Remembering Sunday
Thomas Shelby Drabble
No one could remember the last time they saw Thomas Shelby sober. It wasn’t unusual for a young man to loose his way in today’s world. With the beginning of the Great War, everything became harder for everyone. Families were losing their men to inscription leaving it up to the woman to go out and work, sometimes even with a child strapped to their side. It was certainly uncertain times. But the one true crime that shook the small street of Watery Lane only happened last Sunday.
Last Sunday was the beginning of the poor man’s troubles, since that night he wasn’t seen without a brown bottle of the local whiskey. He hasn’t been seen as the once respected young man that always had a smile on his face brushing off the war with a laugh. No, this was a young, broken man who hadn’t even seen the war. This was a broken man that pulled on the heart strings of the locals who wanted nothing more than to take his pain away.
Stumbling his way down the cobble street, he almost fell out onto the road and into a large puddle that had formed. It had been raining for days on end, not once has it let up. Straightening himself up, he walked towards the first door on Watery Lane, doing his best to fixed his non-existent tie and brushing off lint on his torn waistcoat. His ice cold hand raising in a fist to knock at the large wooden door before running it through his hair as the door opened revealing Mrs Blackwell.
“Forgive me I’m trying to find my calling, my calling at night” Thomas slurred his words as he tried to communicate his urgent need to find the one he called his beloved. It been days since he last saw her and he couldn’t understand why, they were inseparable always by each other’s side, until now. “I don’t mean to be a bother but have you seen this girl? She’s been running through my dreams and it’s driving me crazy it seems. I’m going to ask her to marry me” He gave the older lady a lazy smile as he held up the picture of her.
The image was a haunting reminder to everyone living in Small Heath, Watery lane in particular of the events that occurred not that long ago. She was a lovely girl, quiet. Her hair was always flowing, glowing blonde like the sunshine. Her bright blue eyes were a fierce competition with the young man wandering the streets. Two beautiful young souls with a bright future ahead of them.
“I’m sorry young Thomas but she moved away.” Mrs Blackwell told the young man, a sad smile on her face as she picked up on his disappointment. The older woman wanted nothing more than to take the young man in her arms, take away the pain he was feeling but she couldn’t. His aunt had warned them all to let him grieve in his own way.
“She doesn’t believe in love but I’m determined…I’m gonna call her bluff. I know she feels these butterflies that fill my gut” Thomas told Mrs Blackwell before going to the next house, banging on the door until Mrs Rodgers answered the door, pulling her night coat closer around her body. Stepping into the street she looked to her left noticing Mrs Blackwell standing on her front door step, the same sympathetic look on her face from the previous evening.
“Funny how it rained all day, I didn’t think much of it then but it’s starting to all make sense” Thomas nodded his head not talking to anyone but the cogs in his mind where beginning to piece together that he may never find her. “I can see now that all of these clouds are following me in my desperate endeavour to find my whoever, wherever she may be”
Nodding their heads at the young men, the two ladies left the man’s aunt to deal with him, noticing her coming from the Garrison pub not too far from them. A pained expression on her face as she wrapped a warm blanket around Thomas’s shoulders to help warm him up on the cold rainy night.
“She’s not coming back, her father has done something so terrible. She is over you now, she is at home in the clouds.” Polly assured him for what she prayed would be the last time but she was never certain. This would be the third time this week the neighbours boy called round to the Garrison telling her that Thomas was banging on the neighbours doors looking for his beloved again.
“Well I guess I’ll go home now” Thomas mumbled finished the amber liquid that lay in the bottom of the brown bottle “I guess I’ll go home”
