comes and London gets quieter, you and Liz can look for Wild.”
“Fuck off,” whispers Nick.
Only once Nick agrees, does Julian give Nick a gold sovereign to help with Liz’s expenses. He didn’t want to offer it until he knew for sure Nick would take her. Because otherwise, what would happen to Liz when the money ran out?
They return to the platforms below, sit Liz down in a chair near the makeshift stage by the escalator where Mia had put on so many shows, where Julian and Mia entertained the troops, where Julian and Finch fought to the death, and talk to her about their plan. Go, Liz. It’s only for a little while, until things get better. Be safe. Safer. Go with Nick.
Liz cries. She wants to hug Mia, but Mia’s broken collarbone prevents physical displays of farewell. “Will you come back?” she asks.
“Of course,” Mia replies. “After the holidays. Maybe in March when the weather gets better. I promise.”
Julian says nothing. The 49th day is like the 49th parallel. Either the victorious armies push through, or they’re vanquished. And the 49th day is 14 days away.
All four walk up the long escalator, three of them painfully slowly. Before they leave Bank for good, Julian turns and casts one last look below, catching a sideways glimpse of the tunnels where he and the Ten Bells crew lived and slept and sang and drank, casts one last look on their igloo and remembers the words Edgar Evans said to him about his own confinement on Inexpressible Island. “There was no light in the sky. And yet every night when we made it through another day alive, we felt so happy. We drank, and read aloud to one another, we mocked each other, told jokes, sang songs. I got closer to those men than I ever got to anyone. Because we weren’t alone. We were in it together.”
Julian and Mia walk Nick and Liz to Liverpool Street, and by the old Great Eastern Hotel watch them take the stairs down to the trains. Liz carries her purse, her Bible, and her mother’s favorite blanket, the only things she cared to salvage from her life in London.
“I got my first telegram, Nick,” Liz says to him tearfully.
“Fuck off. How was it? Was it everything you dreamed of?”
“Yes. It was a life and death thing.”
“This way, Lizzie, and mind the gap.” Nick puts his arm on her back. “You don’t want to trip.” Turning around, he looks up and waves goodbye to Julian and Mia, mouthing to them, “Fuck off.”
22
A Girl Named Maria
AND THEN THERE WERE TWO.
Before they go to King’s Cross and leave London, Julian asks the cab driver to take them to Baker Street. Julian wants to show Mia a café. Of course, it’s not warm; it’s terrible out, there’s snow on the ground, and she’s not wearing a summer dress, and the red beret is gone, gone, gone, but there’s a café on Baker Street that looks . . . well, if not quite right, it looks familiar. He wants to show it to Mia, to see if it jogs her memory. To see if her standing on that street nudges something well-known in his own heart. He wants to see if there’s a small glimpse of the fading dream he can catch with her in their all too real life.
The café is shuttered. The golden awning is pulled up. The large glass window has been blown out and plywood is nailed in its place. The sidewalk is mush and black mud and ice. Mortar dust melts into the water, covering their boots and the hems of their coats in granite glue.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” Mia says.
“I had a dream that I waited for you at a table outside a café like this one,” Julian says. “Not quite like this.”
“I should hope not. This is the pits.”
“There was sun, and a bus, and cabs. Does it look familiar?” He hangs his head. It’s unrecognizable even to him.
“It doesn’t and let’s go,” she says, taking his good arm. It’s hard for her to stand, to walk. “I don’t want to miss the train because we’re gawping at some non-existent thing.”
“It’s not non-existent,” Julian mutters inaudibly. “It’s just invisible to the naked eye. Like time.”
At King’s Cross, there’s one train headed to Leeds. It’s not a direct train, there are several stops and a change in Sheffield. Great, Julian thinks. Sheffield comes under heavy attack sometime in December 1940.