Nothing Will Change

Chapter 38

Train whistles and smoke. Shipping yards and brick walls. Camden Town was a lot like Birmingham in many ways, lines of factories overlooking a river. It almost resembled Charlie's yard in a sense. The Solomon's factory was by far the biggest, barrels and barrels lining every wall and floor they passed. It stunk of rum and bread, not particularly a smell Rose wanted to get used to any time soon, so she would hope the meeting would go quickly.

At the door was a young man likely her age in a simple suit and chart in his hand. He gave her one look and turned to Tommy, the person that was actually invited.

"I was told it would be just a man," he said plainly, making Tommy appear rather short in his lanky stature.

"She's a business partner and a rather important one."

"Whatever come in."

He led them inside to a deep room smelling even more potent of rum, though that could be due to the hundreds of more barrels inside. Lit by lamps in cages, Rose marvelled at the size as the man checked Tommy for weapons. He would not ask Rose, however she would hope it would be obvious that she never carried such a thing. She didn't even have a bag with her. From down the corridor she heard the heavy footsteps of someone approaching. She glanced up to see a man much taller and bigger than both Tommy and the man checking his weapons combined. He wore a dark grey waistcoat over his puffy sleeves like a true baker, sizing them both up before he was even close enough to recognize their faces.

"Put him down Ollie, put him down mate," he called in a heavy cockney accent, "he's only little."

As he got closer, Tommy took off his hat, Rose trying not to laugh already at the comment the man made. He must have caught the smile she was hiding, as the man looked her up and down before nodding to himself.

"Just you two then? Who's this?" He waved a hand Rose and Tommy repeated what he said to Ollie still behind them.

"My business partner."

"Oh yeah? What you do love?"

Rose peered at Tommy, but his face was blank in business mode, "I'm a designer."

"That right eh? If I knew Thomas Shelby was into fashion I would have dressed up a bit myself," he joked and waved them along to walk with him, "you two wanna take a look at my bakery?"

He walked extremely uninterested, describing the space like you would a project to your class. Rose and Tommy held back, Tommy's face unreadable as he scanned the room. Rose walked a lot straighter and with a polite smile, though then again she was not used to these sorts of meetings. And so she did what she would do meeting anyone intimidating like Mr Solomons, smile meekly but politely, and not speak unless they spoke to you. It was what she had been taught in school, or perhaps learned from headmasters and male teachers. Incredibly sexist, though unfortunately useful when she was not so sure how to behave.

"Did you know we bake over 10,000 loaves a week?" They passed some of his bakers on the walk through, their chuckles as he spoke about bread misleading, "can you believe it? We bake the white bread, we bake the brown bread. We bake all sorts. Would either of you like to try some?"

They had reached a table, with multiple bottles of... Rum. The bread. It was obvious then they were misleading not for them but for other evident reasons, and Tommy smirked as he made eye contact with the head baker. Rum was never Rose's sort of drink; her father had it on occasion, brought up by his sailor father, though it was always too bitter and too strong. A pirates drink she always thought of it as.

"All right," Tommy gave in to the offer.

"What would you like, brown or white?"

"Try the brown."