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The knock comes late at night on Armistice Day.
Lizzie isn’t expecting it to be him, not after everything that’s gone between them. Not when he’s all but disappeared off the face of the planet – at least according to Ada, who telephones every few days and sounds more and more strained each time. She asks, each time, if Lizzie has heard from him. Arthur knows something, Ada says, and Curly too, and Charlie, but none of them will tell her a bloody thing.
“I don’t know anything,” Lizzie had said to her this morning, wearily. Armistice Day. As if the end of the war had ever happened, for Thomas Shelby. As if he wasn’t still stuck there underground, clawing his way upwards inch by bloody inch. “I’ve never known anything,” Lizzie had added. “Tommy never shared anything worth a damn with me.”
Ada hadn’t had anything to say to that.
No, Lizzie doesn’t know where he is, but all that’s mattered to her is that he stays gone. She and Charles are getting on fine. The aching hole where Ruby should be is always going to ache, but her girl had never been in this house, and it’s…it’s easier, here. Not easy, never that, but the sharp edges are incrementally less sharp.
So when there’s a knock at the door, in this new house bought with Tommy Shelby’s money but where he’s never stepped foot, Lizzie isn’t expecting it to be him. Arthur maybe, or Ada even, but not Tommy. Never Tommy. And yet there he is. Thomas Shelby, MP, OBE, standing in the cold, frosty evening, pale and thin and ethereal.
He looks half-dead. He looks like a ghost. His breath is frosting in the air. His gaze, always so direct, meets hers. Like he’s looking into her mind, into her heart, and reading everything there. Always so clever, so certain. So careless. So fucking careless. She remembers, all over again, how much she hates him.
“Hello, Lizzie,” he says. She doesn’t trust herself to speak; she wraps her arms around herself and glances out beyond him, into the darkness. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for – there’s nobody about, not at this hour. Of course not. And no car, either, just a white horse, with a bridle but no saddle. For a moment she almost expects to see a little dark-haired girl sitting atop it, bareback and all. She blinks, and the moment is gone. “Can I come in?” Tommy asks.
“I’ve said all I have to say,” she tells him. She sees his sharp exhale as much as hears it, white puffs of misty breath betraying he’s not as calm as he looks.
“Maybe so,” he agrees, “but I made you a promise, Lizzie, and I’d like to be able to keep it.” She can’t help but scoff – he’s made many promises, and broken them all. Promise after worthless promise. Lie after lie after lie. “I promised you that when I knew everything, I would tell you everything,” he reminds her. “Well, now I know everything. And I want you, Lizzie Shelby, to know everything too.”
She looks at him, trying to see what he’s about. More lies, she thinks. More betrayals. She can’t take any more of it. She can’t. She’d never expected him to be faithful – God knows, men are rarely that – but what he’d done had been unspeakable. Unbearable.
Whatever he wants to say to her, she doesn’t care. She doesn’t. And yet, looking at him now, she finds herself falling into the same old trap. The same old habit. Arthur with his snow, Tommy with his drink…she’s an addict too, just as much as them. It’s weeks since she tore herself away from Thomas Shelby, but she looks at him now and can’t say no.
She moistens her lips, and steps aside. “Charles is asleep,” she finds herself saying. “I don’t want to wake him. He’s not sleeping well.”
“I’ve not come to fight, Lizzie.”
She doesn’t offer to take his coat, or to guide him through the house. She doesn’t glance behind her as she goes to the sitting room, but she hears his footsteps, steady and quiet, as he follows her. She pours two glasses of whiskey. She shouldn’t be encouraging that, she knows, but she shouldn’t have let him in either, and here they are.
Here they fucking are.
They sit across from each other, the breadth of the fireplace between them. Lizzie lights a cigarette, but he doesn’t, though he looks as though he wants to. He’s not got his ring on, she realises now they’re inside and there’s better lighting. His hand looks bare without it. Not that she’s got any right to comment, she reminds herself, glancing down at her own bare hand. She took hers off first, after all. But she won’t speak first. Not here, not now. She’s got nothing left to say to him, after all.
Finally he sighs, and leans forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “S’nice, here,” he offers, gesturing around the room with a hand. “You comfortable?”
“Yes.” She sips her whiskey and considers him. He looks…different, somehow. Like something’s changed in his face. It makes her add: “Charlie likes it. And the stables.”
“Good. Good, I’m…that’s good.” His eyes go unfocused for a moment, like he’s watching something that isn’t there. Then his gaze sharpens again. “I’d like to see him,” he says. “But only if he wants to. I won’t force him.” Lizzie lifts her eyebrows briefly, surprised, but he seems genuine, for once. Like he’s actually being honest. Though God knows he’s a better liar than most, she’d been telling the truth, those weeks ago at Arrow House. He’s not as good as he used to be. Not with her, anyway.
“I’ll ask him,” she says. She doubts Charles’ll want to see his father, but she’s no intention of being what keeps the two of them apart. If Tommy wants to try to reach out to his son, she won’t be petty enough to stop him. Not that she thinks it’ll do much good.
There’s silence again, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. She gets through half her cigarette before he speaks again.
“I’ve not come here to apologise,” he tells her, as if she might have been expecting it. She doesn’t bother saying that she’s long since given up waiting for apologies from him. “Truth is –” She can’t help scoffing, but Tommy continues, “truth is, I didn’t think I’d be here to be saying this. I thought by now I’d be dead.” Lizzie closes her eyes. It’s what she expected, but somehow it still hurts to hear it. “But I’m not dead, Lizzie. I’m not. I’m alive. I’m finally breathing free air again. And I’ve come here –”
“Tommy –”
“I’ve come here to try to heal at least one wound. To tell you everything. At least I can give you that, eh? The truth. All of it.”
She stubs out the end of her cigarette and lights a new one. “That’ll be a first,” she says, bitterly. “Do you even know what the truth is anymore, Thomas Shelby?”
“My mind is clear,” he says. She looks at him again and is caught in his eyes. There’s some Gypsy magic in his eyes, she thinks. Polly and Esme’d always said it was the women who got the magic, but Tommy’s always been an exception. When he looks at her like that, there’s no getting away from his gaze. Not even now, after all he’s done to her. “My mind is clear,” he repeats, “and I know everything. Will you let me tell you?”
She can’t say no. Why has she so rarely been able to say no to Tommy fucking Shelby? If he’s cursed, so is she. She hates him, it burns in her so fiercely – sitting nestled in her heart alongside the grief for Ruby – but she can’t say no. Walking away from him had been one of the hardest things she’s ever done, but here she is again, saying yes.
Always yes.
So he talks. He talks, and he talks, and Lizzie listens without interjection. She smokes cigarettes and drinks whiskey and listens as he lays out all of the strategies and secrets of the last few months – the last few years. Wheels upon wheels upon wheels, moves and countermoves. Every detail laid out for her to peruse, like he’s giving a report to Winston fucking Churchill. No fucking emotion in it. Not even when he tells her about the doctor’s visit, about the tuberculoma, though it makes her sick to her stomach to think of him concealing that from her, from the family. He just says it, like it happened to someone else.
On and on. Alfie Solomons, and Gina, and the IRA. Jack Nelson and Moseley and the fascists. Polly’s forewarning of his death, or Michael’s. The five million he’d been ever-more set on, once he’d thought he was dying. To leave a legacy for his family. For Charles and Ruby, and then for Charles and Duke.
“And for you, Lizzie,” he says. For the briefest of moments, there is some emotion in him as he speaks. But it’s gone again, shuttered away as he resumes his reporting. And all the while he looks at her, straight at her. No turning away, no hiding behind a cigarette. He barely even touches his whiskey. Maybe it’s that that persuades her he’s telling the truth, not holding anything back. Maybe not. He’s never been evasive when lying, he’s never had a tell. It’s what’s made him what he is: he’s just too damn good at lying.
But she thinks he’s finally, finally telling the truth now. He’s not opening the doors into his heart, but if this is anything…
If this is anything, it’s him giving her back the combination to the safe. Letting her see his book of regrets.
The only time he doesn’t look at her is when he talks about Diana. She’s glad of that. Even hearing about it – about Diana’s blunt proposition and his acquiescence, about having to lie with his body just as much as with his words – makes the hatred and the bitterness rise up in her like bile. It makes her feel vicious. It makes her want to take one of his old Peaky hats, one with the razors sewn into the brim, and blind him with it, just like he’s blinded so many men.
He’s a whore, she thinks. He’s a whore just like her, except she’d done it to keep herself alive, and he’d had no reason to go wading into this fight. He could have refused Churchill, he could have rebuffed Moseley right at the very beginning. She never had a choice, but he did. Fucking whores, the pair of them.
But she doesn’t say it. She can’t speak. And anyway, his words fill the air between them. He tells her about the black cat traitor, the setting of a trap, about Finn’s exile and about shooting Michael. He tells her about coming back to England to farewell the family, about his plan to go off with a wagon and a horse to make his own end, and save himself and others the indignity of a protracted death.
“I was dead anyway,” he says, almost careless about it. “I died in France. There isn’t a single one of us came back from that, Lizzie. Not me, not Arthur. Dead men walking.”
“So why aren’t you dead,” she whispers. “What changed?”
“Every day, I flipped a coin.” It doesn’t make sense until he continues. “Today, or tomorrow. That was the gamble. Every day. Today, or tomorrow? And today…” He smiles, mirthlessly. “Today my number was up, Lizzie. So I put a gun to me head.” They look at each other, and she knows he’s remembering another time when he’d put a gun to his head. But Arthur had been there then, to take the bullets out. And she’d been there, to call him a coward and goad him into coming back to his family.
“What stopped you?” she asks.
“Ruby did.”
Her breath chokes in her throat, and she has to dash an unwelcome tear from her eye. Tommy shifts slightly, the first time he’s moved in what seems like hours, like he wants to reach out to her. It’s unlike him not to have control of his own body, but there it is. She’s glad, though, that he doesn’t try. She doesn’t want him to touch her.
“There I was, ready to pull the trigger, when she came to me,” Tommy recounts. “She came running up and I held her – I held her –” It’s his turn to choke. He swallows several times. Lizzie holds herself still, watching. Waiting. She counts the seconds with the clock, waiting for him to go on. Ten, twenty. Thirty. “I held her in me arms,” he manages, “and I was so happy, Lizzie, I was so –”
He’s crying, she realises. He’s actually crying. She can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Tommy Shelby cry, and none of those times – none of them – has been since Ruby died.
“You’ve not cried for her before,” she says, before she can stop herself. Tommy’s breath hitches again. He shakes his head, pinches his nose.
“I’ve cried,” he tells her. “I just didn’t let you see, before.”
Jesus, she thinks, what a fucking mess he is. What a fucking mess. And she’s always known it, she’s always been able to see it in him, but this…
“She told me to light the fire and see that I should live,” he says. “She saved my life, Lizzie. Our Ruby. Our little girl.” And he’s crying properly now, tears streaming down his face, and there’s not a single part of her that can help going to him, now. She gets up and closes the space between them, wraps her arms around him and holds him tight while he weeps. The clock ticks the seconds and the minutes and she doesn’t let go until he does, until he’s wrestled himself back under control and no more tears are falling. He doesn’t seem to have a handkerchief; she finds one and gives it to him, and pours herself another glass of whiskey. She feels drunk already, disconnected and outside herself, but all she can think to do is drink.
Then she lights a cigarette and gives it to him. He doesn’t thank her, but he takes it, and smokes in silence for a while. She goes back to her own chair, not quite willing to stay close to him. He’s given her the combination and then he’s flung the safe door wide open. At last it’s wide open. She just doesn’t know what to do with what’s inside.
“The doctor’s a fascist,” he says finally. “He was at Moseley’s fucking wedding. In Germany. And his second opinion, his doctor friend. They were in the paper. I went to light the fire and there they were, in the fucking paper.”
“…Christ,” she whispers. Wheels within wheels, she’d thought earlier. Tommy’s so often three steps ahead of everyone else, it’s almost shocking to think that others might have their own strategies and traps. She can see exactly how it’d gone. He’d got the diagnosis, and the second opinion, and then he’d got it into his fucking head that he can’t be a burden on anyone, and that the best thing would be to finish his business and then put a bullet in his skull before he got too sick. She can see it so clearly. And it almost worked. Except for Ruby.
Darling, precious Ruby.
She clears her throat. “Is the doctor alive?”
“Yeah, he is. I was going to shoot him, but then the bell rang.” He huffs a mirthless laugh. “Fucking Armistice Day. Eleven in the morning. Peace.”
“Peace,” she echoes.
“The wagon burned, though,” he adds, almost like it’s an afterthought. “He’d got his fucking servants to burn it. Couldn’t wait for it to burn out, so I’ve lost my rings. Might go back for them, might not. Gold doesn’t mean much, these days. Not to me.”
She can’t find anything to say. She knocks back her whiskey and puts the glass down, carefully. Her hand feels bare. She can’t help rubbing her ring finger, the band of skin that’s still paler than the rest of her hand. She thinks of everything he’s said. She thinks of nothing. And now, at last, Tommy seems to have run out of words too. He seems to have emptied himself out. He certainly looks it, like he’s hollow somehow, sitting there in an armchair he’s never been in before. He’s said his piece. He’s done. He’s draped over it like he’s gone boneless, his head tilted back and resting on the back of the chair. Like he’s used the last of his endless energy to give her this. Maybe he has.
After a while something occurs to her. “Ada must have given you hell when you showed up,” she says. “She’s been frantic. Arthur wouldn’t tell her anything.”
“Haven’t spoken to Ada.” He lifts his head enough to look at her, eyes hooded. “Came here first.” The unspoken implication hangs in the air. Lizzie takes a deep breath, lets it out, and listens to the ticking of the clock. She’d told him, weeks back, that she was waiting for the bomb to explode. She’d thought it had; she’d thought it was Diana Mitford who’d set the charge and watched the whole thing blow up. But maybe it wasn’t, because she feels shattered all over again. He’s blown her apart again tonight, has Tommy Shelby. Just like he always does. She’s bleeding out from a thousand cuts, large and small. Not all inflicted by him, but most.
And she’s a fucking addict, and let him in the door. But even addicts can get clean.
“What is it you expect me to say, Tommy?” she asks, feeling unbearably weary. “D’you expect me to forgive you, is that it?”
“No,” he’s quick to answer. “No, I don’t expect that, Lizzie. Didn’t expect much of anything, truth be told, but I had to see you. To tell you everything, like I promised.” That’s not good enough, she realises. That’s not a good enough answer. And he must see that, he must see it in her face, because he’s looking at her with those damned eyes that see everything. Red-rimmed now from crying, but clear and so fucking blue. “I’ve done you too much harm to expect forgiveness,” he says. “And I told you I wasn’t here to apologise. For any of it. But I’m alive, Lizzie. I’m alive, and I’m here.”
He’s here. It’s not nothing. She can’t deny that, it’s not nothing. But only she can decide if it’s enough.
“I’ve only one more thing to say, Lizzie, and then I’ll leave you in peace.” He tips his glass up, finishes his whiskey. Still the same drink she’d poured him when he arrived. It feels like hours ago. It feels like forever. “And that’s that I was telling you the truth, that night in the hotel, when I said what I did. It was true then, and it’s true now. Here and now, in this moment. In this room.” Lizzie shakes her head, mutely, but Tommy just looks at her. “You’re my biggest regret, Lizzie,” he says, “because you deserve diamonds. And all I’ve got to offer is coal.”
She closes her eyes. She listens to the ticking of the clock. She remembers how it had been, years ago, when he’d come back from the war. She’d made her living on her back or up against walls, and he’d paid like all the rest of them. Paid better than most of them, and never mistreated her. She’d never had a black eye from him. Never been stinted of money, just of affection, but she hadn’t expected affection from him. He was a customer. She might have had favourites, but she’d expected nothing.
That’s her problem, she tells herself now. She’d begun to expect, and that was when she was ruined. All the more so because sometimes – just sometimes – he’d given her some crumbs to keep her going. A feast after a famine, it had sometimes felt. A tender touch, a smile. The way he’d sometimes hold her, in bed, like he didn’t want to let her go. Not often, but sometimes. Sometimes.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “The trouble is, Tommy,” she says, “that I know that too, now. I know I deserve better.” She wipes a hand across her eyes and looks at him again. “So you’re going to go,” she tells him. “Go home. Go back to Watery Lane. Tell Arthur and Ada and everyone that you’re alive. Make peace with them, if you can.”
“…Alright,” Tommy says, slowly, like he’s not sure what she’s saying.
“You can call on Sunday,” she says. “I’ll talk to Charles about seeing you. But you can call on Sunday and talk to him. You can do that.”
“Alright,” he repeats. Her hands are shaking; she clenches them into fists. Addicts can get clean, she reminds herself. Tommy hadn’t had a drink in over four years. Then Ruby had died. And then, and then…
And then, if he’s to be believed, Ruby had saved his life. Our little girl, he’d said. Ours.
“I’ll talk to you on Sunday,” she says. “On the phone. And you will tell me everything.”
He exhales slowly, and stands up. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her, direct and straightforward.
“I will tell you everything,” he promises. It sits there, his promise, and she breathes it in. She takes possession of it. It’s hers. Charles isn’t really hers, this house isn’t really hers, the car she drives isn’t hers. But this is hers. This promise he’s making, this is hers.
“Goodnight then, Lizzie,” he says softly. He doesn’t try to touch her, he doesn’t say anything else. He just walks away, out of the sitting room, back to the front door. Lizzie trails him, arms wrapped around herself again not because she doesn’t trust herself, but because it’s late and it’s cold and she’s tired. She doesn’t need Tommy Shelby to keep her warm. She doesn’t need him at all. She’s walked away from him once. She’s stronger than she’s ever been.
He puts his coat on, settles his cap on his head. She can’t see his eyes now, the hat casting its usual shadow, but it doesn’t matter now. She’s seen enough tonight.
He opens the front door and pauses, but he doesn’t look back at her. “Sunday,” he murmurs, as if he needs to double check. As if his mind is suddenly not as sharp, his memory not as perfect.
“Sunday,” she agrees. It might be her imagination, but she thinks he stands a little straighter. And then he’s gone, out into the crisp night air. She watches as he mounts his horse, so effortless, and she watches as he rides away. She watches long after he’s disappeared into the darkness, only closing the door when she starts to shiver.
She doesn’t need Tommy Shelby; that much she knows now. But there’s a Tommy-shaped hole in her heart, and she doesn’t know if she wants to fill it or let it scar over. She doesn’t know if either is possible. She thinks of Ruby’s bright smile, the way she would run to Tommy and be lifted high in his arms. She thinks of giving Ruby her daddy’s last kiss, that evening in the hospital. She thinks about the way he’d looked at her tonight, the things he’d said.
‘I’m alive,’ he’d said.
For the first time in fourteen years, she thinks she believes him.