Adeline

Chapter 18 - Arthur

The 5th of January

1914

A New Year.

It was the first day that Arthur was able to go back to work since the incident. Luckily for him, his injuries weren't as bad as Celeste's and were easily recoverable. He was able to move back into his apartment in London and get back to work the following day. There was lots of work to do, too, what with all the people who had been arrested for rioting. It would have been a busy Christmas for his colleagues, Arthur knew, and he was lucky to get a break for this time. But now it was time to get back to it and buckle down to work.

The morning was dim and grey, with dark snow clouds hanging heavily over the city. It was quiet, the only people awake being those who had the misfortune of working in this cold. Snow still fell from the sky, the icy weather halting many trains and cars that carried people on their daily commutes. It was a good holiday, but now it was time for everyone to return to their positions. The streets were empty, apart from those coat coddled people walking to work in the piles of dirty soot-filled snow, stepping over the mounds of snow so as not to get their shoes wet. Although, in this weather, their toes were already probably numb to the bone.

Arthur stood in front of the mirror in his shirt and underwear and tied his tie. Since the incident, he had found it useful to make sure that he was always focussing on one thing at a time, so that his mind didn't drift off into bad thoughts. Thoughts of seeing a man being shot in the head... his blood trickling around Arthur's legs... No. He pulled his tie tight and secured it with a silver pin to his shirt. He attached a white collar and slipped on a brown waistcoat. He watched his figure move in the mirror and thought about how disassociated he felt from his body and the rest of the world. This person moving in the mirror – was it him? The face was so pale and old, wrinkles beginning to show through his skin and his hair thinning and losing its colour. Had it always been like that? Had his hands always been this pale and thin?

He pulled on socks and trousers and slipped a suit jacket over his shoulders. It felt so damp, cold, heavy, like the weather outside. Arthur didn't want to go out into it. He didn't want to go to work and feel stressed again. He just wanted to lie in bed and recover more. He was sure that he could call in sick and ask for more recovery time, but it would be unpaid recovery time. He only got two weeks off. He combed his hair back and took one last look at himself in the mirror before turning away, taking hold of his briefcase and heading out of doors.

And so he went to work. He went to work and dealt with clients, filled out and filed paper work and he emptied his inbox and filled up his outbox. He talked with his colleagues during his lunch break and he didn't mention that they were working for Church all those years, and they didn't mention that he had been kidnapped and tortured. They talked about the weather and how their Christmases went, and how hefty the workload was at the moment, and then they went about their day. Arthur went back to his office and saw clients, filled out the correct paperwork for them and searched for the right course of justice for them. He didn't complain. He didn't like doing this routine every day, keeping his mouth shut, doing his work without question in the grey weather, over and over and over. He would wake up, go to work, deal with the people there with a polite smile like he actually enjoyed their company, he would go home, have dinner and go to bed, ready to do all of it all over again in the morning. He didn't complain, because there was no point. He would get nothing out of complaining. He just had to get through each day, and do it again. That's what everyone else did, and they didn't enjoy it, but something that his father taught him was that no one wants to do anything, no one wants to work, but they get on and do it because they're adults and that's what adults do. We work.