Inexpressible Island. Paullina Simons
tube station to catch their breath and get out of the hailstorm for a minute.
“I don’t know, Swedish.” Mia laughs. “I’m pretty soaked.”
“Well, you started out soaked,” Julian says, “so it doesn’t count. Try it when you’re dry. Run through the rain. You won’t get as wet.”
“If you say so.” She is full of good humor.
His newsboy hat on, her winter hat on, they resume their dash up Commercial Street, slowing down when they realize they’re almost at the jeep, parked at the usual spot near the Ten Bells pub.
“Hey, so where’s the best place for me to get things?” Julian asks. “Things that aren’t rationed.”
“Like on the black market? They cost a lot.”
“I didn’t ask that. I asked where to go.”
“Find the back of a lorry,” Mia says. “Not in the center of town, or where you need to be good.” She points to the police station they pass on Commercial. The sign on its door says, “BE GOOD. WE’RE STILL OPEN.”
Mia tells him to try north Cripplegate. “Though I should warn you, if you haven’t been that way recently, you’re in for a nasty shock. But if you manage to get beyond it, in the back of Smithfield Market there’s a lot of stuff being sold off lorries. Watch out, though, because Finch doesn’t like that stuff.”
“What doesn’t he like, whisky, bacon, wool blankets?”
“All that.” She pauses. “But also be careful because stray bombs are always falling, even during the day. You keep forgetting that. They fall without a siren. Are you looking for something in particular?”
“I promised Finch good Scotch whisky, so that’s one thing I’m getting.”
“You’re not going to win him over with that.”
“Trust me, nothing I do is going to win him over,” Julian says. Mia bites her lip. “What else should I get? What would your friends like?”
“Bacon rashers. Eggs. Anything out of ration would be good.”
“What about you? Would you like something?”
She gets flustered. “I wouldn’t mind putting on a costume and singing a song. All the girls would love some nylon stockings, even tough old Shona, even Kate, who pretends to be hard but that’s only because she doesn’t want people to think she’s soft and take advantage of her.”
“Is she soft?”
“Nah, she’s hard.”
“What about you?” He pauses. She blushes. “I mean … would you like some nylon stockings?”
Not answering, she points to her thick black hose. “I wouldn’t say no. We’re saving our money to go dancing sometime. And to the cinema. Gone with the Wind is playing at the Empire. They’re charging something exorbitant for it like half-a-shilling, and it’s always sold out now that there’s only one show a day, but we’re definitely going. I wouldn’t mind some nylon hose to go to the pictures. We’re planning to take a day off from the war for it. Would you like to come, too?”
“Would love to,” Julian says. “What else?” He points to the soles coming off her boots, the mud leaking in. “Maybe some new boots?”
“Good luck finding a pair of those.”
They’ve arrived at Finch’s vehicle.
Finch sticks his head out. “Where have you two been?” he says loudly, almost yelling. “We’ve been waiting an hour!”
“We got bandages, Finch. Show him, Julian. And we got caught in the downpour.”
“I just bet you have.” Wild wakes up just in time to quip and grin.
Julian raises his hand in a goodbye. “You go on without me, Finch,” he says. “I’ll be back tonight—maybe. Today, I have things to do.”
“Take all the time you need,” Finch says. “A week, a month.”
“No, don’t go by yourself, Swedish.” Wild starts to open the door. “I’ll come with you.”
Julian stops him. “Another time, Wild. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
“Will you come back?” says Wild.
“Fuck, I hope not,” Finch mutters.
“Hey, aren’t you going to ask me my boot size?” Mia calls out to Julian.
“Nah, I’m good,” Julian says, waving. Around seven and a half, right, Mia? It’s all he can do to not blow her a kiss.
Julian has seen London unpaved and swallowed by a great fire. He’s seen London in the muck of the rookery and in the white gloved elegance of Sydenham. He’s seen the impoverished Monmouth Street and the well-to-do Piccadilly. He’s seen London in the present day, teeming and open, lit up and loud, Ferris wheels, museums, white marble houses, black doors, green parks, red coats of the Grenadier guards, everything familiar and right as rain.
Julian has never seen London like this.
A sore evil has ravaged the city. Bitter hail has mixed with smoke and blood, it has blackened the air and the sun, destroyed the things that were good, left behind jackhammered ruin.
Julian, who knows London so well he can walk it in his dreams, loses his way without any street signs.
Julian loses his way without any streets.
North and west and east of St. Paul’s, blocks of the old city have been cremated into skeletal dust. Nothing whole is left standing, nothing.
As he walks shellshocked through the deserted plain, Julian sees that the destruction of the cramped city around St. Paul’s has exposed the church from all sides. In somber marble immensity, it rises above the ruins of the city that once teemed at its feet. No more alleys and skewed close-up perspectives from which to admire St. Paul’s majesty. Yes, London has been brought to its knees, but the unbowed cathedral looms on its solitary hill, seen for miles from the ground and the air—now more unprotected than ever.
The area between St. Mary le Bow and Cheapside is a wasteland.
But because the British are the British, there’s an arrow on Ludgate Hill in the middle of the devastation, and a sign underneath it that reads: Berlin—600 miles.
At the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, the statue of John Milton has been blown off its plinth, the bell tower destroyed, and the roof of the nave blown in. The walls have survived somehow, but the rest of the church lies broken on the ground.
The area around St. Giles, like St. Paul’s, has been bombed out of existence. There’s almost no Roman wall left where Julian hid his money. It’s dust like all the rest. Only a short, damaged chunk of the wall remains.
The stone with the little cross Julian etched into it stands exposed almost at the break. The graystone is loose, having been dislodged from its neighbors. Julian barely needs a chisel. As he’s pulling out the stone, there’s a loud rumble nearby and an explosion. It startles him, and he drops the boulder, almost on his foot. The stone falls and hits another. Both of them crack into smaller pieces.
For a long time, Julian sits on his haunches and stares at the weathered and dried-out leather bag with the dulled gold silk ribbons, stares at the shiny coins inside, forty-one of them, still gleaming. There is no stashing it away anymore for later. There is no later. He is never coming back. It’s impossible to believe, impossible to accept. There’s another explosion, another stray bomb detonated. It breaks his reverie. Black smoke, flames. The fire engine sirens slice through the silence. Julian grabs the purse with the coins in it, doesn’t bother closing up the hole in