Bang, Bang. My Baby Shot Me Down

Against his better judgement, Patrick said: "Does money have much to do with it? Surely, melancholia is ancient concept enough as to transgress such divides." But he wasn't Emerson, and this brief spirit of conversation sagged in his sails.

Sighing, Patrick put his hands in his trouser pockets and led them across the conservatory towards the hall. Chatter from the guests filtered through the palm fronds in a warm stream.

"You're probably right," Patrick continued, acknowledging Mister Lombard with a brief glance. "And I'm sorry again to... drag you into all of this. It's hardly polite of me, and I daresay it's rather boring for you. Still... Thank you. For my sake I hope we're having another roast, if only to thank you for, well, listening."

She smiled and cocked her head to the side. Appearances needed to be kept up.

"Indeed gin is very excellent... ah, I do not know who you are so I do not know how to address you, my apologies. And... what is this Eighteenth Amendment you speak of? It sounds important yet strange." She said curiosity in her orbs as she gazed at him.

It would have been tacky to bring up his credentials. He knew the British were big on tact because their country was a long way away by boat, and he had to amuse himself with newspapers while Maud had been taking naps or sightseeing on the deck.

"It's not a trap!" Maud almost burst into another deep sob, but managed to swallow it. Her throat ached it was so swollen. She searched Felix's disappointed expression and her heart felt as if it would burst.

"I'm not tricking you, Felix! I wouldn't! I only... Sometimes, I feel so alone. Can't you see that? When you laugh at me... I want you to understand, baby, that I need you not to laugh. I need you to understand me."

Maud pressed her palms to her eyes and sobbed once, indulgently. It felt good; crying always felt good. But this felt different. Felix looked so very far away. He looked, for the first time, truly, actually, unhappy.

Resentful. Regretful.

Maud launched herself at Felix and wrapped her arms around his neck. She buried her face into his shoulder and began to cry in earnest.

"Jesus," he whispered, the expletive sounding as stricken as he felt. He stroked the back of her hair, scarf and all, planting a kiss right above her left ear. "I'm sorry, Jesus, Dora, I'm so sorry. I'm not angry. Look at me. Of course I'm not. I didn't mean to laugh, you know?"

Had he meant what he'd said? Some of it for sure. The bad parts and the secret parts had tangled up together and he could no longer separate what were his worst fears and what was simply a thorn to be plucked out and cast aside. He kissed her again, his lips hot and feverish against her temple. Him and his temper, brothers that needed their cord cut because there couldn't be three in his marriage. Him and Maud, that was all they needed.

When: June 22nd, 1923

Location: Montmere House

A red feather in her hair, her outfit was flashy but not formal... it was extravagant party wear... surely tonight would be the night she would possibly snag a suitor.

Gin flowing through her system, an air of excitement and mischief surrounding her, she took a nibble from a nearby honeyed cheese plate before speaking to a guest near her.

Felix was the kind of party guest who hid behind the band and knew where to go to refill his wife's glass. He wasn't the kind of guest people remembered to check up on, which was the kind of graciousness that a country estate and earldom probably bred.

(Yes, he had looked it up. Yes, it was in anticipation of running into his hostess's uncle. Yes, you could sue him.)

"Yes. Yes, of course." Was that why he was tired? Because he was busy playing host?

That wasn't it. Whatever Patrick was feeling - this soupy, unfamiliar self-pity - it had little to do with the innumerable people who had descended upon his home, and almost everything to do with the uncomfortable sensation that he was an unserious person. Mister Lombard was so very kind (for an American); and Patrick had been around enough men in his life to recognise the man's discomfort. Still, he pushed on for Patrick's sake, and wasn't that admirable?

It was inappropriate of Patrick to wallow so. Mister Lombard was a guest. He really needed to pull himself together.

"Oh dear," he remarked, smiling wryly, "I daresay I've trapped you into feeling sorry for me. Please don't. This too shall pass, isn't that what we all used to say during the war?" He stubbed out his cigarette and motioned for Mister Lombard to continue towards the door.

The predicament had so rapidly gotten out of hand he didn't know where either of them stood. Felix wasn't especially worried anymore that this would boomerang on Maud, but he was starting to think that all wasn't right with Ryland either. He wasn't sure if this was the kind of moroseness that came with drink or from existential dread (this was, in fact, exactly something Maud would know from having worked in this loony bin) but it unsettled him either way.

Patrick stared at Mister Lombard. He hadn't known his face had fallen so much. What company did he keep to think that he could slink away, unhassled? Ordinarily, people weren't too fussed about how Patrick felt. They enjoyed his happy company and left it at that. Even when he grew quieter, and they bolder, confiding secrets and stifling laughter, Patrick felt merely felt hollow. What always felt like a private thrill always gave way to emptiness. What was he, but a mirror for others to enjoy their own reflection?

To see Mister Lombard's expression creased with worry made his stomach twist. At once he was assaulted by guilt. He was the host. He had no right to make Mister Lombard feel anything but joy in his company.

"Do excuse me," Patrick managed, summoning his most pleasant expression. "I feel... Well, I... I feel an awful lot, you see, and I'm... well, I'm concerned that you think me a terrible monster."

He smiled weakly. "Silly, I know. Only, I do feel wretched that I couldn't remember your wife's name. And now I fear you think I'm some sort of ancient English oligarch fit only to crush baby's bones, or something."

It was uncomfortable, sure, to have this great, whacking Limey tower over him, but Felix was also aware how deep he’d already dug his own grave.

You fucked me in the first place.

Righteous fury colluded in her belly as she drew herself up. Maud did not hide the sheer disgust in her expression as she took in her so-called husband: sprawling on the grass, sticky with sweat, dark hair flopping rakishly over one eye. Their relationship was characterised by doubt, but Maud hadn't doubted Felix since they were in New Mexico and she'd lost her head when he'd glanced at that sodding waitress. But now, but now...

"Don't you ever speak to me like that," Maud snarled, "like I'm some floozy who crawled into your bed! I handed you my heart, knowing that what I did was wrong! That if anyone found out, I'd be cast out like a common whore. You of all people know that I don't trust anyone except you. Stupid bloody little girl! Some fool am I!"

Maud's voice rang in the air, and she belatedly realised she'd been screaming. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, anger's wings beating within her.

"If you don't love me," Maud continued, words trembling with her force of her emotion, "tell me now, you fucking idiot man, and I'll get on the next ship to Belfast, or so watch me. I'm not here for fun. I'm here because I'm your wife, because I love you."

Maud wiped her eyes roughly, dragging fingers over the gentle skin, smearing her makeup. She gasped.

“Don’t make me out to be the villain,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s just a cheap shot. You know I love you. I know you love me.” And it didn’t fix the slow, cold creep of anger in his belly at the first sight of tears. They were so far past that now, the way she was crying like her heart would burst out of her chest and she’d run out of air.

Patrick hid his expression in a pull of his cigarette. He eyed Mister Lombard warily, as if the American were about to start a character assassination.

"I'm afraid I don't do the stiff upper lip very well," Patrick admitted quietly, smoke trailing from his nose as he ashed his cigarette. He suddenly felt awfully uncomfortable. The lightheartedness from moments before seemed an echo.

"I am, um, by definition sincere, I'm afraid." Try as he did, he could not inject the humour back into his voice. Patrick sipped his drink and summoned strength. He was not a boy, afraid of being laughed at; yet was the world so bitter and cynical as to find his sincerity a ploy? He saw, suddenly, what Mister Lombard must: a silly, unserious man, too daft to comprehend anything of the world beyond the comfortable pastures of Montmere.

He was wrong. Wasn't he?

The gong echoed from the main hall. Glad for a distraction, Patrick put his mojito down with a clunk and flashed Mister Lombard a smile.

Felix had been guests of too many people, gone in and out of too many big houses like a transient. Yet, these things of theirs never got old to him. The rich lived in worlds of their own, their physical environments as peculiar to them and alien to him as a jungle.

He got to his feet, putting down his drink just because Ryland had as well. The next

move would have been to shuffle off to stuff themselves, but Felix put a hesitating hand on his host’s jacket. “You look, uh, unhappy. Pardon my saying so, sir, but I would have said two minutes ago, you were happy. If it’s something I said—“

Don’t let him take it out on Dora—

"I do," Phoebe answers, softly. She hadn't seen many people out here before, actually - it was mostly just her, and sometimes the children who toddled along after her. She sits next to him, one of the house's guests that's childless, and nods along with the musing.

When people spoke like this it made Patrick feel uneasy. He, who wore his heart on his sleeve and felt thoroughly out of depth when words became weapons. It was why Edwin discomforted him so.

Eventually, Patrick managed: "I didn't realise I offended you. I except another apology wouldn't help." He frowned at his mojito, then considered Mister Lombard.

"If I may... offer an explanation? I've lived here almost my whole life. Montmere is, well, my past, present, and future. I'm afraid I'll never leave." A flicker of a smile, though its sadness surprised him. "Um. Anyway, once the title passes to me it will be my responsibility. It offends me," Patrick continued honestly, "to think that I had not known who your wife was. That's not right. I should have. I'm trying to... I want to be better, you see. I want to be a good landowner. But there's obviously a lot I still need to learn."

Patrick shot Mister Lombard another small smile, then put his mojito down on a nearby table. He dragged on his cigarette. When he looked back at Mister Lombard, his smile cringed.

"I'm also terribly sincere," he joked, "as you can tell. I don't expect you to get all emotional with me. I'm rather an outlier among men in that respect."

And like it was removing a valve, Felix started to laugh. Carrying two precarious mojito glasses and a small flammable object, he threw back his head and just laughed.

“I’m not—” he protested when the stitch in his side would let him, “laughing at you—I swear—it’s just... just you English, I guess.” The first sip of his second drink went straight to his head, and he feared the gales would sweep him off his feet again. “I was expecting more of the stiff upper lip than this…”

He gestured inadequately between them, careful not to trail cigarette ash everywhere.

Were women like her not allowed to be normal? Was she only denigrated to 'a fun time'? Truthfully, Maud didn't know what she'd do with a baby if she had one, and her vision of housekeeping included hiring a maid seven days a week. But it would be her baby, her house. Her own slice of normal that wouldn't go wanting for anything. Her normal wouldn't go to bed hungry or wonder if her Pa would come home safe from the factory. Her normal was with Felix somewhere hot and exotic, bouncing a baby on her knee and feeling so irresistably free and happy and-

Maud sat up abruptly, her eyesight swimming with tears. She pointed her face away from Felix, towards the lake, and she swallowed repeatedly against the lump that threatened to strangle her.

Normal you could have had if you stayed in the kitchen.

Outrage came upon her like a summer storm. Maud whipped around to face him, and for one terrible moment, she thought she would strike him.

He flung an arm over his eyes, almost as if that would block out the sight of her like this. Mean, punishing, picking a fight like it was his job to hold her hand and kiss it better every. Single. Fucking. Time.

"Did I say Flip? I meant Flop." But there wasn't the usual heat; whatever brimmed between them, it was enough to keep the dogs at bay. She imagined petting them as they wound around their legs, snuffling for scraps. Felix always knew how to diffuse his little bomb.

Maud lay back down on the grass and gazed up at the man she loved.

"I'm not sure I want to be Guy Fawkes this time," she admitted, her voice low and vulnerable. "That's why I love travelin' so much. No one knows who we are. When they look at me they don't see a maid. They see some - some glamorous woman with an absolute dish on her arm." Maud reached up and trailed fingers along his jaw, her affectionate smile fading.

The pleasant weight of Maud across his stomach suddenly felt heavy as a load. Who was going to be paying for the house, he wondered. Or keeping it from falling around their ears. Would she ever be happy to just stay indoors, cook three meals a day while he went around the globe? Or was he supposed to retire the pistols and stay home with her—or worse, work for a living the way their parents had?

His parents, at least, had given up everything so that he wouldn’t have to. Hers, well. No secret how he and Maud had met.