IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

EIGHT

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, 1921

MARTHA

8.

"Don't find me, Martha. Find Thomas Shelby."

It played in her head over and over again relentlessly, like a siren that wouldn't turn off. The last words to fall from her sister's lips.

"Find Thomas Shelby."

She sat on the train pushing towards the city of Birmingham, a million questions circling in her chest. Who was Shelby and why did Josephine want Martha to find him? She could only put her sisters frantic request down to the fact that Thomas would lead her to Jo, and that alone was enough to force all common sense from Martha's head.

With every stop, the accent of the passengers around her grew more drawn out and obscene. She had never been to Birmingham. In fact, besides Uncle Ed's cottage in the countryside, she had never left her home in London. She pictured Bessie's face playing in the tall grass that blanketed his garden - happy and innocent and oblivious, as her youngest sister had always been. Then she pictured Josephine's face, bloodied and tearful and scared. It was always this version of her sister's face that surfaced in her vision, regardless. She couldn't shake it.

"Straight to Birmingham centre, is it?" a voice interrupted.

Martha looked up at the voice's owner - a girl of her age dressed in all black. Her hair was shiny and blonde and neatly pinned up. Her eyes were huge and brown, so round that it almost felt like they took up the entirety of her face. She smiled down at Martha, a row of perfectly straight teeth sitting behind brightly-painted lips of red.

Everything about her was too full on, too perfect. There was something about her that Martha couldn't put her finger on — couldn't recognise. She's too happy, she thought to herself. Far too happy.

Martha didn't realise that she hadn't even answered the girl, who grinned harder and fell into the seat opposite her.

"Helen Brokewater, by the way. I'm on my way home and thought I'd rather sit with some company for the last hour or so. Do you mind?"

What was Martha supposed to say? Actually, I'd rather you didn't.

"I'm Martha," she muttered instead. "Martha Smith."

"I guess you're not going home then, like I am. Not with that accent. So, who are you running from?"

Martha looked up at the girl sharply. What did she just say?

Helen's eyes crinkled as she laughed. "Only joking," she smiled.

Martha averted her eyes back toward the window, the desire to be alone intensifying. The sky was still
bright despite the afternoon slowly rolling into early evening, clouds of soft yellow trailing the horizon in a blur as the train carriage moved shakily.

In their silence, Martha studied the girl - Helen - and concluded that they were polar opposites. Helen was bright and happy and confident, and Martha was cold and weary of other people. Helen didn't have any troubles, she figured; her eyes sparkled too much and her smile stretched far too wide. Martha was riddled with them - right now, she didn't exist without her pain and the suffering of her sisters.

"Do you want some?"

Martha's thoughts were broken by her fellow passenger, who closed the space between them by holding out an expensive-looking bar of chocolate. The smell alone made her stomach growl loudly.