CHAPTER 8
THE WANDERING JEW
❝ But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose. ❞
Camden Town
Thomas Shelby wasn't the only one who could pull off a dramatic entrance, something the workers at the rum distillery in Camden Town learned all too quickly that early morning when the doors to the fake bakery opened and Rose Salvage and Kaya Yende appeared in front of their mesmerized eyes like divine apparitions. None of them had ever thought they'd see the day when two women walked in on that stuffy, noisy place, let alone two women who moved without time for fear, as if such feeling was to slow and unworthy to walk among them.
The unexpected sight of the two ladies inside that dark, sweaty space made the rum run sweeter and the air feel fresher almost immediately, with men stopping their work to whistle and ogle, and Rose and Kaya could have felt fear, had they not long ago taken that word out of their vocabulary, because fear was what men like Thomas Shelby or Alfie Solomons fed upon.
And neither Rose nor Kaya had any intention of keeping their bellies full.
"Miss Salvage, we weren't expecting you," Alfie's assistant declared as he approached her, "what brings you here?"
"Thought I'd buy some more of that delicious bread you bake in here, you know we French love our bread. Get Alfie for me, will you, Ollie?"
"No need, no need," when the bearded man with scars on his face left his office and made his way towards them, the rum turned sour and the air stale again. With his unpredictable behavior and violent outbursts, Alfie Solomons was one of the scariest men Rose had ever met, and yet he came to them with his back curved, as if to make himself smaller. Alfie, like Rose, played on people's underestimations of him, and that's perhaps why she had come to call him a friend, if a man like him even had any.
"I thought he'd be taller," Kaya muttered as she observed him. "And scarier."
"Just give him time," Rose mumbled back, watching in amusement as Alfie strolled by his workers like a prophet through his disciples.
"Alright, if you fuckers have had enough of staring at the ladies, then go back to your fucking work, yeah? Eyes are meant for seeing, not fuckin'," his voice was dragged and drowsy and drenched in an accent that made Rose wish he came with subtitles, or at least instructions. She doubted anyone had ever been able to figure him out, and she prayed for the soul that one day would.
"Ah Rose! I thought that was you, it smelled too much like fucking France in 'ere," he stopped right in front of them, inspecting Rose with his monocle before moving it to Kaya. "The French have a very distinctive smell, wouldn't you agree, love?"
"I wouldn't be able to tell right now, since it smells like dog piss and horse shit in here," Kaya replied dryly. It was the first time she was meeting him and she didn't look one bit intimidated by his confusing words, which was exactly why Rose had brought her. She just hoped Kaya's audacity wouldn't get them in trouble, given as she was as much of a ticking time bomb as he was.
"That's more me than the place, I'm sure," Alfie turned around and started toddling away, gesturing with his hand around, towards the bottles of rum. "Has your friend tried my bread yet, Rose?"
"Yes, I believe she has, we sell it in our bars."
"Well, she should try it again. Meanwhile, you come in 'ere, yeah?" He ordered, entering his office without waiting for a reply. Rose exchanged a quick glance with Kaya before following him and sitting across from him. "So Rose, help me out, will ya? 'Cause I have no fucking idea why on Earth would a delicate English rose such as yourself decide to visit me in this humble shithole."
"Same reason as always, Alfie, business. And if there's an English rose in here, it's certainly not me."
"Hope no one ever cuts out that silver tongue of yours, it'd be a shame," Alfie rested his back on the chair and crossed his hands over his stomach, his scrutinizing stare making Rose feel as if she had arrived to Judgment Day without even going through life. "Business, you say? Just like that first time you walked in here, right, when you had a fucking sniper up in that roof aiming at me just to get me to sign whatever fucking deal it was with you."
Rose smiled at the memory from all those years ago, at how Nicolas had agreed to her plan without batting an eye; they both knew the only way Alfie would agree to negotiate with a new gang was if his life was on the line.
"Well, it worked, didn't it? We secured a good deal. So that's water under the bridge."
"Yeah... well, the only other person who's been crazy enough to pull a similar stunt with me was that fuckwad from Birmingham that almost blew up this place."
"Thomas Shelby, you mean?"
"Yeah, that fucker. I've been told you recently met him, yes?"
"Unfortunately," Rose nodded. "I'm not here to talk about him. As you know, I control a considerable number of ports in the north coast of France. I want to trade your rum in France in exchange of you selling my absinthe in your pubs here in England."
"And why the fuck would I want to sell your absinthe in my pubs, love, that shit tastes like liquid weed."
Rose smiled, too familiarized with Alfie's destabilizing techniques to take offense in his words. "To you, maybe, but clients think otherwise. You know it sells well. My absinthe in your pubs and your rum in all of France; it seems to me you have the most to gain."
"Right, yeah," when Alfie leaned forward, placing his crossed hands on the desk between them, Rose prepared herself for something that wouldn't make any sense and yet have all the meaning. That was always the case with Alfie; Rose had never met anyone who could say such raw truths amidst so much gibberish. "I had a garden once, Rose, yeah? A lovely garden filled with beautiful fucking flowers. And I used to take my dog to piss there, right, and he'd piss there, for hours and hours, in every single rose of that beautiful fucking garden. Except in one, right, because there was always this one fucking rose that had a fucking gun pointed at my poor dog's head. So that's the only rose he wouldn't piss in."
"I wouldn't point a gun at your dog, Alfie, if anything, I'd point it at you. Do we have a deal or not? I could have gone to the Sabinis or the Shelbys or any other gang out there, but I chose you, because I like you better. And I know you don't like anyone, but you like me. You betray everyone, but not me. Because sometimes two knives meet and decide to stab their own backs instead of each other. I'd like to keep it that way."
"You are a woman, Rose, it's fucking obvious, yeah?" The wandering Jew, as he called himself, nodded at her chest as blatantly as a schoolboy. "But I tell ya, you have the biggest fucking balls I've ever seen."
Rose chuckled. Talking with Alfie was like walking on a tightrope between amusement and absurdity with no safety gear or place to land. She just had to go along with it. "Bigger than Thomas Shelby's?"
"Yeah, bigger than his too. Can't make a greater compliment than that, love. Now you go and call that friend of yours, yeah?"
"Why?" Rose asked, and her heart was no longer a heart, rather just a punching bag where Alfie's orders and her desire to protect wrestled together until there was nothing in her chest except a bloodbath.
"Because you're a fucking flower, love, but that woman there, she's the whole fucking garden."
Rose pressed her lips together but did as he told, returning with a silent Kaya whose eyes had been replaced by warning signs.
"How about in 'ere, love, smells better?" Alfie questioned, hand weaving through his beard as if expecting to find some long lost treasure in there.
"Slightly," Kaya commented, glancing around. "I'd still recommend a long bath and a good dose of perfume afterwards."
"Is it a fucking requisite or something, to have a fucking silver tongue to get into your gang?" Alfie inquired Rose, though refusing to divert his eyes from Kaya.
"Silver tongues bring silver coins," Rose agreed with a humble nod of head.
"Forty percent," he decided at last, "I want forty percent of whatever profit you make from selling my rum in your bloody country."
"The ports are mine."
"But I'm the one who makes the rum, love."
"Twenty percent," Rose argued, in that unbending tone not even an earthquake would be able to shake. Unfortunately, Alfie was more powerful than an earthquake.
"Thirty," he countered, in that voice Rose knew admitted no replicas unless one wanted to have their eyes or balls cut off. "And a date with your lovely friend over there."
"A date?"
"A date, yeah, you know, when two people go somewhere, usually some fancy restaurant or—"
"I know what a date is, Alfie."
"Then, a date. If not, no deal."
Rose clenched her teeth; she hated having to put Kaya between the devil and the deep blue sea and not even knowing who was the Devil to begin with. She didn't dare to look at Kaya, who had gone unusually quiet, like the calm before the storm.
"Deal."
"Great, it's settled then," he said and looked over at her in such a way that it made Rose wonder if he had the ability to summon God into his stare. "I've been having this dream about ya, ya see. You're in this big field of flowers, right, and you're the only dead rose there. Then the wind comes and drags you away. And only the scorched petals stay."
***
"Seriously, Rose?" Kaya shook her head as soon as the two women were out of the distillery and into safe waters again. Here came the storm. "You're just like Thomas. To you people are just means to an end you foolishly think you need to achieve. You should be careful if you don't want to end up like him, a man with so much money and yet no richness."
When Kaya stormed away, Rose stood in her place for a while, digesting her words. Then she ran after her and got ahold of her arm, because she couldn't bear to be painted in such a low light by a friend who had always thought of her in bold colors.
"Kaya, no, I'm not like him. If you don't want to go on that stupid date with Alfie, you won't. I'll make up an excuse."
"You gave your word, Rose, it's not me that's going to make you break it. Just... from now on, be a bit more considerate of other people's feelings, alright?"
But she was. Everything she did, her empire, her wealth, it was for the people. The people of France, so that they'd never have to know misery like she had, and the people of Britain, those she cared about at least.
But perhaps doing things for people wasn't the same as doing things for their feelings.
***
In London, the only place Raphael De La Cour felt at home was the boxing ring, where the actions he had to do and the sensations he got from them were the same as in France. Inside those four ropes his thoughts aligned themselves normally without him having to scramble for the right words to translate them – he could be himself as long as his fists spoke for him.
Boxing gave him a sense of self he couldn't find anywhere else, but it also provided a stable source of income for the French Kissers; while other gangs battled one another over racetracks and horse bets, they had turned their bookmakers towards football and boxing, where Raphael played a crucial role. That's why he was so engrossed in his training; and that's why he didn't notice the young man with the brown curls entering the gym and sitting on a bench to write while furtively risking a glance or two in his direction.
It was only when Raphael stopped training that he noticed him, and his heart flipped inside his chest like a coin turned to the wrong side. It happened sometimes, when Raphael saw a particularly good-looking or interesting man, but he'd never given it much thought. Women were on his mind most of the time, and he certainly didn't have space for both; he had never heard of a person who had.
"Hey," Raphael called, smiling a bit when the brown-eyed man rose his head, astonished someone was talking to him. "Do you wanna come up here and train for a bit?"
"No, thanks," the guy threw his smile back at him, and Raphael's heart reacted accordingly, in a way he was certain that it shouldn't, in a way society didn't allow. Because there were laws for the heart too, laws he had forced himself his whole life to abide to and that this stranger now threatened to break. "I've always preferred to write about things rather than doing them."
"Ah, you're a writer?" Raphael questioned, resting his arms on the rope as he watched him in interest. He didn't fail to notice how the guy's stare slipped down his naked torso only to return to his eyes in timidity.
"Yes. Or at least, I'm trying to."
"This is an odd place to write. Don't most writers write in parks or cafes or something?" English words, that had always been a struggle for Raphael, now rushed freely out of him and into the world, as if this boy was worth speaking a foreign language for.
"Well yeah, but I guess I'm different. I get more inspired in here."
"You know," Raphael said, bending down to pass the ropes and jump to the floor, "if you're writing a story about me, I should know."
"I'm not!" the Brit refuted, his cheeks becoming as red as the cherries Raphael and Andrea used to pick in the warm summer evenings of France.
"Maybe one day you will," Raphael winked at him, just to see his cheeks turn even redder. "You know, if you change your mind, I'd be happy to teach you a thing or two in the ring."
"Is that so?" The other guy tilted his head to the side, the smile on his face swinging like an adrift boat, one Raphael wanted to guide into a safe shore, even if he didn't know why, even if he didn't know how. "I might take you up on that offer one of these days, who knows, perhaps I'm a secret prodigy."
Raphael laughed, but his laugh was interrupted by hurried, decisive steps he had long ago learnt to associate with the force of nature that was Rose.
"James!" She exclaimed, grabbing his face and kissing him on each cheek. The act didn't seem to have the same effect on him that it did on other men, something that made Raphael's heart flip again, perhaps now to the right side. "Long time no see!"
"Yeah, ever since you sent me off to live with Ada Shelby so I'd get you all the dirts on her family," James stated, though he did not sound resented or bitter for it.
"Well I'm sure you gained some interesting material for your stories, no? I assume meeting Thomas Shelby and helping him trick Alfie Solomons must have been quite the experience."
"Yes, it almost sent me to the hospital with a heart attack, but I'll have inspiration and ideas for the rest of my life. Those are two very intense blokes."
"Indeed they are," Rose chuckled, and her glance passed over Raphael like a rag of smoke that saw what others couldn't and went where others wouldn't. "You know, if you're looking for a new place to live, I have a free apartment right next to Raphael's here. It's yours if you want it."
"Rose..."
"Just make sure to dedicate a story to me once you're famous, alright?" She interrupted, kissing him again on the cheek and winking at Raphael before walking away. James had been a valuable inside source on the Peaky Blinders for a while but after finding out that Thomas had used him in a scheme to negotiate with Alfie, she had deemed it was too dangerous to keep him in such position and let him go.
"Have you decided what you're going to do?" Renée queried when Rose arrived at the gym entrance where some of the gang was gathered. "About Thomas' offer?"
"I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
"Think carefully, Rose," Nicolas advised, each line on his forehead a written testament to his concern for her. "He's all alone in that big house, his family is in prison, of course he'd want some company, especially if it's as pleasant as yours. I have to admit I hate the idea of you alone with Thomas Shelby, in that house or anywhere else."
"Are you afraid he'll hurt me?" Rose raised an eyebrow at her right hand. If anyone knew what she was capable of, it was him.
"I'm afraid he'll want to take you to his bed, because that's what all men are thinking when they look at you."
"I have to accept his offer, I need to find out what he knows about my involvement with the Germans. The purse was a warning, and Finn was too. Now he just barged into my territory, into my café, and asked me a silent question. I can't leave him without an answer or he'll make up his own. I need to know if he knows who I am and come up with something if he does. And keep an eye on him if he doesn't, so he never will."
"The Russians have a saying, you know," Angeline spoke up, in that same tone Alfie used whenever he was about to deliver one of his prophecies. "if you're afraid of wolves, don't go to the woods. I believe the English equivalent is 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'. Can you handle the heat?"
Rose snickered, one eyebrow perfectly arched by years of defying both people and systems. "Can he?"
***
London Library
Out of all Rose's sisters, Thomas had quickly realized that Audrey, with her head always in the clouds and feet rarely on the ground, was the most impressionable, and that's why he now found himself strolling down a library and ignoring everyone's eyes on him, his stare solely focused on the girl who could give him what he wanted.
Audrey, lost in a world of words and ideas, didn't hear the whispers around her and only noticed the imposing presence towering over her when his shadow carelessly spilled upon the pages of her opened book.
"Hmm hmm," Thomas cleared his throat and Audrey looked up, swallowing upon the blank page she found on his face. She didn't like when people didn't have words on their skin; it was if they had no life at all. So she wondered if there would ever be anyone able to write some words on him, to bring out some scraps of emotion that would make him look more like a human and less like the machine he had been forced to turn into during the war. But maybe that was the thing about it. Men could leave the war, but the war never left them. "Mind helpin' me with something?"
"Of course," Audrey said, getting up and placing the book back on the shelf. "Here to borrow a book?"
"Not quite," Thomas reached for the case inside his pocket that always brought some part of him back to himself, until he remembered he was in a library and decided against it, "you have a good relationship with your sister, I assume?"
"Which one?" Audrey inquired, though she knew. Ever since their worlds had collided there hadn't been a day when their orbits hadn't gravitated towards one another.
"Rose," he declared, and there was more emotion in that single word than in any of the sentences she had heard him say before, even if it was emotion that came from behind a veil, unreachable even to himself.
"I do. She's like a second mother to me."
"Good. You know I want her to teach me son to play violin. What do you think of that?"
"I think it's a great idea. Children should be exposed to classical music from early on, no?"
"Yes, but since she doesn't seem to share that opinion, I want you to help me convince her."
"Mr. Shelby," Audrey shook her head, arms crossed over her chest in a playful gesture, "you seriously came all this way to press me into persuading Rose to accept your offer?"
"Like you said, it's a good idea, but unfortunately, she's not seein' it. You can help with that."
"When Rose's made up her mind it's not easy to change it. Maybe you're used to people saying 'no' to you as 'maybe', but I assure you, Rose says 'no' as in 'no fucking way'."
Thomas snorted, the edges of his lips struggling to produce the most basic of human expressions. Audrey wondered what it would take for him to really smile; maybe that was something only his memory could do now. "I'm aware of that. But surely she listens to her sisters."
"Does your sister listen to you?"
"Fair point. You know Ada?"
"Yes, she used to work here. Tell me, where is she now?"
"In America, taking on the American branch of the Shelby company. You're friends with her?"
"Yes, it's difficult not to be friends with Ada. Makes you wonder how on Earth is she related to her brothers."
Thomas sniggered again. Clearly banter ran strong in all of the Salvages' blood. "Does Rose know her too?"
"No, I don't think they've ever met. But then again, Rose doesn't tell me everything she does. You know she advised me to stay away from you."
"And why is that?"
"Certainly not so she can have you all to herself," Audrey teased.
"Certainly not," Thomas agreed, in the kind of neutral voice that could only be forged.
"It's because you are a bad man, Mr. Shelby. A bad man with a good heart."
That's not how most people would describe him, that's now how he saw himself, but if Rose had painted him in that light, then he wouldn't be the one to ruin the picture for her.
"And that scares her?"
"Yes, it scares her. Bad men with bad hearts, she can deal with. It's when their hearts are good – she can't handle it."
"Has she been hurt before? By a bad man with a good heart?" Tommy's voice was perfectly trained, uninterested, and yet Audrey could see there was something else there; sometimes the most dispassionate voices held the most passion.
"No. She was hurt by the worst of them – a bad man with a bad heart pretending he had a good one."
Thomas let his fingers drum on the wooden table in front of him, his brain trying to digest an information his heart didn't have the stomach for. His heart didn't have the stomach for anything; that's why he let it starve. "Where is he now?"
"Far away," Audrey looked as if she had spoken too much already and she probably had, which was why Thomas had chosen her in the first place.
"Audrey!" Rose's voice echoed in the space behind him, with the kind of energy Thomas knew not to turn his back to. Like the ocean, he noticed. She came and went and poured herself on others until she was dragging them with her. She came and went and never stayed long enough, never stopped to wait for anyone, because that's how the ocean worked, it went on, it always did. She came and went and never gave without taking, which was far from what Thomas was used to. People always gave him everything he wanted without taking anything in return. But Rose already had more of him than most people – he feared soon enough she might have more of him than him. "And... Thomas."
He turned on his heels, their eyes clashing and pulling and pushing and suddenly there it was, the orbits gravitating towards one another, the tides in her pulling at the dust in him. The dust his soul was covered in ever since he had tucked it away in a corner.
"Rose! To what do I owe the pleasure?" Audrey greeted with a smile.
"I came to borrow a book on how to get rid of unwanted thorns in my side," she answered, making Thomas' lips struggle less for that smile upon hearing those words. "Do you happen to have one of those?"
Audrey looked between them, to how their gazes hadn't moved from each other as if the first one to look away would see less well from then on.
"I'll leave you two alone," she ended up saying, disappearing behind the shelves while Rose cut the distance between her and Thomas.
"Surely you didn't come here to get into my sister's head, did you?"
"Not at all, I just happen to like libraries."
"Just like I suspected," Rose smiled. "I'm glad that you're here, though. What's Charles' favorite pastry?"
"Why the interest?"
"Well I can't show up at your house empty-handed, can I?"
If Audrey had been there, she'd see the real smile she never thought a man like him could hold. "So it's a yes?"
"Partially. I want to meet Charles, see how he reacts to me, if he likes me enough to start the lessons."
"Alright then. Bring him something with chocolate. Do you want me to come pick you up?"
"No, I'll find my way."
Then again, the ocean. It always found a way back to land, no matter how much more tempting the horizon was.
"I'll be waiting then."
"I know you will," Rose said, and there was more confidence in that wink then most people had in their entire bodies. "I'll bring you a pastry too."
author's note.
I struggled so much with this chapter because Alfie is literally the hardest character I've ever written but I hope he's accurate enough and that the chapter isn't too bad! I also had to sneak James in there because I really liked his character despite him having such a brief appearance.
Next chapter Rose will go to Thomas' house – that should be interesting ;)