hope || michael gray

- ONE -

—

matilda edwards stood next to a silent polly gray, as they looked down at the wooden coffin which held freddie thorne's body. john's youngest cried behind them, that being the only other noise heard aside tommy's voice.

the weather reflected the day's events, grey clouds rolling overhead. the funeral ceremony finished, and as the group crowded over towards the cars matilda felt a hand wrap around her lower arm.

"tilly, come with me - need to try convince ada to come home," tommy said quietly to the younger girl.

at that particular moment, it would probably be true if tommy described matilda as a closer sister figure than ada was, although of course the edward's girl wasn't related to the family.

she was taken in by the close family friends two years into the war, when a letter had arrived with the news that matilda's last remaining family member, her older brother james who was a blinder himself, had been reported missing in action, with the soldiers of his battalion that were recognisable reported dead. matilda had returned home from the boarding school that she has been sent off to (against her wishes - she'd wanted to stay home and mess around with finn and isiah for the rest of her life at the time) when james and matilda's mother had died a year before the war, when matilda was age ten. the main reason was because james couldn't bare to look at his little sister anymore, being reminded of his mother's death constantly; he couldn't deal with the constant heartbreak anymore, and thought sending tilly away would solve it.

matilda hadn't really been sure what to do with herself when she returned back to small heath at first; she spent a lot of time causing trouble with finn, the boy being only a couple of years younger than her. the only productive thing the girl did was practice her ballet, mainly because it kept her sane. it was pretty much the only thing she remembered from the years she'd spent at the school, it being the only subject matilda hadn't screwed around in. she spent hours perfecting certain moves she had been taught, dancing up and down watery lane when no one was around.

polly had then made the decision to force the smart girl into the business, deciding it was the best thing for her to get her to actually do something with her life. as usual polly was right; the edwards girl was now, two years later, a prominent figure in the business at only the age of seventeen; her and tommy had grown up together even with the man being a good few years older than her, and both had 'business-thinking minds' as polly called them. that was part of the reason why they got on like a house on fire - some of the time anyway. an awful lot of time was spent bickering.

matilda hesitated before giving a small nod in response to tommy's request. ada had done so much for the girl, the last thing she wanted to do was upset her even more on the day of her husband's funeral.

the three walked together, with ada in the middle.

"we thought now freddie's gone, you might come back to birmingham,' tommy started.

ada paused for a second, and smiled slightly.
"god, do you know how funny it is that you've got chauffeurs in uniform?"

"just for the occasion ada."

"do you know how unfair it is that you've got four bugatti's when half the country's starving?" ada continued.

"so now they've made you ashamed of us, ay?"