IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

ONE

LONDON, ENGLAND. 1921.

MARTHA

1.

Martha pulled back the curtain of their squat bedroom window and watched the winter sky swirl above, thick black clouds rolling over the city of London. The flame of the candle beside her quivered as a sharp wind squeezed its way through the crack of the window frame, scratching at Martha's skin and raising goose-bumps across her body. She sucked in a tired breath and sighed.

Her knees were tender as she pressed her way down the narrow staircase leading to a small kitchen, wondering if the skin there had bruised purple yet. She looked down at her free hand, the other still gripping the candle lamp tightly. Her fingers were sore and chapped and red, and as she moved the lamp from one hand to the other, the knuckle of her index finger cracked and bled slightly. Martha winced, bringing the cut to her lips and swiping away the trickle of blood with her tongue. She had grown used to the aching of her limbs and the flaking of her palms and the constant knot in her chest. The long days of scrubbing floors and polishing glasses and working herself until her toes curled in pain had become second nature to Martha, twisting their way into her life so she could not remember what it was ever like before. She'd leave the house whilst the sun still slept, her sisters waiting up wide-eyed beneath the moon, and not return again until dusk had settled over the city once more.

It was a Sunday, her only day off, and Martha plodded into the small kitchen to light the stove, bringing a pot of water to boil. The silence of early dawn was suffocating, and if it was not so cold outside she would've hung her head out the window and soaked it up. With the breeze against her face she could forget everything for a moment; she could ignore the crumbling walls, the stretches of mould that cowered against the brick like shadows. She could forget the neighbours either side of her who drank and smoked and screamed into the night. The dirty women and the barefooted children would disappear, and the men that leered in the pub doorways would vanish into thin air. The dangers of this city would disappear: the whispers of cuttings and killings and gang crime would be silenced. An image formed in her minds eye as Martha stared up at the morning sky once more — an impossible dream that haunted her every night.

In her mind she conjured a home that could never exist, and in it she dreamt of her mother.

Guilt puckered in her chest as though her thoughts had betrayed the very streets that had raised her. She loved to hate the only home she'd ever known, but she'd never been able to leave. After all, she had once been offered the choice. The glass pane of the window rattled as a gust of wind slammed against it, the sound reminding her of Uncle Ed and Aunt Beth at White Strand Cottage which stood on the coast so many miles away from here, its windows constantly battered by the breeze of the changing tide.

Then something pulled Martha's attention before she had the chance to delve into the memory of her distant family. She was almost grateful.

It was a strange rattling noise, far too heavy to be a window shaking in the wind as the one next to her did. It sounded from the front of the house, and in the grey darkness of sunless morning, Martha felt her blood surge to her head so she could hear the beating of her heart, thrashing wildly around her skull as she realised what it was - a clumsy sound, as though someone was trying to shimmy the lock on the front door but couldn't. She set the candle down on the kitchen table silently, its pale kiss of orange warmth withering as if it harboured the fear which Martha refused herself to acknowledge.

Perhaps it's just another drunkard trying to enter the wrong house, she bargained with herself, attempting to still the beating of her chest, but a voice in the back of her head laughed at such naivety. The city was full of thieves and beggars and criminals, and then there were the bigger fish – traders and businessmen and gang-leaders who had hidden armies of men swarming through the streets like rats. Martha had only heard the stories through whispers at the market and tales at the washhouse, of wars between the Jews and the Italians and the Germans. The fighting at the front line was only the very start of it. She had done everything in her power to keep her and her sisters isolated from such things; staying out of the street, keeping themselves to themselves, working only for normal people like her. Protecting her family was the one thing that mattered, and the continued efforts from the intruder outside reminded her of that.