Grá - Peaky Blinders

v

"Pol, you know that Irish barmaid, Grace?" she questions her aunt, not even knowing if she knows he, Polly nods egging her on to continue. "Well, Ruairi and I saw her and Campbell, together at the theatre, coincidence I think not"

"It's probably nothing, they're both Irish, maybe old friends" Polly tries to cover for the two.

"Why is it no one believes me in this fucking family" Elizabeth gets up to leave, but is stopped by Polly placing her hand in her niece's.

"We do, it's just you never liked this barmaid from the start-" Polly starts but Lilibet snatches her hand and exits in a rush, stressed out by knowing her family didn't believe her, she was the smartest in the family, even sometimes ahead of Tommy, surely she knew what she was seeing and thinking.  She heads back up to bed and sleeps the night, hearing that gun shot every so often.

•

"Did you want whiskey as well?" Grace asks the four siblings in the snug.

"Just beer" Thomas replies.

"Why no whiskey, Tommy, are you expecting trouble?" Arthur asks

"Jesus Christ Tommy, what the hell made you let them sing again" John pipes up.

"Its like they're strangling cats" Lilibet says, making Tommy crack a smile at his younger siblings.

"It's about time Tommy" John says, noticing the way he looks at Grace not just like another whore they talk to.

"Time for what" Tom says acting clueless to what his brother meant.

"Time you took yourself up a woman" Arthur states, noticing how his younger brother took a liking to the Irish woman.

"No, anyone but her please" Elizabeth pleads, making her brothers laugh at her, thinking she was joking when she really wasn't.

"You stay the way you are Tommy, remember what dad used to say?" Arthur says to his siblings, them all remembering the phrase their drunk for a father always quoted. 

Elizabeth doesn't remember a great deal of her father but the odd few times like the time her and a brown haired boy she can't remember the name of, were playing in front of the fireplace happily until her father came stumbling through the door, shouting at everyone and anyone. Not the best memory but one she somehow remembers. Oh and also when she was little that he locked her outside one morning to punish her, and didn't let her back in until the next day, making her family search everywhere for her, she was hiding from the cold in their uncles yard..

"Fast women and slow horses will ruin your life" Elizabeth rolls her eyes, her siblings laugh until they see lights approach "here he is"

"Is there any man here named Shelby?" No response "I SAID, is there any man here named Shelby" the four come out of the snug, Tommy telling everyone to go home, telling Grace by herself to go home resulting in Lilibet rolling her eyes at her brother, desperately wanting to slap him straight.  She leaves and it's left with the four Shelby's facing Kimber and his men.

"I've never approved of women in pubs, but when they look like you, my love" Billy says, looking straight at Elizabeth, making her scrunch her face in disgust.

"Shut the fuck up" John says, already getting violent with the man only for Elizabeth to tell him to calm it.

"You said you wanted men called Shelby, you've got three" Thomas states.