We got to the garrison and everyone was there John,Arthur,Poll everyone. But in that moment all I wanted to do was go home and sob, "whisky please Harry" "Scottish or Irish?" "Irish,the bottle please" "long day?" He said passing me the bottle "something like that" i said grabbing it and walking off into the private room "here she is" Arthur said as I walked in "the woman that sealed the bloody deal" John said as I sat down next to him and let out a laugh at his remark. If only he knew.
I did shots with them, lots of shots, I even outdrunk Arthur which is definitely a stretch. Safe to say I was gone, I could barley speak and I couldn't stop laughing at what John and Arthur were saying. As I lay across the chairs of the garrison pub "right come on then" they all said getting up "noooo stayyy" I slurred begging for them to stay. "Sorry Ivy I've had way to much to drink for this" Arthur said laughing which made me laugh "come on up you get" Tommy said to me sitting me up. "Tommy can't we stay for one more drink" "you've drank enough don't you think" he said laughing at how drunk I was. Arthur, John and Poll left leaving just me and Tommy as Tommy had offered to walk me home. "Please Tom just one more" "fine what do you want" "vodka!" I shouted in excitement. He poured me a glass of water "go on have your drink" he said handing it to me laughing, I downed it all in one until I finished it "that's fucking water" I said in a burst of laughter. "Come on" he said getting me up and intertwining out arms so he could hold me up right as we walked. I was still laughing all the way down the road on how he tricked me "you have drank so much" he said as I stumbled next to him "only like a bottle" "fuck sake" he said laughing which made me laugh. "Can we go see the horses quickly?" I asked not wanting to go home "No I think you better get home" "please just five minuets!" "Fine come on" he said dragging me the other way. "Can't wait till she has this baby Tommy we will have a little horse family together" I said giggling "I know Ivy I know" he said clearly sick of my shit but amused by it. We went into the boat yard "who the fucks that!" Charlie shouted at us "it's us calm down" Tommy said "what's wrong with her?" Charlie asked pointing to me "she's had too much to drink and wants to see the horses" "and you actually brought her?" "Obviously" "fucking hell tommy your going soft" he said walking off. "Come on see your horse then let's go." And that's exactly what we did "right come on where's your key?" He asked after we arrived at my front door "shit where is my key" I said laughing trying to find it "wait got it!" "Shhh okay come on" he said helping me into the house "come on up the stairs" "fuck sakeee Tommy I don't want to go to bed I'm not tired" "come on in you get" "I'm not tired" "I'll be back let me get you a drink" "ok thanks Thomas" by the time he came back up I was fast asleep after moaning that I wasn't tired. He placed the glass on my nightstand, turned off my lights and left.
The Next Morning
I dragged myself out of bed and straight into the bathroom for a shower as I stunk of achohol, I got into the shower as the memories from last night started coming back. Why the fuck was Tommy in my room? But then I remembered he was helping me. Then the realisation of the whole of yesterday came back, Kimber and getting insanely drunk topped it off. I didn't even want to leave my house but of corse I had work so I got myself ready and set off down the road. I arrived at the Shelby's and let myself in seen as that is something I can do now "morning poll!" "Morning Ivy" she said walking into the kitchen to greet me "so you got home safe last night?" She said with a smirk on her face "yes Tommy walked me why?" "Walked you I heard he did more than that" she said as her smirk turned into a grin "who told you that?" I said trying to hide my smile "Charlie told me that he even took you to see the horses" "yeah he did" "and what else?" I laughed "what do you mean what else he walked me home?" "And did he come inside?" "Yes to get me a drink" "hmmm" "Polly don't start" I said laughing "morning Ivy!" Said little Finn and he walked in "morning finn" I said messing up his hair causing him to laugh as I walked into the betting shop. "Ivy!" "Yes John" "surprised your in today after how much you drank last night" he said laughing "could say the same for you" "pretty sure you even out drunk Arthur" "speaking of Arthur where is he?" "Tommy wanted to speak to him in his office" "Christ is he in a bad mood?" "I can never tell if he's pissed off or that's just his personality" John said causing us both to laugh. I worked for about an hour before Tommy finally decided to show his face "Ivy come here please" he said as he walked into his office with me following him. He offered me a cigarette "thank god I haven't had one all morning" I said taking it off him "I'll get you some later" "thanks, anyway what do you want?" "Don't tell anyone yet but I'm gonna buy Arthur a pub" "nice what pub?" "The garrison" I paused for a second "what?" "You heard me" "surely Harry won't sell it" "anything's for sale if you have the right amount of money, and I'm gonna need your help with accounting" "yeah that's fine but.." "here we fucking go" "I'll only help if you let Harry keep his job, on the same pay aswell" "he's gonna be getting a large sum of money for this bloody pub he won't need his job" "okay and if he makes that decision to leave that's fine but if not he stays on the same pay" "fuck sake fine" "good, is that all?" I said going to walk out "oh Kimbers coming later today" "what?" "Yeah for the betting license" "oh yeah good" I said leaving.
A Couple Hours Later
"And this is the betting shop" Tommy said bursting through to doors with Mr Kimber and his accountant behind him. Kimbers eyes traced the room then landed on me "Ivy hello" "hello Mr Kimber" "you look gorgeous" "thankyou" I said wanting to throw up as he walked into Tommys office. Me Polly, John, Arthur, even little Finn and everyone else's all gathered in the betting shop waiting to see what happened. Minuets went by but they felt like hours of anticipation until finally we watched Kimber and his accountant leave and tommy walk out. "Gentlemen and...ladies" he said looking at me and Polly. "I have in my hands a legal betting license issued by the board of control... The Shelby family has its first legal racetrack." And then he smiled, not a little smile a proper smile as we all screamed in excitement and I even went over and threw my arms round his neck and hugged him as I said in his ear "well done Tom" "Thankyou Ivy" he said smiling at me.
Obviously to celebrate we all went down the pub exited to crack open a bottle of campaign in celebration. "I'm so fucking proud of you" I said to John after a couple of drinks "I can't fucking believe it Ivy!" He said back with a big smile on his face "you know what your basically part of the family now ivy" Arthur said coming over to me and John and putting an arm round my shoulder "I wouldn't push it" I said laughing "no seriously your part of the family now any way but if you and our Tom get mari....." he said to me and John as I stopped him mid sentence "hold your fucking horses Arthur Christ me and Tommy are not getting fucking married" I said laughing "no no Ivy trust me ever since you have come into our lives he's changed" "Arthur stop it" I said hiding my smile. "No Ivy it's true" John then said "what's bloody true" Tommy said coming over and joining in the conversation "I'll let Arthur fill you in I'm going to find poll" I said grabbing my drink and leaving before Arthur blurted out that me and Tommy are going to get married when I'm stood right next to him. We were all talking in the private room until little Finn came running in "Tommy we've been done over!" He shouted "what!" Tommy said getting up and grabbing his hat "shit" I said as I ran after them with all the others.
The betting shop looked like a pig sty, four cash boxes had been taken along with the whole place being smashed up and poor Scudboat being left with a nasty hit to the head. "Who would do this to us?" Polly asked "bolt cutters" Tommy said picking them up "shit!" Arthur and John both said "what the fucks going on?" I asked "Erazemus Lee was in France" Arthur said "no body fucking move!" Tommy shouted as everyone froze "somewhere in here there's a hand grenade "holy Jesus" Polly said trying not to freak out. "In France when we took over the Germans we would set up a hand grenade and as part of the joke we would leave bolt cutters." Tommy said "no body touch any chairs or move anything" John said trying to calm everyone down "no it would have gone off by now" Tommy said "the bullet had my name on" he said "what bullet Tommy?" I asked "this is meant for me" he said pointing to the bolt cutters. "Finn!" I shouted and ran out of the room to Tommys car "Ivy!" Tommy shouted running after me. We got to the car and saw little Finn pretending to drive "Finn don't move" Tommy said slowly walking up to him "I was pretending to be you" Finn said giggling "what way did you get in Finn?" I asked "I didn't I climbed in" he said quickly jumping out "no!" Tommy shouted as he ran to the car as I grabbed Finn holding him in to me to protect him "clear!" Tommy said throwing the grenade at the wall across the street and then wrapping his arms around me and Finn protecting us "you alright?" He asked after the it went off "yeah you?" We said to each other as we stared into each others eyes in a state of shock. "Finn that's why you should never pretend to be me" he said grabbing his little brothers face and then hugging him. Which I actually found quite cute maybe Tommy had changed I thought. "Ivy come on" Finn said grabbing my hand as tommy had his other hand and we walked back to the house in a comfortable silence as me and tommy started at each other. I would have loved to known what he was thinking in that moment, I was thinking about the way we're acting like mom and dad to this little child and how good we look doing it. But that's just me being stupid.
Instead of fantasising about that we had other things to do like get revenge on the lees, sort out out brand new racetrack, we still had all them stolen guns lying around that could be found any day and the police are still on our backs like hawks. The reason I say we is because as John said "I'm part of the family now" blood or not I consider them my family and I was going to do everything I could to help them.