Читать книгу Inexpressible Island - Paullina Simons - Страница 18

8 Tales of Love and Hate

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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.”

When he sees Mia smile, Finch points to Julian’s missing fingers. “One of the real fights didn’t go so well for you, eh?”

Julian shrugs. “As they say, Finch, dead men tell no tales. And I’m still here. Make of that what you will.”

“Oh, tell us, Swedish!” Wild says. “Don’t hold back. We love a good story. Nothing better in the dungeons during war than to drink awful Irish whiskey with friends and listen to a rousing tale of mayhem. The only thing better than a story about a fight is a real fight.”

Everyone seconds hear, hear, even the girls!

“But I suppose that’s too much to ask,” Wild adds wistfully. “So, tell us what happened.”

Julian shrugs. “I got into it with a guy.”

“What guy?”

“A guy who wanted a fight. He grabbed my knife that dropped on the ground. I jerked my hand just enough, or he would’ve taken it off at the wrist, and I would’ve bled out. That knife was like the fucking guillotine—excuse me, ladies.”

Julian! Watch out! Unsteadily, he reaches for the cup of whiskey in Wild’s hand.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have left your knife lying around like that,” Finch says.

“You’re right, Finch,” Julian says. “I definitely shouldn’t have.”

“That is a terrible story.” To everyone’s surprise, the man who says this is Peter Roberts. They didn’t think he was even listening. He is a few feet away from them at the table, at his customary spot next to Frankie the puzzle maker. “Young man,” Roberts says sternly, as if scolding Julian, “don’t you know that the human capacity to contemplate life, to feel, to tell stories, is holy? It comes from the immortal soul. No animal does it, sits around the fire and tells stories. Only humans. And what you’ve just told us is not a story. You’ve merely summarized some distant events without passion or prejudice. There was nothing real in it, and therefore we felt nothing. For shame.”

Wild grins, knocking into Julian. “That’s a first, Swedish. With your deeply inadequate storytelling skills, you’ve roused the previously silent Robbie. The bowtie journalist claims you can do better. What say you?”

Julian takes a long swig of whiskey. Finch complains about how much of the common liquor he’s drinking. Julian promises Finch he’ll get more. But for now, he’s sufficiently langered to tell them a proper story. He has many. Which one would they like to hear first? He’s got one about a hanging in Tyburn. He’s got one about murder in a brothel. And he’s got one about a fight to the death at sea.

The kids look to Peter Roberts for guidance. The dignified man considers his choices. He’s even put down his French lesson book! “Robbie,” Mia says, “would you like to come over here and sit with us by the fire? Duncan, go help Robbie with his chair.”

“Don’t you dare, Duncan.” Getting up, Peter Roberts grabs his own chair. “I’m sixty, Maria, I’m not an invalid. Someday when you’re sixty, you’ll understand.”

“Swedish,” Wild says, “why did you flinch just now when Robbie said that?”

“Why are you always studying him, Wild?” Finch snaps. “Who cares why he flinched? Who cares why he does anything,” the man adds in a peevish mumble.

“Finch, shh. Robbie, come,” Mia says. “Guys, make room.”

Peter Roberts sets his chair in the circle among the young. “Since there may not be a tomorrow,” he states philosophically, “Julian might as well start with the sea battle.”

The young women grumble, pleading for something more delicate, all except the tough-cookie Shona, who doesn’t do delicate, and Frankie, who remains with her puzzle and offers no opinion.

The boys shout the girls down. “No one wants a soft story, ladies,” Wild says.

“Don’t worry, Wild,” Julian says, “even my soft stories end in death.”

“Is there any love in your stories?” Liz asks quietly, leaning forward. The gang gasps. Liz has spoken! Liz opened her mouth and spoke to a stranger in a public setting! They cheer. They raise a glass to Julian for making Liz speak and for getting Peter Roberts to put down his French book.

“If only we could separate Frankie from her puzzle, then we’d really have something,” Kate says, glancing over to the table. Frankie blinks but doesn’t respond.

Julian smiles at Liz. “What kind of slapdash story would it be, Liz, if it wasn’t about love?” he says. “Yes. Every good story is about love.”

Now they really want to hear.

“Even the death at sea story?” Liz asks. A romantic tremble animates and beautifies her plain, freckled face.

“Especially that one,” Julian says. “Because that one is about the truest love of all. A love that just is, and asks for nothing back. It’s easy to tell a story full of sexy words about beautiful people loving each other in sunny climes.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing that story,” Mia echoes, sounding like someone who’s rarely seen either.

Julian doesn’t dare look at her, lest he give himself away. He continues to address Liz. “But just try telling an imperfect story about ugly damaged people loving other ugly damaged people and see how far you get.”

With the Swedish flame burning between them and whiskey and nicotine burning their throats, Julian begins by telling his newfound friends about the frozen cave. Bound by grief, he embarked on a perilous journey to find the secret to eternal life. He tells them how long he walked along the river until he was blocked by a vertical cliff of ice, hundreds of feet tall and smooth like a sculpture, with no way to climb it or break it. No way in and no way back. He lay down on the ice and went to sleep, and when he woke up, the mountain was gone. It had melted into the river and refrozen. The only thing left from it was a small mound with a circular opening, like an icy halo. “It is called a moongate,” Julian says. “So I walked through this moongate and continued on my quest. This is before I knew,” he adds, “that the life I looked for, I would never find.”

“What did you really travel to the end of the earth in search for, Swedish?” Wild laughs. “It was some girl, right?”

Mia, Mia, my heart, my dearest one, you are the one.

“What do you call the cliff?” Wild asks when Julian doesn’t answer.

“Mount Terror,” Julian replies.

“Fuck, yeah!”

“Fuck off!” says Nick.

Finch scoffs.

Mia jumps to her feet. “Wait! Stop speaking, Julian.”

“What a splendid suggestion, dove,” Finch says.

“Your story is too good to waste on us wankers.”

“Thanks a lot, Folgate,” Wild says.

“I, for one, would enjoy hearing the rest,” Peter Roberts says in a measured baritone. “The man has finally got around to telling a real story. He began at the beginning and was continuing capably until you stopped him, Maria.”

“That wasn’t the beginning, Robbie,” says Julian. “Not by a long shot.”

“You’ll hear all of it, Robbie, I promise you,” Mia says. “Follow me. Bring your chair.”

Mia leads Julian and the rest to the escalator lobby where a hundred Londoners have collected for the night, spilling out onto both platforms. “These poor folks are starving for entertainment,” Mia says. “You saw how fired up they were last night. What do you say? Let’s give them a story. Some drama, some comedy, a fight. You’ll lift their spirits, make the time pass. What could be better? I wish we had enough drink for them. They would so enjoy a little sip of whiskey.”

“I’ll get some,” Julian says. “I’ll get some as soon as I can.”

“Sure you will.” Mia smiles, as if she’s heard a lot of promises men have not kept. “We’ll do it interview style, okay? I’ll ask you questions and in your answers you’ll tell them what happened.”

“Thank you, Mia,” Julian says, gazing at her, “for explaining to me what an interview is.”

She giggles. “You’re welcome, Julian.” She hops up onto the makeshift stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, come closer,” she yells, motioning the Londoners to her. “Gather round. Tonight, for your listening entertainment, we want to present our new series of tales. They’re called … what are they called, Julian?”

Tales of Love and Hate.”

Tales of Love and Hate!” she exclaims. “Tonight, we’ll start with the first of—” She glances at Julian. “First of how many?”

“First of five.”

“Tonight, we will start with the first of five, called ‘The Death Match at Sea,’ or the mystery of how Julian nearly lost his hand. I’m Maria Delacourt. Please welcome to the stage, my co-star in The Importance of Being Earnest, Julian Cruz.”

There’s tepid clapping.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for that smattering of applause,” an unperturbed Mia continues. “Rest assured, when you hear the story of this fight, you will be standing in the aisles.” She leans to Julian. “Am I overpromising?”

“Underpromising, I reckon,” Julian says.

“Why don’t we have a real fight instead?” a man in the back says.

“Yeah,” another man says. “Now that would be bloody entertainment.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be fair for me to fight Mr. Cruz,” Mia says. “He wouldn’t stand a chance.” She winks at Julian. “How about if we begin with a story, and then we’ll see what we see. Prick up your ears, give Julian your full attention. You won’t be disappointed.”

And they’re not.

Raptly they listen, gasping at the horror of being vastly outnumbered by murderous men with evil intent in the middle of an ocean, gasping even more at the girl’s shocking betrayal. Even Mia loses her put-on composure. “Did she really do that?” she whispers, wide-eyed.

“She really did,” Julian replies, studying her face.

“How could she do it? I thought she loved you.”

“She did. But she didn’t want to die.”

“Julian, why do you keep staring at me, as if I have the answers to my own questions?” she whispers. “Did you forgive her?”

“What do you think?”

“You fool, I think you did.”

Julian ends the story of his Valkyrie, the chooser of the slain, with Tama’s demise, not with the actual end, which is too cruel for this setting and these people. Probably too cruel for any setting. Ending it early makes it almost a happy ending. Masha at the Cherry Lane was lost and then was found, just as she had always dreamed of.

The crowd applauds with gusto. Wild cheers wildly. Even Peter Roberts claps, his face flushed and satisfied. The only one who doesn’t clap is Finch.

“Well done! You definitely want them more ecstatic at the end,” Mia says to Julian, grabbing his arm and raising it together with hers as they take their bows. “That’s how you know you’ve done your job.”

“I agree, it’s always good to end ecstatically,” Julian says, squeezing her fingers. Blushing, she doesn’t return his gaze.

“Fight! Fight!” the crowd keeps yelling. “Show us a real fight! A boxing match! There must be some plonker in your group who’ll fight you. Come on! Give us something!”

“We’re not going to do that,” Mia tells the audience. “But if we’re still here tomorrow, God willing, and you return, we might have some whiskey for you … and we’ll tell you another story—which one, Julian? The murder in a brothel?”

“That one’s good.”

“Okay,” she says. “Are there any details to the brothel story besides cold-blooded murder?”

“Oh, one or two,” Julian says, making Mia blush again. He smiles. She smiles.

“How about a hot-blooded fight right now, Swedish?” Wild yells from the sidelines. “Finch over here just told me he’ll fight you.”

“You bet I will,” Finch says. “I’ll kick his arse. He won’t know what hit him.”

“Finch is dying to fight you, Swedish!” Wild yells. “What do you say?”

“Fight! Fight!”

The howl of the siren sounds. There’s a collective groan of disappointment and misery. The bad part of life has intruded on the good part of life.

Inexpressible Island

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