Inexpressible Island

“Don’t know what that’s about. Have the Americans come to London …?”

“Maria and I are getting married,” Finch blurts, “at Christmas.”

Look how much information Julian has gathered from just one short sentence. All sentences should be so brief and informative. Her name is Maria. She is getting married. To the annoyed string bean named Finch. At Christmas.

“Well, Finch,” Maria says, “let’s not count our chickens just yet. It’s almost two months away. There’s a war to get through between now and then. Plus, I’m still waiting for that ring you promised.”

“I told you I’ll get it, dove. Now come,” Finch says, extending his hand. “Don’t stand on that thing with him. Look, it’s teetering. You will fall. Remember last week? You almost fell.”

She takes his hand and jumps down, turning back to Julian. “Do you want to come meet our friends?”

“Would love to.”

Finch yanks her hand with irritation.

“What, Finch?” she says. “We can’t be impolite.”

“Why not? We don’t know him!”

An older woman stops Julian, grabbing him by the elbows. “Young man, you were terrific,” she says, squeezing him approvingly. “You gave us all quite a stir—why, me and my friends was saying we haven’t felt so aquiver since the Great War when we was young women ourselves. Where did you learn to act like that?”

“Who says I was acting?” Julian says. Both Finch and Maria spin around to stare at him in the tunneled darkness.

“I don’t like that man,” Julian hears Finch say to her as they walk down the platform. “I don’t like him at all. I have a good mind to deck him.”

“Finch, calm down. It’s in good fun. He’s just playing with you. Do you want him to continue trying to get under your skin? Keep this up.”

“Kissing you like that was playing with me? Who does he think he is?”

“That was acting, Finch.”

“You heard him, he said it wasn’t. And I didn’t know that Oscar Wilde called for that sort of passionate … acting.”

“What you don’t know is a lot, Finch.”

“I have a good mind to deck him. Why are you laughing, dove?”

“I wasn’t laughing. I was nodding.”

“I could do it. You don’t think I could do it? I could. I played a fighter in Jack Dempsey’s Life last year, remember? I know the moves. And what’s he going to do? He’s crippled like Wild.”

“Yes, Wild will love him.”

5 (#ulink_7fd5a7a8-5bae-5e61-9406-d65a4629c517)

Wild (#ulink_7fd5a7a8-5bae-5e61-9406-d65a4629c517)

ADJACENT TO THE MAIN PASSAGEWAY BETWEEN TWO SUBWAY platforms is a small secondary walkway, rarely used. There, Julian comes face to face with a group of vagabonds who have made themselves an abode in the Underground. A dozen people, women and men, young and old, in suits and dregs, sit on stools and benches or lie across the half dozen bunks that line the walls. A bony twentysomething woman sits in an armchair at a wooden table, doing a jigsaw puzzle. Four or five kerosene lamps hang off the bunks; there’s a bookshelf, a clothes line, a coat stand; boots on the floor, purses and bags; a large oval mirror propped up against a wall; scarves and hats draping the posts of the beds; and weary faces staring curiously at Julian.

“Who the bloody hell are you, mate?” says a grinning blond man, stepping up to Julian. “You nearly gave our Finch a heart attack with your kissing. Well done!” The man is in his early thirties, floppy haired, good looking, but missing most of his right arm. The sweater hangs loose above his elbow. He gives Julian his left hand to shake. Gratefully Julian stretches out his own left hand.

“I’m Wild,” the smiling man says. Julian is not sure if he is hearing a name or an adjective. The man doesn’t elaborate. He is fit and strong, able-bodied in every way except for the missing arm. “How do you know Folgate?”

“Is that her last name?”

“Wild, leave him alone,” Maria says. “Stop interrogating him. Let him meet the rest of the gang before the siren goes.”

“Is the siren going?” Julian asks. He wishes for no sirens. He wishes for it to be 1942 or 1943, after the terrible beginning and before the terrible end, somewhere in the drudging middle. Please, no sirens.

“Fine, Folgate,” Wild says, “but I’m going to introduce him, not you. You are atrociously long-winded, as if there isn’t a war on. Listen up, everybody!” he yells. “We have a new member …”

Finch protests. “No, we don’t!”

“Julian, gang. Gang, Julian.” Self-satisfied, Wild turns to Maria. “That’s how it’s done.”

Rolling her eyes, she pushes him in the chest. “Go away,” she says. She is familiar with him, unafraid of him, and not in love with him despite his brazen good looks. “Julian, come here and meet Duncan.” Duncan is a big guy, at least 6′5″, with a gruff voice and a lamb-like demeanor. He’s deaf in one ear and can’t serve, Maria says, but like many of their friends, he’s a volunteer in the Home Guard, the London Defence League charged with doing whatever is required to help the city get through the nighttime attacks. During the day, Duncan works the docks at Wapping.

“London Defence League?” Julian asks Maria. “You’re not part of that, too, are you?” He thought only men could join the LDL. Before she can reply, Duncan and Wild pull him away.

“Folgate, the war will be over before you’re done introducing this man. Stop being in love with the sound of your own voice.”

“Leave him alone, Wild,” Maria says. “Let me—”

“This isn’t the stage,” Wild continues. “Julian doesn’t give a toss about Duncan’s deaf ear. I just showed you how to do it. Again, watch and learn. Julian—Nick Moore. Nick—Julian. Nick, say something.”

“Fuck off,” says Nick, a spindly albino chap, spread out on a lower bunk, smoking and not getting up.

“That’s all you need to know about Nick,” Wild says. “He knows only two words. Right, Nick?”

“Fuck off.”

Nick works at the Ford truck and munitions factory in Dagenham, Maria tells Julian, which at the moment is closed on account of being nearly burned to the ground. So at present Nick is working the Wapping docks with Duncan.

“Julian, do you want to come with us when we go out?” Wild asks.

“Absolutely not!” says Finch, idling close by.

“Sure,” Julian says. “Where are you going?”

“Finch, after losing Lester, you well know we could use an extra pair of hands.” Wild waves his stump around. “We’re a Rescue Squad, Julian. We call ourselves the Ten Bells Watch. Ever hear of the Ten Bells?”

“The pub over in Bethnal Green?” Julian knows that pub. It’s not too far from Devi.

“Yes! Good man. When the umpteenth bomb fell into the transept of St. Paul’s, and all the stained glass was blasted out, the church got itself a group of volunteers called the St. Paul’s Watch whose only job was to douse incendiaries. Well, we’re a group of volunteers who douse the incendiaries that fall near Ten Bells.”

Julian laughs. “Pub saving is so often overlooked during war.”

“My sentiments exactly!” Wild studies Julian with an approving grin.