Chapter Text
The knock on the front door should have come as a surprise. But as Tommy rose from his seat in the front room, he knew who would be on the other side of the door without having to look.
"Hello, Polly."
Polly Gray looked out of place amongst the overgrown tangle of the front yard, left to go wild and untamed in the short stretch between the low crumbling brick fence and the door.
Beyond the fence, and past the narrow curving road, the earth swooped suddenly down towards the beach of Margate, some way down from the town, secluded in its windswept bluffs.
Polly didn't spare a look for the view. She stood calmly, hands clutching her purse, as impatient here on the front step of a random house on the coast as she had been a hundred times in a boardroom.
She raised a single, immaculate brow and Tommy stepped aside and waved her in, taking her coat before leading her further into the house.
"Ada tell you where I was?" he asked, stopping in the doorway as Polly continued in. She hummed lightly and surveyed the room with a cool eye as she crossed to a chair and sat down on the edge distractedly.
With another glance over him she raised a cigarette to her lips and lit it. The bright glow cast her cheekbones into sharp relief.
"It's a shit hole."
Which wasn't true. The place was small and dated but well maintained. Nothing like the shit holes of his youth.
Polly’s eyes lingered on the heavy gilt mirror above the armchair, all curling curlicues and aged, warped glass, tarnished in spots. It sat nicely amongst the crowded walls, glinting in the lamplight and the filtered light coming in from outside.
Tommy liked it. Liked the warmth of the room, cluttered with the belongings of some long-gone owner. Full to the brim with things that mostly had no purpose but to be pleasing to the eye and to the touch, an oddly lavish interior within a humble shell. He found it unexpectedly cozy. A word he had never pursued in his life, but now he'd found a slice of it in the odd little house on a hill, he found he wanted to keep it. It warmed a part of him he didn't know had been cold.
"How long will you hide out here?" Polly asked when it became clear Tommy wasn't going to be baited.
"Tea?" Tommy offered, turning on his heel and retreating to the kitchen without waiting for a response.
He took his time making them both a cup, standing at the window as the water boiled, staring sightlessly past old tree in the yard towards the waves lapping at the sand and towards the horizon, where sky and sea met, the colours so close it was hard to see the line. He listened for any sounds from the front room, though he knew he wouldn’t hear anything. Polly could move through a space as silently as a ghost if she wanted to.
When he returned, Polly had removed her coat and was seated back on one of the armchairs, her gaze out the french doors towards the sea. She flicked a look at him when he entered, watching as he set her tea down on the small table at her side.
"The business needs you, Tommy."
Tommy retreated to the armchair opposite her and lowered himself into the plush seat. He waved a hand vaguely around, taking in the room and sea beyond.
"I’m on holiday, Pol. It can do without me for a while."
"How long? How long are you going to hide away in this shithole, wallowing over that woman?"
Sighing, Tommy rubbed a hand over his grainy eyes and reached for his own cigarettes and tapped one out of the packet. Bowing his head to light it, he took care, as if the action required his whole attention. Polly huffed.
"I told you that woman was no good. I told you–"
"I don't want to hear it, Pol."
He sounded exhausted, and he knew that, more than the exhaustion itself, was what drew her up short.
Ashing her cigarette, she rose from her seat to begin a slow journey around the room, mug cradled in her hand. Her fine fingers trailed over the furniture and fittings that came with the place, lingering on the spaces where things had likely once sat.
She paused at the french doors, her sharp, dark eyes surveying the room again, lingering in the corners.
"What'll you do with yourself out here? You'll be bored within a week."
"Then it'll be back to business as usual, eh?"
She pursed her lips at him, considering her words before the tension in her body softened slightly, gentling the regal stillness she held herself in, had always held herself in, even when she was barely more than a child herself, raising four kids in a world that had rarely shown her anything but cruelty. and she turned her gaze to the pale horizon, taking a drag of her cigarette as she considered it.
"You remind me of Martha." She said at last.
Tommy's head jerked up. They never talked about his mother. Had barely spoken her name since the day they pulled her from the canal.
"Shouldn't be out here all alone, wallowing" she continued, "This place isn't right, Tommy. I don't like it."
Sinking into the seat, Tommy cradled his cup of tea to his chest, feeling oddly insulted on behalf of the house.
A creek like shifting weight on old floorboards came from the hall and they both stilled, listening for a tense moment until nothing more came.
"You mark my words, Tommy." she said, "there's something about this place."
She stayed for a light dinner. The two of them crowded into the small kitchen, cheerfully lit in the lengthening gloom of the evening. A trail of cigarette smoke drifted behind her as she moved around the room, putting a meal together with whatever she found left there by the housekeeper Tommy had organised before his arrival to the cottage. She had a worn, faded dish towel she'd found draped over one shoulder of her immaculately tailored outfit and her heels clicked across the paved stone floor.
In the warm bubble of light the room formed, Tommy relaxed into the chair at the wobbly, scarred table and watched her steady, competent hands as she worked. If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe he was a boy again, though the kitchen on Watery Lane had never been this quiet, too small and cramped and full of a family used to living on top of each other.
By the time she left, he felt grounded, a calm settling over his exhausted, busy mind as he waved her off and closed and locked the door behind her.
Returning to the living room, he pulled up short at the sight of a large man seated in the armchair beside the french doors.
"Who the fuck are you?" Tommy barked, stepping fully into the room.
The man looked up from where he'd seemingly been studying his hands. Head bowed towards his chest like a much older man who'd nodded off.
"I said, who the fuck are you?" Tommy snapped.
The man cocked his head like a dog and studied him.
"Alright, mate.” he said with a low, rough voice, “And who the hell are you, then?"
"How did you get into my house?" Tommy asked. A calm settled over him, he felt his heart slow in his chest, his hands were steady at his side as the world went quiet and still as adrenaline took over.
The man’s expression went vague and absent, like he'd retreated deep into his own mind. He let out a hum, low and considering, but his attention elsewhere.
"Is there a dog around here? There should be a dog..." he trailed off thoughtfully and before Tommy's eyes, he disappeared.