Полина Саймонс – Inexpressible Island (страница 16)

“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.”