Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

She looked at his bare wrist. There was a point where the smooth pale flesh at the base of his thumb gave way to hair; and again she thought, unwillingly but not unpleasantly, of the swarthy arms and legs of him… She reached and gave him a nip with her fingers. Her nails got caught up in it, and he quickly drew the arm back.

'Ouch! You've been practising that! I think you are a ruddy spy!' He rubbed the spot she'd pinched, then blew on it. 'Look at that.' He showed her the mark. 'I shall turn up at home and they'll suppose I've been in a fight. I'll have to say, “It wasn't a soldier, it was a girl I got talking to in the lavatory of a train…” That'll go down well, in the circumstances.'

'What circumstances?' she asked, laughing again.

He was still blowing on his wrist. 'I told you, didn't I? I've got compassionate leave.' He lifted the wrist to his mouth and sucked it. 'My wife,' he said, over the ball of his thumb, 'has just had a baby.'

She thought he was joking, and kept on smiling. When she saw that he was serious her smile grew fixed, and she blushed from her collar to her hair.

'Oh,' she said, folding her arms. She might have guessed, from the age of him, even from the manner of him, that he was married; but she hadn't thought about it. 'Oh. Is it a boy, or a girl?'

He lowered his hand. 'Little girl. We've got the boy already, so you could say, I suppose, that now we've got the set.'

She said politely, 'It's nice for you.'

He almost shrugged. 'It's nice for my wife. It keeps her happy. It won't keep us rich, I know that… But here, look. Have a look at this. Here's the first one.'

He put his hand to his pocket again and brought out a wallet; he fumbled about with the papers inside it, then drew out a photo and passed it over. It was slightly grubby, and torn at the corners; it showed a woman and a little boy, sitting together, perhaps in a garden. A bright day in summer. A tartan rug on a mown lawn. The woman was shading her eyes with her hand, her face half-hidden, her fair hair loose; the boy had tilted his head and was frowning against the light. He had some home-made toy or other in his hand, a baby's motor-car or train, another home-made toy lay at his feet. Just visible in the bottom right-hand corner of the square was the shadow of the person-Reggie himself, presumably-taking the picture.

Viv passed it back. 'He's a nice-looking boy. He's dark, like you.'

'He's a good little kid. The little girl's fairer, so they tell me…' He gazed at the photo, then tucked it away. 'But what a world to bring babies into, eh? I wish my wife would do what your sister's done, and get the hell out of London. I keep thinking of the poor little buggers growing up, going to bed every night under the kitchen table and supposing it's normal…'

He buttoned up his pocket, and they stood for a time without speaking-reminded of London, the war, all of that. Viv grew conscious again, too, of the lavatory: it seemed much queerer to be standing beside it in silence than when Reggie was talking and grumbling and making her laugh… But he'd gone back to biting at the skin around his fingernail; soon he lowered his hand and folded his arms and gazed moodily at the floor. It was like the dimming-down of a light, she thought. She became aware, as if for the first time, of the roar and motion of the train, the ache in her legs and in the arches of her foot from standing rigid.

She changed her pose, made a movement, and he looked up.

'You're not going?'

'We ought to, oughtn't we? Somebody else will only try the door if we don't… Are you still thinking about the guard? Did you really lose your ticket?'

He looked away. 'I won't tell you a lie. I did have a travel warrant, but a bloke took it off me in a game of cards… But no, the guard can go hang himself for all I care. The truth is-' He looked embarassed again. 'Well, the truth is I don't want to go out and face all those bloody airmen. They look at me as though I'm an old man. I am an old man, compared to boys like that!'

He met her gaze, and blew out his cheeks. He said, tiredly and simply, 'I'm sick of being an old man, Viv. I'm sick of this bloody war. I've been on the move since Wednesday morning; I'm going to go home now and see my wife, we'll just about have time for an argument before I'll have to turn round and come back. Her sister'll be with her; she hates my guts. Her mother doesn't think much of me either. My little boy calls me “Uncle”; he sees more of the air raid warden than he does of me. I wouldn't be surprised if my wife does, too… The dog, at least, will be pleased I'm home-if the dog's still there. They were talking of having it shot, last I heard. Said the standing in line for horse-meat was getting them down…'

He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes again, and passed his hand over his chin. 'I need a bath,' he said. 'I need a shave. Next to those lumberjacks out there, I look like Charlie bloody Chaplin. But somehow-' He hesitated, then began to smile. 'Somehow I've got myself locked in a room with a glamour girl; the most gorgeous glamour girl I think I ever saw in my life. Let me enjoy it, just for a few more minutes. Don't make me open that door. I'm begging you. Look-'

His mood was lifting again already. He moved forward and gently took hold of her hand, raising her knuckles to his lips. The gesture was a corny one, yet had an edge of seriousness to it; and when she laughed, she laughed most in embarassment, because she was over-aware of his hand around hers: the maleness of it, the niceness of it, the squareness of the palm, the tufted fingers and the short hard nails. His chin was rough as sandpaper against her knuckles, but his mouth was soft.

He watched her laugh, as he had before; and smiled with pleasure. She saw again his straight white teeth. Later she'd say to herself, I fell in love with him teeth-first .

When she tried to think of the wife, the son, the baby, the home, that the train was speeding him towards, she couldn't do it. They might have been dreams to her, or ghosts; she was too young.

Tap-tap-tap , there came, outside Duncan 's bedroom window. Tap-tap-tap . And the queer thing was, he'd got used to sirens, to gunfire and bombs; but this noise, that was so little, like the pecking of a bird, woke him up and nearly frightened the life out of him. Tap-tap-tap … He put out his hand to the bedside table and switched on his torch; his hand was shaking, so that when he moved the beam of light to the window the shadows in the folds of the curtains seemed to bulge, as if the curtains were being pushed out from behind. Tap-tap-tap … Now it sounded less like the beak of a bird and more like a claw or a fingernail. Tap-tap-tap … He thought, for a second, of running to his dad.

Then he heard his name called, hoarsely: ' Duncan! Duncan! Wake up!'

He recognised the voice; and that changed everything. He threw off the covers, clambered quickly across the bed, and pulled back the curtain. Alec was there, at the next window-the window of the parlour, where Duncan slept at weekends. He was still tapping at the glass, still calling out for Duncan to wake up. But now he saw the light of Duncan's torch: he turned, and the beam of it struck his face-making him shrink back, screw up his eyes, put up his hand. His face looked yellowish, lit like that. His hair was combed back, greased flat to his head, and the fine, sharp lines of his brow and cheeks made hollow-looking shadows. He might have been a ghoul. He waited for Duncan to lower the torch, then came to his window and gestured madly to the catch: 'Open it up!'

Duncan lifted the sash. His hands were still shaking, and the sash kept sticking as it rose, the glass rattling in the frame. He moved it slowly, afraid of the noise.