TheBatHatter

May 2020

The warm night had invited them both outside. London was still silent, or almost silent.

Accompanying the sound of a passing car and the music coming from a flat nearby were their voices. Rose and Alfie, the only two people living in a temporary empty inn.

They are both on the terrace by the pool. They've known each other for two months and there's an attraction between the two of them that's getting harder and harder to pretend doesn't exist.

Neither he nor she knows it, but this is the last night they will be single. In less than 24 hours, Alfie and Rose will put aside whatever is holding them back from letting their feelings talk and make room for each other in their lives. For ever. But oblivious, the two simply chat about life, memories and some old love.

She is sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs in the water. Alfie listens to her talk and looks at her too. Only he, knows when he felt something similar with someone and he's not so sure if it was ever like that either. Clearly it was important, but not like this.

About a fortnight ago they both started having dreams of themselves, but without being themselves. It's more like a sort of window into past lives. Because if there's one thing Alfie is sure of, it's that what they perceive as dreams really happened. And she believes it, too. Not long ago, a nightmare of hers led her straight into his arms. Alfie still remembers that feeling of holding her against him. And how she fell asleep next to him.

He still looks at her. It's a fact that Alfie Solomons is in love and he knows it.

"My brother suggested I learn self-defence," she says, "if the bastard decides to follow me, then I might have something that Lawrence doesn't know about."

"Did you?"

"Nah. I didn't have time and besides I can't go anywhere incognito. I've got him on my back, day and night. And the complaint falls into a bottomless pit because his mother with checks fixes everything."

"I'm looking forward to meeting that guy," he says "and the next time his mother has to write a cheque, it'll be to the dentist."

Rose can't help but laugh, "Amen."

There he is, lying by the pool, his head facing her. Everything about him likes her, but it's more than that. Rose doesn't know when she ever felt safe with anyone the way she does with Alfie. Lawrence Evert only makes her hyper vigilant day and night and her stress levels are always high. But since she arrived there, and with each passing day, that life seems distant. There is no place safer, for her, than near Alfie's presence.

"Will you ever live in New York again?" he asks.

'If you ask me to, I'll stay here', she thinks. But she says otherwise:

"Eventually..."

'I hope not,' he thinks. But he doesn't say it.

"Only my family lives there and a few friends, for them I'd go back. But London is where I was born and now after two months back here, I'm clearly getting back the attachment I had when we moved. I didn't expect to stay so long for that to happen," Rose swishes her legs in the water, "and certainly the stay here helped with that." She looks up at him and smiles at him, leaning her head on one of her shoulders. The expression on her face, makes him smile too, "Thanks for complicating my plans, Alfie."

"You're not the first to say that to me, love. My ex said it to me often. Sometimes it was true."

Rose looks at him and feels a twinge inside her stomach that she quickly recognises as jealousy. Like her, Alfie is 32 and it's stupid to think he's never met or been with anyone before. It's also stupid because Alfie and her, they never shared anything except a few hugs. Or that night when the nightmares were so bad she had to sleep next to him. But beyond that, nothing ever happened. The mention of the word ex, however, she hadn't expected.

"Who was she?" Rose is encouraged to ask and Alfie's face shows a grimace that she can't quite decipher.

"It's not a she," Alfie says, "it's a he."

Shit.

Rose stares at him for a moment trying to process what she's just heard. First she didn't expect him to mention his ex and now she didn't expect that ex to be a man.

"...Oh."

"I'm not gay, if that's what you're thinking."

"No. I definitely know you're not gay," she tells him. "I'm just surprised, that's all. Are you bisexual?"

"Pan."

Alfie doesn't expect any negative reaction from her, but he still keeps looking at her. The woman just nods. Alfie knows, and is convinced, that it was necessary for him to say it now before anything happens between them. If anything does happen between them... but at least he was honest with who he really is.

"The first one I've met," she says in reference to his sexuality, "what happened to him?"

"His name is Thomas. Tommy."

That name came up several times in conversation in those months. The first time she heard it was when Arthur showed up to pick up the pregnant girl named Dorothy, who had appeared at the inn's door. Then in some phone calls he had received. And Rose wondered whether it was the same man or not.

"Arthur's brother?" she perks up to ask. And Alfie nods.

"Yes." he looks up at the sky again from the position where he's lying "Arthur was never very keen on me being part of the family. Let's just say we've had a few... run-ins in the past. It was never because we were two men, but because I was me."

"I can't imagine you being the kind of person to care what a third party says, Alfie. So what happened?"

"It didn't work out. When I did the gambling website, I needed an investor with low morals and that was Tommy. We were friends, but I guess there was always something else. After the site started turning a profit I paid him back and we remained partners, still are. One afternoon, four years ago, one thing led to another and... well, it happened. That day I discovered that it's very hard to say no to Thomas Shelby. And last year," Alfie sighs, "around November, I found out he was having sex with someone else."

"Oh shit... I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I knew about it and it would be very stupid of me to believe he didn't do it before that. Tommy can't control his dick. It's his way of trying to get something out of people and it works for him, because like I said it's very hard to say no to him."

"But you loved him! You clearly did. Why did he do that?"

"I'm a complicated guy, Rosie. I'm not a saint, definitely not and things hadn't been working out for a while."

"But that doesn't justify anything!"

Rose is dying to ask how anyone could be lucky enough to be with Alfie and still ruin everything by cheating on him. How. Why.

"It's what happened and it happened months ago now. It doesn't matter anymore. We're still partners and I know I can count on him if anything happens. But no more than that. Not anymore."

"He broke your trust in people..." what she says is a statement.

"I never trusted people much, sweetheart. It's no big deal."

"But it is. Alfie, no one should be cheated by the person they love."

"But it happens. I hope it didn't happen to you, though."

Rose smiles again. But it's a smile full of disappointment. "Well..." she pulls her feet out of the pool and crosses her legs looking in his direction. "It happened to me. But it's different because I wasn't in love, even though I thought I was. He was a jerk and she was his best friend who pretended to be my friend, too, the months I dated him. So I cared little and nothing. When you're not in love, everything is easier. It hurts, but it's better tolerated and then you give a shit."

Alfie, ever thoughtful, listens to her words, "How did you know you didn't love him?"

"Because I knew. Because I never felt that feeling you get when you see someone you miss, when you daydream about someone, when you see them and involuntarily a smile appears on your face... that? Nah, that didn't happen to me until...

Until I came here.

Until I saw you.

Until you came into my life.

...Until years later," she says, finally.

"When?" His pupils are dilated by the darkness of the night, barely letting his blue eyes show but Rose feels the intensity of his gaze on her.

"Does it matter when? It's more important that it finally happened."

"And did he or does he reciprocate that feeling?"

Alfie won't let the subject go and she doesn't have much room to escape. When he stands up, leaving his place by the pool and sits down beside her, there is even less space. They are alone in a building with more than 60 bedrooms and yet she feels like she is in a broom closet. She can't take her eyes off him.

"...Maybe," she replies.

"I think so, too."

Alfie Solomons is a man of many words. Alfie likes to talk and does it all the time. Even when he's alone, when only his dog can hear him. But he also knows when to shut up. Sometimes. Like now that he's leaning towards her. Thomas was important to him and he has long since made peace with himself and forgiven the infidelity. It did him good mentally to let that betrayal go. Although he swore to himself never to fall for that thing called love again.

How short that promise had last.

Alfie strokes her cheek with his thumb and watches her close her eyes. It's definitely going to happen.

The first time he kissed Tommy crosses his mind. It had been in a bar after he, Alfie, had won his first large sum of money. They'd gone out to celebrate, as friends supposedly, but it had ended in kisses and Tommy's bed.

He needs to let his ex go if he wants to start over with a new person. He can't be thinking about him when he's about to kiss her.

Rose strokes his beard and then his hair as he buries his head between her shoulder and neck. Alfie kisses that spot and one of his hands slips under her shirt, caressing her sides.

They've never been this close before.

But they still don't kiss.

When she lies completely flat on the floor and he lies on top of her, the closeness between them is intoxicating.

Had it been like that with Tommy? Alfie doesn't think so.

He has to stop thinking about him.

It's not a proper kiss. But it is she who moves her head to meet his face and rests her lips barely on his.

"I like you, Al. Very much."

Alfie is about to reply when his phone begins to vibrate.

"Not now..." he whispers. "Who the hell is calling at this hour?"

It's Arthur Shelby, the screen indicates.

"What the fuck do you want?" not the best way to take a call, but the only one that crosses his mind. Arthur couldn't care less. If he's calling, it's because he has no choice. Alfie, against his will, rises from on top of Rose and she sits up too. Her mind is still living what happened.

Or what could have happened.

"When?" she hears Alfie asking Arthur.

Resting her head on his shoulder, she listens to the voice on the other end of the phone but fails to make out what the elder Shelby is saying. She's not paying attention either.

She had told him she liked him. Rose had finally told him, but she hadn't gotten an answer because the call had interrupted the moment. Rose didn't know what he would say. She doesn't know if it's reciprocated or not. And the negative thoughts start to invade her head in such a way that she needs to get away from him.

Maybe she shouldn't have said anything.

In fact, she shouldn't have said anything at all, she thinks.

Alfie sees her get up from beside him, leave the terrace and go down the stairs leading to the third floor of his inn. Arthur keeps talking but he interrupts him.

"Just let me know, yeah? Give her a hug for me. Everything's going to be fine." Alfie cuts off the call and goes after her.

"Rosie?"

His voice echoes through the empty corridors, unanswered. When he gets down to the second floor, he sees her leaning out of one of the windows looking out over the city.

"Rosie... it was Arthur. He and Rat had to rush Dottie to the hospital because she started having contractions. But they won't let anyone but the patient in because it's all clogged up with the virus. But according to him, she's in a monitored ward and there's no news about the baby yet. He said he and Rat are going to stay outside the hospital waiting to see if the baby is born or if it's just a false alarm."

"I didn't know Dottie was due now."

"No one. But apparently the baby has other intentions. Anyway, she's fine."

"I'm glad to hear that," Rose replies sincerely.

Alfie notices how she barely looks at him. Her head turns again to the view out that window.

"Love... what happened..."

"No, it's alright, Al. I didn't mean it...it's just...nothing." Rose turns to the opposite side of where he is and heads for the staircase that leads to the first floor and eventually the ground floor "I was going to the kitchen, do you want a cup of coffee?"

"No. But I do want you to listen to me. If Arthur fucking Shelby hadn't interrupted, what do you think my response to what you said would have been?"

The atmosphere created around them on the terrace by the pool no longer exists. That sense of the two of us being the only inhabitants of this world had vanished. So Rose isn't sure if she wants to hear what's next.

"The last time I heard someone say they liked me it ended like shit, Rosie."

"I understand. Forgive me, Al. Maybe it was too much, especially if you were just looking for a good time."

"A good time? What are you talking about? You'd never be just a fuck and go for me," Alfie puts a finger under her chin and lifts her face to him "My answer is that I like you a lot too, Rosie. When you walked through the door of this place two months ago everything I had promised myself evaporated in that moment. I fucking like you. And I don't want to fuck it up with you"

Her reaction is to jump up and cling to his neck, wrapping her arms around him. Alfie puts his arms around her waist and holds her against him.

"How could you fuck it up?" she whispers in his ear.

"In so many ways..."

She's not going to tell him she's in love with him. Not yet. But she knows that. Instead she clings even tighter to his body. Alfie holds her so tight against him that now her feet are now in the air.

"I don't know if I can fill the space your ex left, Al. I'm not him."

"No. You're not. And you don't have any expectations to live up to either, love."

The atmosphere between them changes again. Not like on the terrace, but there's something different. Alfie sets her back down on the floor and finally the embrace breaks.

"I need tonight for myself," he says, looking at her lovingly, "just tonight. I have to do something."

"It's okay, Al. I don't need any explanations as long as you're okay."

"I am."

.

Cyril watches him come and go in that flat where he lives above his Inn. Alfie finally finds a cardboard box and rests it on the table. Along with old papers, some notes and notebooks, there is a photo. The last one he has left that for some reason he had kept.

Alfie looks at the photo. There he is, three years ago with Tommy. It was at his sister's wedding and he can see the two of them looking at each other. He can't hate him even though he should. He doesn't feel hate, but he doesn't feel love either. Nor is it indifference. It feels like watching a film starring someone other than himself. Like a distant dream.

The kitchen fire is lit and there he props up the photograph until only ashes remain.

"Goodbye, Tom," he says.

There is a sense of freedom that finally takes hold of him. That sense of freedom, it does feel real.

A message arrives at that moment. Before he looks at the screen he thinks it's Arthur or maybe his friend Rat, with news about Dottie. But it's not.

A new message from Rose.

"You're pan-tastic. Sweet dreams."*

Alfie laughs and can't help thinking that the next day will be different. But when Cyril looks at him, something in him changes. He wants to know what the animal wants to tell him. Of course he doesn't know, but he senses it.

"Fuck it," he says before leaving his flat and walking to room 44 where she is. Alfie knocks on the door.

It's clear from her expression when she opens it that she doesn't expect to see him there.

"That coffee you invited me for is still on?" he asks and the smile that appears on her face is the only answer Alfie needs.

The clock in the hallway of the inn reads 2am. Nothing is happening between them yet.

Tick tock. Says the clock.

Every minute that pass, the closest they are.