Chapter Text
After the riotous and unexpected day of yesterday, Orla had slept about as poorly as she had thought she might, and is thus wholly unprepared for the light knocking at her door.
The knock comes again and Orla pulls her head out from under her pillow, hair in her face, blearily staring at the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Mrs. Blum, tayer. I’ve got a cuppa out here for you.”
Orla gets up and crosses her bedroom, confused. None of the other girls has ever had a cup of tea hand delivered to their bedroom door before. They get a sweet little cake and a nice tea from their landlords on their birthdays, but not hand delivered tea.
“This is a… surprise, Mrs. Blum, but thank you,” Orla remembers her manners as she accepts the cup and saucer. Ollie may have been her younger brother, but he and Mrs. Blum, his older sister, had the same eyes. Which at times made it dashedly difficult to yell at Ollie.
“Oh, don’t be expecting this every day, but Ollie made mention that you’d might like a cuppa.”
“Wh- When did Ollie mention this?” Orla asked, taking a sip of the heavenly brew.
“When he got here with some bread from the bakery. You can have some when you come down. Speaking of which, I need to get back to the kitchen, and let you get dressed, tayer.”
Orla tried to enjoy the tea as she got dressed and did her hair, but, again, no one ever had tea hand delivered to them in the house.
Orla picked out a new dress she’d bought in the after Christmas sales last year – a black number with an antique gold kind of thread color on the detail work on the wrist cuffs and down the front of the dress. The skirt though – that was what had drawn her in. The skirt was made out of this wonderfully patterned lace. It was also a bit scandalous for the conservative matriarchs of Camden Town which was a reason to love it all on its own. Orla paired it with some black bar strap shoes, a two strand faux pearl necklace she’d found at a rummage sale at a local school she’d been forced to go to. Orla then donned her hat, keeping it in place with a nice hat pin (that had been won in an odd Hanukkah game at the first Hanukkah party she’d been invited to. One last look in the mirror before she was off down the stairs and found out Ollie was waiting in the front room.
Perhaps wearing black had been an extra good idea.
“Ollie… what brings you here?”
Ollie stood up from the settee he’d been perching on and gave his grandmother a kiss on the cheek before crossing the room to Orla. “Breakfast meeting. Boss sent me to pick you up since it was last minute. That’s all. C’mon, we don’t wanna be late.”
Ollie chivvied Orla to the door, even helping her get her coat on. None of this was making Orla feel any better.
“Ollie, what is going on?” Orla asked after they’d gotten into the car. “Alfie doesn’t do breakfast meetings. He hates getting up early – the amount of times you and I have heard him complain about why he’s his own boss so he can get up whenever he pleases.”
“Oh, I know. I know. But there are a few… things, Alfie feels he needs to discuss with you after yesterday. So. A private breakfast meeting.”
Orla can feel the blood draining out of her face. She was so definitely fired at best, about to be dead at worst.
Ollie drives them to where Alfie lives in Primrose Hill – still in Camden Town, but nice. Very, very nice. The knot in Orla’s stomach had grown tighter and heavier with every foot closer the car rolled toward Alfie’s townhouse. Alfie Solomons was anything but predictable. He was a violent, hard man, who expected as much from his people as he put in. He was intelligent, he knew how to play people to throw them off or draw them in so they never saw the knife coming for their back. But he was also good to his community. His gang helped keep the large swaths of Camden Town he controlled relatively clean and free of crime. He donated money to certain charities and treated the women who ran the bakery (and up until yesterday, Orla) with politeness and civility.
And Orla had spent several years lying to him. Alfie wouldn’t forgive that. Alfie could be cruel when he felt wronged. Then they arrived.
Ollie neatly pulled to a stop in front of the house. He turned off the engine, removed his key, and hopped out to jog around the front and open Orla’s door for her. Polly and her mother hadn’t raised a coward, so Orla squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and got out of the car. She followed Ollie up the steps and into the house and allowed him to take her coat to hang on the rack on the wall while Orla removed her hat and slid the pin into her purse. Ollie lead her through the downstairs and into the kitchen, where Alfie was waiting.
Imagine Orla’s surprise when she saw Alfie, wearing an apron, pulling a bread pan out of the oven to set it on the stove top to cool before turning it out.
“Ah, good, you’re here. Ollie, you can fuck off to the bakery now I’ll be in later.” Not we’ll be in. This did not look good for her employment status. Ollie shot Orla a look of compassion before nodding to her and leaving.
Orla stood just inside the kitchen, warily watching Alfie moving about his kitchen and not acknowledging her presence either.
Orla eventually cracks and breaks the silence building in the kitchen. “I would’ve thought you had a housekeeper for this sort of thing.”
“Gave her the day off,” Alfie somewhat tersely answers, depositing some cooked meat on the table where it joined a still steaming egg and vegetable dish. “We need to have a chat, you and I. A private one. Take a seat,” Alfie waved a hand at the round little table situated in the corner of the room.
Orla pulled out one of the solid chairs and took a prim seat on the edge of it, purse in her lap and strap still clutched in her hands. Unfortunately for Orla, Alfie settled his bulk in the seat across from her after putting a trivet and a hot pot of coffee on the table. Which also put him between herself and the exit. There was always the back door, which her path to was unimpeded, but it was more than likely that Alfie’s back garden was totally walled in.
“Alfie, if you’re going to fire me, why make me come to breakfast? Why not fire me at the distillery or… or something?”
“Who the fuck said I was gonna fire ya?” Alfie asked as he started piling breakfast on his plate. “Mind you – I’m well within my rights considering you lied when you applied for the position as my secretary. And you know by now my disposition toward liars.” It didn’t help Orla’s nerves that Alfie was holding a wicked looking two-pronged serving fork in his hand when he said that. “Also, eat – food’s gonna get cold. The way I see it, yeah, is that I am owed at the very fucking least a bloody good explanation as to what happened in my office yesterday.”
Orla poured herself some coffee and put in two sugar cubes. She would have liked some milk to go with it, or cream, but Alfie kept kosher. Either that, or he just drank his coffee black. Orla had never asked, but she knew dairy was allowed, but only in very strict circumstances. She followed the pouring of the coffee by spooning some of the eggs and vegetables, a sort of quiche, perhaps, onto her plate. Along with some of the meat Alfie’d been cooking, some hash browns and a slice of the bread. Alfie may have been a bootlegger, but the man could bake.
“Right. Well, I am sorry for lying to you when I applied for the position. But it was only half a lie; Boswell is my maternal grandmother’s family name. I didn’t want to be found when I came to London because my family and I – we did not part on good terms.”
“So who were the upstarts in my office to you then?” Alfie asked, carefully not looking at Orla as he buttered his bread up.
Orla sighed, taking a long sip of the coffee. It was quite nice coffee – lovely, rich body and flavor, a slight sweetness that wasn’t down to the sugar.
Orla put her cup down on the table and looked Alfie in the eye, or right at him since he wasn’t looking at her still by design. “They’re my brothers. Tommy and Arthur are older than I. John’s the younger. By about four minutes.”
“So you’re a Shelby, in truth.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re that blonde prat’s twin sister?”
“Also, yes.”
“And you applied for this job, and got this job, knowing that your brother had ambitions beyond being a bookie and you’ve heard intimate, private details about my business over the years. Private details about me and my men that could get us killed.”
“I would never!” Orla loudly exclaimed, offended. “I haven’t spoken to my brothers in 3 years, at least! The only people I talk to are my aunt, as you know, and my little sister Ada. They know nothing of where I live or who I work for! My aunt Polly thinks I’m a secretary for a businessman.” A look best described as uncertainty crosses her face. “Although, if my brothers are still… themselves, they’ll have told her where they saw me.”
“You’ve put a delicate operation at risk –”
“Alfie, I have put absolutely nothing at risk. Tommy, Arthur, John, and I haven’t spoken in 3 years. We got into a big argument, instigated by our bloody father, I left and took the first train to London. My being a Shelby in truth has never, not once, put you, Ollie, your workers, anyone or anything in jeopardy. I may have lied about my name, but I’ve never acted any differently. If you still want to get into the racing tracks, you can. If you still want to use those golems you call nephews for boxing matches, you can. If you still want to bootleg your bread, guess what? You bloody can!
“Prior to last night, again, I have not seen or spoken to any of my brothers in 3 years. And I misled my aunt and sister about my job and life in London,” Orla puts her hands on the table edge, preparing to push herself back from the table. “Look. If you’re going to fire me, just fire me. You’re angry, I can tell – I’ve worked for you for long enough. I’m sure that the three of them were not the picture of civility after I left the office. If you’re going to off me for being a perceived threat to your operation and livelihood, fine. Ultimately, I was just trying to protect myself, and I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Orla hadn’t meant to steamroll over Alfie and yell at him the way she had, but she figured that was it. She was well and truly fired, so she might as well leave now and just head back to the boarding house to clear out her things. She wasn’t worried about where she would sleep or where her next meal would come from - Orla had made it on her own when she’d come to London and this time she had the bonus of having a tidy little sum set by that could see her through a period of job hunting.
“Orla, sit down,” Alfie sighs. “I’m not gonna kill ya. Definitely not gonna off ya. I’d rather off meself than get a new secretary.” When Orla doesn’t leave but doesn’t sit back down, Alfie looks up at her and Orla looks back, still in fight mode, her gaze challenging.
“Orla, sit back down. Please.”
This time Orla does sit down in her chair. She gets treated to Alfie muttering not quite under his breath about having to ‘say please in me own home’ and ‘getting yelled at like I’m a naughty school boy’ and ‘God above gypsy spirit is fiery and temperamental as fucking anything.’ Amongst other things; those were just the greatest hits that got repeated.
“Look. I can’t say I’m not mad, cuz you’re right, I am. But it rather takes the wind out of a man’s sails when he’s yelled at in his own kitchen. But I’d also never kill you. Not because I’m nice and like you as a person – because I’m not – but because I think those brothers of yours would bring hellfire down on me in London and then your aunt, if the stories are true, would lay a gypsy curse on me that’d kill me stoney dead in no time flat.”
“I’d worry more about my aunt Pol than my brothers,” Orla quietly says from behind her coffee cup. The coffee isn’t quite so hot now, but it’s still drinkable.
“I’m not surprised. She can’t do that gypsy magic you lot are famous for, can she?”
“You know… as a Jewish man living in a decidedly not Jewish city, you think you would be more sensitive to offensive stereotypes,” Orla mused.
Orla knew that she was still on shaky footing as Alfie could wake up in a bad mood tomorrow and decided to sack her. But for now, they were on neutral ground and she still had a job. It would take time to regain his trust, but Orla wasn’t afraid of being patient or hard work.