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It was the Shabbat and for once Alfie Solomons was trying to relax as g-d intended. Book in hand, tea hot and sweet sat on the rickety side table next to his armchair and Cyril curled up in front of the fire. Should be idyllic, cozy and yet Alfie could not remember at all what he had been reading, he’d been trying to read the last page of the chapter for some time now. However, his head had other ideas, a car backfiring or next door shouting or maybe just a fucking bird pecking at his window suddenly and he was back there, in the trenches, men under his command dying left right and centre, bombs going off and gas burning his lungs.
He eventually just started pacing, muttering as he went, or as much as he could do in his small front room without disturbing his dog or the neighbours. In the last few months since returning from the War he had tried drinking himself stupid, even tried opium, bought a dog and had started over-working himself to stop the racing thoughts and his racing heart. He did have a good excuse though for the last one, as he had come home to his business in fucking shambles, his baby brother having used said business to fund his debts and habits and found that his mother had been too ill to stop him. Too ill to even last till the end of the War, he didn’t even get to say goodbye or say he was sorry he’d been such a shit son, did he. So now he was stuck pacing, when a knock at the door sounded.
Not a timid knock, from a neighbour wanting to complain about the noise but not wanting to get on his bad side or the anxious knock of Ollie when something had gone wrong and Alfie needed to step in to save the day or the knock of police, trying to kick his door down in the hopes of arresting him and finding something incriminating. No this was just a normal quick rap at his door.
Someone new, someone different had come to greet the King of Camden today.
She was slender, dark blonde hair done up as was fashionable under a black hat and the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. A threadbare coat hung loose over her shoulders and a shawl was wrapped around her to keep the chill away, might have been half-way through May but England did not care. She was pretty and young and nobody Alfie wanted to meet at this given moment.
“What the fuck do you want” he growled. He could already hear his mother tutting at his bad manners, but he wanted to be left alone. “Sorry yeh, but see it is the Shabbat and I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.”
“Mr Solomons, Alfred Solomons I hope?” She hadn’t even blinked at him opening the door just to swear at her. He hummed an agreement in the affirmative so she carried on. “I knew your mother, she was my neighbour see and when she was…when she knew…” Her eyes had started brimming with tears then, and Alfie did not have the patience to be dealing with that.
“That she was dying right, yeh get on with it love” his mother must be spinning in her grave.
“Well she gave me a letter to give to you, see she didn’t trust that any of her letters were actually getting to you in the army and she didn’t trust your brother to remember or care so she gave it to me and now i am here to give to you… obviously.” She sniffed.
“Well hand it over then and fuck off.” Evgenia Solomons would have smacked him over his head by now and ranted about treating women with respect, especially the ones she trusted.
She handed over the letter, bound in his mothers favourite stationary, a tilted and cursive ‘Alfie’ scrawled across the front. Before he could slam the door in her pretty face, she carried on talking.
“I really am sorry for your loss Mr Solomons, she was such a kind woman!” she said quickly, “and she would be so happy that you’re back, she missed you immensely."
He sighed, “Love, if you're going to keep on talking you might as well come in,” finally finding some manners, he opened the door wide for her and stepped aside to allow her to pass, “What's your name?”
“Oh thank you Mr Solomons, I'm Elizabeth Glickman,” trailing after him as he led her to his front room.
“Jewish yeh?” She nodded at that. “And none of that Mr. Solomon's crap, makes me think my father is about to burst into the room, it's Alfie.” he said sitting down. “My mother wasn’t known to most as kind, some even saw her as a bitch and a cruel one at that.”
“Cruel only to those who deserved it, Alfie,” She said with a smile, perching herself on the settee. His Cyril, traitorous puppy that he was, ambled over to the new person sniffing at her hand, tale thumping against the settee when she ran her hand over his head. “Oh aren’t you a sweet thing, what a cute dog you are,” she cooed.
“He’s Cyril,” he hummed. Taking a sip of his now stone cold tea and considering the strange creature that had ended up in his front room. She had definitely been friendly with his mother and she was almost too polite but didn’t cringe away from his swearing. At least her showing up at his door had stopped the anger and panic fuelled state he had been in, he was almost calm for once. Hidden beneath her coat was a starched white shirt, in contrast to his more worn looking one, tucked into her skirt that fell just below her knee. She was somehow content to let the silence go on as she petted his Cyril and didn’t look put out that he hadn’t offered her any tea or biscuits as was proper.
He shifted slightly, leaning more on his good leg and away from the sudden shooting pain in his thigh. He sighed again, not one for being at such a loss for words but he wasn’t good at speaking about his mother, having only found out she had died when the war had ended and his brother had come to pick him up once he got back.
“The first time we met, this was just after I had moved in and must have been about six months after you had left, and she came round with tea and just bustled in, no introductions, no hello’s just here you go голубка (little dove), you’re far too skinny no good Jewish man wants someone without some meat on their bones,” she laughed, “She helped me get my job right, only a shop assistant at the printers but still, she was kind Alfie, even if she didn’t show it much.”
“Guess she must have really liked you, eh treacle.”
She smiled at that, “I guess, she liked to be right though, if she didn’t like a decision I was making I knew about it.”
“Oh too right,” he snorted, “ran her household and her business with an iron fist she did, a true matriarch, liked to get in a few scuffles herself protecting her family.”
Their conversation went on like this for a while, swapping stories about his mother, (oh how he missed her), about the comings and goings of Camden and even small tidbits about themselves though more so on her part than his. When she had finally left, saying how she needed to get up early tomorrow, he opened the letter she had delivered, Cyril curled up on his lap.
Fuck his mother could write, and it was a good thing his Russian was better than his baby brother's cause even he was struggling with the five pages of nonsense his mother had decided to write. It was mostly about how she missed him and she forgave him for the argument that they had before he left. There were bits and pieces about his brother, news from his uncle in Boston, gossip about the neighbours and surprisingly a whole page was dedicated to the lovely young woman (his mothers words) that had delivered the letter. He laughed as his mother almost begged him to look after her, and how she was all alone, bar an uncle she hardly saw, and that if he found it in his heart she would love to have Elizabeth Glickman as her daughter-in-law.
“Went soft in your old age didn’t ya mum,” he said to himself and for the first time in the four months since getting back, Alfie Solomons allowed himself, in the privacy of his own home, with only g-d and his Cyril as witnesses, to cry, for his mother, for who he was before and for the state of every-fucking-thing else that was happening.