Don't make me sad, don't make me cry
Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why
- Born To Die, by Lana Del Rey
The next day was like any other; busy and fast paced in the betting shop. Tommy went to have his meeting with the Chief Inspector. He was to make a deal. Tell the man he had the guns and offer to give them back when the time was right so long as the Inspector left him, his business and his jurisdiction alone. He told his wife of his plan early in the morning before he left as he was throwing on his coat. She was still in her nightgown, sitting on the edge of the bed, her black hair a mess of long curls around her.
Tommy was distracted, busy with business, to busy to notice the toll their last argument had taken on her. They argued, they got everything out in the air and they moved on. It was how they worked, but they never had two separate arguments this close to one another and they were rarely that heavy.
"Good luck." She had called after him as he walked out the door before slowly getting to her feet.
She didn't see him again until lunch when he returned from the meeting. He went to work with the other blinders, organising the gambling business they ran after throwing her a nod, a silent way of saying the meeting went according to plan. She gave him a small smile in return that he took and set to work as Kiara went into the main section of the house with a few deep breaths, exhaustion engulfing her body.
"Everything alright?" Polly asked as she came across her niece-in-law.
"Everything's fine." She got sick of people asking her that question. She only had to drop a smile for a few minutes and there it was, echoing around from Polly, John, Riley or Tommy, sometimes even Ada and Arthur. "Just a little tired today, Poll." She responded. "Didn't sleep very well after last night." She said.
"Nor I." Polly shot back. "I'll make us some tea." She woman offered taking Kiara's word for it, before heading to the kitchen.
The night came before long and Tommy once again went to bed early, his busy day taking its toll. Kiara came upstairs just as he was closing his eyes after he had placed his pipe of opium down. She sat on the edge of the bed, running her hands through his hair soothingly as he drifted off. Once he was out she smiled softly down at him before rising and heading to her dresser.
'Gone to the Garrison.' She wrote on a piece of paper and left it on the side table for him to find when he inevitably woke from a nightmare in an hour or two and found her not there. It was a short, but cold walk down the road to the pub. It would be quiet this time of night, but still open. That's what she needed; the quiet and a drink with a cigarette or two.
But she didn't head straight there. In stead she found herself wondering around the streets for some time. Enjoying the cool breeze that came just before the rain. It would be pouring soon. It was after she'd come to that conclusion that she finally decided to make her way to the pub.
She walked through the door to find the place all but empty, two men in the back corner and Grace wondering around and cleaning up after the day's worth of drunkards. Kiara had never worked this late before. Riley would never allow it when she started working there at age 17, being alone in a pub this late at night and then having to walk home at midnight in the dark. The only time she did was during the war, when there were no men to tell her what to do and the streets were a safer place, everyone away fighting. There were a few shifts when the men returned that she had to take. The Garrison was packed nearly every day for several weeks and she didn't want to leave Harry alone with all the work. Tommy had stayed there till the end on those nights, waiting for her to finish so they could walk back together.
"Dark rum?" Grace asked her, remembering her drink from last time as Kiara pulled up a seat by the bar.
"Irish whiskey." Kiara shot back. They were her two favourites and she normally wasn't picky about which one she had, but she felt inclined to say the opposite of whatever the girl said. "Harry must like you." Kiara noted. "He'd never normally leave a new worker alone in here. Especially to finish up for the day." Kiara said as Grace grabbed down the bottle of Irish Whiskey and a glass, pouring a regular shot into it before leaving the bottle on the bench while Kiara lit a cigarette.
"He went to the pictures. Wanted a night off." Grace answered, watching as Kiara picked the bottle up and poured more whiskey into her glace to fill it almost to the rim and then placing it back down before taking a long breath of her cigarette. "You normally come here at this time?"
"No." Kiara shook her head before taking a long drink, almost half emptying the glass.
"Long day?"
"Yes." Kiara responded, now looking up at the other woman, once again raising her cigarette and blowing some smoke in Grace's direction. "Why are you here?" She finally asked.
"Working at the Garrison? I need the money."
"No." Kiara shook her head just once. "In Birmingham. Why did you leave Ireland?"
"With the IRA over there it seems safer here."
"The IRA were mostly dealt by this Chief Inspector that's now here, he arrived the same time you did." Kiara stated, raising the glass and taking another sip. "Guarantee you it's safer over in Belfast right now than it is in Small Heath. At any rate... you said you were from Galway, that's a good distance from Belfast."
"I was working in Dublin before here. You left Ireland. Why can't I?" Grace asked.
"I was never there." K shook her head. "My father left Ireland to travel, long before I was born, never got any further than Birmingham. My mother was an Irish Gypsy from the Kenny clan. They travelled to England where they met the Lee clan and joined up with them. My parents met and here I am. My accents from an Irish household, not the country. You... you're different. You're a sweet, well spoken and well dressed young woman. You don't need the money and if you did you could do much better than being a barmaid." Kiara finished before raising the glass to her lips once again and finishing off the drink inside it in one gulp.
Grace remained silent for a moment before lifting up the bottle and filling up Kiara glass once again, this time just as full as Kiara had herself the first time which caused her to lightly scoff to herself.
"I spoke to your husband yesterday." Was how Grace chose to respond.
"Did you now." Kiara hummed with an intake of smoke.
"He came by here with that horse. The white one." Grace explained. "Beautiful animal."
"It's lame." Kiara stated. "If it doesn't get better it'll be put down." Grace swallowed back a lump in her throat at Mrs Shelby's words.
She knew what she was doing, not quite treating her like a child, but showing authority in a subtle way... a way that was working.
"I asked him to allow singing one night a week." The blonde moved on, she wouldn't let Kiara win.
"And what did he say?"
"He never responded to it, only changed the subject, but I believe he'll think about it."
"Perhaps he will." Kiara stated with another drink, a small sip this time.
"He asked me to the races." Grace stated casually, looking over Kiara for any sign of a wall dropping. The dark haired woman didn't let one show, only placed the glass back down on the table with the hand that held her cigarette before raising it back up to take a smoke. "I asked him what you would think of that and he said he'd spoken to you." Kiara felt her stomach turn, but she didn't let it show. "Said if I didn't want to go it was alright, but it was a good opportunity to make some extra cash if I needed it."
"Cash, is it?" Kiara finally spoke. "Wipe that smug look off your face, doll. He's asking you to work for him, not be his date. It's the Cheltenham races. A grand affair." Kiara said, more to herself.
"You two must have a complicated relationship." Grace stated. "But you seem very much in love. I hear he's been giving out money to the people for the damage that was done the other day. He's a very generous man."
A smile spread across Kiara face, accompanied by an amused laugh, smoke wisping around her as she did. "Oh, that's my husband all right. The Robin Hood of the new century." She joked. "Gives the people back the money they gamble away just out of the goodness of his heart." There was something in Kiara's eyes in the way she said it that caused Grace to take a step back. A powerful indifference towards the woman standing before her that the blonde had only just noticed the full magnitude of. "You best be careful, darling. If you can fall so easily for husband's persona after one little talk... you don't stand a chance in Small Heath."
"And you didn't fall for it?" Grace shot back.
"Never. I know what he is... who he was before the war and every burnt piece of him that France left me." Kiara said calmly with another sip of whiskey. "He's a good man under it all... a family man... but for someone like you... sweetheart, he'll burn you alive... leave you with just enough life in your body to go on with that scorching pain."
Grace took in her words before pulling herself back together and leaning over the table, to get closer as she spoke.
"I think that's what he did to you... and you don't even realise."
Kiara laughed, "Oh, I know I'm well and truly burnt and broken, Grace... but that's because of my own curse, my own inner demons... not my husband." Kiara finished as she rose from her bar stool. "Thanks for the drink, love." She finished before heading for the door without paying. She used the back door, a sort of way of letting Grace know she could go where she wanted to.
On her way out the two men that had been there when she arrived began to get up, stumbling after their excessive amounts of drink and tripping over their feet. They were closer to the back door then they were the front and she knew them as two regular customers.
"Come on, this way boys." Kiara helped them, letting Grace finish tidying up instead of worrying her with these two.
"Missed you the last few days, Mrs Shelby." One of them said as he stumbled, following her guidance.
"Don't work here anymore, but you'll still see me. Got to have drink from time to time." She smiled at them, getting them out the door and closing it behind her. "You boys be on your way now. Careful steps."
"Night!" The other one threw over his should as the two continued on, leaving her in the alley.
She watched as they walked out of sight, taking out another cigarette and lighting it, looking up at the darkened sky as she exhaled a puff of smoke. It was raining. She hadn't even noticed. It hadn't been when she left, but it must have started while she was in the Garrison some time.
She leant up against the wall, not ready to be on her way just yet, enjoying the rain that seemed to silence everything else. It must have been ten minutes until she heard a voice coming from back inside the Garrison once again. Her breath hitched in her throat.
"We're closed, Mr Shelby." Grace said, having called it a night after Kiara and the other two had left.
"Just get me a drink." Thomas said back as Kiara lightly cracked the back door open to listen in.
It was silent for a moment, a silence that was broken when Tommy coughed.
"Shall I leave you alone?" Grace asked.
"Came here for company." Thomas shot back. "Thought my wife would be here." He stated before he pulled out a chair to sit. Kiara thought that perhaps he had woken from another nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep. He would have seen the note she left.
"She just left about ten minutes ago."
"Where's Harry?" He then asked.
"He took the night off. Went to the pictures." Grace explained.
Kiara didn't want to speak up or go back in. Ten minutes Grace had said. If Tommy had known she had been standing out the back in the rain alone for ten minutes with no purpose other than just not wanting to go home, he would know something was wrong. He would know it was beginning to happen again and if he knew she wouldn't have a moment alone, always watched by him or Polly or John or someone else. He hadn't told her about speaking with Grace the day before, she wondered if he would mention this meeting.
"How's your beautiful horse?" Grace asked.
It was silent for a long while until the sound of glass being placed down on a table explained why. "I just put a bullet in his head." Tommy stated, explaining why he was up. He must have just come from the stables.
"Was he lame?" Grace asked. She knew he was, Kiara told her as much.
"He looked at me the wrong way." Tommy answered with a lie. "It's not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way."
"What a waste." Grace replied, knowing it was a lie.
"Yeah. A waste is what it is." He said before taking another drink. "You know in France..." He trailed off, silent for a moment before trying again. "In France, I got used to seeing men die. Never got used to seeing horses die. They die badly."
It was silent again until Kiara heard the lighting of a match.
"I dug out a dress like you asked." Grace stated, Kiara's jaw clenching. "It's Cheltenham you're talking about. Your wife said it was a grand affair."
"You spoke to Kiara about the races?" Tommy questioned, Kiara only getting angrier as she listened. Grace wasn't sure if he had told her wife about it, he was a good liar and Kiara hadn't given anything up when she had been speaking with Grace.
"When she was here just before. You said you spoke to her."
"Yeah."
"I'm still a little confused." Grace said, but Tommy never clarified anything for her.
"The king will be there." He continued on.
"King George?" Grace asked.
"No." Kiara could hear the smile in Tommy's voice over Grace's lack of knowledge. "King Billy Kimber and all his men."
"And what must I do?"
"For two pounds, you'll do what I ask you to do." Tommy stated.
"I want three." Tommy scoffed. "If I'm meeting a king, I won't be wearing a cheap dress." Grace insisted. "And I ask you to let me sing. It's part of the deal now, too."
"Since when?" Tommy asked.
"Since you nearly smiled." She answered. Kiara felt her blood beginning to boil, at who she didn't know. The woman who supposedly wasn't a whore and yet was coming on to her husband after having just spoken to his wife... or her husband, the man who apparently nearly smiled. "Saturday nights. Open and easy. Everyone gets to sing their song, just like we did in Dublin."
"You never worked in Dublin. So don't lie to me." Tommy answered right away. "I asked around about that pub you said you used to work in. I have friends over there. No one has heard of you."
"You asked around?" Grace questioned why he would.
"Yeah. My wife doesn't like you much. Could see it in her eyes the second they landed on you and Kiara's instincts are rarely every wrong. She always knows when there's more to a story, a secret being kept." He explained. "My guess is, you're a girl from a good family who got herself pregnant."
It went silent before Grace spoke. "It's not something I want known."
"And bringing a child into the world alone ruined your life. Right?" It was silent for a moment again before he spoke. "So I'm right. And Polly's wrong." Ada, he was bringing it back to Ada.
"Right about what?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Looks like it matters to you."
"Family business." Tommy replied.
"You won't tell anybody my secret?"
"Do you think I tell people things?" He questioned.
"Your wife." She answered right away.
"She has no interest in this. Why you're lying doesn't matter to her, she feels like you can't be trusted and if that's how she feels there's nothing that will change that. So," Tommy moved on, "what do you sing?"
"Anything you want."
"Right. Get up on a chair." Tommy ordered as Kiara took a deep breath to calm her rage once again. The rain wasn't falling as hard anymore, but she was drenched the whole way through, black hair sticking to her cheeks.
"Happy or sad?" Grace asked.
Tommy thought for a long moment before replying in a voice that Kiara could barely hear. "Sad."
"Okay. But I warn you... it'll break you heart."
"Already broken." Tommy replied calmly.
Kiara wondered when exactly her husband's heart had broken. During the war or sometime when he got back.
"In a neat little town they call Belfast, apprenticed to a trade I was bound." Grace begun.
In truth, she broke his heart.
"Many an hour's sweet happiness, had I spent in that neat little town."
She broke it every time that darkness within her rose to the surface and he had to stop her from trying to get it out. Let it out through blood.
"A sad misfortune came over me, which caused me to stray from the land."
Kiara lit another cigarette, throwing the match to the ground before beginning to walk down the alley, now deciding to leave.
"Far away from my friends and relations, betrayed by the black velvet band." Grace's voice became fainter as Kiara kept walking, only the tip of her cigarette that blazed red when she breathed visible as she blended in with the dark and the rain.
Tommy was watching as the barmaid sang, unaware that Kiara had been listening, but had now left. His head hung low as Grace sung the next line, thinking of his wife.
"Her eyes they shone like diamonds, I thought her the queen of the land."
He knew she wasn't going to be happy when he returned home, now knowing of his conversation with Grace about the races. He had planned to tell her, but then other things came up.
"And her hair hung over her shoulder, tied up with a black velvet band."