chapter eight. none so devotional as that of mother.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The house Tommy had bought Polly was absolutely grand, Nancy thought. Sitting on the golden fabric sofa, alone in the silence, she'd realised it was much grander than any house you'd ever seen in Small Heath. The village it was in felt safe, she'd personally gathered that sitting in the middle of the room in silence was more serene than stressful, like you didn't have to worry about a sudden crash, bang or gunshot across the street. It was simply tranquil.
Hung on the walls were baroque paintings with ornate brass frames, sitting on warm floral wallpaper. The furniture was decorated with glossed mahogany and flecks of yellow and gold about the four corners of the sitting room. It was very Polly, she'd thought, Tommy had a good eye out for his aunt.
She'd heard the door shut, and the brash voices of the Shelby brothers had knocked enough sense into her to sit up straight with a jolt. When Tommy steered Polly into the sitting room, Nancy's smile only widened; the older woman's feet were gingerly stepping through the room, like her heels were hurting the floorboards, and her eyes were utterly lost. To be honest, she looked like a stray cat who'd wandered her way into a royal palace, with the way her eyes twinkled in a reluctant way.
"Happy Birthday, Pol!" Nancy's nose scrunched affectionately when her eyes had met Polly's, the older woman bewilderedly gave her a smile back and turned back to Tommy.
"You said you were gonna buy Ada a house." She spoke, her feet taking her to the windowed walls.
Tommy followed close behind her, "Yup, that's right, I did. Just had a bit of cash left over."
"This is ours?"
"No, Polly, this is yours." Nancy watched Polly's dazed smile fall in a slight shock, the older woman's eyes immediately meeting hers with a means to extort an explanation out of the girl, who'd merely held her hands up in forfeit and looked down with a mischievous grin, "Because you deserve it."
The woman drifted about the room in the pregnant pause, "What would I do with all these rooms?"
Nancy and the boys snickered slightly at Polly's awe, while Tommy tilted his head in amusement, "Well, you could - uh - relax, for one; come here at weekends. It has a garden, eh? You love gardens, you could grow roses, Pol. I don't know, have a piano, you can have people 'round, they can have a singsong."
"God help the bloody neighbours-" John chuckled from the corner of the room.
"Fuck the neighbours," Arthur sauntered towards the coffee table and dropped the keys into Polly's hands, "Welcome home, Pol."
