Self-Pity by D.H. Lawrence

I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Arthur Shelby pinched a cigarette to his lips and brought a match up to it with cold, shaky hands. It was an especially cold November day but there were no trees in Birmingham to indicate that fall was coming to an end. There had been no trees left during the Somme either, but Arthur remembered the moment no bright wildflowers on dewy tufts of grass were left unadulterated by the machines of war. He recalled the summer clovers, mayweeds, and cornflowers. But only faintly. He waved these thoughts off, walking towards the Garrison with even longer strides. Unlike his time at the Somme, Arthur could find a warm place to sit when it got too cold.

Arriving at the Garrison from behind, Arthur glanced over to the alleyway as a woman was approached by two burly men. Her back was flush against the damp brick and a large grin plastered across the faces of both men. Aye, Lizzie Stark was bound to have some competition, Arthur thought with a chuckle. He hurried into the Garrison to spend the last of the daylight hours getting a fill of his poison of choice.

It was well past 10 when Arthur finally stumbled out into the back alleyway, unzipping his pants to relieve himself, mind blurred from whiskey. He barely noticed the woman huddled on the cold cobblestone. She tilted her head up to him through a blackened eye; her olive skin blue and purple with bruises.

Parting her spilt, swollen lips, she softly called to him, "Arthur?"

Through his hazy state, and a hand still poised at his zipper, Arthur hazily threw his gaze down to her face. A million faces flew through his mind, all different kinds of beautiful women he had the chance of sharing a bed with. But he couldn't see past the scratches that peppered her face. The woman could clearly see the cogs turning in his brain and, with a heavy sigh, she swallowed the painful lump starting in her throat and said her name.

"Sorcha."

A light went off behind Arthur's eyes at the mention of her name. Yes, he could see now. Despite his drunken state he could make out the green in her eyes and the soft curves of her face. He took her iodine calloused hands in his and pulled her up to her feet. Sorcha gasped in pain, bracing herself against the alley and that's when Arthur began to sober.

"They - they hurt you?" He stumbled over the words, thinking back on the men he had seen earlier with shit-eating grins.

Sorcha held her stomach tight as if her guts would spill out the moment she loosened her grip. She had seen it happen to men during the Somme - browned intestines emerging from the cavity in their stomachs. As a VAD nurse, she knew better then to gag and sob at the sight of them then. She swallowed hard again and nodded to him. Arthur snaked his arm around her waist, daring whatever gods may be to keep him steady on both feet for this woman.

I'll kill 'em, he thought, I'll kill the fuckers who did this. He didn't need any gods as a witness to make that promise true.

Groping his way through the alleys, Arthur stumbled up to his personal apartment with Sorcha tight against his side. He had purchased the flat for very little cost to serve as home base for his Small Heath sexual escapades. There were no muddy canal trists or stagnant lakeside paramours for Arthur Shelby. The flat was his one luxury far apart from his family. It was a small space. A bed was adjusted in one corner, a table beside it, a bathtub tucked in another corner, and a stove with shelves arranged above.

Arthur gently sat her down at the edge of the bed. He nearly tripped over himself to fill the tin bathtub with water. It was a long business heating enough water on the stove to fill the tub but he was determined to do this for her. Sorcha had spent months with him in France during the war. She mended his wounds and visited him when he was above-ground, huddled together in the trenches before he had to arrange explosives under enemy trenches. She had been with him when the German Maxim's blew through sandbags and sent thousands of soldiers to their death with pointed mercilessness.

Very little was said between them, perhaps on account of Arthur still working himself down from his inebriated state. He did glance back at her often finally regretting not stopping the men before he went to Garrisons. Sorcha hadn't moved an inch from where he sat her down. Her eyes were glazed over and set on the shelf above his head.

"Okay, love," Arthur emptied the last pot of warm water into the tub and reached a hand out to her, "let's get you out of these clothes, eh?"

Sorcha nodded absently, pulling at the blouse tucked into her mud-caked skirt. Arthur helped unbutton her skirt and remove her clothes. There were large bruises on her legs, arms, and chest. Her body trembled under his touch but she turned to look at him.

"It's been five years," Sorcha softly began. "I just wanted to see you."

Arthur placed his hand on her cheek and used his thumb to brush the tear that fell from her eyes. His heart broke at the sight of her because she had been the strong one. In the trenches, in the tents serving as makeshift hospitals, in the little hours of the dark mornings. She was the strong one.

He helped her step into the tub, talking over his shoulder as he searched on the shelf for a bar of soap. "It's funny, ain't it? Me taking care of you now?" Arthur unwrapped the brown paper covering the Palmolive soap bar and sat beside the tub, quietly looking into Sorcha's eyes. "I've thought about you many times...and how you were." Arthur paused to focus on her very still face. "Sorcha?"

"I've," the black-haired woman started very deliberately, shyly tilting her head to catch Arthur's eyes, "I went back home. Back to Ballycloghduff after the armistice. But da and my brothers didn't come back. And me ma died from the grief, and I was alone."

As she spoke, Arthur gently rubbed soap on her skin, washing off the dirt and cleansing the sensation of those men's foreign fingers from her body. I'm going to burn 'em alive. Aye, that's what I'll do. Nobody fucks with her. She's my girl. Under my protection. Mine.

Sorcha continued, "All these years, I didn't think you wanted to see me. I was afraid you'd remember all the bad things again."

"I haven't forgotten any of it. The smell, the sounds, the shovels, the cold." Arthur's hands stopped scrubbing and he shook his head, lost in another haze. "You're the one good thing. When I came up from those tunnels, I needed to see you...Didn't need water or rations. Just needed you. My bright little bird."

Arthur had to crawl under the bed to fish out a silk slip belonging to one of his many conquests. It had been clumsily discarded, no doubt in the heat of the moment. Though it was no nightgown nor an article of clothing a proper lass from Ballycloghduff would wear, it was clean and it was all he had for her to wear. Sorcha slipped into his bed and Arthur pulled the covers up to her shoulders. He dimmed the gas lit lamp, folded his coat into a pillow, and laid on the floor beside where his little bird drifted into sleep.

Arthur Shelby surprised himself that night. Not once did a rankle of lust form in his mind when he undressed and bathed her. Perhaps he was too filled with anger, with vengeance. Perhaps it was long lost love. After a moment of deep evaluation, he pulled his body off the ground to stoke the fire in the stove which kept the flat warm.

When he returned to his post on the hard floor beside the bed, Arthur felt Sorcha's arm fall from the side of the mattress and brush against his shoulder.

In her sleep, she wanted him near.

Author's Note: Hello, my dears! I started watching Peaky Blinders during this never ending quarantine and absolutely fell in love. Since I binged, I'm afraid I haven't quite got Arthur's character and voice down as well as others (perhaps because it's been years since I've written also). Let me know how you liked this first chapter though!