We Could Get By

xxx.

Sweeney frowned. His entire face pulled down at the corners of his sad mouth, weighted and melancholy. His eyes were downward-drawn slits, glaring purposefully at some spot beyond Nellie's shoulder.

“Now, love, lemme see,” Nellie said patiently, lowering herself carefully to crouch on her knees in front of him. He stared through her. Blood trickled in a steady stream down the side of his solemn white face. Nellie felt a sting in her temple as if she had been the injured one. “‘Ow did ya fall, darling? ‘S not like you.”

It was, in fact, quite like him though Nellie would never dare admit it to the barber himself. In response, Sweeney lifted a finger and jabbed it, accusatory, at Socks. The cat licked his front paw daintily, paying neither barber nor baker any attention. “Him.”

“Oh, Mister T, he didn't mean it!” She placed a brief kiss on the tip of his nose and wiped the blood from his face. The pointed corner of the table had left a long wound across his head. His body bent forward, as if his skeleton itself was frowning. “Stay still-”

“I don't need that,” he grumbled, swatting away the bandage she held. Nellie swatted him right back, fixing the cloth gently over the angry red gash on his head. If it had been any closer to his temple, she would have been a great deal more concerned. Even so, her heart broke seeing him hurt. He affected the air of an arrogant boy who had lost a fight but kept his chin high, unwilling to admit defeat.

“Hush, love. I still think ya oughtta go see the-”

“No.”

She tousled his hair, letting it fall over the white square of the bandage, and took his sharp face in her hands. Sweeney looked even less amused than before, though Nellie would not have thought it possible if she had not seen the lines on either side of his mouth deepen. She patted his cheeks, smoothed her thumbs over the hard lines of his cheekbones. “Now, love.”

A series of hard, unfamiliar knocks rattled the front door. Sweeney shot her a look of betrayal.

“What, ya think I called ‘im up? Think I said ‘Oh, doc, ya gotta come an’ help me poor clumsy ‘usband’?” Nellie rolled her eyes and headed for the door, leaving Sweeney sulking in the chair.

It was not the doctor at the door. It was, in fact, a vaguely familiar man with wide mutton chops and a belly that stretched the buttons on his smart navy vest. She leaned against the doorframe, her mind spinning and attempting to place him in some long-unused slot in her memory. He blinked and took a step back, as if the very sight of Nellie caught him off guard.

“Eleanor?”

“Yeah? Who was ya expectin’? If ya want Mister T, he's a little… incapacitated.”

“No- I, ah, I came here looking for. Um. You?” The man removed his bowler hat and twisted its brim in his meaty hands. Sweat beaded faintly on his forehead despite the nip of the air, shining against his oily skin in the light of the setting sun. Nellie was conscious of Sweeney standing in the doorway behind her, of his sharp slant, of his lips twisted in his most intimidating scowl.

“Who is this.”

The stranger swallowed thickly and took another step back. “I don't mean any trouble, good sir, no, I-I don't mean any harm. See, what I, uh, came here for is for-” He broke off, waving a trembling hand in Nellie's direction.

Sweeney's face softened, twitched into a smile that would chill any reasonable man to his core if he knew what it meant. “You've come for a shave, haven't you.”

He stepped past Nellie and made a grand, sweeping gesture towards the swinging sign advertising his shop. Still smiling, Sweeney cupped Hiram's elbow and tried to scoot him along to the creaky wooden stairs around the side of the blue house.