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CHAPTER TWENTY: EVERYWHERE, EVERYTHING
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HELEN WAS AWARE OF everything. The chipped green paint peeling from the door like the raw pink mess of sunburnt skin. The murmur of voices on the other side, deep and inaudible, settling in the marrow of her bones. Lizzie’s Woodbines smelled heavenly as their smoke shrouded the kitchen. After she’d returned from retrieving Tommy, she had taken to smoking with the window cracked open, but the wind was strong outside that morning and it pushed the scent of them back towards the table where Helen was sitting with Polly and Esme. Esme’s breathing was loud in the silence; in through the nose, out through the mouth, as if she’d just finished running a marathon. Helen thought she could smell excess alcohol on her breath from the night before. She was glaring at the door, lying in wait. Helen knew why.
Seconds crawled into minutes. Time moved slow enough that Helen swore she could see it in the air, marching forward step-by-step, disappearing into the shadows of a horizon she was forever chasing. If she reached out, she could graze her fingertips through it like sand. She could take it for herself, rewinding the minutes and the seconds that had escaped her at her own convenience. Instead, she pressed her fists into her lap, tugging at her skirt mindlessly.
The door opened. Helen couldn’t help it, she looked up. Tommy glanced from her to the other women. Polly’s head leaned back with a cool, wet towel folded to shield her eyes, Esme shoving from the table to stand further away from him, the subtleness of Lizzie’s smirk as she sank into Esme’s now vacant seat. He was entirely fed up with them already.
“I heard you were giving speeches off the back of a wagon, Pol,” he said, removing the cigarette that was perched between his lips.
Polly groaned. “I can’t remember a fucking thing.”
Helen smothered a smile into the palm of her hand. For just a second, she met Tommy’s gaze, caught up in the warmth of shared amusement. She was quick to turn away, dropping her hand to reveal her smile was gone. Tommy continued to watch her for a moment before addressing Polly again.
“Moss tells me you were threatening to burn down the town hall.”
“Oh, Tommy,” Polly sighed as she removed the wet towel from her face. “We were having a laugh.”
That wasn’t quite how Helen remembered it, but close enough.
“You know, actually, the crowd around me was bigger than the crowd around Jessie Eden.”
Polly was proud of it, too. Her eyes gleamed with remnants of hunger, of desire for that fleeting feeling of elation. Helen had seen it clear as day. The way Polly soared above the crowd, weightless in time and memory. The crowd was like a moth to a flame. Hunger had captured them, too, for the power that coursed through her veins.
