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.”
“Let me finish. I’m the one who dies. The girl on your arm, the one you keep searching for.”
His head remains like he’s praying.
Not even old rusty water drips from the tap. Nothing moves except the wind outside.
Eventually they retreat into opposite corners. He builds the fire, she makes some eggs. With one candle burning between them, they eat in silence in the small old kitchen, they drink in silence, clean up in silence. They couldn’t turn on the radio if they wanted to. There’s no electricity. In silence they change each other’s dressings. Mia finds some clean gauze and iodine. When they’re done, they lie down together under the scratchy blankets and wait for the fire to go out.
Mia speaks first.
“Tell me the truth,” she says. “You promised to be true to me, so be true. Did you bring me here for my mother? So that when I died she could find me?”
The house is dark and cold. “Yes,” Julian says. “I brought you here for your mother.” So when you died, she would find you. “So you could spend Christmas together.”
They can’t touch each other. Their chests rising and falling, they lie staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe through their broken bones, their seeping wounds.
“Drop by drop,” he whispers, “my love falls upon your heart.”
“That’s not bad,” she says in reply. “Why couldn’t you have written down those words instead? I’d be a lot less upset.”
Minutes tick by. Sideways she leans her head to him. They can’t get any peace to fall asleep.
“Where did we go wrong?” she says. “Did I not give you myself?”
“You did. Of course you did.”
“Then why?”
“What can I tell you that you don’t already know?” Julian says. “I’ve told you so many stories. I know nothing about why. I only know about you. You were beautiful at every age. You always loved the stage. You embraced your vice like virtue.” Things he doesn’t say: You didn’t want babies. You killed a man. You robbed men. You were an angel. You tried to kill me. “You loved me. And I loved you.” He presses his palm into the black wound that is his sightless eye. His voice almost doesn’t break.
* * *
On Christmas, Mia sleeps till noon. Their holiday feast is a quiet Spam and eggs and tinned pudding affair, cooked on a gas stove, washed down with some milk and sweet tea and whisky. He doesn’t leave her side, trailing her around the house. Let me open the cans, the edges are sharp. Let me boil the pudding, the water is hot. I will get the peaches in the pantry. I will light the candles and change your dressings.
“What is wrong with you today?” she says. “You’re worse than at the bomb sites.”
She shows him her childhood bedroom upstairs where it’s too cold