“What’s this?” the agent says with suspicion.
“It’s a present for your family,” Julian says. “Don’t lose it. Find a coin dealer as soon as you can and sell it. Don’t accept anything less than four hundred pounds. Shop around. Auction it if you have to. If you’re patient, you may be able to get six hundred for it.”
“How much did you say?”
“You heard me.”
The station agent looks disbelievingly at the coin in his hand. “Well, crikey, thanks a million,” he says gruffly. “It’s really not necessary.”
“I know.”
“Not necessary,” the agent adds with the body tremor of a man having encountered a miracle, “but deeply appreciated.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Yes, Happy Christmas to you, too.”
The agent opens the hold for them, gives them two blankets, half a bottle of cheap whiskey and a Brodie hat full of bread and potato stew. “Left over from me dinner earlier,” he says. “The wife made it. Cooking is not her strong suit, but the hungrier you are, the better it’ll taste.”
It tastes like bouillabaisse at the Savoy. By the time the train terminates at Blackpool North an hour later, Julian and Mia have never been so full or so drunk.
It’s still three miles to her house.
They stumble in the dark like vagrants, their arms around their sore bodies, holding each other up, hobbling down the streets, slurring the words to “The Land of Hope and Glory.”
God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!
“We ain’t so mighty,” Julian says.
“Are you joking?” she says. “Half-blind, you brought me home for Christmas. With two working arms between us, one working leg, three ears and three eyes, we traveled across a war-torn country and lived to tell about it. We are invisible, Jules. Alone, not so great maybe, but together, we’re fucking invisible.”
“You mean invincible?”
“That’s what I said. Invisible.”
He wishes he could marry her and carry her in his arms.
26
Dream Machine
THE HOUSE IS A PINK-PAINTED, TINY, SEMI-DETACHED COTTAGE with an iron gate and a narrow walk. It stands on a street called Babbacombe, near Pleasure Beach. “How can you not love that,” Mia says. “Babbacombe, near Pleasure Beach.”
“There’s no way I can not love it,” says Julian. “It’s a pink palace. But I thought you grew up in London?”
“I did. We lived here when I was young. We keep it as a summer place. Wilma and her family stay in the other half.”
Doesn’t look as if anyone’s there now, the day before Christmas Eve. The house is locked up and dark. The street is treeless. The few bare bushes and the road are covered with ice and mud and old snow.
To get in, Mia finds a key under one of the plant pots in the front yard. Inside there’s no light. The electricity has been turned off for the winter. No one thought they’d be coming back to Blackpool until June. Julian and Mia blunder around the kitchen until they find matches and some candles.
There’s a note for Mia on the table. It’s from her mother. Mia reads it out loud.
Mia, my love, my dearest darling! Nothing would make your mum happier to know you read these words, because that would mean you were all right and safe. I haven’t heard from you in over a month. Last I heard you met a new fella. The news from London has been so bad that your silence is crushing me. I am sick with worry. We went with Wilma to Morecambe Bay to her father-in-law’s to spend Christmas and New Year’s.
If you come home for Christmas, and you get this in time, please take a train if they’re still running to Morecambe and walk 4 miles to Danvers Lane. Send word to the Morecambe telegraph office to let me know you’re all right. I go every day to check for news from you. If I don’t hear from you by New Year’s, I’m returning to London. I can’t take your silence anymore. I left you some of my ration tins in our secret cupboard in the pantry off the kitchen, you remember where. So many empty houses have been burgled. There’s Spam, tinned peaches, milk, tomatoes. There’s even a tinned pudding. I know how you like those. I luv ya, my angel, God be with you, kia ora, have life, be well, and Happy Christmas.
Your Mum.
Julian frowns. “Why did your mom say kia ora? How does she know the Maori greeting?”
“I was born in New Zealand,” Mia says. “How do you know it?”
“You were?” He is drunk but astonished.
“Yes, in McKenzie county, north of Dunedin. We returned to Blackpool when I was a baby, so I don’t remember any of it. My mum’s family is from here.”
“What year were you born?”
“1912.”
He stares at her deeply, deeply, deeply. Shae died at the end of 1911.
“What’s your mum’s name?”
“Abigail. Abby. Why?”
It doesn’t ring a bell. But there are no coincidences. If he has a chance to meet her mother, he can ask Abigail if she’s ever heard of Agnes or Kiritopa or the Yarrow Tavern in Invercargill. “What do you think? Can we get to Morecambe in time for Christmas Eve?”
Mia shakes her head. “I can’t,” she says. “I’m tired. I don’t feel well.” It’s the first time since they’ve met that Julian has heard her admit that. “I’ll walk with you to the sea tomorrow, but that’s about it. There’s no direct train to Morecambe from here, anyway. We’d have to return to Preston.”
“No,” Julian says. “We are not going to do that.” He has brought her home. And look what it took. They’re not going anywhere.
“Right. Everything closes early tomorrow, and stays closed for Christmas and Boxing Day.” She steps closer to him. “If I tell her I’m here, she’s going to try to take the first train down. And then we won’t be alone anymore.” She doesn’t lift her arms, but she presses her face against his coat. “I want to feel a little better so I can be with you again, before they descend on us. My family is like locusts. There are so many of them, and they never stop chirping.”
The house is cold. They decide not to sleep upstairs. Their legs can’t carry them up and down. Julian builds a fire, goes up once to bring down some blankets and pillows and makes a bed for them on the floor in the parlor room in front of the fire. Together they lie down, though neither knows how they’re going to get to their feet tomorrow.
“I long for fish and chips, for biscuits and tea,” Mia says like she’s already dreaming. “What about you?”
“Palm trees and highways, the ocean, and music in the lit-up mountains.”
“Where is this magical place,” she murmurs before falling asleep, her forehead at his arm.
The next morning she wants to go to the boardwalk.
Looking her over, Julian says maybe they’ve done enough walking for 1940.
Her ankle is puffy and swollen and bruised. She won’t let him touch it. How does she think she can walk on it? And his knee looks like her ankle.
“You’ve never seen Blackpool,” Mia says. “You told me you wanted to.”
“What’s the hurry?” says he, he! “Let’s go after Christmas. We’ll go when you feel better.”
“I feel okay now, let’s go.” She is determined not to let the day pass by.
They limp in the freezing foggy rain to the empty boardwalk. Holding on to his good arm, she tells him of summer days when the Ferris wheel spun and the music played. She tells him of Belle Vue Gardens and Fairgrounds, of the Captive Flying Machine, of Pleasure Beach and the plunge pool.
She worked at Fun Palace, she tells him, and always dreamed of going out to sea. They spot a rowboat below the boardwalk, moored in the wet sand. Taking the stairs (what a bad idea that is), they walk out to the shoreline and clamber into the boat. The tide’s coming in. “I loved spending my summers here,” Mia says. “I ran the Ferris wheel and the little go-carts, but my favorite was the Dream Machine.”
“Why?”
“You wrote a poem about it, you should know.”
“Well, it’s a real thing. It’s a wheel and you give me money and ask it a question, and then I spin it, and when it stops, you have your answer.”
“What kind of question?”
“That’s the part I liked best,” Mia says. “Hearing what people asked the machine.”
“They didn’t ask silently?”
“Not always. They asked if they would get married, or have a baby, or have another baby, or if he loved her, or if he really loved her, or if he liked her long hair, or if he thought she was too skinny.” Mia laughs. “For some reason the answer to that one was always yes! He always thought she was too skinny.”
“What about the men?” Julian asks. “They had no questions?”
“They did. Usually, they were quieter. One man’s wife was sick. He asked if she would get better and broke down before the wheel stopped spinning. And the wheel’s answer was, not in the way you want. That was awful. Some other ones, too. Will she still love me even if I never make more money? She said she could never marry a plumber, should I apprentice at the masonry guild instead? I did a terrible thing, will my best friend ever forgive me?”
Julian lowers his head. “What was the answer to that one?” he says. “Or do you only remember the questions?”
Mia admits she mostly remembers the questions. “And their faces as they walked away. They were either hopeful or crushed.”
“Okay,” Julian says, giving her his hand and struggling up. “The tide is high. Let’s go find this Dream Machine of yours.”
It’s Christmas Eve, 1940. There is not a soul around up and down the long wide boardwalk. It’s gray and misty, it’s about three in the afternoon. The sun is getting ready to set, the sky is heavy and darkening. The Irish Sea is black. The wind whitens the small angry waves as they break against the rocks and the wet pier.
They hobble to the amusement arcade at Fun Palace. The Dream Machine is usually wheeled out onto the promenade, Mia says. Not today. They find it in the back of the arcade, behind the billiards, looming like a huge roulette wheel, lonely against the back wall.
Julian stares at the possibilities.
Signs point to YES.
It’s time to settle your debts.
You may rely on it.
Don’t count on it.
Cannot predict now.
Better not tell you now.
Only if it will make you happy
Try again, outlook hazy.
Not in the way you want.
Follow your heart.
There’s nothing to worry about.
Nothing is impossible with God.
Julian stares at the last one the longest. It’s in the narrowest groove. The tongue of the wheel barely has width to lodge in it.
From his pocket he produces a Fabian coin and hands it to her.
“What’s that?” she says.
“A gold sovereign.”
Frowning a little, she stares at it in the palm of her hand, looking troubled. “It’s weird,” she says, “but why does it look so familiar to me? I must have seen it in a book or something.”
“Or something,” he says.
“It’s so shiny. How much do you think it’s worth?”
He shrugs. “Six hundred pounds.”
She laughs. “You are a real comedian. Why can’t you ever be straight with me?”
“I’m telling you nothing but the truth. Are you going to spin?”
“Are you going to ask a question?” She groans as she lifts her arm to grab the lever.
“I’ve asked it.”
“You’re not going to tell me what it is?”
“Will this time be different?”
“That’s your question? Will this time be different?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But if you don’t like the answer, and you want me to spin again, you’ll have to give me another coin.” She grins.
“Okay.”
“How many times can we spin?”
“Thirty-six.” He has used four coins in London for the black market, the Savoy, Wild, and the one he gave to Nick. That’s a lot. Plus a fifth one to the station agent yesterday. “Are you going to spin or not?”
She pulls the lever. There’s a grinding sound of the gears ripping. The wheel spins and spins and spins and spins. They watch it for a long time until it finally stops moving.
Try again, outlook hazy, the groove marker says.
She sticks out her hand. “Another coin, please. It says try again.”
Julian produces another coin. She goes to pull the lever, but it won’t catch on a gear and won’t spin. “Oh, no,” she says. “We broke the Dream Machine.”
He stands, looking at it grimly.
She hands the coins back. He gives her his good arm. “Let’s go home. You look exhausted. I’ll go back out by myself to get our Christmas rations. I’ll get everything today so we’ll have enough for the holiday. I’ll get eggs. Is there some whisky in the house?”
“Eggs and Scotch, what a combination. Maybe we can make Scotch eggs, hardy-har-har.”
“Hardy-har-har,” he echoes, his arm around her, leading her away. “Did you ever ask the Dream Machine anything?”
“Never,” Mia replies. “I never wanted to know my future.”
“You wanted to once.” Have the smell of death be built in, like a death hack. That way, everybody would know right away what was coming.
You’d want that?
To know exactly when you were going to die? Absolutely, Josephine said. Who wouldn’t?
“No, not me,” Mia says. “It must’ve been one of your other girls. It’s easy to get confused, you’ve had so many.” She smiles. “What if the machine told me something I didn’t want to hear? I saw the faces of the people who asked it questions. The faces of those who received the right answer never looked as bright as the black expressions of those who got the wrong one.” Holding on to him for support, she falls quiet as they walk. “Kind of the way you just looked,” she says, “when you asked your seemingly innocuous question. What did you mean, will this time be any different? Will what be different?”
“Nothing,” says Julian.
Mutely she stares at him. Something pulls and tears behind her eyes, some alteration laced with the inexpressible truth.
27
Cargo Cult
WHEN HE COMES BACK LATER THAT NIGHT ON CHRISTMAS Eve, after getting the rations, Mia stands with her hand on her hip, thrusting her little notebook at him, open to the back page, where he had scribbled some words and forgot.
Welcome, you said, in any language
smiling at me from your metal hedges
And I said
I want out.
The dream machine is broken.
The box in which I live with you
Is nothing but
A cargo cult.
On the edges flowers, true,
But inside hollow.
I ask you please
I beg you please—
just let me out.
“Did you write this?”
He puts the bags down.
“Did you write it for me?” She tuts in disgust. “Like a love poem?”
“Well, it is a poem,” Julian says. “And it’s about love.”
“This is about love? About a love that’s run out?”
“Not run out.” Running out.
“Is this what you think of me? That I’m a hollow box?”
“No,” he says.
She jabs the paper with her angry finger. “It says so right here.”
“Can I explain?” But he can’t explain. Look for me in the box with you, says Mark Antony to his dead Cleopatra. That’s where I will be.
“Why do you say the Dream Machine is broken?”
“I didn’t write that today.”
“It reads like some final thing.”
“It’s just a poem.”
&
nbsp; “About real things!” She’s yelling. Mia is yelling at him. They stand in the cold kitchen. She starts to cry. “Why—why did you get me away from London if all you wanted was out? You could’ve left me there, where I belonged, and been out!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to be with you, Mia.”
“What did you mean, then?”
Clutching his busted forearm, he stands with his head deeply bowed. “I just wanted you to be with your mom on Christmas. We can come back to London in the new year if you want.” He starts to walk over to the hearth. “It’s so cold. Let me build a fire.”
She hobbles after him. She grabs his shirt, turns him around to her. “Why do you want out?” she cries.
“I have a sickness in my veins.” He tries to put a calming arm around her, but she won’t have it.
“What sickness?”
“The Epiphany of ruthless math, the Advent of despair,” he says.
“What are you talking about?”
“Like when you’re counting the days and realize you’re a life short.”
“You’re foul,” she says to him. “Can’t you just speak plain? Tell me what you mean.”
“Don’t yell.”
“Tell me straight,” she keeps repeating. She pushes him, she shakes him, she shoves him, hits him, she cries.
“I love you,” he says, his arms going around her.
“You love a hollow box?”
There is terror on his face.
And when she sees it, there is terror on hers. Her soul is laid bare. She pushes him away.
“Oh my God, it’s because you think I’m going to die,” she says, her breaking voice full of fear and trembling. “You may not know where Wild is, but somehow you think you know this, like about Blackpool not being bombed. You know it! Who are you? You’ve known it from the very beginning. That’s why your hands are always out to catch me.” She is shaking. “Will this time be any different? you asked. And the Dream Machine said no and broke. Why else would you look so shattered? I know that look. That’s how the old man looked when he asked about his wife who was dying.”
No, Julian says and even he can’t hear his own voice in the screaming silence.
“I’m the one, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” he says. “You’re the one.”
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