Chapter Text
Elyse Shelby had the same uncanny ability as her twin brother to pierce somebody with only a look. Where his eyes were pale blue and silver, hers were green and grey, and Tommy knew every detail of her face better than his own. The expression in her brows, the way her lips pressed together when thinking deeply about something, the clear whites of her eyes and the freckles that appeared across her nose each summer and faded each autumn and how she would plait her dark hair each night, how it would tickle his shoulder as they lay back-to-back, huddled together in the cold. Nobody knew Elyse better than he did, and nobody understood Tommy like her.
Arthur, as the eldest, was trying to hold things together. John and Ada were too young to understand. Tommy and Elyse were caught in a perpetual no man’s land. Elyse would clamber onto their mother’s lap and comb through her hair while she stared silently at the wall. Tommy would temper their father’s anger, knowing if he started Arthur would soon start too, and it would end in fists and blood.
When their father came home drunk that night, Elyse was standing on the rickety wooden stool to reach the stove, stirring a soup made of potatoes and cabbages they’d swiped from the Saturday market. The butcher had cottoned onto them so they’d been vegetarian for a while now, except for when Aunt Pol came to visit and brought with her a cut of brisket. Their mum would smile and accept and discuss all the dishes she could make, and then she’d retreat to bed and the meat would be left out on the counter until it began to smell. If it began to smell, Dad would look for someone to blame. Better for everyone that dinner was on the table when he came back from work or the pub.
Elyse’s face lifted at the sound of the door, but Tommy knew something was wrong at once. Elyse was hoping he’d brought home a new horse, but Tommy could already smell the liquor. He moved quickly, taking her by the hand and dragging her beneath the wooden table where they could hide. His heart thumped in his chest, adrenaline pounding through him in anticipation. If their dad touched her, he’d need to fight. He weighed up taking a knife or a gun, but didn’t want to frighten her. This would be quick. Their Dad would come in, find the room empty, and take off elsewhere to fall asleep.
He hadn’t counted on Arthur returning with the coal bucket.
“What the fuck have you got there?” Dad bellowed, and Elyse flinched.
Crouched together on the cold floor, Tommy wrapped his arms around her.
“Nothing,” Arthur replied quickly, too quickly, his voice a squeak.
“Where did you get all that fucking coal from?”
“I only went—“
“Spending my money?” Dad’s voice rose. Elyse squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could disappear into Tommy. “Spending my winnings on fucking coal?”
Arthur made the mistake of talking back. “Ada’s cold. We’ve no wood for the fire.”
Tommy heard the belt buckle. Elyse felt his body tense against her own. “It’s alright,” Tommy murmured, and she wasn’t sure if the words were for her or for himself. “It’s alright…”
The coal smashed to the floor. Arthur had a fierce temper on him these days, almost as fierce as their father. Elyse knew once they started, they would end up killing each other. She could hear the lashing into flesh, the blows thrown in retaliation, the bellows and swearing ripping through the house. Come on, Mum, she thought desperately. Come down. Do something. She was sure her Dad would stop if only she left the room. He wouldn’t want her to see him like this, and she’d never let him hit Arthur. If only she was here. If only she could hear what was happening…
Tommy deliberated, his sharp eyes staring at the nails in the floorboards and his arms clutching his sister until he could bear it no longer. He weighed up the options in his mind and ran through all the possibilities.
“Stay here,” he commanded Elyse quietly.
“But Tommy—“
“Don’t move,” he ordered, and she would listen. She always listened to him. He always listened to her.
It was like trying to break up a dog fight. Both Arthur and their Dad were lunging and lashing, teeth bared, covered in blood. Fucking hell, there was so much blood, it was lucky he’d intervened. Tommy pulled them apart, grasping his Dad by the shirt. It took all his strength to hold the man back. Every muscle burned in his arm and chest, but it gave Arthur enough time to get away. Thank fuck he got away, taking off out the front door. Tommy was worried he’d keep going.
Apparently, he’d been worried about the wrong man.
“And you,” his Dad seethed, backhanding Tommy across the cheek. The slap echoed through the house. “Been stealing from me too, have you?”
“I haven’t taken a fucking thing,” Tommy said with a firm shove. “None of us have.”
Elyse froze as the sound of Dad’s hand colliding with Tommy’s flesh reached her beneath the table, over and over. The floors vibrated with it. Tommy wasn’t like Arthur. He was clever enough to take it without retaliating. Let Dad exhaust himself. Once he was done, he’d collapse in the chair by the unlit fire and fall asleep. Surely he’d be done soon. Surely he was almost done.
When Tommy’s body hit the floor, she could bear it no longer. Her heart was in her throat and she tore through to the hallway, shouting at her dad to leave him alone. Tommy was on the floor, splayed out, unable to defend himself. She crouched down and covered him before the next blow could hit and it knocked all the breath from her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, a bruise aching through her chest and back, and there was a flash of anger in Tommy’s eyes that rivalled even Arthur’s.
“Enough,” he commanded, and even their Dad was wise enough to listen to him.
Still effing and blinding, he stumbled through the house, swiping more whiskey from the store cupboard as he went. Tommy checked Elyse over, turning her face in the light to look for bruises. Her cheeks were flushed the colour of berries. They only filled with colour when she was angry or hurt.
“Are you alright?” He asked, sagging with relief when he heard her breathing.
She nodded, pushing herself upright. Pale but unharmed. “Are you?”
Blood trickled from his nose but when she pressed her fingers to it, the bones were straight beneath her fingertips. He winced although her touch was gentle. Their hands clasped together. Tommy’s touch was the only thing that ever felt steady, his hands as familiar as her own.
“Where did Arthur go?” She asked in a whisper.
“Probably to get more coal,” Tommy said, glancing at the crushed soot around them. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “I told you to stay where you were.”
“If you go, I go.” Elyse looked pointedly at the front door. “And if you go, I go.”
Silence hung between them. The same dilemma each time. They were street smart enough to survive. Each was sure of that. Were it just the two of them, they could make a go of it. But they had the others to think about. Arthur could come with them, but John and Ada were too young for the road. Not to mention Mum. It always came down to the same thing each time. They couldn’t leave her. There’d be nobody left to wipe her clean and comb her hair, and one day she’d get better again. She’d been better before, and she’d get better again. They just had to hang in there a little longer.
“We’re not going,” Tommy said.
Elyse nodded in agreement. Their grip loosened and finally they pulled away, reforming as individual selves once more.
She said, “I’ll get this cleaned up.”
“Finish dinner,” Tommy said. “I’ll handle out here.” He didn’t want her touching the blood.
He’d once made the mistake of warning Elyse, “Don’t tell anyone at school.” The look she gave in return was so withering, he knew better than to mention it again.
Ada refused to eat her soup that night. No matter how much they tried to shield her, she was somehow affected by the goings on and it only made her wilder these days. She spat dinner across the table and Tommy told her sharply to cut it out and then carried her kicking and screaming up to bed when she wouldn’t listen. Elyse was scrubbing laundry for them all and became devastated when John told her the sole had finally come off his left shoe and they were so small the right was giving him blisters, anyway. He showed his oozing and crusted heel, and she glanced first at his shoe, with warped leather and dried blood, and then at her father’s wallet, nowhere near brave enough to take so much as a farthing after the beating he’d given Arthur. She didn’t like stealing from the shoemaker. He was a kind man who’d given her a toffee the last time she went in for new laces. They could always try swipe coins from somewhere, but their Dad was already suspicious of the coal. If he noticed John had new shoes, he’d really fly into a rage.
Why couldn’t Mum just get better? Elyse took her up some soup when Ada had finally fallen asleep. She was too scared to enter at first. She never knew how bad it would be.
But today was a good day. Her Mum woke when she placed the bowl down beside the bed. People used to tell Elyse she looked just like her mother. They said it less now these days, maybe because it had been so long since anyone had seen her.
“Thank you,” her Mum sighed, hands trembling as she took the soup. “This awful headache…”
Elyse said nothing. Mum was awake but everything about her was glassy and glazed over, like she still wasn’t truly there at all. Elyse slipped out of the room once her Mum was finished and asleep again.
There was an anxiousness in Elyse’s soul that calmed only when she found Tommy in their shared bedroom. He was lying on his back, bruises swollen across his face. The ones on his ribs hurt the worst. He could only imagine how Arthur was feeling, probably huddled somewhere down by the cut. If not for Elyse, Tommy might have gone looking for him. But she needed him. She needed him almost as badly as he needed her.
They didn’t say anything. Only clambered in beneath the covers and lay back-to-back. This way, nobody could sneak up on them. This way, they were safe. The room was so cold each could see their breath on the exhale, but like this, it was alright. His hand reached for hers in the same moment she reached for his, and her hair brushed against his shoulder, and it would always be much harder to keep his soul intact when half of it existed outside of his own body.