CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
SUN BLEACHED FLIES

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TOMMY WAITED THREE DAYS to invite their family around to Arrow House. He insisted that Helen stayed in bed for those unrelenting hours, which Helen didn't mind until sunrise of day three. Her limbs ached from the overwhelming urge to move. Florence's crying disrupted her every other moment, reminding her of the sleepless nights she and Patrick once spent doting on James.

Both her boys had been gems since coming home. James promised her he was alright, that he was happy, and it certainly seemed that way when he held his little sister and giggled with glee. When he wasn't with Helen and Florence, he spent as much time as he could following Tommy around. Helen was glad to hear her husband-to-be indulged him, and that his wonder for Florence never faded. Deep down, a part of her had worried it would, for some of his happiness had faltered, making her wonder if it was about his proposal. Did returning to the house he used to share with Grace make him change his mind?

Just as Helen feared the doubt would eat her alive, he'd do something that contradicted everything she'd constructed in her head. Bringing her breakfast in bed, singing an old lullaby under his breath to soothe a wailing Florence while Helen used the bathroom, kissing her knuckles where her engagement ring glistened whenever he thought she was sleeping. It really was going to be them against the world.

Helen and Florence were surrounded as soon as the family had gathered in Tommy's office on the morning of day three. There was Arthur, John and Finn, who wasted no time in greeting her with eager kisses on the cheek before they bundled up Florence like she was a jewel taken from the Russians themselves. Then there was Michael, Polly and Ada. Helen was yet to see Michael in person, so she made sure to hug him tight.

"Thank you," was all she said. She had no other words to express just how grateful she was for him.

Following behind the core family was Esme, Lizzie and Linda. The latter's baby bump was visible beneath her green dress (Helen was surprised to realise she didn't even know Linda was pregnant) while Esme had her son curled up against her chest. Alongside them was Charlie, Curly, Johnny Dogs and Isaiah, who sat in the back row of chairs while everyone else turned to Tommy.

He kept the distance of the table between them, staring at the money he'd split into rolls for each person. Occasionally, he'd glance over and see one of his brothers trying to rock Florence in their arms before eventually giving up and returning her to her mum when she started to cry. But Tommy waited until they eventually found their places around the room.

"Before I begin," he said. "Helen and I have an announcement to make."

John whistled under his breath. "Don't tell me you're pregnant again already, Nel."

She swung her foot towards him without thought, jamming her heel sharply against his toes. John yelped and rocked back in his chair, glowering at her as the others laughed. "I should be asking you that," she said with a pointed glance at Esme.

The other woman grimaced. "No fucking chance."

Helen smiled. "Just to clarify, no I'm not pregnant. But Tommy and I will be getting married."

Her cheeks pinkened as the family reacted with joy. Arthur and John's cheers were the loudest as they urged Tommy to bring out the celebratory whiskey. Tommy complied, pouring himself the largest amount. The women crowded around Helen to get a better look at the ring. Polly's eyes filled with tears as soon as she recognised it.

These were Helen's people. She found herself counting down the days until she could officially call herself one of them, even though she and Tommy technically hadn't set a date yet. Really, she should've done it the first time. Ignored what her gut urged her to do and followed her heart instead. Still, it was better late than never, right?

"On a heavier note," Tommy cleared his throat. "I want to let you know that I made a mistake. I made a mistake and I want to apologise to all of you. Arthur, you warned me against getting involved in Russian business, and you were right." Arthur merely stared at him, blank-faced and silent. "I doubted your wife. For that, I'm sorry."

Upon returning home, Helen had demanded to hear everything from Tommy. This was how she learned that it was Michael who put the bullet between Father Hughes' eyes and saved her sons. He wanted his own justice, for things Father Hughes had done to him while he was in the convent. It made Helen's heart ache. She wished he had been given someone like Michael to step in when he was a boy.

Helen also learnt of the accusation Tommy had put against his family when he realised that someone had spoken about their plan to undermine the Russians. It had to be someone in the family, didn't it? Linda, with her iron-tight loyalty that extended only to Arthur? Esme searching for her next fix of snow? Ruben, who had sought out Polly right beneath Tommy's nose at his own wedding? Ada suddenly returning to the family?

In the end, it was none of them. It was Alfie who betrayed them. Helen couldn't say it surprised her. At least Tommy believed Alfie was unaware of their ploy to use James and Charlie. It would pain Helen to think Alfie would wish that on her, if not on Tommy.

Tommy had finished with his experience in the ground, digging another God forsaken tunnel, the end nowhere in sight but time and the solid mass of the Earth continuing to bear down on him. He'd brushed it off as something that needed to be done but Helen knew better.

Now, he threw down the first stack of notes, gazing intently at Linda sitting behind Arthur. "Linda, I've added three thousand here in the hope that you'll forgive me."

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Linda stood, hands on her stomach. Her heels tapped against the floorboards as she closed the distance towards Tommy. "Apology accepted."

Tommy nodded brusquely, moving onto Esme and John. "Esme, I doubted you as well."

Esme looked him up and down, then scoffed. "Now John's got innocent lives on his conscience. Ordinary working men."

The chair John was sprawled on creaked beneath his weight as he shifted around uneasily. He wouldn't look up from the ground but he angled his head back to snap at her under his breath, "Yeah, alright, Esme. Got it."

"No, she's right," Tommy said. "And you and Arthur are going to have to share that burden. But I hope the house you can buy with this can become a place of... contemplation. Perhaps even redemption."

He moved on to Charlie, Curly, Johnny Dogs then Lizzie, the latter of which glared at him and threw the stack of cash back in his face. She would've spat at his shoes if he wasn't too far away, of that Helen was sure. Lizzie would never take another pound from Tommy unless it came from her job as a secretary. Regardless of his intentions as he split up their earnings, she would never accept it and Helen admired that.

"Alright then. Michael, for the killings. Five for the cutting and five for the shootings."

"No, Tommy."

"What?" Tommy snapped, raising his voice to drown out Polly's stern refusal on her son's behalf. "Tell me, eh! This is who I am! This is all I can give you for what you have given me. For your hearts and your souls."

Helen's grip tightened on Florence, who started to whimper until Tommy forced himself to lower his voice. She was glad, then, that James and Charlie were being distracted up in the playroom.

"Three days ago, Nel and I nearly lost our sons. You should fucking understand that, Pol. And for what? For this?" Disbelieving laughter shook Tommy's shoulders as he smacked a hand against the table, then gestured wildly around the room. "And I know you all want me to say that I'll change, that this fucking business will change, but I've learnt something in the last few days. Those bastards are worse than us! Politicians, fucking Judges, Lords and Ladies... they are worse than we could ever be! And they will never admit us to their palace! No matter how legitimate we become. Because of who we are. Because of who we fucking are, because of where we're fucking from. Isn't that right, Ada?"

Ada didn't answer. She leaned her head to the side and locked her blank eyes with Helen instead, refusing to give into her brother's tirade. Arms crossed, head held high. Tommy took her silence as an admittance.

"Our Ada knows. She got smart about revolution and she knows you have to get what you want your own way. And Helen?" Brows furrowed, she turned her head towards him. The blue of his eyes fractured. "Nel, you saw it yourself when you were in London. There's always going to be more out there. There's always going to be people standing in our way. Sometimes, you have to go against what you believe in, what makes people happy, so that you can walk out the other side and face the next round of enemies who would rather see you fall. To prove to them, to prove to yourself, to the ones you walk this earth for, that you were made for better!"

On and on, he kept going, pushing the next stack of money towards her.

"Nellie, I've got money set aside here for you too. For our wedding and our children, and the nights where you were the only thing that stopped my heart from breaking. No one else."

Helen didn't move to accept the money. She was rooted in place, aware of the fact they weren't alone in the room. Tommy stared around at them now, daring them to react to his outpour of emotion.

"The rest of you, you took the King's shilling. You took the King's fucking shilling. And when you take the King's shilling, the King expects you to kill."

King George or King Thomas Shelby?

"Right, Arthur? That's how it works. Right, John?"

His brothers kept their heads bowed. Arthur's knee bounced as he drove the heel of his foot against the ground. John's lips flattened into a bloodless line, biting back the words that Tommy wanted to hear in response but neither of them could give. It was Michael who made the next move. He pushed back his chair, brushing past Polly to accept his share of the money. She made no move to stop him but her head snapped around to follow his quick retreat. Her eyes were like knives, sharp and vicious, unable to tear away from Michael's fingers curling around those notes.

"That's right," he said, answering Tommy. Challenging his mum.

"That's right, Pol," Tommy echoed with a baleful smile. "That's fucking right."

Putting her back to their audience, Polly prevented anyone but Tommy from seeing the singular pieces of her reaction as they crossed her face. The sound of a bond being severed was almost audible in the thick haze of tension. Helen could feel the web pulling each of them in, entangling around her throat in a game of tug-o-war. Tommy, the puppet master. Always reeling them back in. Polly, the aunt, slowly becoming a resentful stranger. Resisting with every breath. How could this be her nephew? Again and again, he changed faces as it suited him. She couldn't recognise him. She could dig her fingernails into his flesh and scrape through the layers he'd carefully constructed, clawing until she found bone, but even then she knew that the marrow of her nephew would be different.

"Tommy," Polly said. "You've had a bad time. We understand. So at an alternative time, when we have all recovered, I would like to put before the family an alternative view of the future of Shelby Company Limited. A more hopeful view."

Florence started to fuss again and she was demanding to be heard now. Helen eased out of her seat, whispering an apology that was easily dismissed as she retreated to the corner of the room. Ada's answering voice followed her, speaking up in agreement with her aunt.

"Which I, for one, would quite like to hear."

"As would I," said Esme, joining Helen.

"And I," she concluded, receiving a quick flash of Tommy's eyebrows raising before he buried his reaction beneath indifference once again.

Polly approached Michael when it became clear Tommy wouldn't say anything else. Towering over her son, she made sure he had nowhere else to look but into her eyes as she took the roll of notes from his hands and returned it to Tommy's desk, where she felt it belonged. Still, Tommy stayed quiet. Helen studied him curiously. He was looking back at her now. Hands in his pockets. Disappearing into the hollow chasm behind his eyes. Preparing himself. Suddenly, Helen's heart skipped, then burst into an uneven pace. She couldn't hide the choking feeling of fright that took her captive. What was she missing?

"Come on, Arthur," she vaguely heard Linda urging her husband to stand. "The train for the dock leaves in one hour. Then we'll get the boat to New York and it'll all be in the past."

Arthur was going? A new expression crossed Helen's fiancé's face, fresh as a bruise. He sank into his chair, spectating his family as they gathered around to say their goodbyes. Polly whispered in Arthur's ear as she cradled his face against her shoulder in a hug. Helen was quick to take her place, struggling to blink away the stinging ache of sorrow as Arthur bent to kiss Florence's forehead before smothering Helen in a final embrace.

"I better see you in New York someday, sister."

"Of course," she whispered.

New York. It didn't sound like a real place. Logically, Helen knew it was out there, but it felt terribly unreachable beyond the horizon. Momentarily distracted from Tommy's strange behaviour, she hurried to memorise Arthur before he slipped through her fingers. Looking past his tearful gaze to the big eyes that shone whenever he smiled. The scratchy moustache, the strong smell of whiskey and earth, the way he stood with his head high and shoulders back. Just like his aunt.

Helen's dear brother.

Arthur slammed his hand against John's back, pretending not to hear his younger brother's sniffles, then slowly approached the lone figure behind his desk.

"I'll be off then, Tom." Tommy took a drag of his cigarette. Let it drop into the ashtray, the end still smoking. "I'll see you, eh? I'll see you, brother."

Then, with one more punch to John's shoulder, forcing out a laugh, he started to approach Linda waiting at the door.

"You can go but you won't get far, Arthur." Slowly, Helen turned, tightening her grip on Florence so that she wouldn't reach out and smack Tommy around the head. What the fuck was he thinking? "I spoke to Moss last night. He told me that the Chief Constable of Birmingham has issued a warrant for your arrest. Murder, sedition, conspiracy to cause an explosion."

Helen's head started to spin. The light outside the window suddenly disappeared, the shadows coalescing into an endless puddle of darkness. There would never be any light again. Arthur's face was gaunt with sheer terror, reflecting the rope that waited for him. His skin was waxen, slick with sweat. He knew just how damning Tommy's words were as he buried the knife between his ribs and twisted it. Why hadn't he told them sooner?

"John, they're coming for you as well," continued Tommy, yet still nobody moved. "Murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion. Michael..."

"What the fuck," whispered Arthur.

"... The murder of Hughes."

Polly's hand clapped over her mouth, smothering the whine of agony that threatened to rip through her vocal chords. She was so focused on Michael that it took her a moment to realise Tommy wasn't finished.

"Polly, for the murder of Chief Inspector Chester Campbell."

They clamoured like dogs around his desk, desperate for him to be mistaken. These atrocities he spoke of, skeletons unearthed both old and new, they were meant to be buried where only they could find them. Had Tommy betrayed them by digging them up and hanging them for all to see? Helen feared she could never marry him if he had. She searched fitfully through her disjointed thoughts, coming up empty for anything that she could have done. But Tommy didn't say her name or any of the others. It was only Polly, Michael, Arthur and John. Out of all of them, Tommy's closest family.

"The people that we betrayed three days ago, they want to bring us down," Tommy shouted over them. "Now they control the police, they control the judges, they control the juries, they control the jails." His previous speech started to make more sense now. "But they do not control the elected government!"

Arthur and John rushed towards him. Red in the face, tearing into their hair at the roots, gulping down each numbered breath of air.

"Why didn't you tell us before?" screamed John, only to be dragged away by Esme. She had bundled up their son and was ready to run, but not before she stood toe-to-toe with Helen.

"Is this who you're going to marry, Nel?"

Helen was speechless. She could only step back, hot tears streaming down her face. When Florence realised her mum was crying, she started to wail too, but nothing could've made Helen miss the look of devastation that Arthur cast in her direction before he turned back to Tommy.

"You're my brother!" cried Arthur, as if Tommy could forget. "They'll hang us!"

"Listen to me!" Tommy shouted, pointing a finger in Arthur's face. "I've made a deal in return for giving evidence against them. It's all taken care of! Lizzie, collect all the money and take it to the cellar. You will get all your money in due course. When the police get in, do not resist. You go with them, you do not say anything."

For once, with a common goal in mind, Esme and Linda worked together to wrench open the door. Esme fled through it with John's hand in hers. Linda was right behind them, then Michael being urged by Polly, but the police were already waiting for them. Their silent cars had infiltrated Helen's driveway and they'd broken through the lock on her front door with batons raised and cuffs at the ready. Their smirks were triumphant. Sickening.

Finally, they frothed at the mouth and laughed in glee. The Shelby family has been brought to its knees.

"Arthur, I've made a deal with people even more powerful than our enemies," said Tommy, to the only person apart from Helen who hesitated to flee. "Trust me, brother."

Linda came running back into the room, beating her fists into Tommy's chest, screaming until her throat was raw. Her voice sounded like it was coming from under water. As Arthur dragged her away, Helen forced her feet to move. Tommy called her name but she ignored him, getting comfortable in the doorway of the office.

Her living room was carnage. Knocked over furniture, torn paintings. Arthur had been pinned against the wall closest to her, spit flying from his mouth as one smug officer pressed his baton into the juncture of his jaw to silence him. They had John already in cuffs, as well as Polly and Michael, while the women were being escorted from the scene with hands on their elbows. Finn tried in vain to free his brothers. They only threw him to the ground in dismissal. Tommy was standing behind Helen now. Still, she refused to acknowledge him.

But this was what she had chosen. She reminded herself of this, again and again, until the last police truck's rumbling engine had faded into silence. Her tomb of a house seemed terribly empty with her family on their way to die.

"Let me take her, Nel," came the throaty whisper of Tommy's voice in her ear before Florence, who was still crying, was lifted from Helen's vice-like grip. "Why don't we sit down, eh? I'll tell you everything."

Too late, Helen nodded, not trusting her voice not to fail her. She let Tommy guide her away from the door but the ghosts followed, calling for her. Blaming her.

If her love for Tommy had to be put into words, they would describe an act of endless forgiveness. In that moment, she knew she had no one else left in the world but him, her husband to be, and their children. A new generation to replace the old. Helen Godfrey, the matriarch. Maybe a Shelby someday in name, but never in the hearts of the ones she ached for. A Peaky Blinder, but from the sacrifice of a lifetime.

But all would be well, right? she thought wryly. Tommy Shelby had a plan.