The Angel of Bishopsgate

Chapter 2-2

When Finn returned, Tessie sat ghostly pale on the edge of the bed. Without a word, she lifted the bowl for him to see.

"They were here?" he asked, anger rumbling in his voice.

"He stood right there in front of me." She pointed to the spot.

"Well whose ear is it?"

Tessie couldn't help but laugh as he stared down at it the bowl and jiggled it.

"I don't bloody know." She threw a rag at him, the sick feeling settling in again like a shroud. "Is this real?" she asked. "I don't understand what's happening."

The envelope rested untouched on the table and Finn scooped it up. It was crisp and clean, sealed with a fancy letter "A" pressed into black wax. That was his mark. That was it.

"It looks real, don't it?" she said, ominously. "That's his mark."

"I don't know."

"It is. Black wax and a letter A. Yer know it is."

"It could be a forgery," Finn insisted. "It could be anything."

"Who is going to forge the Angel's hand? Who would dare?"

"I don't know, Tess. I don't know."

"I want to rip that bloody thing up!" Tessie stepped forward and snatched it, staring down at it before tossing it back on the table. "It's ridiculous..." Her voice faded and her body prickling all over. What could she do? Refuse? Test their resolve? No. She took a deep breath, letting it shudder and ricochet through her belly. It was a simple errand. That was it. A delivery. She could do that, surely, and it would all be over.

"I can't afford to waste more batter," Tessie said, looking down at the ear in the bowl.

“Just scoop it out. No one will know."

Tessie shook her head and set the bowl on the table with a thud. The Angel had already cost her half a tin of treacle and now a bowl of batter.

She lifted her head. "He said my mother owed a debt."

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea."

"Did your Ma have dealings with the Angel?"

"I was a kid when I left, but anything is possible with her. I should have known she'd be a black mark on me some day."

"Maybe it's just something he said to get to yer. To make yer nervous. To make your mind tick over with worry. That's how they work. It's how they control people."

Pacing, Tessie's mind raced. She had fought to escape her past for all these years. Could Finn be right? Was it just a game of control? So much time had past and she was here, with Finn, in their new life together. A life that was hard and dreary, but it was their’s none-the-less.

Though she rarely talked of her mother, she was there, like a shadow she couldn't outrun. In everything she did, every waft of fresh ginger cake, every prayer to St. Brigid, and every flash of temper that flared. The memories dug deep in the pit of her stomach, stirring it up like the bottom of the ocean. Aileen Fisher had left her mark - a stain of which she would never be free.

She had heard stories, even here on the streets of London, of the woman across the Irish Sea called the Black Bonnet. Though it was never quite clear if she were an associate or rival of the Angel, or simply another figure to weave into late night tales. Tessie knew her mother well. She was wild enough to be involved. Though even if this all fell on her, there was no connection between them. No one could place her as Aileen's daughter. She no longer went by the name Fisher but had taken Finn’s surname for her own. She was Tessie O’Shea. Someone far removed from her mother and her past. Though none of her rationalising stopped Moses' parting comment ringing in her ears.

She thought of Billy Brittle's stupid face glaring down at her and wished she'd given him a piece of her mind. Her cheek throbbed now and it tightened as she moved her jaw. She would have a bruise by morning. Just great, she sighed.

Finn stood and, struggling to push open the rickety window frame, scooped the ear out of the cake batter and hurled it like a small catapult into the dark courtyard below. "There.”

"Someone's gonna find that.”

"Nye. The rats'll get it." He set the bowl on the table, now nothing more than innocent cake batter.