THE GREAT WAR || T. SHELBY (3)

FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Decision

THAT AFTERNOON, THOMAS AND TABITHA WENT TO MARGATE.

For Thomas, it was a business meeting, but for Tabitha it was seeing an old friend. They believed he was dead until he sent a letter, asking about his dog. Tabitha was surprised when she saw the letter and chuckled, knowing it was so like him to survive a shot to the face.

Tabitha and Thomas were in the living room of a home in Margate. They stood together out on a small balcony waiting for him to enter the room, looking out and taking turns with the binoculars. They hadn't seen him since the boxing fight between Bonnie Gold and Goliath and he betrayed them for the third time. Tabitha was angry that he betrayed her and Thomas again at the fight, but she still loved her and Theo's old friend like he was family.

"Come out here, Tommy, Tabby-Cat," he said, and Tabitha smiled hearing that nickname again.

"Yep, we're here," Thomas said as him and Tabitha went back into the living room.

"I was just having some oil rubbed into the bits that really hurt, mates."

"It's Margate. What can you do?"

He turned the gramophone off and said, "I'll tell ya both something, right, I sit all day, everyday, in that chair on that balcony, contemplating the fact, right, that life is so much easier to deal with when you are dead."

"Hello, Alfie," Tabitha said as Thomas nodded his head in acknowledgment.

Alfie Solomons was alive and breathing and sat down on the sofa. The left side of his face was a little grotesque for Tabitha, so she tried not to focus on it.

"Yeah. Did you..did you two look through the binoculars?" Alfie asked.

"Yeah."

"I watch ships. No two are the same. Yeah. That is how God sees the three of us in his eyes."

"God, eh?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah, sort of. I mean, you know...someone's responsible for all this fucking mess," Alfie said. "Now, how soon did you both know I was not dead?"

"You wrote us a letter Alfie," Tabitha chuckled, sitting in a chair.

"Did I?"

"Yeah, you walked about your dog," Thomas replied, standing beside Tabitha.

"Oh. They gave me a lot of drugs at first, yeah..." Alfie mumbled. "I was lying out there and the tide come in and woke me up. I remember looking around and thinking, you know, fuck. If this is hell...then it looks a lot like Margate."

"Maybe that's just what hell looks like, eh?"

"No. No. Not according to this holy book right here, yeah. It gives a very, very vivid description. You and I are both fucked, mate. And we both know Tabby-Cat is gonna go to heaven, so she isn't."

"You read the papers, Alfie?" Thomas asked.

"No. Don't be silly," Alfie said, cocking a gun and pointing it at Thomas.

"But you've heard," Tabitha said.

"What? Fascism, yeah?"

"Three, two, one...bang," Thomas replied. "No? Fine."

Alfie looked at Tabitha noticing the dark bags under her eyes and how skinny she had gotten. They were all from lack of sleep and barely eating, though Thomas made her so so.

"Good Lord, you're fucking condition has gotten worse, Tabby-Cat," Alfie said, making Thomas and Tabitha raise brows. "Mine, on the other hand, I...I've been living the dream. Sometimes. I will shoot at the side of a ship, and sometimes, I'll sit here, I may shoot at the old seagull. But you, my dear, you look like a fucking vampire, skinny and pale."