worry, Julian, it’s nice here at Bank,” Shona the driver tells him, speaking in a loud, guttural twang. She is narrow of eye and body. Her hair is tied up with a head scarf. “But it would be even better if we had a place to keep chickens and pigs. Then we’d really have something. What I wouldn’t give for some extra bacon and a chicken.”
“We’re not allowed chicken and pigs in the Underground, Shona,” says Finch.
Shona ignores him, continuing to address Julian. “Hyde Park has a piggery, right next to where the buses park for the night.”
“Exactly. A park. Not the Underground,” Finch says.
“But, Shona, darling,” says Duncan, his gruff voice softened to a quaver, “if we had somewhere to put your chickens and pigs, Wild would kill them, cook the shit out of them, and eat them before you had a chance to say where is my little piggy.”
“Dunk’s right, Shona,” Wild says. “That’s exactly what I would do.”
“You can’t have chickens in the Underground,” Finch doggedly repeats, in the deep black underground where beneath a gap in the busted pavement human beings have made themselves a home.
It’s chilly in the tunnels. To repay their hospitality, Julian shows his new friends how to make a Swedish flame. Out on the empty eastbound Central Line platform, he uses a small axe (not an ice axe) to make six vertical cuts in one of the wood logs, as if he’s slicing a cake. He makes the cuts not all the way through, leaving the log with a few inches intact at the base. He pours two spoonfuls of kerosene into the center of the log and throws a match after it. The log burns for over two hours. They leave it standing, warm their hands and faces over it, make hot water, make tea, and then fit around it right on the platform, as if having a campfire.
Wild happily starts referring to Julian as Swedish.
As in, “Swedish, where did you learn to do that?”
And, “Swedish, what else do you know? Anything, for example, that might be useful to Folgate?”
“Shut up, Wild!”
“Shut up, Wild!” Finch says, and then quieter to Mia, “It’s because you were singing that butter pinching song that he talks like that.”
“Believe me, Finch, it’s not because of that song,” Wild says, turning to Julian. “Swedish, where did you learn to fight with your left?”
The young people on the platform sit around the burning log, sipping tea and whiskey. Their eyes are on Julian. Mia sits next to Finch. Her eyes are on him, too.
“You can learn it, too, Wild,” Julian replies. “Show them your mangled right claw, and while they’re gloating about how they’re going to lick you, wallop them with your left. You don’t even need to make a fist. Though you can.”
“That’s not what you did.”
“I trained for a long time to learn to fight southpaw. Also, to be fair, last night I didn’t fight.”
“What was it, then?” Duncan says. “Those three were down on the ground before they knew what hit them.”
“Like I said.”
When he sees Mia smile, Finch points to Julian’s missing fingers. “One of the real fights didn’t go so well for you, eh?”
Julian shrugs. “As they say, Finch, dead men tell no tales. And I’m still here. Make of that what you will.”
“Oh, tell us, Swedish!” Wild says. “Don’t hold back. We love a good story. Nothing better in the dungeons during war than to drink awful Irish whiskey with friends and listen to a rousing tale of mayhem. The only thing better than a story about a fight is a real fight.”
Everyone seconds hear, hear, even the girls!
“But I suppose that’s too much to ask,” Wild adds wistfully. “So, tell us what happened.”
Julian shrugs. “I got into it with a guy.”
“What guy?”
“A guy who wanted a fight. He grabbed my knife that dropped on the ground. I jerked my hand just enough, or he would’ve taken it off at the wrist, and I would’ve bled out. That knife was like the fucking guillotine—excuse me, ladies.”
Julian! Watch out! Unsteadily, he reaches for the cup of whiskey in Wild’s hand.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left your knife lying around like that,” Finch says.
“You’re right, Finch,” Julian says. “I definitely shouldn’t have.”
“That is a terrible story.” To everyone’s surprise, the man who says this is Peter Roberts. They didn’t think he was even listening. He is a few feet away from them at the table, at his customary spot next to Frankie the puzzle