BLOOD IN THE WATER, CH. II — Misinterpreted Confrontations
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THOMAS SHELBY FOUND the impulsivity of his brothers to be quite a huge pain in his ass. He always had to guide them in the right direction, whether that be steering Arthur away from a bottle of liquor and into doing something useful, or keeping Finn's stubby fingers off of his cigarettes to make sure he didn't accidentally kill himself trying to smoke one. Those two were easy to manage most of the time, but John on the other hand ...
Tommy thought he might kill him. John was too much like him for his own good.
It had been quite a few months now since they returned home from France — almost five, to be more exact — and Tommy had managed to easily weasel his way back to the top of the food chain within the betting shop. Everyone let Arthur believe he was in charge of things to keep him from truly going off the deep end, but they all knew Tommy was head of the family business. Polly had much push back on it all, far more than Tommy cared for because he knew it didn't all root in being worried about his well-being; but he was a charming and stubborn man, and even Aunt Pol didn't have it in her to keep him at bay for too long. The Peaky Blinders had built quite a name for themselves in the streets of Birmingham, all thanks to Tommy and his strategies, and now they brought in a nice sum of money to the shop every week.
With Arthur busy thinking he was in charge, Tommy gave John the position of bookkeeper within the betting shop. He was always good with numbers and stayed closer in line to Tommy than anyone else in their family, and at the end of the day was a very quick thinker when Tommy needed him to be. He wanted to give John a job that would keep his mind busy, and off of the war flashbacks and lingering death of his wife. John seemed to be taking the nights the worst of the three of them, and Tommy knew he didn't have much longer until he lost him to the bottle as well. A dead wife, four children, and PTSD made no man King.
After about a month of being bookkeeper, John's spirits picked up a bit — he wasn't so fidgety anymore, and he could handle the sound of a door slamming without grabbing his pistol — and for that Tommy was grateful. John was happy to be in the betting shop or off in the streets wreaking havoc, anything Tommy needed just to help keep his mind moving and never giving it a second to think about anything else.
About a month after that, Tommy began to notice John was missing from their home at night quite a few times a week. It went from about three nights to four, four to five, until he was just about gone every night and didn't return 'til morning.
Three months and two and a half weeks later, Tommy noticed it.
John was beginning to smell like her.
Tommy wondered how he didn't notice it sooner. Even though he was happy with Martha and the children before the war, John always kept a piece of his heart hidden away for Juliet Dubois. The first few weeks back, she slept every night with John in his room, helping him get through each and every one of his nightmares so that he could eventually get some sleep in the wee hours of the morning. She stopped after a while, presumably because John told her to, and then a week after that John started disappearing at night. Tommy, far too sure of himself to think otherwise, assumed John still needed her to get through the night, but just didn't want to have her in the house any longer. Maybe he was embarrassed or just didn't want them to see how much he was struggling — whatever it was, Tommy didn't bother with it, because surely there was nothing else going on there.
