Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

The knitting woman had drawn in her chin. 'Snags?' she was saying. 'You don't think there are rather more important things to worry about, just now?'

'No, I don't, as it happens.'

'Well, I'd like to know what sort of slacks you think you'd be able to buy if the Nazis were to invade.'

'If the Nazis invade, I don't suppose I'll care about it one way or the other. But until they do-'

'The Nazis would marry you off, all you girls like you, in no time,' said the woman. 'How should you like to have an SS man for a husband?'

The argument went on. Viv turned her head from it. In the place to her left was a younger girl, a well-to-do girl of about thirteen, gawky and earnest. She had an album filled with pictures of horses; she kept passing it across the compartment to her father, a Naval man with braid on his sleeve. 'That one's just like Cynthia's, Daddy,' she'd say as she did it. Or, 'This one's like Mabel's, he's a dear thing, isn't he? This one has exactly White Boy's head, White Boy's just a shade fuller in the flank, that's all…'

Her father would glance at the picture and grunt. He was filling in the blanks in a crossword puzzle in a newspaper, tapping with his pen against the page. But for the past couple of hours, too, he had been trying to catch Viv's eye. Every time she looked his way, he'd wink. If she crossed her legs, he'd let his gaze travel up and down her calves. Once he'd got out his case of cigarettes and leaned across to offer her one, but the po-faced WAAF officer had stopped him and said, 'I'm afraid I'm asthmatic. If you're going to smoke, I'd appreciate it if you could do it in the corridor.' After that he'd sat back and smirked horribly at Viv, as if the WAAF had made conspirators of them.

'Look at this great brute, Daddy. He's like the fellow we saw at Colonel Webster's that time… Daddy! You're not looking!'

'For heaven's sake, Amanda,' he said irritably now, 'there are only so many ponies a father can take.'

'Fathers must be pretty silly, then, that's all I can say. Anyway, they're not ponies, they're horses.'

'Well, whatever they are I'm bored to death of them. And there, look-' Viv had got to her feet. She was going to the lavatory. 'This young lady's bored to death of them too. I shouldn't be surprised if she's so bored of them she's going to find an open window and throw herself out of it. I might very well join her.-Is there something,' he said to Viv, rising and touching her arm, 'I can help you with?'

'No, thanks,' she answered, shaking him off.

'Daddy,' his daughter cried, 'how rotten you are!'

'It would be kinde , kirche ,' the knitting woman was saying to the trousered girl, 'and no more running about in a pair of slacks, I can tell you that-'

Viv stepped unsteadily to the door of the compartment and slid it back. She looked down the train-hesitating a little, because the corridor was crowded. A group of Canadian airmen had boarded at Swindon: they were propped against the windows or sitting on the floor, playing cards and smoking. The blue of their uniforms was intense, in the indigo light of the train, and the smoke from their cigarettes made them appear as if wreathed in drifting bolts of silk; they looked, in fact, for a single moment, quite beautiful and unearthly.

But when they saw Viv beginning to make her way along the narrow passage, they started into life-drawing back elaborately so that she might pass, scrambling to their feet. The bolts of silk seemed to billow, to tear and unravel, about the sharpness of their movements. There were whistles and calls: 'Whoops!' 'Look out!' 'Make way for the lady, boys!'

'Are those loaded, Mary?' said one of them, nodding to Viv's chest. Another put his arms up to steady her when the motion of the train made her sway: 'Shall we dance?'

'Want to powder your nose?' a boy asked, when she reached the end of the corridor and looked around. 'There's a place right here. My pal's been keeping it warm for you.'

She shook her head and pressed on. She'd rather not go to the lavatory at all, than go with so many men outside the door. But they grabbed at her hands, trying to pull her back. 'Don't leave us, Susie!' 'You're breaking our hearts!' They offered her beer and swigs of whisky. She shook her head again, smiling. They offered her chocolate.

'I'm watching my figure,' she said at last, pulling away. They called after her: 'So are we! It's beautiful!'

The next corridor was quieter, the one after that quieter still: some of its lights had failed, and she passed along it almost in darkness. There were more servicemen here, but they must have started their journey sooner than the others: they didn't want to joke, they sat with their knees drawn up, their greatcoats belted, their heads lowered, trying to sleep. Viv had to pick her way around them-stepping awkwardly, reaching for holds on the walls and windows as the train shuddered and rocked.

At the end of this corridor there were another two lavatories; and the lock on one of them, she was relieved to see, was turned to Vacant . But when she caught hold of the door-knob and pushed, the door only moved a little way inwards and then was thrust hurriedly closed again. There was someone behind it: a soldier, in khaki; she got a glimpse of him in the mirror above the sink, turning his head. She saw the look of alarm on his face as the door was opened; she thought she'd caught him peeing, and was embarrassed. She moved back, to the junction of the carriages, and waited.

The lavatory door stayed shut for almost another minute. Then she saw the knob being slowly turned, and the door was drawn back, as if cautiously. The soldier put out his head, bit by bit, like a man expecting gunfire… When he caught her eye, he straightened up and came out properly.

'Sorry about that.'

'That's all right,' said Viv, still a little embarassed. 'The lock's not broken, is it?'

'The lock?' He looked vague. He was glancing about from side to side, and now began to bite at one of his fingernails. His fingers, she saw, had short crisp hairs on them, dark as a monkey's. His cheeks were blueish: he needed a shave. His eyes were red at the corners and rims. As she moved past him he leaned towards her and said, confidentially, 'Haven't seen the guard about, have you?'

She shook her head.

'They're like ruddy sharks.'

He took his hand from his mouth as he spoke, raised the thumb of it to suggest a fin, and moved it as a fish might move through water; then opened and closed his fingers: Snap . But he did it in an unexcited sort of way, still glancing about from side to side; finally biting at the nail again and frowning, and moving off. She went into the lavatory and closed the door and locked it, and more or less forgot him.

She used the toilet-stooping, rather than sitting on the stained wooden seat; swaying about again with the rocking of the train, feeling the pull of the muscles in her calves and thighs. She washed her hands, looking into the smeary mirror, going over the details of her face-thinking, as she always did, that her nose was too narrow, her lips too thin; imagining that, at twenty, she was getting old, looked tired… She re-did her make-up and combed her hair. The single hairs and bits of fluff that got caught in the teeth of the comb she pulled out; she made a ball of them and tucked it away, neatly, in the bin under the basin.

She was just putting the comb back into her bag when someone knocked at the door. She took one last look in the mirror and called, 'All right!'

The knock came again, louder than before.

'All right! Just a sec!'

Then the handle was tried. She heard a voice, a man's voice, trying to force itself into a whisper. 'Miss! Open up, will you?'

'God!' she said to herself. She could only suppose it was one of the Canadians, larking about. Or it might, at a pinch, be the father of the horse-mad girl… But when she drew back the bolt and opened the door, a hand came around it to keep her from shutting it again; and she recognised the short black hairs on its fingers. Then came his khaki sleeve, his shoulder, his unshaven chin and bloodshot eye.