Chapter 52
On Monday afternoon Tommy cleared his schedule to do the school pick up and was waiting outside the junior school for Lily as the end of day bell went off. It was the first day back after the Easter holidays and he wasn't sure how Rosie would respond to him being there, she had walked Lily and Finn herself that morning, with Polly's blessing.
And then Polly had stayed in the kitchen to tell him that Freddie had got his letter, that he had got to Ada before she had got on the train to Cardiff and had gone and bloody well proposed to her.
It made him angry – and frustrated. Angry at the situation and frustrated with himself, because he hadn't really thought Freddie would go that far. In truth, when he'd sent the letter he'd thought even if Freddie did come back and take Ada out of the city with him, that it would last a year and Ada would come home sooner or later, tail between her legs and baby in tow. Whether because Freddie got bored of his sister when he realised she wasn't the link to them that he thought she would be, or because Ada realised the life of being on the run with a communist wasn't at all glamorous, either way – he hadn't thought it would last. He hadn't thought Freddie would marry her. He had just wanted his sister to realise that he wasn't unreasonable and that he wanted her to be happy – he had just figured it would be a short term happiness that in the long run would prove his concerns had been valid all along. Whatever fucking game Freddie was playing, it wasn't the one Tommy had thought it was. Or it was, but Freddie was more committed than he had thought. Part of him almost admired it, just not at the expense of his sister.
Polly wouldn't tell him exactly what had been said, which he presumed meant Freddie had made some declarations against him while he'd been saying it, but the long and short of it was that Freddie was refusing to go out of the city – he wanted to marry Ada there. He wanted to parade her in front of them.
"Tell them they can marry here," Tommy had finally yielded to Polly's petition to let them do so without it turning into a war, "They grew up here, that's fine. Once they're married – they leave this city."
Now that Ada would be legally bound to Freddie, it was even more important that both of them cleared out. He had promised Campbell he was dealing with it – had told him to cross Freddie off his list. He wanted to tell Rosie what he'd done, what he'd promised, how he'd bargained. Tell her what was going on and how Freddie's response wasn't what he'd envisioned. He wanted her input and opinion. For all he rolled his eyes and called her a pushover, he valued her thoughts, in a way he hadn't even quite realised himself until they had been taken away.
He hadn't told Polly anything. In response to him saying Ada and Freddie could marry in the city his aunt had sighed, then given him a curt nod. She'd pass it on. Then John had come in and they hadn't discussed it any further.
For now, he had to put that out of his mind – concentrate on the matter at hand. At resolving things with Rosie.
"Lily told me she told you about me asking Grace to the races," he'd told Rosie when he'd managed to get her alone in the kitchen as she made dinner on Saturday night, "And I know you told her not to tell me it had upset you."
She'd given him no response, just continued to chop vegetables.
"Rosie, it's business – just business. I took a meeting with the Inspector on Friday. I'm trying to play them at their own game, feed her information I want them to think they're winning by getting, eh? It doesn't mean anything. She doesn't mean anything."
She'd looked up at him then, her voice cold, "I'm glad women are just business for you Thomas."
"Rosie – I should have told you. I'm sorry, alright? With finding out about Ada – it just threw it out of my mind that you might have heard about it and been upset."
"It must be so nice to be able to forget the potential consequences of your actions just like that," she'd replied, snapping her fingers at him – her voice gone from cool to hot and angry. He took the emotion as some kind of progress.
"Rosie, I'm sorry. I don't know how to make it right. But I'm sorry – and I'll tell you that every damn day if I need to to make you believe me. She doesn't mean anything. It's just business."
It hadn't won her over in a night – but he'd told her again on Sunday and he'd tell her again today. That was what Polly had told him the last time, when he'd asked why she thought he didn't trust her even though he'd told her he did - "Tell her over and over and show her over and over. You wouldn't take a horse from an abusive owner and be surprised when it took turns. We don't question why Danny Whizzbang has turns every so often Tommy, whilst being quite normal in between. Trauma is trauma. You can't take a child who has been abandoned and abused and been left to see herself into womanhood then question it when she lashes out because she's worried that you're freezing her out. She's used to being told one thing whilst something else is happening – every time you tell her something she'll want to believe it, but there will be a part of her that doesn't. You can't just tell her once and think it's done. You need to reassure her – and you need to be gentle about it."
It seemed so obvious now. He had been so stupid – it was basically the same root as their last argument. Polly had told him, plain as day, that Rosie was used to being let down and abandoned by people who were supposed to love her. He should have figured it out sooner, she'd thought he'd got her to spy on Grace for his own ends. She thought she'd been replaced. She thought he'd abandoned her. He felt sick at the idea she could doubt the depths of his feelings for her, and he'd make that right too – he'd make sure she never doubted him again once he won her back. And he would win her back, he was sure of that now. She still cared. She was hurt and wounded because she cared.
He watched as Katie came out the girl's door and was surprised when she looked around, her gaze sailing past the twins who were waiting in the yard and settled on him.
She set off on a straight path to him and his curiosity was ended when she reached him and said, "Uncle Tommy – Lily got in trouble and she's crying in the bathroom, she won't come out."
It wasn't Katie's usual delighted tone that she relayed information about other kids being in trouble in, nor was it the faux-concern that Ada used to adopt to hide her delight – his niece seemed genuinely a bit worried.
"What'd she get in trouble about?" Tommy asked.
Katie shrugged, "She won't say, she was crying when she came out her class and she wouldn't come out with me, she just said she'd got in trouble then ran off to the bathroom and told me to go away."
"Alright," he nodded, tossing away the cigarette he'd been sucking on, "Show me where the girls' bathroom is."
He followed Katie through the same junior school he had attended a lifetime ago, the memories of the layout flooding back to him – though he still didn't know where the lower school's girl's toilets where. As boys, they'd just pissed in whatever the nearest available corner was. The corridors were the same dingy colour that might have been blue at some point, long before he had attended the school, and the blue had melded with smog and dirt to become foggy. He could see what looked like the same rows of wooden desks, written on and gouged into by him and his ilk back in the day as he glanced through the windows of the rooms. He'd have thought twenty years might have inspired some kind of change, but he'd evidently been wrong.
Teachers were still around – although they seemed to be pulling on coats and getting ready to leave once they were sure all the kids had gone – and a few of them shot curious looks back at him through the windows as he passed.
"In there," Katie said, pointing out the door coated in the remnants of peeling burgundy paint.
No fucking wonder Rosie wanted to send Lily to a different school, the Small Heath primary was as grim and devoid of colour as the bloody prison.
"Excuse me, sir," a voice came from behind him just as he pushed on the offensive door, "You can't go in there."
He didn't remove his hand, just turned his head over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at the speaker, "Yeah?"
"Yes – that's a girl's bathroom," the speaker – a middle aged woman with greying hair – replied.
He looked down at Katie, ignoring the woman and asking, "Who is that?"
Katie looked between the woman and him, clearly nervous about upsetting one or other of them.
"I'm Miss Aitken, head of the lower school," the woman told him herself in a disapproving tone, "And you are?"
"Going in here," he said, turning back.
"I can't let you in there."
"You going to stop me?"
"I'll call for a male teacher who will."
"You go ahead love."
She sighed then demanded, "May I ask why you feel you need to enter a lower school girls' bathroom?" Clearly she had had no real intention of going to fetch any male teachers and merely had been hoping the threat alone would scare him off.
Tommy moved to hold the door with his elbow, so he could pinch the bridge of his nose and screw his eyes shut for a moment before he opened them and met the woman's gaze to tell her, "I need to enter this fucking bathroom because my kid is in there crying her eyes out and won't come out because of the disproportionate discipline procedures in place in this fucking school. So instead of being here and interrupting me from doing that why don't you, as the head of the lower school, toddle off and have a word with your fucking staff – because I can fucking assure you, if I decide I'm having a word it'll be a word that ends them being staff, got it?"
"I don't see that there's any need for that language, Mr…?"
"And I don't see that there's any need for upsetting six year olds till they lock themselves in the fucking bathroom, but here we fucking are," he replied, ignoring her attempt at figuring out who he was again, "I've got another one to pick up at the senior school in about ten minutes, so I'm going in here and you can feel free to fuck right off sweetheart."
He could hear her blustering as the door swung shut behind him, the sound being replaced by that of Lily's sniffles coming from behind the only closed door. He went over to it and knocked gently, calling out her name.
The crying stopped for a second, as if she was going to try and answer, then restarted with a great wail.
"Lily, sweetheart, it's just me – open the door, eh?"
"T-Tommy," she gasped out, as if she was trying to start to say something, but her tears took over again.
"Yep, it's me my little love, open the door for me," he tried to coax her again and this time the lock slid back.
He pushed on it and it swung back to reveal a little girl with tears and snot all over her face, a wad of toilet roll that had already started to disintegrate from taking the bulk of it in her hand.
"C'mere love," he said, kneeling down and holding his arms out to her, "You cry it out."
He rubbed her back with one hand as she buried her soiled face into his shoulder, his other prying the toilet roll from her fist so he could chuck it in the nearby bin. It was past any use.
He had learned with Ada not to bother telling her not to cry, or to try and get her to stop once she'd started – it was a futile exercise. The best thing to do, as far as he could tell, was to encourage them to get it all out until they tired themselves of it then try and have rational conversation afterwards.
"I really must insist!" came the irritating teacher's voice as the door swung open.
He ignored her and continued to hold on to Lily, hearing her footsteps halt as she came into the room and took in the scene before her.
"Lily, what's going on?" the woman asked of the child.
Tommy stood up angrily, gathering Lily up in his arms, which elicited a sharp cry from her as if she were in pain.
"She's clearly in no state to discuss what's going on, thanks to your fucking teachers," he snarled.
"Mr Jackson, I don't know what's happened here but Lily's a very quiet and well-behaved child normally," the woman said, presuming him to be Lily's biological father, "I don't imagine Miss Reid, Lily's teacher, can have meant to cause this much of a reaction – I'd like to understand, for my own peace of mind, what's going on here."
"If you want peace of mind you should fire teachers that cause this much of a reaction," he snapped, grabbing a bundle of paper towels from the side of one of the sinks and pushing past the woman, out the hallowed door he wasn't supposed to have entered, and motioning for Katie, who had stayed standing outside the toilets chewing her lip, to lead the way back out.
Miss fucking Reid was it? He'd have words. Or he'd send Polly to have words. He didn't know what the fuck had happened, but he knew that whatever it was, this teacher had overreacted. Lily could be a bit cheeky, far more in her tone and through the way she said things than in what she actually said, but it was nothing a stern look didn't quash most of the time. And for all she could be a bit saucy – just like her bloody sister – he knew she wasn't badly behaved and he knew there would be plenty of other kids far more likely to answer back than her.
Lily was still crying by the time they emerged into the late April sunshine and Tommy told Katie to get on home with her brothers (who had waited for her, he was glad to see), giving her a brief pat on the head in thanks for coming to him. He walked quickly to the senior school, hoping he'd still make it before their end of day bell went, stroking Lily's hair and kissing her head, murmuring comfort to her as best he could.
When they made it to Finn and Rosie's school before the bell, he found a low wall and sat down on it, reaching for the paper towels he'd stuffed in his pocket and coaxing Lily's face out of his shoulder so he could dab at it as gently as he could. Her eyes were red and her face splotchy and his heart was sore for her pain. She tried to push herself off his lap as he wiped her down.
"C'mere to me," he said, pulling her back to him.
"It hurts Tommy," she said, her voice croaky from having cried for so long.
"You get smacked?" he asked.
She nodded miserably and he shifted his legs so she could stand between them rather than sit on them, still holding her close.
"You want to tell me what happened bab?"
"Rosie's going to be so angry!" she wailed.
"Never you mind about Rosie," he said, squeezing her waist, "It's just you and me Lily, you tell me what happened."
She sniffed then told him – they'd had to draw pictures of what they'd done over the Easter holidays, then get up and tell the class the story that accompanied them.
"So I drew the bonfire with the king's pictures in because I didn't want to talk about the horse and – and – and," she began to work herself up into the tears again, "And the teacher s—sa-said it was w-wicked and c-criminal and – and c-c-commist!"
"Communist?"
She nodded and, tears streaming down her face again. He produced another paper towel and held it to her nose, commanding, "Blow."
He was fuming – that a teacher would punish a child for attending a bonfire. As if it had been what they were burning that had been the reason for any of the kids to attend. They had just been there for the excitement of it. Why any teacher would think a six-year-old had any notion of politics he didn't know.
But it showed him that he had been right – they couldn't underestimate the danger of being associated with communists. Fear of the movement was so rife amongst the middle classes that kids were being punished for it – having the idea of communism being wrong indoctrinated before the next generation could grow up and take it any further than the current crop of Freddie Thornes was doing.
And his sister was marrying one of them. Fucking hell.
But still, he pushed his emotions down, not wanting Lily to misread the anger as being aimed at her.
"I'll have a word Lily, that shouldn't have happened to you," he told her, swabbing at her face with his jacket sleeve, "It was wrong of your teacher to smack you for that."
"It hurts Tommy," she repeated.
"I know sweetheart," he said, trying to keep his voice soothing whilst inwardly wondering just how hard this Reid woman had smacked her – she was a baby for Christ's sake! "It shouldn't have happened – Rosie won't be angry with you about it, alright? It wasn't your fault."
"I'm not allowed to get into trouble in school," Lily said, shaking her head, her lip trembling, "It's Rosie's big rule – I have to keep my head down and not get noticed. She's going to be so cross Tommy!"
He understood – Rosie didn't want anything drawing anyone's attention, didn't want anyone noticing Lily had no parents to speak of and was being raised by her underage sister who couldn't legally adopt until she was eighteen. Didn't want the parish getting involved.
"Lily, hey, Lily – listen to me," he said, taking a hold of her upper arms to hold her to him, "That might be Rosie's big rule for you, but that's about getting yourself into trouble – this wasn't your fault, alright? Nothing to worry about, eh? I promise."
"You promise?" she sniffed miserably.
"I do. And I don't break my promises to my best girl, do I?"
She shook her head.
"Exactly. C'mere my little love," he said, pulling her into him.
Her arms wrapped around his waist and he let his head rest on hers, staying in that position until the bell for the senior school's end of day went and Rosie clocked them and approached, her eyes on her sister.
"Lily," she called out, her voice worried.
Lily extracted her face from his chest to look round, her eyes still showing she'd been crying and her fingers sliding into her mouth.
Rosie held out her arms to the child, who came to them and she swept her up, asking, "What's happened Lily? Are you alright?"
Her eyes glared at him over her sister's shoulder – and he knew fine well that this was twice in a space of three days in which she'd arrived to find Lily crying in his arms.
"I got in trouble Rosie," Lily told her sister, shifting around in her arms whilst still winding her own around her neck, and her the older sister's glare hardened in her eyes, her mouth setting in a small frown.
"She's sore," he said, nodding at the arm Rosie had settled at the tops of Lily's legs, knowing it would be uncomfortable for her, "And it wasn't her fault."
"If it wasn't her fault why is she sore?" she snapped.
"It wasn't me," he told her, realising what conclusions she had already drawn, "It was her teacher."
He watched fear flit momentarily across the redhead's face before she smoothed it away to hide it from everyone. She pressed her lips to her sister's head and sat down next to him on the wall, standing Lily in front of her and taking her hands in hers whilst the child rehashed the events.
He could tell from the cold glance she gave him during Lily's speech that she blamed him for having had the bonfire in the first place – the irony that he'd had it to send a message specifically because he'd been imagining what could have happened to Lily and Rosie if they hadn't been moved to Watery Lane before the raids wasn't lost on him – but she did seem to be sticking to their agreement not to argue in front of the rest of the family.
Finn arrived over beside them whilst Lily was filling Rosie in.
"You alright?" Tommy asked, wondering if anything had happened for Finn as a result of the bonfire.
Finn nodded, looking between Lily and him.
"She got in trouble for the bonfire," Tommy said.
Finn pulled a confused face in reply.
"I know," Tommy replied, standing up to put a hand on his brother's shoulder and pull him to him in the sort of gesture that could be bestowed on an eleven-year-old boy without it being quite as embarrassing as a hug when they were standing in front of the school, "Fucking ridiculous."
"You going to sort it out Tommy?" Finn asked him, nestling in and looking up at him.
Tommy nodded, "Yup."
He liked that Finn's natural reaction would be to assume that he would go in and sort it out. That was how he wanted the kids to see him. He couldn't quite pinpoint when that had stopped being the case for Ada, when he had gone from being the one she could come to with her problems knowing that he would sort them to being the one she hid things from. He supposed maybe it had been less of a moment and more something that had happened when he was at war. He'd have to try and stay away from war in future, to make sure the same thing didn't happen with Lily. Sort this out, get his legal betting pitch, maybe take a leaf out of Rosie's book and invest in some property, give Campbell the guns and get them out of Small Heath. Stay away from war.
He saw Rosie's eyes glance to him, knew she'd heard him proclaim he'd sort it out, but she didn't say anything – just continued to listen to Lily.
"Oh Lily, that wasn't your fault at all," Rosie eventually said when Lily had finished, and she knelt down on the ground and pulled the child into her, "I know I said you need to keep your head down and not get noticed at school but that wasn't your fault. But remember when I said not to talk about home things in school? I know," she said, her voice soothing, as Lily opened her mouth, "I know that's what you had to do today and you didn't get a choice. But just remember that, eh? Just don't talk about home things in school and keep quiet and keep your head down and it'll be alright, eh? It's going to be alright."
She stroked Lily's hair and kissed her forehead before pulling her in for a tight hug, both arms wrapped around her. He could see in her eyes she wasn't actually sure that everything would be alright.
He held his tongue – he didn't think the pressure on Lily to not talk about things in her home life or to avoid getting into any trouble at all was right to put on a child. Children talked, they got themselves into scrapes, it was natural. And whilst she might have been sore, he was sure more of her upset had been springing from the notion that she'd broken Rosie's 'big rule.' He'd never had to coax any of the others out of a bathroom because they'd been so hysterical over a smacked backside after all. And he'd spanked her himself and she'd been fine afterwards. He wanted her to be obedient and well behaved, sure, but the 'big rule' wasn't a particularly fair one in his eyes.
But he understood Rosie's fear too, that she didn't want Lily taken off of her, lost into a system of closed adoptions. Lily was a pretty child with her blonde hair and blue eyes and she had a sweet countenance. In the few years it would take for Rosie to turn eighteen and be able to adopt her herself Lily would be snapped up by some couple unable to have their own if the parish took her.
"Why don't we go get ice cream?" he suggested.
Rosie met his eyes then sat back from Lily to ask, "You fancy ice cream?"
Lily wiped her eyes and nodded, the ghost of a smile appearing for the first time that afternoon.
"Alright, I'll take you inside to wash your face and hands first though, eh?" Rosie said, then led Lily across the yard to the senior school's toilet block.
"That wasn't fair," Finn said, his head still resting against Tommy, his eyes on the retreating sisters, "What happened with her teacher."
"I know," Tommy said, sighing.
None of it was fair.
Lily and Rosie emerged a few minutes later, Lily's face freshly cleaned and much less red than it had been – the water from the taps had been perennially freezing throughout his time at the school regardless of the weather, which he supposed was ideal for taking redness and heat out of the skin. Lily held her sister's hand with one of her own and reached the other out to him when they arrived back over then walked the whole way to the shop for ice cream in the middle of them, one hand in each of theirs. She didn't say very much, and Tom let Finn relay the events of his first day back to fill the silence – much less stressful than Lily's and mainly about someone scoring an own goal in their lunchtime football game and how unfair that was, but he got the sense that holding both their hands and listening to Finn was helping Lily a little.
She was subdued even when they reached the shops and he lifted her up to see the flavours laid out for her to pick from, though once she had the ice cream in her hands she started to guzzle with gusto.
"Slow down Lily, you'll make yourself ill," Rosie said as Lily lapped at the cone.
She said it gently enough, but he heard the note of guilt in her voice and knew she was remembering Friday's escapade, with ice cream down the front of Lily's coat and her own admonishments about it being because Lily was taking too long to eat. He held his breath and reached over to rub her lower back in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. She tensed at his touch and didn't acknowledge it, but he didn't tell him to get his hands off her either. Still, he didn't want to push his luck and so he did remove his hand fairly quickly. He hadn't meant it as a selfish action in any way, but he found the touch a soothing to his own soul, whether it had been to her or not.
He wasn't so lucky later when he tried to touch her again in the kitchen.
"Rosie – it's just business. I just want as much control of the situation as I can have, I'm doing it so I can feed her the information I want her to have, same as I'm feeding Campbell. It's so I can control it to get the best outcome for us all – for you and Lily and Finn and Ada and John's kids."
She scoffed, "And I suppose it doesn't have anything to do with getting the best outcome for you at all?"
At least she seemed to be accepting that he was doing it for business reasons.
"The best outcome for us all I said – and the best outcome for me is having you all safe and well, you know that."
"Right," she snorted derisively as if she didn't believe him, "So Ada's safe and well is she? Alone and knowing her brother thinks she's ruined?"
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose at that, whilst she turned back to the pot on the cooker and stirred it. He wanted to give her a good smack and tell her to stop being deliberately difficult.
He knew she didn't really believe herself either, not truly, in her questioning of his ideal outcomes. He knew she loved Lily above everything and everyone and if she had truly doubted that his intentions were to keep them all safe, had truly doubted it that he'd come through to make them all safe, she'd have taken Lily and gone. She'd told him that herself, when he had come back after his staying at Charlie's for a few nights. When he'd worked up the courage to come back and ask for her forgiveness, she had told him that if he failed Lily they would leave and not come back. And he knew she wouldn't wait for him to fail on this second chance. If she thought for a minute that was where he was heading, they'd have been gone.
"I'm trying, Rosie," he told her, "I'm trying for that outcome as best I can, alright?"
She didn't acknowledge him verbally, but he thought he saw her shoulders droop a little, as if a bit of the fight was leaving her. Or as if thinking of Ada was making her sad. So, taking his chances, he crossed to the cooker and put his hands on her waist.
His touch this time immediately got her shoulders back up and she turned to him, hissing as if his hands had scalded her, "I told you – you sort things out with Ada before you get to lay a finger on me."
He stood back and pulled out a cigarette, about to answer her when her eyes went to the doorway and she said, "Polly – you staying for dinner?"
He hadn't heard his aunt come in and he turned to throw her a dirty look before sitting at the kitchen table and inhaling deeply.
"No thanks love, I'm making dinner for John's lot - I just came over to get Katie."
"They're still upstairs, I'll go get her for you."
Lily had come back to herself over the course of the afternoon, helped along by both his and Rosie's reassurances, but mainly by the company of other kids. Finn had given her a one armed hug once she'd finished her ice cream and whispered something to her that had brought out a small smile – and they'd returned from their walk to get the ice cream to find Katie sitting at the kitchen table in number six waiting for them. Lily shook her head to the idea of going out to play but Rosie had suggested they went upstairs to play with the doll's house in the bedroom, which they had done. An hour later Katie had appeared back down with Lily in tow looking for a biscuit or cake of some sort and it was clear that an hour at play had done the baby a world of good. She had stopped by Arthur's desk on her way back up the stairs to get a sit on his lap and a cuddle, a stark contrast to her earlier wriggling off of his own lap.
He had rather thought the few minutes with the child, before Polly had come along and shooed her off and back up to her room with Katie, had done his brother the world of good too. Arthur was becoming dangerously dour again and Tommy thought they were in for an attack of the Flanders with Arthur – when his drinking got even worse and it was accompanied not by the temper they were used to but by a sadness and emptiness that nothing ever was able to cure. Nothing but time. They just had to do their best and the caprices passed when they did.
"So," Polly said once Rosie had disappeared up the stairs, "That why you wrote Freddie?"
He turned his eyes to her dark ones and held them in silence for a minute, flicking his cigarette ash before saying, "I wrote him because I thought Ada was going to insist on having this baby and I wasn't having it said he didn't get a fair chance at coming back to do the right thing by it and her."
And he'd done it because he'd lost his temper with Ada and it felt like it might make it up to her a little, even if it wasn't what he wanted – but he wasn't going to tell Polly that. He wasn't going to tell anyone that.
And he'd done it because he thought it would prove he was reasonable in the moment and right in the long run – but the marriage proposal was fucking that up a bit.
Katie and Lily appeared down behind Rosie and, after some futile arguing on Katie's part to be allowed to stay for dinner at number six, Polly and Katie headed out the back door and down to John's house.
Tommy stubbed out his cigarette and pulled Lily on to his lap, torn between wanting to ask her if she was feeling better and not wanting to bring it back up if she had already moved on and forgotten about it, as children were wont to do.
Finn lacked that tact though and, as soon as he appeared in the back door – having been sent in by Pol on her way by, asked, "You not sore anymore Lily?"
She shifted at that and said, "A little bit but not as bad."
"Tommy'll go in and sort your teacher out so she doesn't do it again," Finn told her confidently.
"Why don't you two go wash your face and hands before dinner?" Rosie said loudly as she pulled glasses from the cupboard and began setting the table, noisily enough to be heard two doors down – and certainly noisily enough that she made it pointless for the exchange to continue, which he realised had been her aim when Lily and Finn disappeared out the back door and she fixed her eyes on him and said, "You'll do no such thing as speak to her teacher, Thomas, do you hear me?"
He frowned, tempted to bark at her to mind her tongue and remember who she was speaking to, but settling instead for a raised eyebrow and challenging her, "So the woman can go on smacking kids about for things that aren't their fault?"
"I had a look at her backside when I took her to the bathroom," Rosie replied, raising her own eyebrow, "She was red as hell and I'm not happy about it. But the last thing I need is attention being drawn to her being associated with you at her school. Besides, there are only a few months to go till summer and she'll have a different teacher next year."
He cringed at the words. He knew fine well that what she meant was that she didn't want Lily being associated with him from the point of view of her parents – or lack of – being brought to the attention of the institution. But she had managed to make it sound like it was the personal association to him that was the problem.
"I've told you before – don't worry, I'm not going to let her get taken by the parish."
"Are you honestly in that deep a pit of denial about there being people even you can't control Tommy, even when Ada isn't here?" she replied.
He didn't reply to that, just lit a new cigarette and glared at the table until Lily and Finn arrived back in the kitchen.
There were people even he couldn't control, he knew that. And he was well aware that, whilst he was still paying him, Moss had been less open with him about what was going on at the station these days. He needed his contacts in the police to be in place to exert their influence on their own contacts in the council and, in turn, in the parish, if it ever came to any adoption issues.
The thing was, he was of age to adopt Lily. That was something he could do, fast track the papers and get them signed off so that Lily would be his. But whilst he knew Rosie trusted him to do right by Lily, even if she wasn't going to show it in her current mood, he knew she would never sign her over to him entirely. Not when she was less than two years away from being able to adopt her herself, and when she had already managed this long. February last year their mother had left, she had told him. It was nearly May now.
He supposed the best thing to do was show her he was a man of his word, as far as she was concerned. He'd told her he was trying. So, he'd try – he'd try and make things right with Ada as best he could. He'd try and get this situation with Campbell and Grace done – he just had to hold off until this business with Kimber was complete, until he'd taken the business legal – so he could get that house for them, so he could support them, like he'd promised her he'd do. He had to prove himself to her in all these things. And then maybe if he promised her he'd adopt Lily, but never take her away from her, she would trust him to stick by his word.
Thank you for reading! I asked a few chapters back about whether you preferred updates on the same day each week or just as and when they were done and most people said same day so I am going to try and stick to a once a week update on a Sunday going forward - the last couple of weeks have just been a bit manic and I've not been at home much and I figure you'd rather have an update on a different day than no update at all, but I'll aim for Sunday updates hereafter :)