Chapter Text
“A greedy father makes thieves of his children.” - Serbian Proverb
Tommy Shelby was delivered on a rather cold summer solstice day on his father’s boat the January. His mother, having found the birthdate out from her husband, became immediately distraught. She shoved the wiggling bundle to its father.
“Martha,” Arthur said, staring at his wife for her queer reaction. “The babe needs a tit to suck on or he’ll die.”
“Let it ,” she responded bitterly. “Better yet, drown it , Arthur.”
Arthur was taken aback by his wife’s lackluster approach to the newly born child. Assuming it was just the milk in her driving her mad, he took the baby out of the dark compartment of the boat, and out to see the world. It was a good sized bundle, and he was glad to have fathered another strong one for his brood. It was another confirmation of what he thought to be his destiny to become a great man.
“Arthur Jr.” He called.
A hopping three year old scuttled his way over the cabin roof, pale as the moon and covered with dust as any proper boy should be, he came to a halt next to his dad’s knee.
“Blessed is he,” Arthur Sr. pontificated mostly to himself. “Whose quiver is full and whose sons are like the grapes of a vine.”
Little Arthur gasped and looked at the bundle with wide eyes.
“It’s a boy then, Dad?” Arthur asked with such a look of wonder, that Arthur Sr was taken aback.
“Aye, your little brother,” Arthur Sr. responded with aloofness.
“What’s his name then?” Arthur asked, reaching up a hand to touch the bundle.
Arthur Sr. lowered himself down to sit with Arthur and show him the baby.
“I don’t rightly know, son,” Arthur Sr. said.
He was tempted to ask Martha, but he heard disgruntled muttering from inside the cabin followed by weeping. There was something wrong with his wife, but he was far from caring. She had the gift if he had any wisdom at all on the matter, and it was eating her alive.
Arthur Sr. sat the babe on the deck of the docked canal boat, and tucked his eldest child around the bundle.
“Now,” Arthur Sr. said. “I need to see your mother, you make sure your brother survives the next few moments.”
Their father disappeared into the cabin of the boat, and soon elevated, heated voices floated through the air, but Arthur cared little for his parent’s argument.
The three year old took on his solemn duty of protector and guardian of the bundle with all the seriousness that he could muster. He curled his legs around the baby as though a gust of wind or some bird might come around and lift the child off far into the sky. With a courage that felt foreign, Arthur put his small hand forward and brushed the skin of the baby’s cheek. It was so soft, and a little sticky, but warm and soft.
“Hullo, little brother,” Arthur said.
The baby moved a little and opened its eyes with apparent disdain.
Suddenly wowed, Arthur leaned over the baby and smiled, “You have eyes like the Queen’s jewels.”
Not understanding that the rocks were valuable for a complex variety of reasons than merely their shiny brilliance, Arthur raised a fist in triumph.
“We’re gonna be rich,” Arthur said, and laughed to himself. “Oh, thank you baby brother.”
He lisped around the word brother and smiled, reaching out to stroke the baby’s skin.
The sound of screaming and shouting was forgotten while Arthur thought of his kid brother sitting before him and all the money they would have.
–
It was five years before their mother was able to carry a child to full-term again. The boys were unaware of this struggle, and were enamored in their own little world of the canal boat. Summers, winters, autumns, and springs were spent in travel from point A to point B, to C, D, E and the whole dang alphabet.
Arthur and Tommy (as the baby was named by chance three weeks after he was born by a passing merchant who commented the boy had eyes like the blessed Sir Thomas More– gray with flecks ) took to playing odd games on the boat that their father put them up to. It involved a variety of odd things, such as tying knots, steering the boat, running wild through the surrounding woodland for juniper berries and various easily identifiable roots and plants. At other times, Tommy was sent to beg on street corners, which never fared well for the child.
Arthur would usher him next to the Church yard, right as the bells rung, and Tommy would heave a great sigh at Arthur and hiss, “Why’s it gotta be me?”
“Because you're small,” Arthur said, then added. “And cute.”
It was the same answer all the time.
As the people started to come out of the church, Arthur pushed a tin mug into Tommy’s hands, and told him, “Remember, Dad said not to bother coming back if we ain’t got four shillings.”
Tommy shuddered at the order, remembering the last time they came back just three pence shy. For reasons unknown, their father had been simply angry. (Later, Tommy learned the smell of fermented barley, and why he had spent so long picking juniper berries. He learned what alcohol did to a man.) He had thrashed Arthur and sent Tommy to mop the deck with his hands and a towel (it had been November and Tommy was unpossessed of any footwear).
Arthur Sr had not hit Tommy yet, but as he passed another birthday, Tommy was certain his own thrashings would begin.
Swallowing his fledgling pride, Tommy stood barefoot on the corner near the church and held out his tin can, and widened his eyes as far as they would go, and upturned his lip and brows.
“Alms for the poor,” he said softly and pathetically.
Swarms of cooing and doting women with their hands in their husband’s coin purses surrounded the boy. (He learned the most about women in those days, and it would carry with him throughout his days. They liked a sweet packaging and they liked mournful eyes and above all they liked to feel like they were saving someone's soul.)
Some of the ladies grabbed the apple of his cheeks and tugged on them, some dropped their money in and held their handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths in woe, others yet muttered something about the cruelty of the world. Tommy was more disconcerted by the children his height. A quick comparison made available the answer of who had and who had not. There was a boy Tommy’s age who looked him up and down, and on the boy’s feet there was a peculiar sight. Black shoes with socks. He was wearing shoes. Shoes.
Tommy swallowed some unknowable emotion that sank down into his belly like a rock. (It was the unbearable weight of the injustice in the world. It was
pride
.)
At a certain point, he sent a glance at Arthur across the street, who was kicking a loose rock and trying not to grin.
It took only one time of making eye contact with Tommy for Arthur to lose it, and start laughing hysterically across the way.
“Oh, if looks could kill, brother,” Arthur said to Tommy as they headed back to the boat with their findings. “If looks could kill.”
“They pinched my cheek,” Tommy complained. “It hurts.”
“Stop whining,” Arthur said, ruffling Tommy’s inky black hair. “You got us over by three pence, Tommy-boy. Dad’s gonna be happy, and he’ll make Ma happy too.”
Tommy frowned at the comment of his mother, who it seemed did not care for Tommy very much. Sometimes she was soft to him, combing a hand through his hair, but others she would get this far off look in her eye and start to speak Romany, hissing and spitting. When that happened, Arthur would come grab his wide-eyed little brother and pull him from the room.
Tommy was aware that Arthur did not receive the same treatment. It left him with a sinking feeling in his stomach and a strange taste in his mouth.
“Yeah,” Arthur said. “Dad’s gonna be happy with us.”
–
Arthur Sr rewarded their efforts with the deposit of another baby.
“What do we do with this?” Tommy asked, looking down at the new Shelby with disinterest.
“That’s John,” their father informed them. “Carry him around, your mother is in a black mood again.”
While Tommy and Arthur had been begging, their mother had been giving birth. They knew she was pregnant, and they knew a sibling was coming, but they were unprepared for the responsibility shoved upon their shoulders.
“Alright,” Arthur said, taking the bundle from his father.
Their father strode away, and Tommy’s eyes widened up at Arthur, “Alright?”
“Alright,” Arthur confirmed, and he lowered down so Tommy could look at John. “You’re an older brother now Tommy, you’ve got to take care of him, got to make sure he survives for the next few moments.”
The snoozing bundle was handed to Tommy, and suddenly, he felt the weight. It was the weight his parents had abandoned that Arthur had picked up. It was the weight of responsibility and in a flash his wild childhood fantasies were gone. They were replaced by a hunger so deep and dangerous and wild inside him that it terrified Tommy to no end.
John was his kid brother.
Tommy looked down at the four bare feet below. His and Arthurs. They were dirty, and calloused, and cold with cuts on the bottom that he no longer felt. The little kids that came out of the Church with their mothers all had shoes. Nice, clean shoes, and socks.
He made a promise to John that day, whispering it once Arthur turned away, “I promise you, John, you’ll always have something on your feet.”
—
Tommy made good on his promise, and he made sure John had something covering his feet.
“Grandma,” Tommy asked, looking up and the elegant Romani grandmother, whose hair was braided with coins and beads.
She glanced up from her fine stitch work to look at Tommy.
“Yes, me little blue eyed devil,” she said, setting her fabric and needle aside to give Tommy her full attention.
“How—“ He paused, and glanced around to see if his parents were nearby or just outside the wagon.
“No one dare listen to conversations in this wagon, child,” she said, grabbing his chin with calloused fingers.
“How do you make socks?” He asked.
Birdie Boswell-Shelby cocked her head to the side and frowned deeply, something sorrowing her deep in her soul, but it was replaced by a gentle smile. She leaned back and stared at her grandson.
“Well, that requires one to know how to weave yarn,” she said. “I tell yee what, yee come to me tomorrow early before the liquor has not left yer father, and I’ll teach yee.”
Tommy breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.
Birdie placed a kiss on her grandson’s dark hair and waved him away. Inside her, she burned with anger. Anger that her son was a fool. Anger that her son was a drunk that gambled away what good he had in the world. Anger that her son’s child was already a better Shelby man than he would ever be.
She sent out a sharp whistle, and a eleven year old with wise eyes and dark curling hair came into the wagon.
“Polly, dear,” Birdie said. “Yer nephew came to me with quite the proposition.”
“What?” Polly asked, raising a poised eyebrow.
“Sit down, girl,” Birdie said, pulling two sets of knitting needles from her supplies, and some thin yarn and putting them in Polly’s lap. “Knit.”
“What?” Polly asked, eyebrows creasing.
“Socks,” Birdie said, the lines by her eyes crinkling. “Socks for the prince. Socks for the devil.”
—
Tommy made good on his promise and shrunk his way out of the shared bed with Arthur in such a way that his older brother wouldn’t wake up. His bare toes silently crept along the wagon floor. It was morning. Tommy knew cause the dew had set in and the waning moon was in the west.
Breathing easy once he exited the wagon and passed his father, who was drunk as could be lying on grass with a bottle of amber liquid in a loose grasp, he ran across the wet grass like a fawn.
Just outside the wagon of his grandparents, he saw the candles lit in the window, and light spewed out of the wagon door. It was so inviting and Tommy choked for a moment when he heard laughter. His grandparents were laughing at something.
Tommy’s parents didn’t laugh like that.
Suddenly feeling foreign, Tommy crept up to the wagon, when he heard drudging steps of someone in a mood. There was huffing, but it wasn’t deep like his father’s so for a moment, Tommy sighed in relief again.
In the light of the moon, he squinted and saw his Aunt Polly stomping through the grass.
“Well,” she said, seeing him. “Come on then, Tommy.”
She pulled him towards the wagon door, and without preamble, they came into the warmly lit wagon. Inside, Birdie and Johnny Shelby were sharing a cup of tea and sitting side by side.
“Come in,” Birdie smiled.
Johnny Shelby was like his son in many ways and in many others he was not. He was tall, handsome, with features that were chiseled by hunger. He was thin, but not weak. He was always dressed well, but he had mischief in his eyes like perhaps the things he wore were not entirely his own. They were bright clear blue so pale they looked gray, and this was what Tommy Shelby shared with his grandfather.
“Tommy-boy,” he called, and with a quick heft of strong hands Tommy was sitting on his grandfather’s lap.
It was suddenly strange that Tommy was not often held. Arthur would accidentally hold onto him during the night sometimes, but that felt mostly as comfort for Arthur. Mother never did, unless she was whispering horrible things in his ear. Dad never did, ever.
His grandfather ran comforting strong hands down his hair, and jumped his knee up and down like it was a horse ride. Tommy felt his stomach fly and sink, fly and sink. It was fun .
Letting out a giggle that he rarely was allowed, Tommy smiled up at his grandfather, who took a hand and placed the pad of his thumb on the masseter of his jaw.
“Sometimes,” Johnny Shelby said. “It’s alright for yee to just be a boy. Cause that’s whatcha are, alright?”
Tommy nodded, and felt his grandfather tug arms around him, holding him tight.
“I’m gonna make this okay,” Johnny said. “I’m gonna find a place for us. A place that will take travelers and gypsies. We’re gonna make a new start, Tommy. I promise you.”
“Now,” Birdie said. “As for the matter of socks, Polly and I have seen to it.”
As if it were Christmas, as if it were Easter, as if it was the Lord’s actual birthday, sets of socks were pulled from thin air, and Tommy smiled at his grandmother and Aunt.
Polly smiled at Tommy, her dark eyes searching his.
Later, after Tommy had taken the socks to his siblings, Birdie and John were talking to each other over a smoke. Polly sitting near, doing some stitch work.
“He has thee heart,” John said mournfully. “I thought that Arthur would be a goodly king, my bird.”
“He’s proven to be a useless heir so far,” Birdie said, unforgivingly, then her face twisted and she let out a noise of pain. “Ach.”
“Perhaps, Tommy will be a king,” John continued.
“If he be strong enough,” Birdie said. “To wrench it from his father’s grasp.”
“He’s a child,” John said.
Birdie sent him a knowing glance with eyes that saw far into the future, “To you, but I see him as he will be.”
“A king?” John asked hopefully.
Birdie grimaced, “The devil is a sovereign I suppose.”
Polly, having heard the conversation, politely stood and exited the wagon feeling that Birdie’s prophecies were a blight on their family. They were never wrong, and they were never good.
She also wondered why no one had ever suggested a queen.