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Despite looking like a corpse that had been strung up like a marionette, Ruth Cochran was sitting arranging her mason jars in the sweet shop early in the morning.
Pink, yellow, yellow, pink. Pink, yellow, yellow, pink. The sun's first blush made the strawberries and cream truffles look strangely red and orange, like barley sugars. It was so early, in fact, that the busy streets of Small Heath sat still. Not even the odd factory worker strolled along his way to work, no stray cat or lady of the night retiring to bed. Ruth was at peace perched in her chair with her pink and yellow sweets.
And yet, still, Thomas Shelby had managed to disturb that peace and six o'clock sunrise.
"Ruth."
There he stood, cigarette in mouth, shoulders open, hands in pockets. Like it was fucking midmorning, the bastard. He stood quite lordly (though he wasn't anything of the sort), how he stood when he meant business.
Reluctant but amused, Ruth looked up at the man from three doors down, "Thomas Shelby."
Tommy Shelby and Ruth Cochran's rapport consisted mostly of 'i-o-u's. Tommy served as a tunneller with her husband, and Ruth had taken on Greta Jurossi at the sweet shop before she'd passed. When both halves of their whole had been torn from them without reason, Tommy made it known to Ruth Cochran that the Peaky Blinders would provide her with whatever means for her health and her daughter, and in turn Ruth supplied him with Christopher's stables for his horses, and way too many rhubarb and custard sweets for a man to stomach.
Tommy shifted on his feet and trod into the shop, looking down at Ruth where she was sat low on the chair, "I'm gonna need a favour off you, if you don't mind."
"Well, your favours are never of the honourable kind, are they, Tom?" The woman replied, holding out a gentle hand to offer him a sweet (to which he declined with a simple wave of his gloved hand).
"You don't have to say yes, tell me to fuck off or what have 'ya-"
"Oh for God's sake, Thomas Shelby, dancing around is for the nighttime, did you not know?" Ruth's hands had dropped to rest on the display table, the firm rattle of her wedding ring against the wood making Tommy wince, "What do you need?"
"I need a horse, Ruth. One for the races. I know Christopher trained them well: fast, strong, looked after." But they're a memory. The still-standing pride of Christopher Cochran, the last chapter of a dead man's life. Right at that moment, Tommy Shelby looked like anything but himself; looking down, bumbling words, fidgeting hands in his pockets in an attempt to look cool in front of one woman five years his senior.
When a thoughtful silence followed his words, he spoke again, "You can say no, Ruth. If you want, I can-"
"Dashwood, Darcy or Willoughby?" Her voice interrupted the silence, raising Tommy's brows with his eyes gleaming somewhat victoriously, "He named them after Nancy's favourite books. She loves Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility."
The fond smile on Ruth's lips was spellbinding, like the woman had unknowingly cast a spell that dragged Tommy's lips upward. Even though he was looking down on the frail woman, he still felt like he was looking up at God's grace upon the Earth, and he felt guilty. He felt wicked and crooked and he'd felt more like a sinner even if he was a killer and a cheat. This made him feel evil.
Amidst his self-pitying flounder, he'd managed to give a tight nod, "I'll take on Dashwood, if that's alright with you."
"I just said it was." Ruth snickered with a poorly-disguised cough behind her hand.
"Indeed you did, indeed you did."
As Tommy turned to leave, Ruth coughed again, but this time to gain his attention so he'd turn his back. She stood up - or at least attempted to, grappling onto the back of the chair with crystalline white knuckles and a shaky frame. With a heaving sigh, she fell back into the chair in defeat and pointed to the countertop where a hefty book lay.
"You seemed to have left your accounts in the Garrison the other day. Nancy found it and she asked me to return it to you when I went back to work." Tommy intently listened to her while he absentmindedly flicked through the book of accounts, though his eyes zeroed in on a specific page.
"Last week's numbers aren't meant to be done yet." And yet they were, clear as day, completely and correctly summed up in graceful scribbles.
Ruth gave a weak smile, "She did them for you. 'Bored', she told me, so she sat and proofread your accounts for mistakes."
"She's a bright girl, Ruth," His eyes roved over the brassy strikes and scribbled cursive from page to page, "More articulate with her maths than her hand-eye coordination, eh?"
"Yes, you could say that. She could have a hopeful career in accounting, analysis, maybe stocks and trade." That bleak sombreness infected the room yet again, and it almost dawned on Tommy where the conversation was leading.
"You want me to give her a job, is that it?" His brows raised, though his tone wasn't mocking or sarcastic. More considerate.
Ruth chuckled self-deprecatingly, looking up to stare Thomas Shelby in the eyes like he'd been trying to avoid doing all morning, "Think of it as a final favour–"
"You're not dying–"
"Oh, fuck off, Tom. I'm not lasting another couple years like this, everyone knows." Ruth Cochran was never one to scoff and swear, like she was doing now, so much so that it took the man before her aback, "Think of this as my final favour. When I do go, when this place goes bust and she's looking for a home in somewhere and someone; take a chance on her. You've seen just now, she's good with maths, she could keep your books, organise your accounts."
A pause. Ruth lowered her voice to a gentle shush.
"Christopher asked the same of you in the war, didn't he?"
Tommy forced his eyes down as he nodded, his mind reliving the man in question shot back into the trenches below, muttering and spluttering, begging for Tommy to promise him to look after his family when he goes home. For the past three years, he's been doing just that, and as far as he's concerned, Ruth was simply asking for nothing to change.
"I...can talk to Arthur and Pol about it." He pushed the words out of his mouth, his smoke-rotten lungs chewing his voice up into this hoarse, gravelly whisper.
The woman in front of him nodded, watching him trudge back to the door of the shop with the book of accounts in a tight grip. As he passed, Ruth's hand shakily shot out with a crumpled paper sack. The red and yellow bled through the paper and the boiled sugar rattled; he didn't need to ask what they were. Hesitantly, he grabbed the bag in his free hand and nodded a final time.
Ruth Cochran watched with a peaceful yet saddened smile at Tommy Shelby, the very nice man from down the road.
elizabeth chats utter shit !
. tommy's in his charlie strong era methinks . i also fucking love ruth but girlie won't be here for long 👎 . thanks for reading !! 💌
