Julian twinkles at her.
She twinkles back.
Is now a good time for that kind of story?
As good a time as any.
Well . . . did you?
Did I what? If you want to know, you might as well say the words.
Were you ever with two girls at once?
Yes.
She snaps to attention. Really?
Really.
She tries to scoot closer to him and hurts herself. Oh, no, she says. Oh God, I can’t move, I’m so sore. Don’t do this to me.
What am I doing? I’m barely even touching you. His index finger continues to draw small circles on her stomach. He can’t extend his arm, can’t lower it to seek out paradise.
You scintillated me into moving, she says.
Don’t ask questions if my answers distress you.
Wait. Let me get comfortable before you tell me more.
You want to get comfortable for this story?
Yes, I can’t have my body agitated by you. You’re going to pop all my bandages.
Is that what you call it?
Ha. Okay, I’m better now. Where were we?
Lying on his side, he gazes at her, his pupils amused and dilated, his body stirring. I’m still in love with you, he whispers. I’m so in love with you.
Still? I should hope so. You’ve known me barely five minutes.
He smiles, even though his cheek hurts. You want to hear a story or no?
Yes, I’m quite curious to hear this one. Were they the girls tattooed on your arm?
One of them was. Every story I have, Julian says, is about the girl on my arm.
The girl? You mean a girl. When he doesn’t reply, Mia asks to guess which one it was. Not MIRABELLE, she says. You’re too fairytaley and soppy about her.
Is that what I am?
Yes, and not Shae because—I don’t know—she seems kind of the opposite to me. Opposite of a fairytale.
Like a horror story maybe?
Kind of. I think either Miri or Mallory. They seem like the type to go for that sort of thing. If I had to pick, I’d say Mallory.
Very good. It was Mallory.
Tell me more. Who was the other one?
A girl named Margrave.
Were they both pretty?
Of course.
And naked?
Of course.
And you? Were you naked, too? Don’t tell me—of course!
He laughs, and it hurts his face and back and ribs.
How should we do this, she says.
Do what, Mia, says Julian. What would you like to do?
Don’t be naughty. Do you want me to interview you, like before? There’s no stage anymore. No audience.
You’re my audience. So, whatever you want.
Look at you acting all accommodating. I suppose you’d have to be, being with two girls. Okay, I’ll ask you questions. That way you can tell me only the parts I want to hear. But will you promise to tell me the truth?
If that’s what you want, yes.
No matter what I ask?
If that’s what you want.
How did you get two girls to agree to that sort of thing, anyway?
They needed almost no persuasion.
This is girls we’re talking about, right? Okay, set the scene for me, she says, failing to keep the breathy excitement out of her voice.
There was a dormered room, a little like this one, but much larger, with nothing in it but a bed. A fireplace. A table with candles on it. On the bed was a silk sheet and two naked women. The bed was a four poster so the girls could grab on to the headboard or the posts if they needed to.
Mia breathes shallowly. Did they need to grab on to the headboard or the posts?
Sometimes.
She exhales in a long breath full of unquiet imagination. Did you kiss them?
Yes, I kissed them.
Did you kiss them . . . everywhere?
Yes, I kissed them everywhere.
Both of them?
Yes.
Did you use your mouth and your hands? She tries to keep calm.
I used everything at my disposal.
Oh my goodness, Jules . . .
Yes, Mia?
She falls silent, as if she can’t breathe and ask questions at the same time. They lie wordlessly but not quietly. When she can’t formulate her next question, Julian volunteers by whispering to her of soft breasts and the shimmering fire, of the summer night air unable to cool their bodies, and the cries of pleasure from a trio of impassioned throats.
The things you did with your mouth, did you like doing that to them?
Yes. Very much.
Did they kiss you all over, too?
Yes.
I suppose you liked that.
I suppose I did.
Did they touch each other?
Yes.
With their mouths and their hands?
Yes.
Did you like watching that?
That was one of my favorite things, Julian says, inching closer. With effort, he lifts his broken arm and drapes it over her. At one point, one of them was on her hands and knees between the legs of the other and I was behind her, doing my thing, and watching them both.
She moans from the pain of inflating her lungs. How could you focus on the job at hand?
With some difficulty. Another time, one of them kneeled over my mouth—grabbing on to the headboard—and the other used her mouth on me.
Wait, wait, Mia says, stop, I can’t take it . . .
Julian waits. He can’t take it either.
I wish I could do that, Mia whispers.
Which part?
All of it. Kneel over your mouth. Use my mouth on you.
Yes, me, too.
Here’s the part I don’t get, she says, resuming after a few minutes. Right now, we’re just talking about it. We are not the man and woman in that bed . . .
Are we not?
No. We’re in this bed. And though we’re doing nothing but talking, I can feel you. She curves her lower stomach into him, with a groan of pain tries to lower her trembling arm to touch him, and fails. Despite all your injuries, this still happens?
What does one have to do with the other? That’s like saying if you’re hungry it can’t happen.
But you’re all busted up.
So?
If you’re this excited when we’re just talking about it, says Mia, how did you manage to last through the actual thing itself?
Who says I did? The second time was better. After that it got easier.
After that?
It’s not often you get to drink from that cup, Julian says with a smile. You want to make sure you get to every last drop.
Mia scoots forward and kisses him. They kiss with their heads not leaving the pillows, their mouths barely touching. Remember what I told you about the Ideal Man, she whispers. Whatever we ask of him, his answer should always be about us.
Then I have fulfilled my obligations admirably, Julian says, pressing her to him with his field-splinted arm, trying not to groan. He doesn’t want her to think it hurts to touch her. Though in every way it hurts to touch her.
What did the girls like best? she asks.
He doesn’t reply right away. There had been so much joy that hot night at the Silver Cross, so much unbridled uncontained happiness.
I know what I would like, she says. Of course I’d like your mouth, your hands. But most of all, I’d like the thing I glimpsed at the Savoy, the thing you promised me I would have again, the abundant thing Rhett gave Scarlett.
You mean the abundant thing Rhett took from Scarlett.
Oh, Julian.
Oh, Mia.
She lies, breathing heavily. You are a bad man, she says.
No, I’m so good.
You know what you did.
I have never been this polite, he says. I’ve done nothing but lie here chastely and answer your questions.
Chaste is the problem.
/> I agree with you there.
Did you know you’d get us this excited?
Um, did you not know?
No! I thought we were just talking.
Naked in bed at night, face to face, talking about men and women getting it on?
Naked yes, but bandaged and injured, too. What’s your plan now, smart guy?
Who said anything about smart?
Ah. Her dilated dark eyes burn. But you have a plan?
About this sort of thing? Always.
They kiss and mill and groan from the pain, from the wounds, from the pulsing ache at the core of their bodies.
I can’t take it, she says.
Me neither. Lie on your back.
And then what?
And I will lie on my back.
Um . . .
Mia. Just . . . lie on your back.
Carefully she turns onto her back. He turns onto his, even though his shoulder blade is killing him, and with his freed and functioning lowered left hand, he caresses her until the only sound from her is an aspirated oh.
And now what? she says, panting, turning her full-up gaze to him. Her own hand lowers to take hold of him. She moans; he moans. What I want is you. She strokes him. I want what I’ve had the least of in my life. Isn’t it always the way?
It sure is, he says.
You can’t lie on top of me, she says. I can’t get on top of you. Your knees are torn up, so you can’t get behind me. Is there something I’m missing?
And when infirmities thicken upon us, Julian whispers, and old age comes, and we can do little else but lie still, still we persevere.
You think we can overcome it?
Yes, my darling Mia. We may be broken. But we are not hopeless. Slowly he gets off the bed. We will overcome it by patience. He helps her off the bed, too.
Are we going to make love like salmon, standing? Are you going to lift me up?
In another life perhaps, he says. In this one, we will overcome it by faith. Sit on the bed, and lie back. Carefully he helps her lower herself onto her back, and prods open her legs. Her hips are at the edge of the bed.
We will overcome it by hope, he continues, stepping between her legs.
She moans. You think this is going to work?
Yes. Let me show you.
He kisses her. Holding open her legs, he lowers his head between her thighs like he is doubling over, trying not to groan from his broken ribs, from his broken heart, and rubs his mouth softly against her softness. She moans, trying not to move. Her legs quiver. His ribs are throbbing. But he doesn’t want to straighten out until he brings her a little bit of happiness.
And now? she whispers, her hand running through his hair.
We will overcome it by love.
That wasn’t love?
It was. He steps in, to meet her at the bed’s edge, and guides himself, searching for her. But you asked me for something else.
God, yes. She groans. Something less polite.
As you wish, Mia.
They fuse together. She cries out. His palms press down on the backs of her thighs. His fractured forearm pulses pain with every beat of his quickened heart. In this position, the love is efficient and effective. The stress on her body is great. Soon she is overcome.
It’s too intense for her, Julian can see it, he can feel it. Her tumultuous moaning borders on suffering cries. She can’t take it light or heavy. Supporting himself by his one functioning arm, he leans over her for a moment, and kisses her lips. She moans and pleads for something he can’t decipher and then cries through it. Not after; during. She moans and cries and cries. He asks if he’s hurting her, and she says no. He asks if she wants him to finish, and she says NO.
She loved him. And he loved her.
He wants to lie on top of her so much, thread his arms under her, press his weight onto her, kiss her lips again. But he can’t.
He moves slow and deep. He wishes not to move at all. Intermittently he speeds up, to bring her agony and relief, and then slows down once more.
Julian doesn’t want the future to come, the war of the world to intrude, the briefness of their minutes to be upon them.
The little room is heavy with their cries. Their sobs disturb the curtains.
But his groans sound as if he’s fallen into a tiger trap and now casts forward dragging the trap behind him still attached to his smashed-up body.
Mia, please don’t cry. Why does love feel so much like pain.
It’s so sweet she whispers, her body shuddering, tears trickling down her face. This love of yours is sweeter than any words I’ve ever known, and I desperately don’t want it to be over.
25
Land of Hope and Glory
BUT THAT’S IN MYTHOLMROYD, AMID THE HILLSIDES AND slopes and steep-sided valleys of the British moorlands, amid a rolling landscape in the open country, near woodlands and country houses, above the waterlogged soil that has frozen in the winter. Julian sleeps and dreams of purple summer heather blanketing the uplands for stretched-out scenic miles.
In the morning, they sit downstairs with a small breakfast and a hot tea, and afterward she walks to buy the paper while he waits for her by the river. He watches her limp downhill to him, lit up by the sun, her shining face beaming at him from across the street. He can’t help it. He smiles back. And then on the train, he sits with his eyes closed, trying to imprint the image of her full of hope and happiness onto the wretched lens with which he sees the known world.
Before they get to Blackpool, there is Blackburn, and in Blackburn there is a parachute mine that had fallen some time ago and burrowed, and which detonates in the rumble of the passing locomotive, breaking the tracks and derailing the front of the train. The train, traveling slow, skids in the snow. The engine and the first two cars tip over. The rest of the train pops off the tracks and pitches against the trees and the snow banks. Julian and Mia, sitting close to the front, suffer primary blast injuries. Her ear drum bursts. She bleeds from her ears and nose. A sandbag rips open, and the sand flies through the air and lodges in Julian’s eyes.
“What did you say to me in the rubble at the Ten Bells?” the irrepressible Mia asks him, swaying and bumping him in the medical van, having lost with the burst drum not only all sense of how loudly she is speaking but her balance, too. Despite the injuries, her tone is peppy.
“I don’t remember.” Julian can’t see.
“You said we’re not going to make it, are we, you and me. Well, aren’t you sheepish now, mister, to see how wrong you were.”
He can’t see her, but he sure can hear her.
“We made it pretty far since then, haven’t we?” Mia says, kissing his head, ruffling his hair. “It’s been almost three weeks since you were Mr. Gloomy Gloomerpants. And look at us.”
“I would,” Julian says. “But I can’t see.”
“You’ll be fine,” she says at top volume, rubbing his stubbled cheek. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. That was a joke. I’m going to find something I can shave you with. You’ve got a 5 p.m. shadow that’s weeks old.” She nuzzles his cheek, kisses his face. “That was also funny, Jules. I was funny there.”
“Ha.”
A sliver of metal got stuck in the cornea of Julian’s bad eye, and though the medic pulled it out, it nicked his pupil and now he can’t see. The sand grit has scraped the sclera and cornea and irises in both eyes. He hopes that will at least be temporary and his right eye will regain some vision. For now he’s bandaged around both eyes and is blind.
Mia shaves him, and feeds him, and reads to him, and brings him drink. She remains by his side for two dark days in a room at a small tavern near the station in Blackburn until the scratched cornea heals and he can dimly see out of one eye. Once again, they walk away from the blast on their own two feet. Julian’s left eye remains patched and sightless. Mia makes a substantial number of jokes at his expense. “What did the one-eyed pirate say to his fake wife? ‘I have no eye dear.’”
“
Always be yourself,” Julian says in return. “Unless you can be a pirate. Then always be a pirate.”
They manage to get on a packed-to-the-gills daily train from Blackburn to Preston. Mia is excited when they arrive at Preston, and why not? Only twenty more miles until Blackpool! But in Preston they learn there are no more civilian trains. It’s too close to Christmas, there are not enough engineers, and the military trains get priority. “Maybe in 1941, there’ll be a train for you,” says the station master in Preston. “Come back then. Happy New Year.”
“Come on, Jules, we can walk twenty miles, what do you say?”
With his one eye he appraises her, her still-bandaged head wound, busted ankle, swollen knees, cracked clavicle. He doesn’t bother to appraise himself, his injuries too numerous to count.
“Don’t give me your evil eye, Long John Silver.” She smiles. “It will take us three days. Four if we dog it.”
“Christmas Eve is tomorrow,” Julian says. What he doesn’t add is, it’s the 47th day. He tries not to even think it. Whether or not he thinks it, the fact of it doesn’t change. Tomorrow is the 47th day.
“I know. Do you have a better plan? Or are your plans only about fooling around with susceptible women?” She is always smiling.
He stares at her, at his own reflection in the station window, chews his lip. He is about to go talk to the station agent, to beg him for mercy. He is about to offer the man what he offers everyone who has something he wants. A barter. An Elizabethan coin that will feed the man’s family for a year in exchange for opening the doors of a cargo hold on a military train. But before he can do that, Mia nods to someone behind him. It’s the station agent.
“There’s a train coming through on its way to Blackpool North in about an hour,” the man says. “If you’re quiet, and ready, and standing where I tell you, I will open the hold. The train will be at the station for ten minutes. So if you’re not on the platform, you aren’t getting on.”
“Thank you,” Mia says, because all other words are inadequate.
Julian asks her to wait and follows the agent.
“What?” the man snaps, grim and overworked.
“I want to give you something,” Julian says. In the palm of his left hand, he holds out one of the gold coins.
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