Paullina Simons - Inexpressible Island

“Like the cargo cult planes in Melanesia,” Julian says pensively.

“The what?”

“Never mind. Continue. Why do you do that?”

“We paint on the fake windshields, the wheels, even the numbers on the buses,” Mia says, “and we place them around the outskirts of town, where they’re easy to spot. The Germans bomb our decoy buses, while inside the city, we get to carry on with our business.”

“Aha. Like building film sets. Except for real life.”

“Yes, precisely! Fake buses for real life.”

Julian and Mia continue to sit together on top of the crumpled exterior wall, hunched over, their feet on the window frames. They’re covered head to toe in mortar dust, even their faces and mouths. She tightens her headscarf under her wool hat, breathes into her gloved hands.

Her mother is up in Blackpool with her Aunt Wilma, her three cousins and their seven kids. Aunt Wilma is atypically British. She is not calm. When the bombs started falling in September on a daily basis, Wilma became hysterical. Her vocal panic traumatized her grandchildren, Mia’s second cousins. “And don’t think that my mum doesn’t mention every chance she gets that her sister is a grandmother seven times over and my mum not even once.” So Wilma packed up the family and shuffled off to Blackpool where their family is from.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Why , why, didn’t you go with them.

“My life is here.” She draws the coat across herself. “I’m with my friends, so I don’t care. I’ll admit that when I first saw the Luftwaffe fly overhead with no Spitfires or Hurricanes in sight, I thought I was watching my own destruction.” She peers at him. “Kind of the way you’re acting today.”

Julian says nothing. His eyes lock with hers. “Like I’m watching whose destruction?” he says quietly.

Mia sputters and moves on. “The first bomb that hit our house blew the roof off,” she says.

“The first bomb?”

“Oh, yes. The brigade pulled my mum out from under the dining room table, the table fine, my mum fine, and she yells to me, Mia, I told you it was a good table!” The young woman smiles in remembrance. “The council said they could do nothing for us, and we should consider ourselves lucky that we had a roof over our heads, and I pointed up to the open sky and said, do you have eyes ? What roof? The chap got mad and left.” She laughs. “After we got bombed, we got free refreshment for two days. At first, Mum said it was nice and we should get bombed more often. We had the Emergency Londoners’ Meal Service. We had our bath in the mobile bath units—I call it the human laundry—and did our washing in the mobile laundry that was parked a block away from us on Commercial Street. It was cold in our house without a roof, but it was still September so it wasn’t too bad, and we were together. Aunt Wilma was next door with her kids and her kids’ kids, and Mum liked that. Truth be told, I liked it, too. I’m close to Wilma’s youngest daughter, Kara. She and I were born the same year. She’s like my twin. She’s funny.”

“Funnier than you?”

“Like, who even could be?” Mia smiles. “But then a bomb fell on Wilma’s house, and all the wood and glass ended up in our living room, and then it rained for a week straight, and that wasn’t funny. So Mum agreed that maybe it was time to go and my aunt said, you think ? After they left, I stayed for a few days alone in the house, but then another incendiary fell, and, well, you know.” Mia hops up and extends her hand to him. “You want to go see what’s left of my house? Come on. We still have a few minutes before Finch is done. It’s just around the corner.”

They hurry to Commercial Street. “The bombs have torn all the leaves off the trees,” Julian says. “That’s why it looks like winter.”

“Silly boy,” Mia says. “It looks like winter because it’s actually winter.”

Folgate Street is a short narrow road between two large wide thoroughfares, Bishopsgate and Commercial.

Not much is left of Folgate. Most of the two dozen homes are rubble except for the four corner ones. They have craters inside them, and only partial roofs, but families continue to live there. Even milk and newspapers continue to be delivered, the milk in tins.

In the middle of Folgate, Mia’s flattened house is black cinder and dust.

“Mum said she’d be back as soon as she had my aunt and cousins settled,” Mia says, “but I telegraphed her to say not to bother. Where is she going to go? She can’t live at Bank with me. I admit, I’m a little jealous of Lucinda and her family. Sure, Lucinda’s a nutter, but Sheila and Kate have their mum. It was nice when Mum and I were together and could wash our clothes in the laundry truck. Of course then the gal who’d been driving it died. Her lungs got filled with dust. It’s her lighter I’m using.” Mia smokes another cigarette as they walk back, slowly. “When my house collapsed, I walked away. Mum taught me to do that. She said, eyes forward, and never look back; otherwise, you’ll be carrying the weight of that house with you the rest of your life.”

If only Julian could heed that advice.

“What’s Wild’s story, Mia? Tell me quick, before we return.”

“Okay, but you can never tell him I told you,” she says. “He lost his arm when he was trying to save his brother. A bomb fell during one of the early attacks in July, and Louis got trapped in their burning house. Wild tried to get him out. Louis kept telling Wild to go, but Wild wouldn’t leave him. Then the wall frame shifted, and he got stuck. He couldn’t get even himself out. Wild watched his brother die as their house burned down around them. He barely escaped himself. The firemen had to cut off his arm to save his life. Their parents were outside in the street, while their two sons were trapped inside.”

Julian lowers his head.

“It wasn’t great,” Mia says. “It’s still not good. Being a fireman was all Wild wanted to be since we were kids, and now he’s got no brother, no arm, and can never be a fireman. Can you imagine?”

“Yes,” says Julian.

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 .”