FOUR MEN AND FOUR WOMEN—JULIAN, FINCH, WILD, Duncan, Mia, Frankie, Liz, and Shona—meet at Leicester Square in Covent Garden at one o’clock in the afternoon to line up for the four o’clock show. The queue is four blocks long, almost to the Strand. It’s been cold and then it rained and now it’s cold again and everything on the ground is black slush that squelches in Julian’s boots as he stands next to Mia, and Finch says, “Hey, who said anything about standing next to her? That wasn’t part of the deal.”
Inside the enormous Empire, they find good seats right in the center. At first, Finch plants himself on the other side of Mia and acts all surprised when he gets hollered at by the boys. “What? Why can’t I sit here? He’s sitting next to her, as agreed.”
After Duncan and Wild threaten to forcibly remove him if he doesn’t remove himself, Finch sneaks off to a seat next to Frankie, a row behind. After a few minutes of Finch literally breathing down his neck, Julian motions for Mia to get up. They move a few rows behind Finch and Frankie. “Sorry to play musical chairs,” Julian says, “but the film is four hours long. He’s going to put a curse on me. Throw me off my game. What if I want to hold your hand?” He smiles. “Or kiss you?”
“Oh, I don’t think he’d like that,” Mia says.
“I’m not going to be kissing him, am I?”
She blushes. “Never mind him,” she says. “He’s just shocked he lost. That’s why he’s acting like this.”
“Is that why.”
“Why do you think?”
“Why do I think what? Why is he acting like an idiot or why did he lose?”
“Heh. Why did he lose?”
“He just didn’t want it bad enough,” Julian says.
Mia chortles. “Unlike you?”
“Yes. Unlike me.”
They get comfortable in their plush red seats. Their coats stay buttoned and the gloves stay on because it’s cold in the mammoth theatre. But she does take off her headscarf. She has brushed out her fine brown hair, scrubbed her face, put on mascara, a little lipstick, even some perfume. Julian can smell the floral delicate something every time she moves her head.
“How did Finch put it?” Julian says. “This is almost like a romantic outing.”
“Yes, almost,” she says, bubbling. “Movies are so great, aren’t they? You know what must be romantic? To be in one. Oh, Miss Delacourt, Clark Gable is here to see you. Oh, Miss Delacourt, would you like your caviar and champagne now or after you have your hair done?” Mia sighs happily. “Vivien Leigh is such a star. I wonder if she and Clark Gable had a fling. Who could resist him?”
“Um, maybe someone who’s married to Laurence Olivier?”
Mia looks doubtful. “The picture is supposed to be amazing. I can’t wait. How long before it starts?”
“Another hour.”
She tuts. “So long.”
“To sit next to you for an hour? Doesn’t seem long at all.”
She smiles into her lap. “Want to play a game?”
“Sure, what kind of game are you thinking? Or would you like me to pick?”
“Julian!”
Finch hears their chatter, their laughter, and spins around to glare at them.
“What, Finch?” says Julian. “Are we not allowed to talk?”
“The deal was to sit next to her.”
“In silence?”
“That was the deal.”
Duncan slaps Finch upside the head, and so does Shona.
“Shut up and face front, Finch,” Wild says. “You should’ve fought harder if you wanted to sit next to Folgate in silence. We all would be happier, frankly. We’d be at the Savoy, drinking from a champagne fountain and eating caviar out of crystal goblets.”
Wild has found a seat between Finch and Liz. Mia leans to Julian. “It doesn’t seem like it, watching them from behind,” she says, “but this is the best day of Lizzie’s life, sitting next to Wild.”
“I know how she feels,” says Julian.
“Why, you want to sit next to Wild, too?” Mia says, but she removes her glove, leaving her white right hand lying uncovered on the armrest, close to Julian’s fully-fingered rough and square left.
It’s almost time. The theatre quietens.
The red curtain opens. The lights go out. “Tara’s Theme” plays. Gone with the Wind begins.
Right before the intermission, the air raid siren goes off. The auditorium groans in collective displeasure. The film stops playing, but no one moves. Miraculously, it’s only a warning, and the all clear blares a few minutes later.
An hour before the end, the siren goes off again, and this time there is no all clear. Above the soundtrack, the drone of the German planes is heard and distant explosions. The movie stops rolling, and the PA comes on, telling everyone to head for shelter. “Walk, ladies and gentlemen, don’t run, there’s no need for that. Walk, don’t panic. Remember, you are British.”
Half the auditorium stays behind, including the Ten Bells gang, everyone but Liz. She leaves Gone with the Wind, leaves Wild! and runs for shelter. “Truly, she is hopeless,” Mia says. “Her last name, Hope, is merely ironic.”
There’s whistling outside. The explosions get nearer, thud thud thud. Mia chews her fingers. “Let’s wait a few more minutes,” she says to Julian, glancing around. “See, we’re not the only fools in the theatre. But how can we leave? I can’t! It was just getting to the good part.”
“Oh?” Julian says. “And what part is that?”
“Rhett and Scarlett have been fighting and fighting,” Mia says. “Which means that the scene where they make up is coming up.”
“Yes, that’s true, it’s coming up.”
“How do you know, you’ve read the book?”
“Something like that. If you like, I can tell you what happens. Just in case the movie doesn’t restart.”
Mia turns to him. She is sitting so close. Her limpid face, her huge brown eyes, her full glossy mouth is a breath away. “You want me,” she says incredulously, “to miss a scene where Clark Gable is going to make up with Vivien Leigh? You’re going to tell me about it instead?” She boos. “Honestly, Jules. What words do you think you could ever use that would be a substitute for my own two eyes?”
While they slink down in their seats, hoping the projectionist returns to his post, Julian thinks of some words to substitute for Mia’s own two eyes.
“Rhett Butler comes home late and drunk,” he says, leaning to her and lowering his voice. “He’s all hunky and hulky and reeking of alcohol. His hair is disheveled. His white shirt is open at the collar. Scarlett is sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him in a little bathrobe, and underneath it she’s naked.”
“How do you know she’s naked?”
“I just do.”
“The book said?”
“Yeah. The book said.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Scarlett sits at the table in her red silk robe, and she’s acting all mad.”
“So mad,” Mia says.
“She’s mad, but underneath the robe, she is naked,” Julian says. “And Rhett knows this.”
“How does he know?”
“He’s a man. Men know these things.”
“All men?”
“Most men. Rhett Butler certainly.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Rhett is angry, too, but for different reasons. He is so tired of all this Ashley talk. So damn tired. Ashley is milquetoast to a man like Rhett Butler. He can’t believe the woman he has loved all these years, the woman he has married, keeps telling him, him! that she loves another.” Julian pauses. Mia’s head is tilted so far over, it’s touching his own. “Do you want me to stop using my words? Or would you like me to continue?”
“No, don’t stop,” she says in a breathy whisper. “Continue.”
Julian takes her soft hand into his paw.
“They’re in the kitchen, and Scarlett is acting so nonchalant, as if she doesn’t even notice how hot he looks.”
“Hot?”
“Hot, like superman-sexy. And Rhett is fed up with her nonsense, with her not paying attention to him. Fed up with her not wanting to be loved by him. So he spins her chair around and looms over her, and she can see him now, and smell him, and she says, you’re drunk, and he says yeah.” Julian’s thumb caresses the inside of Mia’s palm.
“What happens next?”
“Rhett leans down and kisses Scarlett so hard, the chair tips back and nearly falls. Scarlett’s hands are up in the air like she’s surrendering. And he says to her, tell me, would your Ashley kiss you like that? But Scarlett can’t speak after being kissed so forcefully.”
Julian stops talking. Mia’s flushed face—her parted, barely breathing mouth, her blinkless gaze, her intense focus so she doesn’t miss a word—disrupts him.
“No, no, no,” she whispers, “don’t stop. Please.”
Julian says nothing. He is turned to her, leaning in, his head pressing against her head, his forehead touching her hair, his fingers kneading her hand. “You don’t want me to stop, Mia?” His voice is low.
“I don’t want you to stop. Go on. Go on.”
Julian speaks into her ear. “Scarlett looks up at him and sees the way he’s looking down at her. He’s not waiting another moment, and he’s not going to ask if it’s okay. He is going to take what he wants. That’s the drunken lusty look Rhett gives Scarlett, though he doesn’t say anything. It’s all in his eyes.” Julian takes a breath. “Do you want to know what he actually says, Mia?”
“Oh yes!”
“That’s it, Rhett says. That’s it. And he picks up Scarlett, and in his arms carries her up their long enormous staircase to their bedroom and with his foot kickslams the door shut behind them.”
Mia nearly groans. Julian leans back.
“What happens next?” she cries, raising her impassioned eyes to him.
“Well, it’s a movie,” Julian says, “made in 1939. So what happens next in the movie is morning. But would you like me to tell you what would happen next in real life?”
They stare at each other, both dilated and blinkless. Yes, she inaudibly whispers.
The projectionist returns. Everyone applauds.
Everyone but Mia.