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The next time Nancy Cochran comes face to face with Peaky business is when she opens the door to find John Shelby from three doors down offering two bob for her picture of the king.
"Where's your mum, little Nance?" He asks dismissively, looking into the corridor of her house to find the ornate frame he was looking for.
"She's finally gone to bed, John, taken her cough medicine and down for the count. What do you need?" She whispered in reply, her voice at home with the low volume for fear that her mother might wake up from the downstairs bedroom.
The toothpick in John's mouth falters slightly when his mind circles back to who he was talking to, and who he was talking about. Ruth Cochran had always been a sickly girl since she gave birth to Nancy almost fourteen years ago. Since her daughter was born, when she was but twenty years old, Ruth's spirit and health withered in and out of hospital doors for ages to come. Be it a small cough or the worst-case scenario of influenza, she somehow always ended up bed-ridden more than the average chain-smoker or frail elderly lady in Small Heath.
The man nodded and Nancy's eyes followed the flip-flop of his cap. John spun a florin between his fingers absentmindedly as he spoke, "You got your picture of the king up in your house, love?"
A nod. The florin was suddenly flicked into Nancy's wringing hands.
"You gimme' it or you come and burn it down the lane, that coin's all yours, yeah?" John smiled boyishly when he saw the girl's eyes light up at something as trivial as a coin. John Shelby never talked with Ruth and Nancy Cochran often, he didn't serve in the war with her father either, but almost everyone knew of Little Nancy's trip-ups and fumbles. Plus, the girl grew up in the Garrison, and so did he when he was her age ten years before, so he felt a sort of fondness towards the girl in a way.
Nancy placed her chin in her hand and paused, not for thought or anything, simply for childish, dramatic effect while John Shelby waited keenly on her doorstep. With an eventual eager nod, she ran back into the house and cautiously unhooked the picture from above the dining table (she'd thought the framed photo was a little much for her home anyways).
She'd found herself running up the street towards the bustling bundle of flames in the middle of Watery Lane. The lively ginger flames glowed brighter than the moon ever could; this night, the groggy Birmingham smog scuffled with the bonfire smoke so that the ever-burning pyre of King George's kept the street alight alongside the Blinder's jovial cheers.
Nancy's mary-janes slid dangerously against the cobbles, the split sole scuffed against one of the stones and almost sent her flying if it wasn't for a certain Shelby's knowing arm reaching out to push her backwards. Tommy chuckled discreetly against his cigarette, looking down at the girl's dishevelled look in her father's hand-me-down pyjamas and windblown hair rocking at her shoulders in the late night chill.
"Steady on, Nancy-girl. Watch your feet when you run, eh?" The man admonished not without a rough pat on the shoulder.
Nancy looked around the crowd and laughed at all the kids she recognised from school chucking their families' framed photos into the hungry hearth. She saw Isiah Jesus from the year above sneaking a couple issues of the newspaper into the flames, and Ethel Taylor from her class with her younger siblings gaping in awe at the orange warmth.
She looked down and saw that she was still fiddling with the mahogany frame in her hands, and took a couple enthusiastic steps forward towards the fire. Now, when she was a child and her parents had become aware of just how unlucky their daughter came to be, her father had written a list of rules (or safety precautions, as he'd referred to them) that he wrote in her lunchbox notes, hung on the front door, even got his wife to embroider onto the inside of her coat for whenever she forgot. These rules were simple:
Look both ways when crossing the road, and don't run.
When grabbing something from the top shelf, use both hands, and don't run with it.
Get your mother to fix your shoes when they break, and don't run in them.
For God's sake, stay away from fire, and don't run around it.
You'd think that this would grow into common sense once a girl turned at least ten, but Nancy Cochran was indeed a very clumsy little girl. And her weak impulse decision-making skills serves as one of the many, many, many reasons that she still has these rules stitched on the inside of her coat.
It's simply too bad she didn't think to wear her coat outside, or maybe she wouldn't have set herself alight in the span of about six seconds.
"Nancy!" She couldn't exactly tell who was calling her name, maybe because it was coming from many voices in every direction. She couldn't even feel the lick of the flames at first, since the warmth of the fire was so heavy everything just felt like a British heatwave. Then she looked to her right to see the horrified face of a man in a bowler hat that she swore looked a little bit like a sheep with glasses, and the concerned face of Tommy Shelby still yelling at her to get away from the fire now her picture was fully engulfed in the flames. As was the sleeve of her shirt.
"For fuck's sa- get away from the fire, Nance!"
When she looked down, her mouth gaped in realisation, Wide-eyed and credulously laughing in wonder, she whipped her head around to face Tommy again and waved her arm about, trying (and failing) to douse the flames.
"Oh my days, Tommy, rule number four!" She'd gasped, the idea of quite literally being on fire being nothing but an afterthought, which only worried Tommy further. How many times has this had to happen before?
Pleadingly, the man nodded, gesturing to Arthur without breaking his glance from the ignited girl before him, "Yes, yes, rule number four, now come away from the fire and let Arthur sort you out, eh?"
Nancy barely had time to reply, not that she had anything left to say with her thoughts left with the sudden epiphany that she was on fucking fire. She felt her sleeve being roughly swatted with a tweed coat, and her shoulder being aggressively pulled back by who she could only assume was Arthur Shelby.
"A fucking liability you are, aren't you Nancy-girl? What would your mother say if she saw you'd put a match to yourself again?" She'd heard the man's gruff Brummie accent grumble over the crackle of the flames that were thankfully no longer dancing about her sleeve.
Nancy rolled her eyes and sighed with her optimistic smile, "Was only one other time before this, don't make me sound like a human bloody torch..."
Are we yet to establish the fact that Nancy Cochran was a very clumsy girl?
