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The tears have long dried in your cheeks, but their saltiness lingers in your tongue. Your throat feels parched, but you cannot find it in yourself to cross the few steps that separate you from the cup of stale tea in your nightstand, nor any of the dozen abandoned beverages that litter the master bedroom. There’s whiskey with water on the mantelpiece, sitting next to some plain water, and remnants of milk with honey and cinnamon, in which you suspect Frances mixed some drops of laudanum, for you felt strangely calm after drinking it, but not enough to find sleep. The bed is a mess, proof of your restlessness, the sheets and blankets hastily pulled from the corners and wrapped tightly around you like a protective cocoon, in hopes that the comforting swaddle will keep you whole for one more night. But they do little to placate the unforgiving cold spreading through your insides, a chill sprouting from within your very soul.
The ash and soot linger on your hands, caked under your ruined nails and smeared across your raw skin. Your clothes have not been changed in days, and they smell of burnt wood and petrol, mixed with something unspeakable and revolting. The stench is rooted in your nostrils, so pervasive you taste it in your mouth, in your throat, in the depths of your lungs. It spreads through your veins and seeps into your bones, consuming your spirit in waves of black and death. You are overcome by the vile venom, and even the mere evocation of it makes you choke and heave violently. A foulness you will never be able to forget, perennially engraved in the deepest corners of your memory, alongside other grim chapters of your past. But unlike others, this has changed your life, your self, the very course of your existence. You cannot fathom how the world continues to spin and the sun to rise in the horizon after such ground shattering devastation has occurred.
Your husband is dead, that much you know. He is dead and you are still alive and in your heart, that goes against the laws of nature. You are not meant to exist without the other. You had swore to grow old together, how could he leave you thirty years before his time? How could he leave when your children had not even learned to tie their shoes themselves yet? He had not yet commissioned the treehouse he promised them, how could he abandon them halfway through?
You should have known something was amiss. You knew your husband, better than anyone could. You had a way to read his thoughts and forestall his actions that not even his late aunt could comprehend. Only you could dissipate the fog from his troubled mind and unravel the rigmarole which composed the very foundations of his existence. He had once said, late at night, with his arm around your waist while he believed you fast asleep, that he felt like a man standing alone under a wicked thunderstorm, and you were the only one brave enough to face the tempest and come to him with an umbrella, even at the risk of your own life. But he would forever take the umbrella from your hands. Your life before his, every single time.
How could you not foresee this?
Ever since the failed assassination on Mosley, Tommy had slowly but steadily gone down a steep slope, one not even you could rescue him from. Life had never shown him mercy; every time he reached the pinnacle, a new mountain blocked his way, mightier and deadlier than the last. He had surmounted them all, not without penalty, leaving blood bathed bullets and bodies in his wake. But at last, Tommy had found his Everest. The summit taunted him, unreachable; the death of his aunt clobbered him like an avalanche, and the man he became after that didn’t hold the slightest resemblance to the man you fell in love with. You were sure that if you sat the present day Tommy before the one he used to be in 1919, they would not recognise each other.
He tried to keep you shielded from his meetings with the fascists, the rallies, the gossip and scandal. Only he knew the dangers that lurked in the shadows of the garden while you sat before the fireplace reading stories with your children. And only he knew about the stacks of bills being passed from hand to hand, sealing deals and pacts that promised to change the course of history. Tommy only wanted you to worry about your charities, your horses and your pretty dresses, and leave the rest of the world upon his steady shoulders.
In his mind, oblivious meant safe. For you, it felt like a lack of trust in your person. And that soon morphed into bitter resentment, never shown openly but perpetually simmering just beneath the surface, ready to erupt. Lying had always come easy to him, but it became harder when his lies were unmasked in the morning paper. How could he pledge innocence when his face showed up on the front page next to the leader of the British Union of Fascists? How could he deny his guilt, with Diana Mitford right at his tail?
How could he pretend leaving you in the dark was for the greater good?
Everything came to a breaking point when he suddenly summoned you to his study to inform you he would be departing for Canada the following day, with no clear return date and refusing to elaborate on what called him so suddenly to cross the Atlantic. The more you pressed for answers, the more he manoeuvred around them with carefully premeditated replies of vague content, half finished sentences and loose words, so unlike him that the lies unravelled on their own before your eyes. His total carelessness over the situation and the dismissal of your worries became the drop that tipped the glass. Months of carefully concealed rancour came bursting to the surface like an erupting volcano.
You called him every name in the book, reminding him of the things you had endured for his sake over the long course of your relationship, while he could not even allow you the decency of forewarning you of such a trip or offer an acceptable explanation for such haste in departure, the acrimony in your heart even making you ask if he had special company for the journey. His impassive silence only irked you further, and you told him he could get a one way ticket to hell for all you cared, before slamming the door to his office so violently you heard a painting fall and shatter on the ground.
The day after, you rounded the kids in the foyer for the mandatory goodbyes. He hugged them all long and tight, a rarity in itself for a man who had become so cold and withdrawn he barely spared them a glance in the mornings over his newspaper. And then he kneeled before Charlie and placed a brand new gold pocket watch in the boy’s little hands. Your husband said men wore pocket watches and he would be the man of the house now. The boy only stared back, perplexed, and nodded once silently before pocketing the precious object with utmost care.
You remained irate, arms crossed over your chest, fingers drumming on your arm impatiently. It was hard to tell you apart from an enraged bull staring at a red cloth. A part of you felt like a petulant child, but after so many years of marriage and everything you had silently withstood for him, you could no longer hide the hurt and disappointment, feelings far too familiar that you had grown accustomed to conceal. You only allowed him a brief goodbye, turning your face away when he tried to kiss your lips, presenting your cheek instead. He didn’t protest, his lips lingering on your skin longer than they had done in years, his gloved hand cradling the back of your neck and playing with your hair. His free arm circled your waist and pulled you close, face moving to rest in the crook of your neck as he inhaled deeply, as if committing the scent of your body to memory.
A strange sense of foreboding filled you, but you forced it out of your mind.
If you had known what the future held ahead, you would have jumped into his arms, engraving in your memory every detail of himself; the feeling of his hands on your waist, the timbre of his voice. Traced every nook and cranny of his face with your fingertips, over and over until you could forever recall it. You would have kissed those lips until they bled, and with the same ferocity, you would have screamed and clawed and made the windows rattle and the ground shake, demanding an explanation. Demanding to know why.
The days passed, and the worry began to gnaw at your chest. The hotel address he gave you didn’t exist, nor did the phone number which he scribbled down hastily seconds before crossing the threshold, only after you demanded to have a way to contact him should an emergency arise with the kids. The kids. Not you. Over his shoulder, as if an afterthought, he said he would call. After the first week of silence you had a landline installed outside your bedroom, and you would stare incessantly at the apparatus, willing it to ring. One time you heard the faint ringing in the study from the entrance door, and you rushed to it with such haste you vaulted over a sofa and snapped your high heel off. But it only turned out to be Ada, checking in on you. Ever since that day, everyone seemed to grow suspiciously closer to you. Calls and visits and days out. Ada inviting you to London and looking after the kids to give you a day off. Curly and Charlie coming often to help the kids tame their new ponies. Arthur would come too, far too often to be normal, and he would sit across from you in the living room, nursing a whiskey in his hand and poorly attempting small talk, always looking ready to be sick and evading your gaze.
Their pitiful stares didn’t go unnoticed, nor did some carefully chosen words, such as how your kids would always be looked after and provided for in the family, how they would always be there for you and would support whatever you chose to do with your life. Praising your strength, offering their support, always looking away or changing the subject when you asked if your husband had called them. The thinly veiled edge of desperation in your voice seemed to stir something within them, and redoubled their efforts in consoling you for something you didn’t yet know.
The truth laid bare before your very eyes, just an inch out of reach, concealed just enough to keep you in the dark with confusing glimpses of the life ahead.
But the passive games and the uncertainty came to an abrupt halt one bright sunny morning, the skies blue and clear like Tommy’s eyes and a gentle breeze fanning over the gardens. You told the nannies to prepare the kids for a picnic in the meadow, and helped Frances set up a plentiful food basket. But just before you could set foot out, a car stopped in the driveway. The frantic knocking on the door and the slurred screaming had you fearfully peeking out through the draperies, your finger readied on the trigger of a gun, only to see Arthur slumped against one of the columns of the entrance, calling out your name. Before he could say another word, you knew he had relapsed back into the opium, acquired from who knows where. Even from afar, he reeked of alcohol and smoke, face bloated and eyes bloodshot and swollen. He staggered forward, nearly toppling over you before falling to his knees, his face distorted in anguish. You tried to pull him up, to coax some sort of explanation out of him, anything to placate the worry crawling up your chest.
A million possible scenarios played in your head, yet not even ten lives could have prepared you for the simple words that escaped his mouth.
“Tommy is dead”
From that point on, memories become elusive. Only fleeting moments remain. You recall your own hands, hands meant to nurture, caress and comfort; hands that wiped tears, stroked hairs and tickled bellies, your kind and gentle hands gripping Arthur’s coat lapels and pulling on him with such force he came back to his feet, startled. You remember shaking him violently, teeth gritted and vision blurred with hot tears, your mascara running down your cheeks. Your lips parted to scream, but you cannot recall what words came out of your mouth. Arthur tried to pry your hands open and take some distance, but then you slapped him across the face. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was a punch. Or maybe a detail that never happened, later added by your wrecked mind. Because you hoped that if you screamed and punched and tore the world to pieces you would awaken from that nightmare.
You saw the smoke long before the car reached the side road. The perfume of the blooming flowers could not mask the wafting aroma of charred wood, petrol and burnt fabrics, with something else you could not quite pinpoint, but smelled vile and pernicious. A cheerful meadow stretched out before you, bright green dotted with white and yellow spreading as far as the eye reached across gentle hills. And amidst all, a scorched patch of land, and a pile of still smouldering debris, wisps of acrid poison swirling in the docile spring breeze.
You leapt towards the vardo’s remains, but Arthur restrained you, slender but firm arms circled tight around your waist as he attempted to comfort you; as if there could be any comfort for you in that moment and place. You fought him with tooth and nail, scratching and biting and kicking like a frenzied beast, cursing his name, his bloodline and his entire existence. All he did back was shush you, a hand pressed to your abdomen, his arm around your chest as your knees gave and you collapsed into him, agonising wails wracking your to your core.
You cried out for Tommy, but only death called back.
In time, the smoke cleared and the pyre cooled, allowing you a clear view of the massacre before your very eyes. Like the leftovers of a bonfire, wood so thoroughly charred it disintegrated on the hand, mixed with scalding pieces of metal and leftover rags that once were curtains and bedding. You fell to your knees, frantic fingers digging at the ash and earth bare handed, soot and dust clinging to your sweat doused skin, getting in your eyes, your nose, your mouth. Your fingers ached and your skin reddened and blistered in the heat, but you felt nothing, nothing but the overcoming grief coiling around your heart, constricting your throat and freezing the blood in your veins. Your tears sizzled as they fell on the ground. You dug and dug, panicked sobs reverberating in the emptiness of the meadow, your pain a sharp contrast with the chirping of the blackbirds on the branches.
You could find but only a few scarce belongings that survived the conflagration. A couple of gold sleeve garters. His pocket watch, the mechanism somehow still working. The frames of his reading glasses, the crystals having been lost to the heat. No matter how deep you dug, his wedding ring was nowhere to be found. And everything else had turned to ash and dust.
Ashes of the vardo.
Ashes of your memories together.
Ashes of the man.
The love of your life swept away by the wind.
~
You no longer know if it’s day or night. The heavy drapes are closed, and only a few dying embers remain in the hearth. The room is cold, more than usual, robbed from the warmth of fire and the warmth of love. Time passess differently when grief has its clutches around you. Every second is too slow, yet every day moves by too fast. Three days have swept by, maybe four, plus the month of faked departure in which he roamed the fields while you believed him across the pond. His scent is fading from the pillows, from his clothes, from your memory. You sprayed some of his cologne on your wrists but it's not the same because it is not on his skin. It is not mixed with leather, ink and gunpowder. It is not him.
You already fear you are forgetting the right colour of Tommy’s eyes, the various hues mixing in your mind but none seems quite right. Are they the colour of the sky on a bright summer day? The tranquil sea surrounding the ship that took you to your honeymoon on the continent? Do they match the aquamarines from the demi parure he gifted you on your birthday, just because he said their colour suited your skin?
No. No do. Did. Because his eyes are no more. His bright eyes, his rare smiles, his handsome face, his protective hands and everything in between are no more. They are just ash and dust, a pile abandoned in the middle of an open field being swept by the wind and rain.
Floorboards creak on the hallway, but it could be the scurrying maids as much as the wandering spirits that populate your home, souls rooted in the land due to unfinished businesses from their past lives, acting as owner and keepers of a place where you are but a temporary guest. A door slams shut somewhere in the house, and the windows creak and rattle under the assault of the brewing tempest. The room grows icier, if possible, your breath rising in puffs of white. Your fingers feel stiff, achingly clutching onto an old pocket watch. Even the rings in your hands have turned to ice.
You curl tighter into yourself, if possible, your palms pressed to your face to warm your freezing nose and lips. Sleep threatens to take you, but you fight it with all your might, for the only place worse than life right now, is inside your head. The nightmares have chased you ever since that day, each one more horrifying than the last. But the body beats the mind, and your eyelids, heavy as lead, fall shut, your consciousness slipping away in waves.
You cannot be sure how long you slept, or if you did at all, when something startles you into attention. You sit up abruptly, heart beating frenziedly in your chest. The room is pitch dark, and for a moment you are disoriented, unsure of where you are. It takes long seconds for you to notice there’s a body next to yours, and a heavy, warm hand is pressed against your back to support you.
When you turn your head, the scream falls from your lips involuntarily, and you are positive your heart stops briefly. He looks so well, so perfectly well and common, so alive. Your hands are on his face, on his neck, running down his chest and arms as your mind struggles to come to terms with the image in front of your eyes.
“Tommy?”
Shrouded in black, his hair damp and tousled, and perfectly unharmed. As if he were just returning from a session in Parliament. His hand slides up your body, from your back to your shoulder, then your neck and up to cup your face, thumb brushing against your tear streaked cheek. You lean instinctively against his touch; the warmth from his palm spreads through your skin like a soothing balm. It feels safe; it feels like home, like the place where you belong.
His free arms circles your waist and pulls you into him, your head tucked between his chin and shoulder and your body pulled onto his lap. Both of your arms wrap tightly around his middle, fearing that if you let go, he would disappear like smoke, forever this time.
“Tommy? Tommy, what happened? Where have you been?” Tears brim again in your eyes, and the coil tightens around your throat “I…I don’t understand. Arthur said that you were…that you were” The word, that word, cannot make it past the knot. The word you so dreaded to accept. “I saw the ashes in the meadow”
He says nothing, nothing besides a hum of acknowledgement at your words. His thumb brushes back and forth against your cheekbone, the other hand tracing lines up and down the length of your spine, causing your belly to flutter. You are confused, terribly so, your thoughts reeling with the need for answers. But Tommy, as usual, offers none, and you don’t really want to spoil the moment, not when your heart is finally at peace after the terrible weeks you’ve endured.
The embrace goes on forever, none of you making effort to move or speak. Every now and then you feel his lips brush against your forehead, or his nose bury in your hair and inhale deeply, drowning himself in your scent. The storm howls outside, windows rattling with the strength of the wind, the glasses mercilessly pelted by ferocious raindrops. By now, the children would usually be awake and crowding your bed, seeking safety under your blankets. But peacefulness reigns their slumber that night, and you are grateful for it. You desperately need this moment alone with your husband.
His head tilts suddenly, just enough to place a gentle kiss against your temple, then his lips brush against the shell of your ear
“I am sorry” His voice is raspy and worn, as if it has not been used in quite some time “For everything. For keeping you in the dark, for not trusting your strength. For everything I put you through” His embrace around you tightens into an almost painful grip, as if he wishes to fuse his body into yours “You are fierce. And strong. The strongest woman I know. You can overcome anything, nothing could tear you down”
For some reason, those words do not sit right with you. They feel ominous, almost like a forever goodbye. You try to crane your neck to get a better look at his face, to read his expression, but he resists, hidden in the curve of your neck. Your heartbeat quickens in panic.
“I am only strong when I have you by my side. I need you, Tommy. These past days have ruined me. I cannot tread upon an earth you do not exist in.” Your fingers dig on the fabric of his coat, and for the first time you notice his clothes are dampened and smell faintly of wet soil and smoke.
Tommy chuckles, the familiar sound reverberating inside your ribs. He shifts again and his lips are against your forehead, continuing to refuse you a clear glimpse of his face.
“You were strong when I met you. You were strong when I tried to push you away for your own safety. And I know you will continue to be. For the family, for our children. They need you. You are their whole world”
Again those words, those threats of a future in which he had no place. The tears come back with renewed strength, blurring your vision and choking the words in your mouth, but you manage to force them. You cannot leave anything unsaid, not if he’s planning to abandon you once more.
“They need their father too” You protest “Please, Tommy. You can’t walk away again. Not when you are back in my arms” Your grip tightened to accentuate your words “I lost you once, I cannot do this again. Please don’t make me do this again Tommy. If you leave, you might as well kill me now, and spare me such misery”
“I can’t stay” The words cut like blades through your heart and lungs, and for a moment, you can’t remember how to breathe “I’ve got to go, but I promise you, I will always be with you. I’ll never leave your side, whether you can see me or not. I will always be your husband, in this life and the next” You cannot be sure, but he seems to be holding back sobs as well “So many things went wrong. So many mistakes that cannot be fixed. What’s done cannot be undone” Those words do not seem directed to you, but rather thoughts spoken out loud, an airing of frustrations he’s kept bottled up.
You pull away from him, so fiercely not even his strength can keep you still. Your hands cup his cheeks and pull him down until his forehead is against yours. You can barely discern his features in the darkness of the bedroom, so you use your fingers to gently trace the slope of his nose, the sharpness of the jaw, the softness of his lips. His breath fans over your face; he smells all over of nature, of dirt, of open fields and pine woods.
“There is nothing that cannot be undone. Do you hear me? Nothing. Nothing that we can’t work out together” You can barely contain your desperation “You are Thomas Shelby. You can pull down the moon if you desire; you could bend the King to your will. How can you not fix whatever troubles you?”
His hands envelop yours, fingers gently prying yours away; but instead of dropping them, he cradles them gently, bringing them up to his lips to press tender kisses against your knuckles. His lips linger against your wedding ring until the metal warms.
“Not everything is fixable, my love. There are things not even I can undo. Some mistakes are permanent. I tried, tried my whole life, but I am not God, not yet” He pulls you into his chest again, and pulls the blankets around you “But you don’t need to worry about that now. The hour is late and the sun will soon be up. You need to rest, my sweet dove. Sleep and dream; I will be with you”
You wanted to protest, to pull away, to not let him finish things like that. But you suddenly felt terribly exhausted, as if the last days had dropped on top of you with the weight of boulders, and his arms were so comforting. He gently rocked you both back and forth, a hand on the back of your head and the other on your back. The last thing you remember is Tommy murmuring sweet words of love in your ear. You cannot remember them exactly, but you fell asleep with a smile on your lips.
The next morning you awake tucked in bed, buried between pillows and blankets and wearing a clean nightgown. You sigh contently and stretch your arm to the side, towards Tommy’s side, but find it to be cold and empty, feeling something powdery between your fingers.
Your eyes shoot open, sitting so abruptly you see spots dancing in your vision. The room is bathed in sunlight, all the curtains drawn back. Outside there’s a perfect spring morning, and you hear the dogs barking and the gardeners going about their duties. Once your eyes adjust to the brightness, you discover that the powdery thing on the mattress appears to be ash, or dirt, you are not quite sure. The sheets are stained with it, and when you stand from the bed, you find a trail of residue all the way to the door. Upon inspection, you notice some of it has been left on the door handle, as if someone grabbed it with dirty hands.
The door nearly slams on your face as Frances pushes it open, carrying a breakfast tray. You both jump with a startle, but she manages to keep her wits enough to not drop the tray at your feet
“That was quite a scare you gave me there, Mrs. Shelby. But it’s wonderful to see you at last out of bed” Frances says, as she leaves the tray on a small table with two chairs “The nanny has taken the children to the stables, so you have a quiet morning ahead of you”
You reach out to pick your robe, your thoughts still filled with the encounter of the previous night. You want to ask Frances, but choose not to, not wishing to be taken as a madwoman. What would she say if you told her your dead husband had slept in your bed the previous night? So you play ignorance, and sit before the table, your stomach rumbling at the sight of buttered toast
“That’s good, but don’t let them out for too long. It ought to be quite muddy and damp outside from the storm, and I don’t want them getting sick”
Your fingers are curled around the steaming teacup when she speaks again.
“Storm? There was no storm, Mrs. Shelby. I was up quite late and the skies were clear, although it was a moonless night, so everything was quite dark”
The teacup stops midair, and a cold shiver runs down your spine, goosebumps covering your flesh. You had heard the wind, the rain, felt the rattling of the windowpanes and the water running down the pipes. Then, you notice a glint on your ring finger. A glint that was not there the night before.
You now wear two wedding bands. One the perfect size, one a few too big. And outside your window, the blackbirds begin to sing.