Rosie would end up on the sofa together with Lily playing around them – Finn and Ada still preferred being outside with their friends, even in the winter, but Lily was too young to join in with them and Rosie was… disinclined to join in with them. Sometimes they'd talk whilst they sat, sometimes she'd curl up with a book and he'd tuck her seemingly permanently cold feet under his leg whilst he read the paper or looked over his ledgers – contemplating new ways to get money through the door. It was vaguely inconvenient that, at a time when his home life seemed to be more important than it had ever been, his business life was also becoming more important – he had to succeed, he had to make it work, he had to achieve what he wanted to – for her. For them.

Of course, he kept to his resolve and gave her more distance than before too. Controlling his impulses around her had always been slightly more difficult than it was around anyone else, and it was even more so now she was in his house – and seeming so much like she belonged there. But he managed. Her feet were as much as he touched regularly – he stopped himself from smacking her backside as he often wanted to, even when her tongue gave him perfect justification. Sometimes it was as if she were deliberately provoking him – and he fancied he caught a look of disappointment in her eye occasionally when he simply tutted and shook his head at her. But he treated her in as much of a sisterly fashion as he could. Or maybe, if he had been taking the lead from one of her books he'd have called it a gentlemanly fashion, but he'd never proclaimed himself a gentleman and he wasn't going to start now. It would seem, to his mind, a way of tempting fate.

Her and Ada had settled into some sort of truce as far as he could tell; Rosie had got this Becker lad – and Tommy was still more interested than he cared to admit about exactly who Becker was – to agree to come to Ada's party and between that and the cake she had agreed to provide Ada had started backing off. Tommy wasn't entirely sure what Ada had offered to the truce, but Rosie seemed inclined to accept whatever it was.

Ada's actual birthday was on Sunday, but she was having her friends over on Saturday afternoon – and as the week approached Tommy regretted that he had ever let it go ahead.

As far as he was concerned, it all started going downhill over their Tuesday night dinner.

"What are you going to wear?" Ada asked Rosie, shovelling roast potato into her mouth.

"I want to wear my Christmas dress!" Lily announced, smiling.

"You're not coming Lily, it's a grown-up party," Ada replied, rolling her eyes.

Tommy hid his smile – Polly had already advised him to leave off, that Ada was taking her party very seriously and he should let her. She had also advised that if Ada was as taken up with her party as she seemed to be it was keeping her out of other mischief – and Tommy had a funny feeling that piece of advice was actually Rosie's reaching him via Polly for some political reason that had to do with the turf war truce and he didn't entirely know what it meant but he was heeding it. He had a nasty feeling Becker or Wrighty or whoever else was somehow involved though.

Lily's face fell, and Rosie jumped in saying, "We're having a birthday tea on Sunday for Ada's actual birthday Lily, so we'll be at that."

"Can I wear my Christmas dress?"

"Is it Christmas?" Rosie asked with a raised eyebrow, her voice slightly more firm than normal.

The girl shook her head.

"Then no, you can't wear a Christmas dress – even if you had it yet. Which you don't."

Lily sighed despondently.

"What's a Christmas dress?" Tommy enquired of the sad six-year-old.

"My Christmas dress!" she said – as though it was perfectly obvious and he was supposed to know.

"We haven't even bought this year's Christmas dress yet Lily," Rosie replied – her tone still the one she used when she was being firm with her sister.

"Yeah but I've picked it – the one in the window!"

"Every year once the tree is up in town we go to the shops and Lily gets a dress to wear on Christmas day," Rosie explained to the table, "She's seen one she likes for this year but we haven't bought it yet so I don't know why she thinks its hers – or why she thinks she'll have it to wear on Sunday when the tree isn't even up yet! You can wear your church dress on Sunday, same as every Sunday Lily, it's very pretty."

Tommy knew from her tone that Lily absolutely was getting the dress from the window, but the child clearly didn't.

"I don't want to wear my church dress to a party!"

"It's not a party it's a birthday tea."

"Aunt Polly said it's the family party, didn't you?" Lily complained.

"Well I did love, but you don't need to get all dressed up - I'll be wearing what I wear to church in the morning," Polly told the girl in a soothing tone, rubbing her arm.

"I want to wear my Christmas dress!" the voice was whining and not the usual sweet voice he expected to hear from her.

"Do you want to be sitting in your room and not coming at all?" Tommy asked her, raising an eyebrow at the tone.

She glared at him and he frowned, "I don't like that look Lily – give me my best girl smile?"

She continued to glower.

"Oh dear, looks like Lily won't be coming to the birthday tea then if she's going to frown at everyone because she doesn't want to wear her church dress that she loved so much when it was new!" Rosie said lightly, cutting up her chicken and deliberately not looking at her sister.

The child started to cry.

"She does that all the time," Finn muttered, rolling his eyes.

"She's only little," Tommy said, nudging his brother in the ribs, then, "Lily love, don't cry, come on – if you give me my best girl smile now and promise that's what you'll do on Sunday you can come to the family party."

She slid off her chair and came around the table to climb into his lap. He noticed Polly and Rosie exchanging eye rolls.

"I don't want to wear my church dress Tommy!"

He cuddled her close and kissed her head before asking gently, "Why not?"

"I want my Christmas dress!" she sobbed.

"But you don't have your Christmas dress yet and even if you did it's for wearing on Christmas day my little love – you can't wear it before then," he said, bouncing his knee to soothe her.

"But I want it!" she cried, her tears not letting up.

"Well 'I want' doesn't get Lily," his aunt interjected before he could reply, "And your sister has to work very hard to save up for that Christmas dress you're after. Your church dress is lovely."

"No!" she shrieked, shaking her head.

"Lily bab, what's going on?" Tommy asked, "You're not this upset about a dress, are you?"

"She is Thomas, because she's six and thankfully a dress is the extent of her worries," his aunt said, getting up and pulling Lily off of him. The child wrapped her arms around his neck, but she was no match for a determined Polly and she began screaming and kicking as soon as her limpet hold was removed.

"Lily, I'm putting you back in your chair now and you're going to stop this and be a good girl," his aunt told her, plopping her unceremoniously back down in the chair between herself and Ada that she had got off, then sitting back down and picking up her own cutlery to go back to her food.

Lily didn't stop though, the screaming continued – and she tried to get off the chair again, looking wildly to him but it was Rosie who raised her voice this time and said, "Lily you stay on that chair where Aunt Polly put you."

Her sister's tone proved sufficient to keep her on the chair – though she was standing rather than sitting - but didn't stop the crying.

Finn put his hands over his ears and Ada rolled her eyes and said, "Lily will you shut up – I want to talk to Rosie about my party."

"Ada she's a baby!" Tommy snapped at his sister.

"Cause I'd have got away with that when I was six!" she snapped back at him, rolling her eyes.

"She's not wrong Thomas," his aunt said wryly.

"Just ignore her and she'll cry herself out and settle," Rosie sighed, then, raising her voice for the child's benefit, "And she'll not get any cake after her dinner if she doesn't behave herself. Now, what about your party Ada?"

"What are you wearing to it?" Ada bellowed over the top of Lily's screeching.

"My church dress I wear every Sunday?"

"No, on Saturday?"

"Ada I'm working on Saturday."

"No, you're not – it's my party."

"Yeah but I'll be there on Sunday."

"No, you'll be there both days!" Ada ordered – Tommy noticed that her tone wasn't entirely unlike his own, which was unusual for Ada.

"Well you didn't ask me to come on Saturday and I haven't asked for it off work," Rosie said, shrugging.

"What do you mean I didn't ask you to come? Jesus Christ! I can't have the boys there without you!"

"Well I did think it was a bit odd that you wanted them there, but you never said I was meant to stay," Rosie replied, a genuine perplexity on her face.

Ada's voice had a distinct note of panic, "Are you actually thick? I'm hardly going to ask you to make me a cake and not stay to the party."

"Sorry?" Rosie offered with a shrug, "Not much I can do."

"Well get it off!"

"I can't – someone would need to cover me."

"Tommy!" Ada whined at him, her tone now more akin to Lily's.

"I'll sort it – but you should have asked her properly Ada," Tommy replied, tempted to take a leaf out of Finn's book and stick his fingers in his ears over all the racket.

"What do you mean you'll sort it – I can't afford to take it off?" Rosie turned on him across Finn's head.

"I mean I'll make sure you get it off – and why can't you afford to take it off?" he frowned back. Surely her one meal a week that she made wasn't eating an entire day's wages every time? He'd need to have a word with Polly about what the bloody cost of food was these days.

"Well that screaming child wants a Christmas dress for a start," she said, indicating her sister, "Though why she thinks that's the way to behave to get one I don't know."

If it was an attempt to calm Lily down, it didn't work - the child's screams raised.

"Christmas dress! I want my Christmas dress! Go to work! Christmas dress!" she stamped her foot and the chair wobbled. Thankfully Polly was quick to stable it, but his aunt's eyes turned on him, telling him to do something.

"Right," he said, banging his cutlery down and standing, which ceased Lily's cries for a minute – out of surprise more than anything else, he imagined, "Lily, you calm down and say sorry to your sister, you're being very ungrateful."

"No!" she shook her head and stamped her foot again.

He was taken aback for a moment – he wasn't used to people telling him no, and he certainly wasn't used to a child doing it. Ada was quite right that he'd have given her a good solid smack when she was a baby if she'd acted like Lily currently was – and probably before now. But Rosie's approach seemed different to his – with her advice to them all just being to ignore her. Except he'd spoken to her now so he clearly wasn't ignoring her, and he'd stood up so he had to follow through with something.

He walked to her chair and placed his hands on her waist to pick her up from behind, his heart breaking slightly as she tried to twist and reach out her arms to him. All he wanted to do was cuddle her in and rock her and kiss her till her tantrum subsided – and he'd buy her the dress himself if she'd just stop crying.

He carried her over to the corner of the room and tried to set her down – but she had begun to kick again when she realised he wasn't going to cuddle her, so he couldn't get her to stand. He ended up pressing her face gently into the corner, hoping the space would contain her enough to still her. It worked slightly for the kicking but didn't quieten her sobs.

"Lily listen to me a minute," he said, trying to keep his tone authroatative rather than plead with her like he was inclined to – he had a feeling his aunt would never let him live it down if he begged a six-year-old.

She didn't quieten, and he had to raise his voice, "Lily Shel- Lily Jackson! You listen to me right now!"

The child didn't seem to notice his slip of the tongue and she seemed to decide to switch tactic then and took a great gulping breath before shutting her mouth, her face starting to go red quickly.

"Lily – I don't like this behaviour," he told her, "It's not very nice. Breathe Lily, come on, I know you can't hold your breath forever. Now, my good girl is in there somewhere, I know she is."

The girl let out the breath she was holding and screamed again, "No! No no no no no!"

"Yes she is Lily, my best girl is in there," he said, his voice loud over the shouts, "Now you're going to stay in this corner till she's back in control of you, alright?"

"No!"

"Lily!"

"Don't want to!"

"I know – but I don't want you over at the table and upsetting everyone with this behaviour Lily, so until it changes you have to stay over here. Once you're ready to say sorry you can come back to the table."

"No!"

"Well you can stay here all night, it's your choice," he told her, letting go slightly of his hold on her waist. She wobbled but found her footing when she realised she wasn't fully supported, and he stood up, his heart twisting at the idea of leaving her.

"Tommy!"

She had turned and was staring at him.

He crouched and raised an eyebrow expectantly, "Are you ready to say you're sorry and come back to the table?"

"No!"

He stood back up, surprised at the lack of co-operation, "Alright, well get your nose in the corner then Lily."

She didn't turn back around. He sighed and took the step back to her, whisking her around and holding her firmly for a second before letting go and returning to the table, not looking back at her.

She turned again, "Rosie!"

She glanced up from her dinner, "Lily?"

The child screamed at her.

"Lily, Tommy just told you – you stay over there and face the corner until you're going to be a good girl," she said, her voice nonplussed.

"Rosie! I don't like it!" she said, stamping her foot. He wondered if she'd always done that or if it had been picked up from Ada and he glared at his sister, who was eating her dinner and didn't catch his look.

"Well I don't either, but we warned you if you didn't behave you wouldn't go on Sunday, and I told you you wouldn't get any cake tonight and you didn't care about either of those things – you just let your temper take over."

"No!"

"Yes, you did Lily," Tommy answered her, pulling her glare over to him, "So you turn around and face that corner like I've told you until you want to say you're sorry."

The response was for her to screw her face up and begin screaming again.

"For goodness sake this is ridiculous!" his aunt snapped, then turned in her own seat and said loudly, "Lily – you listen to me a minute my girl – that sister of yours and that Tommy might have the patience for this, but the rest of us don't so if another sound comes out of you that isn't an apology I'm going to give you a good hard smack and put you to bed without the rest of your dinner never mind any cake!"

"Thank god!" Ada said, raising her eyes to the heavens as if genuinely grateful for some kind of divine intervention.

The child's mouth fell open and fresh tears came to her eyes, but she turned to face the corner and the sounds that came from her were the normal cries of a child in place of the screams they'd been listening to.

"Polly-" Rosie started to say but his aunt held her hand up.

"No, Rosie, children are children – you can't reason with them like they're adults, all this," she gestured at the child in the corner, "Is doing is pulling this all out and upsetting her and asking her to decide when enough is enough – and that's not fair. She's not old enough to know how or when to make that decision. She's the child. You need to take control of the situation. And you," she turned her eyes on him, "You should know better! Did your mother carry on and put you in a corner for anything other than to wait your turn to get your arse lit up? I don't bloody think so! And I don't remember any babies screaming at anyone in this bloody house before this very evening, so I dare say the previous, time-honoured approach was far more effective!"

He had the very distinct impression she was ready to give him a good smack, but as he listened to the child in the corner be so entirely consumed with her own cries that she clearly hadn't heard a word of what had just been said, he didn't really feel he could argue that Pol was wrong. His heart was breaking listening to her and if he'd just given her a smack in the first place he could have had her in his arms now and been cuddling her again as he wanted to be doing.

The hard won 'I'm sorry's came eventually when Lily ran to her sister to cry into her lap and collect her forgiveness, which was freely given along with many cuddles and kisses and Tommy fought to keep himself on his own chair rather than go over and interrupt them to slot his own desire to cuddle the child in amongst their moment.

His heart lightened when Rosie stood up, bouncing Lily up on her hip and crossed behind Finn to him saying, "Are you going to apologise to Tommy too? You weren't very nice to him."

He was glad to gather the child up in his arms and hold her in the way he'd wanted to what seemed hours before, even if it had been all of fifteen minutes, pressing kisses all across her head.

"You nearly called me Lily Shelby," she pointed out once he had settled her and confirmed that she was indeed his best girl again.

So she had noticed the slip of his tongue.

"I did my love, I'm sorry, I forget you're a Jackson and not a Shelby at times," he said, hoping he hadn't upset her freshly with that mistake in the middle of her other upsets.

Her mouth drooped a little for reasons he couldn't quite fathom.

"Yeah well a Shelby wouldn't have got away with all that screaming," Ada said, "Would they Finn?"

"Nope," Finn replied with a snort, digging into his cake.

"You said Finn was my big brother though," she reminded Tommy

"He is your brother," he told her, "You just have a different last name – you've got your sister's last name."

She frowned, and Rosie crouched beside his chair to tap her sister's nose, laughing and saying, "No need to look quite so disappointed Lily. You can change it when you're older if you dislike it so much."

Polly reached out for a hold of Lily and the girl bit her lip as he passed her to his aunt. Rosie straightened and he could see tension in her hand as she stood beside his chair, not returning to her own. He wanted to pat the tension away but he was holding firm to his intention of not blurring the boundaries.

"Are you a good girl now?" his aunt asked Lily.

"Yes Aunt Polly," she replied nervously.

"That's what I like to hear."

"Aunt Polly…" she began and trailed off.

"Yes Lily?"

"Would you really smack me?"

"Yes Lily I would," his aunt told her – not unkindly but firmly, "Naughty children are naughty children in my book and I don't care what their surname is. You'll get treated the same as Ada and Finn as far as I'm concerned. Same as any kid that I look after."

He could see Rosie frowning at that, but when the child went on to tell his aunt that she was very sorry and then sat in her lap until Polly made her excuses and left for the night, he couldn't really see that she hadn't been entirely right. And he was well aware it was his aunt's words that had succeeded in getting her to calm down where theirs had failed.

Rosie obviously didn't approve, she had taken quite a while to sit back down herself after Lily had settled in Polly's lap, but the child had clearly either been smacked at school herself or had seen enough of other children catching it that the idea alone was a deterrent.

The thing was the idea might work. If he used those words they might work - to begin with. But, at some point, they'd have to transition from the idea – from words - to actions – and he just didn't know if he had the strength for it.

The last proper spanking he'd given Ada – when he'd put her over the kitchen table and ended up taking the brush to her – true, he had taken a grim satisfaction in it at first as he worked out some of the frustrations that she had caused in him on her backside but, once he had gotten past that, he'd hated it. But he knew it had been partly his own fault for letting her wildness run unchecked for so long before that.