“So?” Freddie said, eyes assessing, as he put his phone down beside him. “How are you?” He smirked. “How are you finding life on the other side of the tracks?”
“Good,” I said, and meant it. “Believe it or not, I feel more at home in this converted church than I ever did in Chelsea.”
Freddie nodded. “I do know.” I knew Freddie had lived here for years. His dad had died quite a few years back. I didn’t know the details, but I knew he was practically Arthur’s brother.
“You’ve lived here a while,” I said, half statement, half question.
“Yeah,” Freddie said, staring down at his martini. “Arthur told you what happened with my old man?”
“Not really.”
Freddie smiled, and its warmth made me mirror it. He was clearly thinking of his father. He loved him. He hadn’t even spoken about him, yet his face told me this without words.
“He was a proper geezer,” Freddie said. “A talker, unlike me. A fucking hard grafter. And a loyal general by Alfie’s side.” He took a sip of his martini. “He was an adopted cockney. Born in South London, but moved to Bethnal Green when he was a teenager. Fell into working with Alfie when I was a kid. Alfie liked him. My dad got shit done, no questions, and Alfie respected that.”
“Sounds like a great man.”
Freddie met my eyes. “He was.”
“What happened?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t overstepped the mark.
“A deal gone wrong.” The warmth he’d been exuding faded to an Arctic chill. “There was a rat in the firm, one of the soldiers. Sold us out to a rival. There was a set-up, a deal that had been infiltrated. There was a shoot-out, and my old man was the one who paid the price.”
“I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
“I’m sorry, Freddie.” I reached forward and squeezed his hand. He stared at the hand, then finished his drink when I pulled away.
“Moved in with Alfie that night. Been here ever since.”
“He’s like your dad too.”
Pain or something similar flashed in his eyes. “Yeah.”
“Arthur believes he’ll wake up,” I said, knowing that Freddie’s pain was born from Alfie’s coma. Arthur never once visited his dad in his room. He checked in with his personal nurse several times a day, but never visited him. Never spoke to him or held his hand.
“He has to,” Freddie said, gravel in his voice. “He has to wake up.” Freddie got up and went to the bar. My heart broke for him. To lose another father … My stomach turned. I knew what it was like to lose people you loved. It felt like a weight constantly on your back. It made you breathless when it became too much. Too heavy on some days to even move.
The padlocked emotions I kept caged away inside me rattled. I held my breath and pushed back the grief I had fought so hard not to feel. I wasn’t ready to unleash it. I saw Arthur watching me sometimes, closely, as if he was expecting me to break at any moment. But I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. After everything that happened to them all … I wasn’t sure I would ever recover if the iron of the cage doors holding those emotions back were ever to buckle and set them free.
I embraced the now-familiar numbness of evasion and breathed. Freddie was making another martini, I looked at him and swore I felt his weight too. I felt that maybe he too had a padlocked cage of his own.
“You lost your mum too?” I asked.
Freddie’s shoulders tensed, but he nodded and turned to me. He hesitated a second, then said, “I was only little when she died. It was just me and my old man until he went too. We were thick as thieves. He was my best mate. He was everything to me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I had no idea how I could make such loss better. Pain like a dagger sliced through my heart. I was the same. I had lost everyone too. So had Arthur. This was why he and Freddie were so close. They had both taken tremendous losses.
They truly were brothers in every way but blood.
“Well, this is a fucking sad excuse for a party,” Charlie said from the doorway. Betsy was linking his arm, smiling at her brother’s quip. “Want to talk about how my mum dumped us as babies and ran off with her psychiatrist? Then we can really have a bloody ball.” Charlie rolled his eyes and walked further into the room. He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek, as did Betsy.
“We were waiting for you all to arrive, you prick,” Freddie said and winked at me.
“So you talk about death? Way to cast a dark cloud in the room.”
“That’s okay, Chuck,” Freddie said. “You brighten any room.”