sweet french. peaky blinders

53

Lucille

The meadow stretched as far along the road as Lucille could see. If she listened hard enough, she could hear the rustling of the grass beneath her shoes, hear the buzzing of the bees that flew past her ears mistaking her perfume and patterned dress for the pretty wildflowers that scattered the vast expanse. Along the way, there was a shallow dip of the rolling field, giving way to cropped grass and free space with the natural soundtrack of the trickling of water from the brook, opposite to the road that lead them there.

It reminded her so much of home, if she could even call the house in France by that title. The word home felt so loving and warm, the opposite of anything she could describe her father's farmhouse as. Birmingham, with its grey skies and dirt paths, was more of a home to her that any other place she had been before. Home truly was where her family was, she believed.

But this meadow, completed by the trees that hid them away from the footpath or the odd car that sped down the road, was exactly the same as the fields she had took Tommy to, that first time she had kissed him. When she closed her eyes, she expected to open them again to see rows of lavender purple and smell the sweet fragrance that was permanently engrained in her mind. But each time, she was met with children playing in tall grass, laughter filling her ears and the soft scent of morning dew clouding her nose.

Tommy had promised her a day out in the countryside, and that was exactly what he had given her. Lucille had been too scared by recent events to leave Finn behind, so he played on the plain along side Adds, who giggled as happily as she ever had. She didn't even want to think about the bomb scare that nearly took her children- she had taken to looking after Finn like a mother anyway. It seemed the fresh air would do them some good too, even to Tommy, who lay down beside her, cap covering his eyes from the gentle sun and chest raising steadily in a light sleep. Lucille couldn't help but prefer this scene to the fields in France. Here she was surrounded by people who she would all call family, and who she loved so very much.

Even the words that John had readily shared with her that morning before leaving, too angry with his brother to wait, couldn't hurt her. She was too lost in the blissful sense of well being to even think too much of it. Tommy had asked Lizzie, John's fancy, to keep up her job with him. But she would deal with it later. Hear another explanation of why he had to do wrong. It was a never ending cycle- he would do something and she would be silently seething from it.

The whole of Shelby family was the same, she had learned. They were bad people. They were bad peoples that you couldn't help but love. Lucille may have hated him for it, had she not been with him every step of the way. Had she not loved him with every inch of her being and of her caring heart. Had Adds not been of his same blood.

Tommy stirred at her side, his hand brushing against her leg as he turned, the cap falling from his face and onto her hand that leaned beside him. His face was revealed to the sun, but his eyes didn't flicker once, the bags below them too heavy to let them pry open so easily. It seemed that Tommy had been tired for weeks on end, fatigued chronically by the mess that he was in, an exhaustion that she could sooth only by calming words on nights when he had the energy to force his eyes clamped shut.

His skin was paler than ever too, a pasty white that could almost be transparent under the golden sun that they had been blessed with that day. It was then that he looked much like the soldier she met in France, wounded, almost dying and with too little hope. Tommy looked younger, those years ago, and yet he had also looked older, aged by the stress lines that were etched into his skin and the muck that took several scrubs to remove. Now he looked years older, as tired as someone should be in retirement.

He was still wounded, tainted in mentality by the scars of the war and the hardships that followed after. He was wounded by his own business, by the transacts that were supposed to be giving his family a better life. He was like a shield to it all, his arms held out wide in front of them all, taking each and every blunt hit that came their way.