❝ PICKET FENCE! ❞ → GRAY ✓

→ ii.vii

Act Two, Scene Seven

→ ❝ fuck your hat, we're protesting! ❞

             The dreaded time had finally come for Carol to set foot back in the betting shop, much to her chagrin. Tommy had taken all the men on a hunting trip (Michael included), and had asked her to help out in the shop due to them being short staffed. It wasn't how she would have liked to spend her Good Friday, but it was much better than spending it alone, cooped up in Polly's house.

             As she and so many women had to do before her, Carol ignored the whistles and calls that the men queuing outside the shop gave her. She held onto her bag a little tighter and quickened her pace along the pavement to get to the back door that Michael had told her to go through, merging with a crowd of other women that were also turning up to work at that time. From what Carol could make out, none of them were very happy at being made to work that day.

             "None of it's fucking fair," Carol heard Esme moan to nobody in particular as she came through the back door with the rest of the women.

             "What's the matter?" she asked as she joined the three women, placing her hat on a nearby counter and reminding herself to place it on the coat stand sooner rather than later or she would forget where she put it.

             "I was just saying," Esme began, and Carol giggled quietly at Lizzie rolling her eyes. Although Carol wasn't sure what Esme was about to say, she was certain that it wouldn't be Lizzie's first time hearing about it, "The men are all swanning off for a piss up and we're made to work all day, cleaning up after the dirty bastards spit on us and the floor."

             Carol raised her eyebrows, unsure of how to respond to Esme's strongly worded complaint, "Oh. Could you not speak to Tommy about it?" she asked, hanging up her coat while looking around for her cream hat.

             Esme shot Lizzie a look, "Next time you're bent over that desk, Lizzie, you could raise it to him."

            "Fuck off, Esme," Lizzie swore casually, not looking up from the papers she was looking over.

             Carol searched around Lizzie, attempting to locate her hat. She knew this would happen, it always happened; Carol Goodwin always lost her cream hat, without fail.

             "Pretty dress," Lizzie complimented Carol as she popped up from below the table, searching the floor. She was trying to build a bridge over what she had said the night of Tommy's wedding, for she hated being on such bad terms with the young girl. That night, she hadn't meant what she had said, it just came out wrong.

             Carol smiled, attempting to move on from her prejudice towards Lizzie. Now she knew what the Shelby family did, Carol didn't see the Stark woman's words to be so cruel. "Thank you, Henry bought it for me," she replied, brushing down the front of the floral fabric and giving up on her hat as a pounding came at the door. She would continue her search later.

             "Can't wait to part with their money," Esme grumbled, though Carol didn't think anybody was really listening to her. "Stupid bastards."

             "It's alright!" the clear, airy voice of Linda chimed through the door as Polly approached it. Carol smiled, happy that she would have Linda to talk to for the day; she knew that the Quaker wouldn't touch the betting slips and would be doing things similar to Carol, like emptying ashtrays. "It's only me!"

             Walking through the shop, Linda explained she was there on Arthur's orders, and placed a hamper of sandwiches and homemade lemonade on the counter. It wasn't quite what Carol expected to see in a gambling den, but life outside of Sheffield never failed to amaze her.