Two Ghosts - Thomas Shelby

4 - I Actually Have Friends, Thank You Very Much!

 Sophie stayed by the window for the rest of the night. She didn't see any point in trying to get back to sleep when she knew that any new attempt would just end up the same way as the last one did. To keep herself occupied she occasionally lit up more cigarettes, but in the moments in-between she started to think about how much her life had derailed over the past couple of months since returning to England. Then she came to the sudden realisation that even if she didn't see it at the time, her life had slowly been falling apart ever since her 'accident' that happened years before she went to France. The war had just been a catalyst that helped her realise just how bad things had gotten.

At one point, after she finished what must've been her third cigarette of the night, her feet started to ache from standing in the same spot for too long. This is when she spotted a chair in the corner of the room next to the desk on the opposite side of the room, so she decided to bring it over to where she had been standing and sit for the rest of the night.

For the majority of the time she was completely alone, but on a few separate occasions she did spot other people lurking about on the dimly-lit street below. She didn't want to be seen by anyone so everytime she did spot another person she would move just out of the range of the streetlights until they either went on their way or into their house.

Just as the sun started to peak over the horizon, she heard her brother start to move around downstairs so she decided that she should wait a few more minutes and then go downstairs to talk to him before he left for his 8am start at the BSA factory, the same factory their father had lost his life in all those years ago.

Freddie was downstairs in the kitchen, putting a kettle of water onto the stove to boil when he heard one of the doors on the floor above creak open, shortly followed by his sister's footsteps. "You're not supposed to be up yet," he shouted, acknowledging her presence as she made her way down the stairs.

"Good morning to you too, Frederick," Sophie chided, going over to her suitcase to pick out a clean outfit. The one she was currently wearing had been thrown on in a haste after she finished her final shift at the hospital the day before. "And even if I was sleeping, I certainly wound't be now because of the bloody racket you're making down here. Honestly the noise coming from that kitchen could wake the dead."

"I'm not being that loud, Soph. You're exaggerating," he scoffed, turning around to face her. "And what do you mean by 'even IF' you were sleeping," he questioned, making sure to emphasise the 'if'.

Sophie sighed from where she was crouched. She should've kept her mouth shut about the last part because she knew Freddie would now probably want to talk about what happened last night. "It means exactly what you think it did," she replied, picking out a dark blue cardigan from her pile of clothes.

Even though his sister had her back to him, Freddie nodded his head in understanding. From his own experiences during the war, he also woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with a sore throat from screaming out as the tunnel he was in collapsed around him all over again, burning him and his comrades alive, under 20ft of thick mud that only three of them were able to escape from. He could tell the last thing she wanted to talk about was anything to do with the war, so instead of forcing her to, he went about making them both their first cup of tea for that day.

"You still take milk and sugar?" he asked as he took the now boiled kettle off the stove.

"Just milk, ta," Sophie replied over her shoulder.

"When'd you stop with the sugar?" Freddie asked as he set two steaming mugs down on the kitchen table.

"Few years ago," Sophie replied, balancing the outfit she had picked out on the edge of the worn sofa, before joining her brother at the kitchen table. "It was in very short supply in France so I just stopped taking it entirely and got used to the taste without it," she explained, picking up the mug in front of her to take a sip. However, the second the brown liquid entered her mouth, she grimaced, rediscovering why she used to take both milk and sugar in the first place. Birmingham water was fucking minging.