IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

TWENTY FOUR

BERROW, ENGLAND. 1921.
24.

She woke from a dream of blue ice to see Bessie lying beside her. Since Martha had brought the news of Josephine's death into the house, since she had poisoned the perfect countryside that only their good childhood memories lived in, her younger sister had morphed into a different person completely. She was hard and bitter and cold, eyes sour, hands lifeless. She did not talk or sing or dance like she used to. She did not read anymore.

Martha leant in, savouring the fact that her baby sister finally wanted to be in the same room as her. She pressed her nose to the top of Bessie's head. She even smelled different, Martha thought, of salt and mud and the fresh linen that Aunt Beth pressed every morning. She wasn't the same little girl that stood on the platform of Berrow train-station, waving her goodbye. Martha tucked the duvet higher around Bessie's narrow shoulders and listened to her soft breathing. At least she was still their little sparrow bird.

It was the day of the funeral. Martha thought of her sister's body, two rooms away. It raised bile in her throat.

"Marth?" Bessie whispered hesitantly, making her jump.

"Yes, Bug?"

Bessie paused. "I snuck into your room last night."

Martha chuckled. "I think I can tell, Bug. How else would you be lying in my bed?"

The little girl turned over so they were facing each other. "I don't like sleeping on my own."

Martha tucked Bessie's hair behind her ear, smoothing a palm across her face. "It's okay. I'm back now."

"You won't leave again, will you? I don't want you to leave again. It's just you and me, now."

A wave of silence pooled between them. Martha watched Bessie's eyes flutter open and close, exhausted. The sky outside had barely rid itself of night. Not even the birds had awoken.

She wanted to kiss her sister's forehead and promise that she'd never leave; that they would live here, forever, with the clouds at their shoulders and the ocean at their feet. They would live here in the quiet, where nothing could hurt them again. She wished and wished and wished that it could be their reality.

But Martha thought of the last promise she made. The hurt she had caused by keeping hope alive in Bessie's heart. By keeping hope alive in her own.

"Even if I have to go, I'll never be gone, Bess."

She expected Bessie to misunderstand, to widen her eyes in confusion and press her for a better response, for words with more assurance, but she just blinked slowly and drew her attention back to the ceiling. Bessie had always understood more than her years.

Martha didn't fall back to sleep. As Bessie's eyes closed and her breathing slowed once more, Martha's thoughts drifted toward him. She thought of his hands, his lips, his eyes. The smell of tobacco, mint, whiskey. His bed, his brothers, his mind. All in the space of a millisecond, flashing before until she was dizzy. Just a second of indulgence, of letting the feeling that he gave her pool in her stomach and fill it up completely. And then it was over. She wouldn't allow it any more space in her head. Couldn't allow it, even if she'd wanted to. Not on a day like today.

Time disappeared. The sun had risen in stealth. Martha rose from the bed, careful not to wake Bessie again. She heard the gate outside swing open, footsteps crunching down the gravelled garden path toward the chicken coop. From the window she watched Aunt Beth trundle through the icy morning air with an empty basket on her hip. The irony of such normality on a day that they could have never predicted. She tried to smile but couldn't.