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