AFTER THEY LOSE ROBBIE, WILD SAYS TO HELL WITH IT. “Swedish, I will never forgive you and Folgate for getting fake married without me, but I’m not missing your wedding reception at the Savoy because of the fucking Krauts. Let’s go. No Oxford Street, no new clothes. Men, clean the damn suits you’ve got, ladies, shine your shoes, a little lipstick, a little perfume. Tomorrow is Friday. A great day for a celebration. Things can only improve.”
Mia puts on her Florence Desmond black velvet dress with red trim, in which she sang “The Deepest Shelter in Town.” She has two other dresses, she says, but she liked the way Julian ogled her when she danced in that one. They clean their faces, change their dressings, shave, and brush their hair. Mia takes her arm out of the sling. Julian tries not to limp. His brow is healing, the swelling has gone down, the black eye is yellow and purple. Phil was supposed to take out the stitches, but then he died. Julian pulls them out himself, probably a few days too soon. Duncan tries to walk like his back isn’t killing him. They all do their best to look worthy of the Savoy dining room. Unfortunately Nick has gone back to Dagenham; he heard that the Ford plant was reopening.
Julian makes a dining reservation for nine of them: himself, Mia, Wild, Liz, Duncan, Shona, Sheila and Kate, and Frankie. It is an understatement to say that the three boys are delighted to be outnumbered by the six girls. “This way, ’tis heaven,” Duncan says.
“Imagine the hell if ’tis was the other way,” Wild says. Liz does not look thrilled with the current arrangement. She would prefer Duncan take four women on himself so she could have Wild all to herself. By Duncan’s expression, that’s what he wishes for also. “And technically, Swedish is taken up by Folgate,” Wild adds, “this being their fake wedding reception and all, so it’s even better for us, Dunk. Two real men against five fine women.”
“I’m not a real man?” says Julian.
“And why only technically taken up?” Mia says. “You think my fake husband is about to bolt now that he spies the bounty out there?” She takes Julian’s arm as they enter the Savoy, like they’re a gentleman and a lady, or maybe a husband and wife.
The porters hold open the heavy doors, and in their lounge suits and bowler hats and dresses, the Ten Bells stroll in as if they belong at a place like the Savoy. No one looks twice at their stitched-up and bandaged faces.
A concierge approaches them to ask if they know where they’re going.
“Tell him, Mia,” Julian says, “tell him, do any of us really know where we’re going, C.J.?”
“How do you know the concierge’s name?” Mia whispers.
“To the Grill,” Julian tells the man. He’s eaten there a few times. Many times, he and Ashton had gone to the art-deco American Bar for drinks. They’d gone to the Grill with Riley for Julian’s birthday in March, and for Ashton’s in August. Riley loved the place. And later on, so did Zakiyyah. Julian had even taken Devi and Ava there once, though Devi partook of the French-English cuisine like it was rookery gruel.
“Very well, sir,” the concierge says. “But you’re headed in the wrong direction. The Grill is not to the left of the lobby. That’s where our jewelry store is. The Grill is at the back of the hotel, overlooking the Thames.” He coughs. “Though, of course, no river view tonight. The curtains are drawn.”
“Of course,” Julian says. “And thank you.” He forgot the hotel had been renovated recently and the restaurants rearranged.
As they walk through the reception hall, Wild asks Julian if he’s still thinking of getting a room after dinner.
“Indubitably,” Julian replies. “After all, it’s our wedding night.”
Mia rolls her eyes. “He’s kidding. It’s our fake wedding night.”
“What about the rest of us?” Wild asks.
“You’re definitely not going to be in the room with us,” says Julian.
“He’s kidding.” Mia shakes her head.
“I’ll get you your own room,” Julian says to Wild.
Duncan and Wild look doubtful. “Are you sure you have enough money for such an extravaganza, Jules?” asks Duncan.
“I hope to soon be too drunk to care, so yes.”
They are placed at a large round table in the middle of the dining room underneath a crystal chandelier. Everyone tries to contain their glee as the menus are brought. They order the Savoy specialty—Pink Gin cocktails—discover they are teeth-rattlingly strong, and gasp at the prices on the menu.
“No one eat a thing,” says Duncan. “Not even a piece of bread. Or Jules won’t be able to afford the rooms he’s been promising. What would you rather have, ladies, caviar or a bath with me? It’s either steak or Duncan, girls,” he adds as a variation of the Minister of Food’s justification for the rationing at restaurants: “It’s either steak or ships, citizens of London.”
“Most definitely steak, Duncan,” Kate says.
To calm Duncan down, Julian slaps a twenty-pound note on the table. “Dunk, eat, drink, be merry, don’t worry about a thing.”
Duncan relaxes. After two Pink Gins, everyone relaxes. Plymouth gin, a dash or two of angostura bitters and a splash of soda, though for the second one, Julian asks the barman to add some tonic water, or they’ll all be under the table by the time the main course is served.
“Chaps,” Mia says, “did you know that the Savoy Hotel and Theatre, and my favorite Palace Theatre on Cambridge Circus, were all built by the same man?”
“Richard D’Oyly Carte, right?” says Julian with a twinkle. “With his profits from The Pirates of Penzance.” Julian smiles as he recalls the depth of his long ago bedazzlement high in the ancient mountains of Santa Monica when she was still Josephine, waxing poetic about a man who loved a woman so much he built her a theatre.
But tonight it is Mia who looks bedazzled. “I still don’t know how you know that,” she says, “but yes, he built the Palace as a labour of love, but my point is that it was art that made real life possible—that imaginary, make-believe things came first, and they helped build real historic places.”
“And please real women,” Julian adds.
Mia becomes flustered by his expression, and he by hers.
“We heard the Savoy rooms have steam heat and soundproof walls and windows,” Shona says, refocusing the conversation on where it needs to be.
“Do you need soundproof windows, dear Shona?” Duncan asks, grinning like a clown.
“I’m done with you, Duncan,” she says in the liquid tone of someone for whom the opposite is true.
They order grilled chicken and roast potatoes, foie gras and caviar, steak, bouillabaisse, and bangers and mash. They eat family style, a little of everything. It’s all delicious.
“Eating out is a morale booster,” Wild says.
“So is sex,” says Duncan.
“Duncan!” the girls yell.
“There’s help for people like you, Duncan,” Wild says, swallowing a tablespoon of caviar without any bread or butter. “In Piccadilly. Sure, Eros has been evacuated, but even in the blackout, the Piccadilly Commandos walk back and forth in the darkness, carrying torches so you can easily find them. Go, Dunk. They’re waiting for you. But remember, don’t ask for any extra. No use getting fancy. There’s a war on, as the council keeps telling us. Luxuries in sex are unpatriotic.”
“Everything is either unpatriotic or compulsory,” Duncan says. “What we eat. How much we eat. What we wear. What we wash our hair with. How we file our war damage claims, where we sleep. Why can’t they make sex patriotic and compulsory? Like every day, to do your part for the war effort, you must have a minimum of this. You can have more. But this must be the absolute minimum.”
“Duncan,” says Frankie, “is it possible for you to talk about anything else? Have you got anything else in that head of yours?”
“Trust me, Frankie,” Duncan says, “it’s not my head I’m thinking with. Besides, these are modern times. You girls keep saying you want to work like men, dress like men, live like men. Well, this is how men talk. Get used to it. This is what sexual equality means.”
“Sexual equality, you don’t say,” Liz intones slowly—nearly the first thing she has said all evening. “Sexual equality would be if after each act of love, both parties were uncertain as to which of them would conceive the child. Now that would be true equality. Until such time, shut up, Duncan, and act like a gentleman. Look, Julian and Wild are behaving themselves.” Her voice melts when she speaks the name Wild, though she doesn’t dare raise her eyes.
“Wild has never behaved himself in his life, Lizzie,” Duncan says. “And have you forgotten how Julian mauled another man’s girl the second he laid eyes on her?”
“Excuse me,” Julian says. “I did not maul. Right, Mia?”
“Why ever not?” Mia says, raising her glass. “To Finch!” They have another boisterous Pink Gin round.
They’ve decided that Pink Gin is supremely patriotic. Wild raises his glass and says it’s his privilege to do his small bit to hold up Hitler’s plans. He downs the cocktail in one gulp. Wild can really hold his liquor.
“Yes, it’s miserable now,” Julian says, offering words of encouragement, “but it will get better, I promise you.”
“It’s not so miserable now.” Duncan smiles, looking around the glorious room, happily smoking.
“Sure, Swedish, eventually it’ll get better,” Wild says. “Either the Germans will run out of planes, or we’ll run out of people.”
“Oh, we’ll definitely run out of people first,” Duncan says. “How can we not? No one’s shagging, no one’s bonking. Truly the world is about to come to an end.”
“The world is coming to an end,” Shona says. “Did you hear that Peckham was destroyed two days ago?”
“Do you know why?” says Duncan. “Because everything is worse south of the river, even the bombing.”
“Oh, I don’t wish that even on poor Peckham.”
“Let’s pray for Peckham.”
“Yes, let’s raise a glass to Peckham.”
They drink again.
“My auntie lived next to a paint factory,” Shona tells Duncan, leaning into him. The drunker those two get, the chummier they become. “You can imagine how that burned, all those chemicals, all that turpentine. Oh, it burned magnificently, in all the colors of the rainbow. If you weren’t so terrified, you had to admit it was very beautiful.”
“But then you died from the poison fumes,” says Wild.
“Yeah, but while you lived you saw beauty, not a bloody tunnel in a bloody tube station.”
“The Bank is home, Shona,” Wild says solemnly. “Don’t judge. Everything can’t be the Savoy. We need the contrast.”
“Between the ditch and the Savoy?” Shona smirks.
“Yes,” says Wild. “The ditch became Tower Street became Eastcheap became Cannon Street became Ludgate Hill became Fleet Street became the Strand became the Mall became Buckingham Palace.”
“Wild, you’re a boy after my own heart,” Julian says, raising his glass. “But speaking of Buckingham Palace, I don’t know why the King and Queen have not evacuated. They’d be so much safer in Canada.” In 1666, Charles II fled during the Black Plague, as Baroness Tilly had informed him. What’s happening now is worse than the plague.
“How would it look, the King said, if we left our people and ran for the hills?” says Mia. “What kind of an example would that set? The King’s exact words were: How can we look the East End in the face?” She shrugs. “Good old George needn’t have worried. Soon there’ll be no face left in the East End to look into.”
“At least Buckingham Palace hasn’t been hit,” Julian says.
“Oh, it has,” Mia says. “Fourteen times. Once again, where have you been that you don’t know that?”
“Hand on heart 153 Great Eastern Road,” Julian says. “And Greenwich.”
“The King is right to stay,” Duncan says. “The very awareness of our impermanence is what gives our lives meaning.”
“You’re less impermanent than you think, my friend,” says Julian.
The radio picks that moment to start playing “The Land of Hope and Glory,” and the genteel patrons of the Grill, who’ve all had a bit to drink, let their guard down for a few minutes and sing along, none more raucously than Julian’s gang. “God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!” they bellow, their arms around each other. By the end of the song, their rousing drunken voices drown out Vera Lynn’s on the speakers.
“Getting together with friends and holding court over a meal is one of the great joys in life,” a smiling Julian says when the song is finished. A great actor, Robert Duvall, will say that one day.
Hear, hear, his new friends yell. We told you things must improve and have they ever.
What a thing it is to have friends again, Julian thinks, taking Mia’s hand under the table.
For dessert they have chocolate bread-and-butter pudding with vanilla bourbon sauce. They wash it down with cognac, listening to the slow intoxicating beats of “When the Lights Go On Again,” watching a tall, elegant woman in trousers dance with her gentleman.
“Englishmen are unhappy at the sight of women in trousers,” Duncan proclaims—too loudly. He’s had an inordinate amount to drink. “A woman in trousers is considered fast.” He burps. “What I would give for a fast woman. The faster, the better. Who’s got time for a slow woman? Not me.”
“Not me either,” says Wild. Both men bob their heads and grin at Julian. “What about you, Swedish? You got time for a slow woman?”
“He most certainly does not,” says Mia, standing up and extending her hand. “Would you like to dance, my fake husband?”
Wild asks Liz to dance. Liz physically swoons as she rises from the table. Duncan asks Shona and Sheila. They both say yes. He asks Frankie and Kate, and they also say yes, though Julian senses that if it were allowed, Frankie and Kate would like to dance together. There is something in the look they give each other as they stand up. Liz dances with Wild, and Shona with Duncan and then Duncan switches four times, and dances with each of the girls, at one point, the changeover coming so slowly that he seems to be dancing with all four at once. Julian and Mia laugh as they watch the intoxicated giant with his tie askew, two-stepping under the dimmed down lights, his big arms around the ladies, looking as if he’s already in heaven.
Julian holds Mia lightly around her waist as they waltz while “There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover,” plays on the turned-up radio, and Mia sings along, her gin-spiked breath near Julian’s mouth. Just you wait and see, she murmurs, and he replies with, but tomorrow, right, and not tonight?
“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “There will be a tomorrow.”
He is glad she is sure. “How’s your arm? How’s your ankle?”
“They’re fine,” says Mia. “What kind of Brit would I be if I complained about a sore ankle? How’s your back?”
“All better.”
“Your head better, too? Because it still looks . . .”
“Yup, it’s good,” he says.
“Your leg? You’re dancing but when you walked, you limped.”
“Can’t feel a thing.”
They smile. She sways a little closer. Her breasts press against his chest. Liz leans over to them on the dance floor and says, “Hey, leave a little space between you two for Jesus.”
“We’re united in holy matrimony, Liz,” Mia says. “It’s not only allowed, it’s expected.” Her arms go around Julian, the injured left arm gingerly. “Right?”
He kisses her as they dance. “More than expected,” he says. “It’s encouraged. The natural instincts and affections imparted to us by God are hallowed and directed aright in marriage.”
She smiles into his face. “Julian Cruz, do you have some natural affections that you might like to direct at me?”
“Direct at you aright,” he says. His hands tighten around her waist. “Perhaps we should go see if they have any rooms available.”
“Yes,” Mia says. “It would be a shame if they were all booked up.”
“Such a shame.”
“Duncan is looking forward to being upstairs,” she says. “And do you hear Wild over there, drunkenly trying to persuade Liz to give him her virtue because who knows what tomorrow will bring? I can’t believe him. He’s trying to seduce her!”
“Does he really need to try?” Julian says, and into her tut, adds, “Mia, Wild knows how Liz feels about him. He doesn’t need to say anything. He knows she will give it to him without any words.”
Mia steps back and studies Julian. “So why is he talking to her like that then? What kind of a farce is this?”
“Not a farce.” Julian pulls her back to him. “He does it because he knows that’s what she wants. He tells her what she wants to hear to please her. She wants to hear him want her with his words, even if they’re drunk words.”
“Hmm,” says Mia, shimmying against him. “If that’s the case, how come you’re not trying to seduce me?”
“Who says? What do you think all that Pink Gin was for? Are you dancing with me? Letting me maul you? Did you kiss me, go to the movies with me, fake marry me? What won’t you do with me?”
“Julian!”
“Yes, Mia?”
“Let’s go get that room.”
Julian pays the check, and the nine of them amble over to the pristine and elegant reception area. The only indication inside the marble and granite lobby that there’s a war on is the three men by the open doors sweeping glass and dust into bins, the glass and dust that’s been dragged into the reception hall from the Strand. One of the jobs of a grand hotel in a grand city is to shield its guests from the world outside its doors. And if ever there was a time to be shielded from that world, it’s today.
“We’d like a room, please,” Julian says to the tall, sharply attired front desk manager who scornfully scans their ragged inebriated ranks.
“Who is we?” he asks. “You and Mrs . . .”
“All of us,” says Julian.
“You can’t, sir. Maximum occupancy per room is four. It’s a fire hazard otherwise.” The officious man says this with a straight face, even as the fire brigade douses a flame on Waterloo Bridge just behind the hotel, even as another fire brigade douses a fire on Exeter Street, across the Strand.
“It’s okay, Swedish,” Wild says, pulling on his sleeve.
“No, it’s not,” says Julian. “How many rooms would we need?” he asks the clerk. “There are nine of us.”
“Well, then, you would need a minimum of three rooms, sir.” The man smirks.
“Very well,” Julian says. “We will take four rooms. Preferably adjoining. Any with connecting doors?”
“We don’t have four rooms tonight. The house is full. We have two rooms. We also have a two-bedroom suite.”
“We’ll take it,” says Julian.
“Uh-huh,” says the clerk. “That will be ten pounds per room, or twenty pounds for the suite, sir.” Self-satisfied, the smug man snaps closed the reservation book.
“We’ll take the rooms and the suite.”
“That would be forty pounds.”
From the jacket pocket, Julian takes out his cash. He counts off forty pounds, and another forty—and another forty.
“Here’s one hundred and twenty pounds,” he says. “Paid in full for the entire weekend.” He gives the stunned man another five. “Please bring extra robes, towels, pillows, blankets, extra soap and shampoo, toiletries for the ladies, and for the men razors and shaving foam.” He gives the man another ten. “And also ten bottles of champagne, a bottle of your finest gin, a small bottle of angostura bitters, and some tonic water. Oh, and a tray of light sandwiches and scones with jam, in case we get hungry. You know what, make it two trays.”
The clerk stands with his mouth open.
“The keys please,” Julian says, extending his hand.
The gang maintains their British exterior until they get inside the suite, and then it’s pandemonium. They really test the limits of the soundproof walls. Wild hugs Julian so hard he reopens the cut above Julian’s eye. They scramble for the white towels to clean him up with while they continue to cheer.
“Nick will piss himself when he finds out he’s missing this, the poor bastard,” Duncan says.
The suite is large, warm, clean, well-lit, and has two baths. The blackout curtains have been drawn by the turndown maids. They peek outside. There is no river, no Big Ben, no Westminster Palace, no Southbank. There is nothing. What a mistake it was to look, they say, swishing the drapes shut. Let’s not do that again. They turn their backs on the reality outside and turn their faces to the revelry inside.
“We are five-star refugees,” Wild says. “We are going to get blitzed, as in the old days, and every glass we raise, we will raise to Swedish. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life. Jules, can I call you my best friend?”
“No,” says Mia. “He is my best friend.”
“Just because you have boobs, Folgate, doesn’t make you his best friend,” Wild says. “Swedish and I are brothers. We have lost our appendages. We have lost our brothers. Jules, who’s your best friend?”
“Why do I have to choose?” Julian says.
Duncan comes to the rescue. “Who do you want to sleep with, Jules? That’s your answer.”
“Duncan, if that was the answer,” Shona says, “you’d be calling a hundred women from Wapping to East Ham your best friends.”
“My God, where are these hundred women?” mutters Duncan.
“Where did you get the money for all this, Jules?” Shona asks. “The black-market runs, the dinner tonight, the suite. That’s a lot of cash.”
“Remember my story about a murder in a brothel? The Master of the Mint died, and left all his precious coin behind in the floorboards.”
“That was during the Great Fire. I’m talking about now.”
“Are we not living through the Great Fire?” Julian says. “A fire that’s going to last nearly five more years?”
“Fuck off, as Nick would say,” says Duncan. “This bloody war is not going to last five more fucking years. Shoot me if that’s true. But not tonight.” He grins. “Shoot me tomorrow.”
“Did you spend every last penny on us, Jules, or is there more?” Shona asks.
“Why, Shona, do you want to kill him for it, too?” Duncan says. “Or do you just want to stay here with me for five more years?”
“Yes,” says Shona.
Frankie, true to herself, takes out a small bag from her purse, spills out her puzzle pieces on the table by the blacked-out window, mixes them up, and begins to put them together. She is impervious to mockery, even Wild’s mockery. “Why even bother to trade the Underground for the Savoy if you’re just going to do the same bloody thing?” he says. Kate perches across the table from Frankie and asks her if she needs help. Frankie doesn’t say no.
Wild turns up the radio. They drink champagne, argue who is getting which room, and who’s staying in the suite, and who will use the bath first. They draw straws, curse, disappear behind closed doors. They dance and fall on beds and take off their dirty suits and dresses and put on fresh robes and slippers. They call housekeeping and ask for their clothes to be laundered and returned to them in the morning, all except Julian, who keeps his suit on because that’s where his money is. Mia curls up on the couch and drifts off. “I think I’ve had too much seduction in the form of Pink Gin,” she mutters when Julian wakes her by softly kissing her face. He helps her up as they begin to make their escape to their own room down the hall.
I will sleep with you, Julian overhears Liz say to Wild, if you agree to marry me.
Julian and Duncan exchange an incredulous stare, as in, poor fucking Wild. Duncan laughs. “How I wish our Nick could hear this,” he says. “Shona, Sheila, what do you say, my beauties? Will you sleep with me if I agree to marry you? Because I’m nicer than Wild. I’m taller. I’m much bigger”—Duncan horselaughs—“and I’ve got two of my arms.”
“If you think what you need is two arms,” Wild says, “I pity your women.”
A few doors down the hall, Julian and Mia’s room is positively a tomb compared to the revelry in the suite. Mia disappears into the bathroom. Julian takes off his tie and vest, unbuttons his shirt, loosens his belt and lies down on the bed to wait for her. She draws a bath that seems to last hours. He may have fallen asleep. “Are you okay in there?” he calls through the closed door, too tired to get up. “Come on out. You’re going to dissolve in that water.”
“Like a sugar cube,” she says in a purring voice. “Jules, it’s so nice. It’s so nice. I haven’t had a bath in months. Why don’t you come in here with me? Walk in, my lord, walk in,” she burbles. “It’s from Troilus and Cressida, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering, Miri,” says Julian. “I know.”
As he is about to come in, there’s a knock on the door. It’s Liz. She doesn’t even notice that Julian is half dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, his chest bare. She looks panicked.
“Uh-oh,” Julian says, off the expression on her face.
“I need to ask Maria a question.”
Julian points to the bathroom.
Liz wants to know if she should take Wild up on his offer even though she knows he will not marry her, even though she knows he doesn’t really love her and will not stay with her. And if she does take him up on it, which room should they use? She asks Mia for other advice, too, advice that is too hushed for Julian to eavesdrop on.
There’s giggling, intermittent exclamations, a “What?” and an “Oh, my goodness, I can’t do that!”
There’s another knock on the door. It’s Shona and Sheila. This time, the women have come to Julian for advice. Duncan has made them an offer—to love them both—and they don’t know if they should accept. “At the same time!” says Sheila.
“Not in tandem, but at the same time, Julian!” says Shona.
“Yes, um, I got that,” Julian says.
“What do you think?”
He looks over the women’s glistening faces, their beguiled expressions.
“I think it would be extremely patriotic of you,” he says. “You will be going above and beyond your call of duty for the war effort. Just think about how happy you’re going to make that man. Trust me”—Julian smiles—“Dunk is going to have a smile on his face for a month. He needs that to work the bomb sites every night.”
They’re excited, but they want a second opinion. Julian points them to the bathroom.
There’s another knock. It’s Frankie. With all the potential debauchery about to go down on the fifth floor, Frankie wants to know which room she and Kate can sleep in, because they’re tired and have had too much to drink. Julian gives her the key to the second room. Wild and Duncan can divide the suite bedrooms between them as they see fit.
He barely has time to let Frankie out before Duncan and Wild crowd the doorway. “Has the party moved in here? Where did our dates go? Only Kate was left in the suite, and she looked so terrified of us, we had to scram before she called for security.”
Behind the bathroom door there’s mad exalted giggling.
“What are they yakking about?”
“Take a guess,” Julian says.
There’s a pause. “How long is that going to take?” Duncan says.
“I guarantee, longer than the act itself,” says Wild.
“Yeah, if you’re crap at it,” says Duncan.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“Swedish, when are they coming out?”
Julian knocks on the bathroom door. “Mia?”
“Don’t come in,” she says. “We’ve run Liz a bath.” There are peals of laughter.
“Liz has her own bathroom, you know,” Julian says. “We don’t all have to live in one room like communists.”
There is no answer, only hilarity.
Duncan and Wild stretch out on their backs on the bed, while Julian sinks into the armchair.
By the time the girls finish talking and bathing, dry off, and leave with the boys, it’s nearly two in the morning.
Julian finishes with his bath in five minutes, but it’s five minutes too long. Still damp, wrapped in her robe, Mia is unconscious on top of the covers. He rolls her inside the bed, climbs in himself, and is asleep before his hand can find her.
Some time later he’s awoken by her feline voice.
“Jules,” she’s whispering. “Jules!”
He bolts straight up like he’s in the army. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. But . . . you’re naked.”
He falls back on the pillow. “You woke me up to tell me that? I know I’m naked. What time is it?”
“Nine in the morning.”
“Ugh.”
“Why are you naked?”
“You and your friends took all the robes.”
“Oh.”
He uses the bathroom, brushes his teeth, swills his mouth out with gin, takes a swig from the bottle, and climbs back under the covers.
It’s dark in the room. The heavy curtains block out the morning. He closes his eyes and when he opens them, she’s still staring at him.
“That damn Wild.” She touches his brow. “Your cut is bleeding.”
“It’s fine.”
“Do you want me to change the dressing?”
“I’m okay for now.”
She is silent. “Did you think it was going to go differently last night? I’m sorry I fell asleep.”
“It’s okay.”
“And took so long in the bath.”
“That’s okay.”
“You’re not upset with me?”
“No, Mia.”
“Then why are you staring at me like that?”
Julian shuts his eyes. He doesn’t mind her seeing the love, but he doesn’t want her to see the seeping sadness he feels even during happy moments like this. He doesn’t want her to see his fear. The fear of the broken clock, of the dying days, of the limitless horrors perpetrated on him and her. Look down on us and this holy house with pity, O Lord. He takes a deep breath, composes himself, opens his eyes, and smiles.
“A better question is, why are you staring at me?” he says, his full eyes twinkling.
In the dark, her pupils are dilated. “I’m not staring. But, um, why are you so muscled?”
“I’m not really.”
“You are. Very.”
“I train.”
“For what?”
“To fight, I guess. To endure.” He smiles. “You think it’s easy being in the line of fire with you? You think it’s easy walking through ice caves?”
“That story you told us about the ship and the fight on deck, and the knife that took half your hand and nearly your life, that wasn’t true, was it?”
“What do you think?”
“I thought you were embellishing things. But seeing you right now, I’m afraid it might be true.” But she doesn’t look afraid. She looks tantalized.
“What, Mia?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Do you always sleep . . . naked?”
“When I’m next to sleeping beauty, yes,” he says, reaching for her. They thread their hands together. Turning her onto her back, he leans over her. She has taken off her robe. She is also naked. “You are beautiful when you are happy.”
“Then I’m beautiful all the time,” she says, stroking his arms and shoulders, “because I’m almost always happy.” Her breath quickens. “Jules, you are so . . . awake.”
“Yes, my flesh rises with your name.” Julian opens her mouth with his kiss.
Moaning, she reaches for him. Oh my word, Julian. She squeezes him, strokes him, tugs on him to beckon him on top of her. Come here. Honest, I can’t wait another second.
You can’t wait another second?
There’s a knock on the door.
“Go away!” Julian yells.
The knock gets louder.
“Jules! It’s us! It’s Wild and Dunk!”
“I know who you are! Go. Away.”
There’s another knock. “Jules, it’s Shona.”
And another. “And Sheila!”
“We’re starved, Jules.”
Me too, he says to Mia, his body over hers.
Me too, Mia says into his collarbone.
The knocking persists.
They groan. Mia hides in the bathroom, while Julian throws on a pair of trousers and grabs some pound notes from his pocket. He unlocks the door, opening it two inches and keeping the chain on. “Go away!” Julian says into Wild’s laughing face.
“Swedish, the morning is no time for what you’re about to do. It’s disgraceful. It is, however, time for breakfast. Let us in.”
“Go back to your suite or I’ll have you arrested. Here—take my money. Order room service, get whatever you want. We’ll be there shortly.”
“Not too shortly, I hope?” Mia whispers from behind.
Wild and Dunk crack up. “Chop, chop, Swedish,” Wild says, real fondness, real affection in his eyes and voice, “or there won’t be any scones left.”
After they leave, and he bolts the door, Julian sits on the bed and stands Mia naked in front of him, between his legs. Holding her hips, he pulls her close and presses his face between her weighty breasts. Sometimes they fit into his hands and sometimes like now they spill out. Either way, it’s all good. He fondles her, plays with her, kisses her nipples gently, kisses them until her head tips back and her body arches forward. I don’t need it, Jules, she whispers, honest.
But I like it, he says, running his hands over her rounded hips.
Me, too.
When he sees how softened she is and how weakened, he lays her down on the bed. She opens her arms. “Come lie on top of me. If I told you how long it’s been since anyone’s been on top of me, you would cry.”
“Why would I cry? I’d prefer it if no one had been on top of you.”
“I misspoke,” Mia says. “I meant me. I would cry. I don’t want anything else for now but you inside me. Come. It’s all I want.”
When his weight presses her into the bed, belly to belly, chest to breast, she does cry. She turns her head, maybe hoping he won’t see it. He is careful at first and slow. She moans as if she is being hurt. He holds himself up with his arms, with his knees. Her body is bruised at the ribs, she has cuts on her stomach and neck and legs. She is a bright angel with black wounds. She sears his eyes.
“On this earth, under all the stars in the sky,” he whispers, “there is a country, and in this country, a mighty unbreakable city, and in this city a mighty unbreakable girl, and in the girl a soul, and in the soul a heart.”
“That’s yours. Have you come to take it?” she murmurs and curves into him. “Go ahead, then. Let nothing stop you.” She pulls on his arms, pleads with him to forget her pain, to lower himself on her, to flatten her, to hold himself up only a little bit, and to not stop moving.
Eventually the moving is going to cause me to stop moving, Julian says. The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. She moans in dissent, in assent, in delirium. Her eyes are closed, but toward the end, she opens them, puts her hands on his chest, and asks him to wait, wait.
Julian almost can’t wait.
Wait, wait. Crawling out from underneath him, she hops off the bed, pulls off the quilt and throws it on the floor.
What are you doing?
I’m shameful, I know, she says, lying down in front of the full-length wardrobe mirror and beckoning him to her. But just once, I want to feel it and see it. I want to see what it looks like to be loved by you.
He is happy to oblige. He holds up her legs, one palm on the back of her raised thigh. He wants to give her what she wants. Trouble is, he’s almost done.
A little longer, Jules. Please. A little longer. Pressing his face to her face, he kisses her perspiring cheek and watches her stare into the mirror—at his body pulsing over hers, a piston in motion. He watches her watch him through the mirror, watching her as he comes.
* * *
“I don’t want to leave here,” she says, nestled into him. “I’m not hungry for food. I’m not thirsty for coffee. I just want you. How long until the next round?”
“Five minutes,” he replies. “But I’ve got fourteen more rounds in me, and yet they’re out there, waiting for us.”
“After fifteen rounds,” Mia says in an electrified whisper, raising her eyes, “I might not walk out of the ring on my own two feet.”
“Oh, for sure you won’t,” he says, kissing her upturned face.
“Come on, just once more?” she says.
“The next time will go on too long,” he says, and in response to her moan adds, “Shh. I promise you’ll have it. We have the room for the weekend. We’ll have plenty of time, for everything.”
“For everything?”
“Anything you want.”
Reluctantly she gets out of bed and looks for her robe. “I’m warning you, though, no Wild tonight, no Duncan, no Liz. No one. Just me and you.”
“You don’t have to tell me about it.”
Before they leave the room, she embraces him. “Out there, you’re going to be all proper with me, as always, but I want you to know how I feel.”
“I know how you feel.” Julian strokes her face.
“But how do you feel?” she asks in a trembling, uncertain whisper.
“You don’t know how I feel, Mia?” Almost everything he feels, he puts into his eyes. “I am yours. I belong to you.”
What he tries to conceal:
And at the bar, a tune is playing, a plaintive male voice complaining: his girl has found another boy another love, while the twirling ballerina round and round and round keeps spinning and then she stops, the Cheapside girl in silk and gold receding.