Inexpressible Island

“Like, who even could be?” Mia smiles. “But then a bomb fell on Wilma’s house, and all the wood and glass ended up in our living room, and then it rained for a week straight, and that wasn’t funny. So Mum agreed that maybe it was time to go and my aunt said, you think? After they left, I stayed for a few days alone in the house, but then another incendiary fell, and, well, you know.” Mia hops up and extends her hand to him. “You want to go see what’s left of my house? Come on. We still have a few minutes before Finch is done. It’s just around the corner.”

They hurry to Commercial Street. “The bombs have torn all the leaves off the trees,” Julian says. “That’s why it looks like winter.”

“Silly boy,” Mia says. “It looks like winter because it’s actually winter.”

Folgate Street is a short narrow road between two large wide thoroughfares, Bishopsgate and Commercial.

Not much is left of Folgate. Most of the two dozen homes are rubble except for the four corner ones. They have craters inside them, and only partial roofs, but families continue to live there. Even milk and newspapers continue to be delivered, the milk in tins.

In the middle of Folgate, Mia’s flattened house is black cinder and dust.

“Mum said she’d be back as soon as she had my aunt and cousins settled,” Mia says, “but I telegraphed her to say not to bother. Where is she going to go? She can’t live at Bank with me. I admit, I’m a little jealous of Lucinda and her family. Sure, Lucinda’s a nutter, but Sheila and Kate have their mum. It was nice when Mum and I were together and could wash our clothes in the laundry truck. Of course then the gal who’d been driving it died. Her lungs got filled with dust. It’s her lighter I’m using.” Mia smokes another cigarette as they walk back, slowly. “When my house collapsed, I walked away. Mum taught me to do that. She said, eyes forward, and never look back; otherwise, you’ll be carrying the weight of that house with you the rest of your life.”

If only Julian could heed that advice.

“What’s Wild’s story, Mia? Tell me quick, before we return.”

“Okay, but you can never tell him I told you,” she says. “He lost his arm when he was trying to save his brother. A bomb fell during one of the early attacks in July, and Louis got trapped in their burning house. Wild tried to get him out. Louis kept telling Wild to go, but Wild wouldn’t leave him. Then the wall frame shifted, and he got stuck. He couldn’t get even himself out. Wild watched his brother die as their house burned down around them. He barely escaped himself. The firemen had to cut off his arm to save his life. Their parents were outside in the street, while their two sons were trapped inside.”

Julian lowers his head.

“It wasn’t great,” Mia says. “It’s still not good. Being a fireman was all Wild wanted to be since we were kids, and now he’s got no brother, no arm, and can never be a fireman. Can you imagine?”

“Yes,” says Julian.

8 (#ulink_3bd036eb-9dbc-5690-9bc4-48df9c1453e5)

Tales of Love and Hate (#ulink_3bd036eb-9dbc-5690-9bc4-48df9c1453e5)

HE DOESN’T NEED TO USE ROBBIE’S BUNK BECAUSE WILD offers him his. Julian sleeps like the dead, all day and through two sirens, as he learns when he wakes up. At night the Ten Bells collect in the alcove. They’ve eaten and drunk elsewhere, but Wild somehow divines that Julian is starving and shares some bread with him and the rest of his small bottle of cheap whiskey. The gang appears to be in good spirits, except for Finch, who looks as if he can’t believe Julian is still around.

“Why are you giving him your food, Wild?” Finch asks.

“I share my food with him, Finch, because that’s what Jesus would do,” Wild replies, mock-solemn. “Who are you serving?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. He could use some charity, obviously. I mean, where is the man’s ration card?”

“Or what, he’d eat like a king if he had one?” Wild says. “Hey, all you kingly ration-card holders, who wants some whalemeat? Delicious whalemeat right here! And look what else I might have for you with your royal ration card. I have one ounce of creamy butter, freshly churned. Now, Jules,” Wild says, his one arm hooking around Julian’s neck, “when you find your card, you will get one pat of butter a week. But it’s your choice how you use it. You have free will during the war, and don’t ever forget it. You can eat your pat of butter all at once or you could spread it out over seven days—like Finch.”

“Everybody’s always pinching me butter,” Mia sings with a naughty wink. “They won’t leave me butter alone.”

“Come on, dove, don’t joke like that,” Finch says. “It’s not proper.”

“Who won’t leave your butter alone, Folgate?” Wild says with a naughty wink himself, not letting go of Julian’s neck. “Put a name on it, will ya?”

“Do you see what I mean?” Finch says to Mia.

“Just having fun, Finch,” says Mia.

“Just having fun, Finch,” says Wild.

“Someone, explain to Finch what fun is,” says Duncan.

“How is making fun of me fun?” says Finch.

“In so many ways, Finch, I can’t count them all,” says Wild.

Carefully, quietly, Julian pats Wild on the back, two gentle pats, hoping no one will notice, not even Wild.

The men and women in the alcove circle around Julian to make him feel welcome. “Don’t worry, Julian, it’s nice here at Bank,” Shona the driver tells him, speaking in a loud, guttural twang. She is narrow of eye and body. Her hair is tied up with a head scarf. “But it would be even better if we had a place to keep chickens and pigs. Then we’d really have something. What I wouldn’t give for some extra bacon and a chicken.”

“We’re not allowed chicken and pigs in the Underground, Shona,” says Finch.

Shona ignores him, continuing to address Julian. “Hyde Park has a piggery, right next to where the buses park for the night.”

“Exactly. A park. Not the Underground,” Finch says.

“But, Shona, darling,” says Duncan, his gruff voice softened to a quaver, “if we had somewhere to put your chickens and pigs, Wild would kill them, cook the shit out of them, and eat them before you had a chance to say where is my little piggy.”

“Dunk’s right, Shona,” Wild says. “That’s exactly what I would do.”

“You can’t have chickens in the Underground,” Finch doggedly repeats, in the deep black underground where beneath a gap in the busted pavement human beings have made themselves a home.

It’s chilly in the tunnels. To repay their hospitality, Julian shows his new friends how to make a Swedish flame. Out on the empty eastbound Central Line platform, he uses a small axe (not an ice axe) to make six vertical cuts in one of the wood logs, as if he’s slicing a cake. He makes the cuts not all the way through, leaving the log with a few inches intact at the base. He pours two spoonfuls of kerosene into the center of the log and throws a match after it. The log burns for over two hours. They leave it standing, warm their hands and faces over it, make hot water, make tea, and then fit around it right on the platform, as if having a campfire.

Wild happily starts referring to Julian as Swedish.

As in, “Swedish, where did you learn to do that?”

And, “Swedish, what else do you know? Anything, for example, that might be useful to Folgate?”

“Shut up, Wild!”

“Shut up, Wild!” Finch says, and then quieter to Mia, “It’s because you were singing that butter pinching song that he talks like that.”

“Believe me, Finch, it’s not because of that song,” Wild says, turning to Julian. “Swedish, where did you learn to fight with your left?”

The young people on the platform sit around the burning log, sipping tea and whiskey. Their eyes are on Julian. Mia sits next to Finch. Her eyes are on him, too.

“You can learn it, too, Wild,” Julian replies. “Show them your mangled right claw, and while they’re gloating about how they’re going to lick you, wallop them with your left. You don’t even need to make a fist. Though you can.”

“That’s not what you did.”

“I trained for a long time to learn to fight southpaw. Also, to be fair, last night I didn’t fight.”

“What was it, then?” Duncan says. “Those three were down on the ground before they knew what hit them.”

“Like I said.”