The Falling Man

Chapter 19

Ethel POV

I had arrived to the party about an hour ago and the fake surprise for Gertrude had gone swimmingly. I was wearing a nice black lace dress that I feel showed off my figure quite well and had curled the ends of my hair to frame my face perfectly. I had applied more than the usual makeup and I felt quite beautiful. Men were coming up to me quite often and introducing themselves so I suppose that's a sign that my thoughts of how I looked tonight reigned true. I decided to not go try to find a date for tonight mostly because I just couldn't be arsed. I also have yet to see or talk to Tommy as there must be well over 100 people here tonight but I was looking forward to the moment I get to.

I have a glass of wine in my hand and am standing by myself to the side of the room. I don't know many of the people here and I was going to approach Robert and talk to him but he is now standing with my younger brother, Fred, who I am still angry with so decide to forego joining him. Another man approaches me to introduce himself. He's quite tall and sporting gray hair with a bald spot and glasses. He has somewhat of a hook nose but a bright smile. "Hello, Ethel." I say shaking his hand politely as he introduced himself. As the man continues talking to me, I glance behind his shoulder and see the man I have been waiting to talk to.

Tommy is talking to another man who I also have never met before. I avert my eyes back to the man in front of me and kindly excuse myself from the conversation to sit at one of the nearby tables that has a good view of the handsome Birmingham gangster. I glance around the room and see John and Tommy's other brother, who I have learned to be named Arthur, flirting it up with some women at a table across the room. I continue to glance around the room indulging in some people watching while I wait for Tommy's conversation to be over. Before there is a call for cake and a happy birthday song from the loud booming voice of Alfie.

I stand from my table and join in the singing. Looking at my mortified sister and chuckling to myself as she specifically told me to make sure this doesn't happen. "Happy Birthday Gerti!!!" I yell out after the song is over and the cheers and claps have subsided. I knew this would add further embarrassment to my dear older sister, using her nickname that our family has for her that she fiercely hates and forced us to swear never to call her again when we were in school. I see her glare at me as I just send her a sweet mischievous smile. Some people turned to look at me when I yelled this out. One of them being Tommy Shelby who I lock eyes with before sitting back down in my seat at the vacant table. He sends me a slight smile before returning to his conversation with the man he was talking to before. I keep my eyes on him with a smile on my face and notice that he keeps glancing over at me while continuing his conversation.

I see him shake hands with the man, seemingly ending their conversation before a woman approaches him. It seems I wasn't the only one with my eyes on him. I stand up deciding to make my way towards the pair. Luckily, their short conversation or introduction wraps up right as I approach him. I chuckle as I come to stand in front of him, I am feeling a little tipsy after my two glasses of wine which makes everything a little humerous. He looks at me for a moment before saying with a smile, "Hello." "Hello." I respond. "Quite a lovely suit." I say gesturing to his attire chuckling once again. He also chuckles at this and looks down to his clothes, holding his arms out slightly, "Thank you. I appreciate it. I thought your younger brother would've sent you to prison by now." He responds still with an amused grin on his face. "Oh, well, he keeps trying, but they just won't have me." I say sarcastically laughing. He stifles a laugh at this.

"I'm sorry, I heard you got shot." I say to him. Remembering how Gertrude told me this fact earlier today at our graveyard meeting. "Oh, that's okay. Nothing I can't handle. Everyone's telling me some heroic bullshit about it." He says before a woman comes up pushing herself in between us to walk past us while eyeing Tommy who takes a step back to make way for her. As he reassumes his position to where he was before the horny disturbance from the passing woman, I say "I just wanted to, uh, say thank you for your kindness at that meeting that night..." I start to tell him before he interrupts me with, "Oh, no..." we then start talking over one another,"Because I..." I start, "It was fine. Honestly..." he says sticking his hand out to me. "No, no, really. It was mad. I will pay you back with installments of non crazy interactions..." "I don't want non crazy interactions. It was all quite amusing..." Us still talking over one another. "But I really..." I say while he says, "You all had a lot of drink.." "I just, I..." I say before I start laughing at his observation of the night. He chuckles along with me. "Honestly, it was fine." "Okay." I say giggling slightly pushing him as I see his amused smirk towards me. "Ah, ah, ah." He says sarcastically holding his hands up in a defensive way.