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“Mr. Shelby, your… appointment is here.”
Ollie hadn’t gotten used to working for Thomas, but he had accepted it. Everyone in the bakery had. The only thing they knew, was that Alfie had gone to his nephew’s fight in Birmingham and simply never returned. Thomas Shelby, accompanied by several men, entered the bakery not long after, and resumed business as usual. In fact, business had been booming with the export to the United States. Ollie had hated the volatile man at times, but when he couldn’t ignore his grief, he admitted to himself he had cared for him.
“Thank you, Ollie. Send them in,” Tommy waived lazily at the door. He fought to roll his eyes the moment he heard the obnoxious nasally accent.
“Mister Shelby. Sitting in my old friend’s chair, no less. What are we gonna do ‘bout this?” Sabini slowly walked forward into the office and took a seat across from Tommy. “You see, my old friend Alfred Solomons seems to be missing, and here you are, sitting at his desk.” Tommy kept his gaze on Sabini, holding the cold stare he’s known for and showing no emotion. “It just doesn’t sit right with me, Mr. Shelby. An’ what would you be inclined to think if you were me, eh?”
Tommy reached across the desk to his cigarette holder and drew one out to light it. Once lit, he leaned back in the chair, still holding eye contact with Sabini. After another minute of silent staring, Sabini was visibly losing his patience.
“That must’a been too many words for a simple gypsy, eh. I’ll make this more simple. Where is Alfie Solomons?” Sabini was leaning forward in the chair, practically spitting the words at Tommy.
“When I last spoke to him, he was speaking of retirement. A bad back, as an old friend, you would know,” Tommy spoke at last, choosing to ignore the cheap insult. “As he is a friend to me as well, I offered to help keep operations running normally through the transition.” He gestured vaguely to the office around them.
The two men resumed staring at each other in silence.
“There are quite a few people looking for him, Mr. Shelby. Some wishing him well, and some not so much. And if someone were to ask me, I’m inclined to think you know something more about it.” With that thinly veiled threat, Sabini rose from his chair and tipped his hat. “Until next time, Mr. Shelby.”
***
Three Months Earlier
“I do hope you can leave the dog out o’this.”
“You were easy to find.”
“Yeah well, there’s a good reason for that, Tommy. I wanted it to be here.”
“I once told you Alfie, for business reasons, or in bad blood, I would kill ya. I have no business reasons. It seems you have retired.”
“So this is all purely for bad blood, is it Tommy?”
“Yeah.”
“Right, yeah.”
***
The woman organizing the desk at the front entrance looked at Tommy and nodded. She, as well as the other nurses and doctors on staff had grown used to seeing him by now. He carried his basket of what looked to be just bread down the hall to the seventh room on the left. He paused and knocked on the door.
“Yeah, come in.”
Tommy walked into the room and sat the basket on the table in the corner. Alfie was sitting in a chair by the room’s only window.
“Eh, Tommy. I get t’go from lookin’ at the blue sky to your blue eyes, and I see gifts, yeah?”
Alfie had a fairly well healed (all things considered) scar across his left cheek where the two had shot each other on the beach a few months earlier. Tommy had intended to kill Alfie, he had betrayed him three times. Tommy felt he more than deserved it. But when Alfie revealed he had cancer, the determination drained from his body and into the sand below his feet. He yelled for Alfie to look at him, over and over. He was still pointing the gun but no longer intended to shoot. Alfie knew his friend wasn’t going to do it as planned and took a cheap shot at him instead to make him fire.
As Tommy had gotten up and staggered away from the beach, he sent the first people he came across back there to help Alfie. He had been taken to a hospital, and after his wound was treated, moved to a hospice type building where he was tended to by a doctor and nurse as his cancer progressed. He was admitted under a false name and Tommy was the only person he had spoken to about Margate.
“I hope you didn’ make that bread, Tommy- I’m sure it’d taste like hell, innit?” Alfie coughed as he laughed.
“I should be offended, but you’re probably right, Alfie,” Tommy smirked back at the man. He lifted the top layer of bread to pull a bottle of rum from the basket and two glasses. Alfie usually didn’t partake but it had help lift his spirits in recent days.
“You ever feel like a stray dog, Tommy? It’s like I been taken in, fed, kept, but nobody’s first choice of pet, yeah?” Alfie took a sip from the glass. “I mean you, you got your family, brothers, sisters, yeah. But do any ‘o them really understand you?”
Tommy considered his words for a moment. “I’d say we’re both strays, Alfie.” He knew he had to change the subject, he couldn’t stand the emotion he felt rising up in him. “Sabini stopped by today. He, and some other people he mentioned, are still interested in your whereabouts,” Tommy said as he poured more in the two glasses and handed one back to Alfie.
“I’ll bet they are,” Alfie raised his glass and they said cheers.
***
After coming by once a week for months, Tommy was by Alfie’s side on the day his body could no longer fight. His death hit Tommy harder than he ever expected. For all the times Alfie had double crossed him through the years, for whatever reason, Tommy never could blame the man. For what felt like hours, Tommy looked at Alfie, waiting for him to breathe again. He sent the bedside table flying across the room into the wall when he accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. He sent for Ollie to come to the hospice facility, so Alfie’s arrangements could be made in accordance to his religious traditions. He wouldn’t let the staff touch Alfie’s body until Ollie could get there.
Ollie had been shocked to see him like that. He had not known about Margate or the cancer. Tommy left to give him some time to grieve his former boss and friend. Ollie recited the customary blessing.
On the day of, Tommy had brought Ada to the burial site. He had grown to trust her more than any of his other family or siblings. Tommy, Ada and Ollie stood at the grave together saying their last goodbyes. Alfie hadn’t been in the trenches with Tommy, Arthur, John, Jeremiah and Freddie, but he had been through enough as far as Tommy was concerned. He stated, remaining calm, “In the bleak midwinter.”
In the car on the way home, feeling empty as ever, he muttered under his breath again, “In the bleak midwinter.”
Tommy walked into his house and over to the office. On the loveseat waiting for him was a great, brown dog he had become quite fond of. The dog leapt up and came to see him with his tail wagging. Tommy knelt down to pet the dog’s head and speak to him.
“Ay, been a tough day, Cyril.”