Chapter Text
Her Aunt Polly had always said that God had a sense of humor in making John and Orla twins. Orla was high-spirited where John was lackadaisical – when they were children. That energy had served them (and Martha and John’s little ones) well during the war years when it was just them. Orla had never had much time for religion or God, though. She’d only gone to church on Sundays and the major holidays when Polly had dragged them as kids and before she’d left home, now she hadn’t set foot in a church in several years. But that isn’t the point. The point being, Orla had never given that idea of her aunt’s much thought – until recently.
On the fateful day in particular, Orla had woken up, done her morning ablutions and gotten dressed for work. She had chosen a pair of wide leg pants in a shade of red the woman in the boutique had told her was called ‘madder.’ To go with the pants had been a creme colored pussy bow blouse, a favorite pair of brown heels that had been a Christmas gift from Polly, a hat to keep her hair safe from the bloody windy spring they were having, and a new handbag that had been a birthday present from Alfie. A perfectly normal, casual but office appropriate. Not that Alfie much cared what his employees wore. As long as it wasn’t stained, torn, or worn out, he didn’t care.
The morning started off normally enough. She and Alfie exchanged good mornings when she had arrived, Alfie had groaned when she’d reminded him of that charity ‘do he was expected at next week, Alfie yelled at some of the vat workers, Ollie, one of the lads who was built like a brick outhouse and helped shift the bread about, Ollie again. Orla sat at her desk in the little room outside of Alfie’s office, dealt with some bills, composed some correspondence that was then set aside for Alfie’s signature, and dealt with an unholy cock-up Ollie had put in the appointments book when Orla had been unlucky enough to fall prey to some food gone off.
Orla had noticed that Alfie seemed tenser than usual, but she just assumed he’d had a rough night with his leg. It was when Orla heard Alfie screaming through the floorboards that she knew it wasn’t his bodily complaints bothering him.
Alfie stomped back into his office, slammed the door so hard that the glass in the windows rattled in his office and hers.
“Ollie!” Orla hissed when the man passed by her open door.
“What’s wrong with the boss?”
“Had a surprise meeting sprung on him with someone he’s not particularly fond of,” Ollie whispered back, stepping into Orla’s office, but keeping a weather eye on another door.
“Who? I’ve got nothing, not even a note about it that he would’ve left when he got here.”
“It’s best you not know the name, Miss Orla. They’re not… They’re difficult.”
“Difficult? Darby Sabini is difficult. Billy Kimber was difficult. I’ve seen Alfie before he met with both of them. This is different.”
But Ollie wouldn’t tell Orla anything, practically running off deeper into the building whe Alfie knocks something over in his office and growls a very vicious curse in what sounded like Russian. Orla took a bracing breath before carefully setting down her pencil and getting up to investigate. Her heels reverberating off the floor certainly would have announced her, but Orla still knocked on the door and waited for a growled, still mad, “What?” before she poked her head in.
“Heard the crash, came to see if you needed help or wanted me to clear it up,” Orla says, carefully stepping into the room.
“Knocked my bloody lamp over,” Alfie held up the now defunct device in his hands. “Speaking of, I kind of need a lamp in here, would you mind popping out to the shop and getting me one?”
“Does this have anything to do with this meeting that’s got you in a hell of a mood that I didn’t know about?”
“How’d you find out about that? Nevermind, that’s not important at the bloody moment. Just go get your coat, I’ll give you the money for it, go out and get me a replacement lamp for this unwieldy bastard.”
Orla rolled her eyes and went to retrieve her hat and coat. When she returned Alfie handed over a small roll of money – far more than she needed for a lamp.
“Alfie Solomons, that is way bloody more than I need for a single lamp –”
“I know. I’m not telling you who’s coming, but suffice to say they’re some right nasty customers and they’ll get very nasty when I inevitably shoot one of them for trying to put hands on you if I have you here. So this is more or less a bribe to stay the fuck out of this building. Get the lamp, have a long bloody lunch or tea or both – I handed over enough dosh – maybe go to that bookshop you never shut up about. Call your aunt on my dime – I do not care. Just don’t come back for a bloody long time.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Solomons, sir,” Orla sarcastically drawls as she accepts the roll of notes from Alfie’s outstretched hand.
“Go on, get,” Alfie ordered, not smiling, but not looking anywhere near as grumpy as he had done.
Orla slips out a side door and into London on her unexpected afternoon off. The first thing she does is go get a new lamp. She pays for it and talks the very nice man who sold her the lamp into holding it until she’s heading back to the ‘office,’ so she doesn’t have to lug it all over while she’s out and about.
And she proceeds to stay out for as long as she can, a task that’s made more difficult because she doesn’t have a set number of hours she’s supposed to be gone. Alfie must have expected the meeting to go on for ages if he hadn’t told Orla to be ‘back in 3 hours.’ She goes to a tea room whose specialty is samplers of a variety of tea time treats and enjoys herself thoroughly. From there… Orla enjoys herself in the way she imagines a young lady of means with no demands upon her time might were she slumming it for the day.
Finally, close to the closing hours of the shop she’d left the lamp at, Orla has no choice but to go and get it and bring it back to the distillery. All she can do is hope that the meeting is over by now. Despite the early promise of spring in the afternoon’s weak, lukewarm sunshine, the sun beginning to set has brought back the chill of the morning and her purse plus shopping bag bumping against her hip is starting to annoy Orla as she walks through the same side door as earlier.
She doesn’t see the men waiting out by the big double doors out front. So she also doesn’t see the sort of clothes they have on. Orla does hear the raised voices coming out of Alfie’s slightly open office door, and briefly considers just putting the box down somewhere safe but where it could be seen and then just going back to the boarding house. But they don’t sound too acrimonious and Orla’s dealt with her fair share of yobs and grown fools who couldn’t take no for an answer.
So Orla confidently walks in there, not taking heed of Alfie’s eyes widening in surprise or the person sitting in the chair on the opposite side of his desk. Nor the persons standing at the back of the office by her door.
“I’m terribly sorry for interrupting your meeting, but this box is a beastly awkward thing to carry and I need to set it down. I’ll be knocking off for the night, now if there’s nothi – Oh, absolutely fucking not!”
Orla curses, dropping the disarming sweet secretary act immediately. The only reason she makes it out of Alfie’s office is that the people she had never expected to see there clearly never expected her either. Orla doesn’t run, she’s not going to let them see her run, but her undone coat flares as she darts around corners as she tries to put as much distance between Alfie’s office and its occupants as quickly as possible.
She sees Ollie and Ishmael and a few other of Alfie’s more muscular boys milling around the partially open doors. Along with several men, some with their caps in their coat pockets, some with them on, the lights of the distillery glinting off of their brims.
“Ishmeal,” Orla calls out, hoping her Yiddish (which she’s been learning more or less since she started at the bakery) doesn’t fail her. “Beser ir hobn di farshiltn Shlislen tsu di mashin. laz mikh aroys fun danen. itst. ikh vel derklern in di mashin. Hopken tsu!”
Ishmael looks to Ollie who just nods the once back and he’s slipping out the doors with Orla hot on his heels. Alfie likes to keep his personal car within sight of the distillery on days there’s not big production going on, or on days he’s expecting deliveries. He does it to show off and draw potential new recruits in. Not that he’ll admit it to Orla, having tried to keep her as much out of the seedier side of things as possible.
But something at least is on Orla’s side because it was parked right out front and it’s as easy as slipping into the passenger seat and Ishmael pulling the already running car out into the road.
“Just drive,” Orla orders, not actually looking at Ishmael but out the rear window.
“Miss Boswell – Orla, after what I just did can I call you Orla?” When Orla gives her permission to use her given name, Ishmael goes on. “Orla, why the hell did I just get in this car and effectively leave Alfie at the bakery with no way home but his feet?”
“I did promise I would explain,” Orla says, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “I panicked. As stupid as it sounds, I panicked a bit. Alright, I panicked quite a bit,” Orla tries to make her voice sound not quite so defensive after Ishmael looks at her out the corner of his eye.
“I came in the side door to drop off a lamp for Alfie. He’d broken his earlier today and sent me out to get a new one. Also told me to just stay out for as long as possible because of this off the books meeting, wanted to keep me out of it –”
“I don’t blame the boss. You’ve been working for Alfie long enough that here in London, you’re known as his ‘pretty secretary.’ Even that wop Sabini knows not to mess with you, or the women who run the bakery at this point. So it’s no surprise the boss wanted to keep these umbakvem tsigeyner from finding out about you.”
“It can’t be just that, Ishmael. Alfie has never been as tense as he was today when meeting with that stupid wop.”
Ishmael shook his head a bit as he maneuvered around a motor car that was taking far too long to turn. “Continue on, please.”
“Not much more to tell. I walked in on this meeting, quite literally just to drop off the lamp, and saw who he was meeting with and – aoy, gat, ikh darf das alts erklern far Alfi Ikh bin azoy feyerd.”
“The boss isn’t going to fire you. By the way, your Yiddish getting pretty good.”
“Oh, thanks. I think.”
Orla buys Ishmael some sandwiches from his favorite Jewish deli in Camden town before they drive around some more. When he had asked why Orla said “Lady’s prerogative.” But really she just wanted to make sure they weren’t being followed. And it was sweet of Ishmael to try and reassure her that she wasn’t going to be fired, but what Orla had managed to get out of revealing to him was how much she had lied to Alfie – to all of them. And trusting that Alfie doesn’t hate her and isn’t going to sell her out, Orla finally has Ishmael drop her off at the boarding house so he can go back to the bakery for Alfie.
Everyone’s sitting down to supper and it is, as usual, a loud affair. So it wasn’t hard for Orla to slip by them and up to her room where she locks the door and places her one chair firmly under the lock for good measure.
Orla gets ready for bed and washes her face. But, even as she climbs into bed, Orla feels like sleep will be something of an elusive creature for her tonight. If she can sleep at all.
After all, it’s not every day that you run into your estranged brothers in your boss’s office and practically run out of there before anyone can say anything.