Inexpressible Island

“Is that where you’re all from, Bethnal Green?” Julian doesn’t want them to be from there. Bethnal Green gets incinerated during the Blitz. “Does anyone have a newspaper?” What year is it? What month is it?

Reaching into one of the bunks, Wild pulls out the Evening Standard and tosses it to Julian, saying to Maria—

But Julian has stopped listening. The paper hangs from his hands.

It’s November 8, 1940.

His shoulders turn inward. He couldn’t have come at a worse time, a worse month, a worse year. He can’t even look up. The math in his head is brutal. He almost wishes he were back in Invercargill where he did no math at all.

“Are you okay, Julian?” Maria says solicitously.

The 49th day is Boxing Day, the day after Christmas.

She peers into his face.

This can’t be the way it ends. It just can’t be.

Getting himself together, he takes a deep breath, lifts his head, and smiles.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“You want to meet some more people?”

“Sure.”

There are a surprising number of men in their motley crew considering all men under 42 must be conscripted. Uh-oh, a wilted Julian thinks, he’s only 39, could he, too, be conscripted, before he remembers his missing fingers, his wonky eye, oh and that he has no ID and is not a British citizen. Never mind. Anxiety and logic make strange bedfellows.

With vigor, Duncan takes over hosting duties. He wants to be the one to introduce Julian to the girls, he says. “You got yourself well acquainted with Maria—as we can all attest—but we have other beauties with us, too, who unlike her are currently available. Here are the lovely Sheila and Kate. They’re sisters and nurses. They’re like sisters of mercy,” Duncan adds with a mischievous grin, “and I’ve been asking them for months to show me some mercy.” A bald thin smiling man in his sixties jumps out from a lower bunk and cries, “Duncan!” to which Duncan rolls his eyes and sheepishly says, “Sorry, Phil.” And quieter to Julian: “That’s Dr. Phil Cozens. He’s their dad, unfortunately.” He sighs. “Over by his side is their mum, Lucinda. When you talk to her, don’t mention the war.”

Julian smirks. Isn’t that line right out of Fawlty Towers? But Duncan is not joking. Lucinda, a stout, gray-haired woman, sits on a low bench, knitting to keep her hands busy and chatting to Phil about a trip to the country in the spring. If they book their travel now, she says, they can get a hefty discount.

Julian has no time to shake his head at the idea of planning a holiday for the coming spring while sleeping underground in the middle of 1940 London before he’s shoved in front of “sexy Shona,” the driver of the medical services truck, and Liz Hope, “who is a virgin,” Duncan whispers, dragging Julian away—past the mute woman working diligently on the jigsaw puzzle.

“Who’s that?”

“Frankie, the bone counter. Never mind her. She doesn’t like living human beings.”

“The bone counter?”

“I said never mind her!”

Peter Roberts, or “Robbie,” has his nose buried in a Learn French in Two Months book. He is a 60-year-old journalist on Fleet Street. Formal and stiff, he stands up to shake Julian’s hand. He is clean shaven and sharply dressed in a suit and bowtie, which he carefully adjusts as he gets up, even though it’s perfectly straight. After he shakes Julian’s hand, he sits back down and reopens the French reader. His posture is impeccable.

“Here, Robbie, let me fix that for you, it got crooked again,” says Wild, flicking up one end of the bowtie.

“When are you going to stop playing your games, Wild,” Robbie says, calmly rearranging his neckwear.

Robbie’s family is in Sussex, Duncan tells Julian, which is unlucky because recently south England has become “bomb alley.”

“Where is safe?” Julian says to no one in particular, glancing behind him for a glimpse of Maria’s amiable face.

“Here, mate,” Wild says. “Home, sweet home.”

Julian acknowledges the lived-in, semi-permanent appearance of their quarters, the books, the coats, the lamps. It’s like a college dorm. “You live here?”

“Nice, right?” Flanking Julian, Wild grins. “We’re by the emergency stairs, so we have our own private entrance. We have Phil on call, several nurses, who also happen to be his daughters, a chemical toilet at the end of the platform, and even our own warden. True, he’s not especially friendly, but if we throw him five bob, he watches our stuff when we’re gone.”

Julian clears his throat.

“No, no, whatever you do, don’t cough,” Maria says, flanking him on the other side, pointing at Phil Cozens. “Even if you’re choking. Even if you’re sick. Especially if you’re sick. Phil assumes it’s TB and good old Javert throws you out.”

“Maybe it is TB,” Finch says, hovering over Maria. “Also, he doesn’t like to be called Javert, dove.”

“She calls them like she sees them,” Peter Roberts pipes in, his nose in his French lesson.

“Hear, hear, Robbie!” says Wild—and the air raid siren goes off.

Julian’s heart drops. Except for the knitting Lucinda, everyone else stops talking and moving and listens alertly, though no one looks crushed like Julian. “Maybe it’s just a warning?” he asks.

“It’s always the real thing,” Wild replies. “Once or twice a day for some minor shit, and twice a night for the really terrible shit. For the stray bombs, they don’t even bother alerting us anymore. Last week, we had our first all clear day since September. The Krauts couldn’t fly. We were never more grateful for crap British weather than we were that day, weren’t we, Folgate?”

The squad revs into action. Even Frankie leaves her puzzle, gets her coat and goes to stand by Phil’s side. The bone counter goes with the doctor? She has the stony demeanor of a mortician. Duncan grabs the sticks and cricket bats piled in the corner next to the umbrellas. In less than two minutes, eight of them are ready to head out. Peter Roberts, Lucinda, and Liz remain behind. So do Nick and Kate. “I’m working a double tomorrow at the docks,” says Nick.

“I’m working a double tomorrow at Royal London,” says Kate.

Liz says nothing.

“Julian, are you coming?” asks Maria.

“Of course.” Why couldn’t she be one of the ones who stays behind? Why couldn’t she be Liz.

A peevish Finch addresses Julian. “Do you have ID? You can’t go outside without it.”

“I lost my ID.”

“Then you can’t go.”

“Who’s gonna check it, Finch, you?” Wild says, pushing Julian past Finch and toward the stairs. Finch runs around to get in front of them.

“What about your ration card, got that?”

“Lost that, too,” Julian replies calmly, despite the fact that Finch is crowding him in the narrow stairwell. “Do I need my ration card? Are we going out to eat?”

“He’s got you there, Finch,” Wild says.

“He won’t fit in the jeep,” Finch says.

“He will,” Wild says. “We’ll tie Dunk to the roof.”