Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

Helen felt her move, and woke, and reached for her. 'What is it?'

'Madeleine and Tony are freed.'

'Are they all right?'

'They seem to be. Can you see? Now the men will come and free you.'

Helen shook her head. 'Don't leave me. Please!'

'I have to go.'

'Please don't.'

'I must go, so the men can free you.'

'I'm afraid of it!'

'I have to drive the woman and her son to the hospital.'

'Your friend can do it, can't she?'

Kay laughed. 'Look here, do you want to get me chucked out of the service?'

She put her hand to Helen's head, to brush back the dusty hair from her brow. She did it casually enough; but the sight of Helen's anxious expression-the large, darkened eyes, above the plaster-white cheeks-made her hesitate.

'Just a second,' she said. 'You must look your best, for the R and D men.'

She ran to Mickey, and returned to Helen with the flask of water. She fished out her handkerchief, and wet it; and began, very gently, to wipe the dust from Helen's face. She started at her brow, and worked downwards. 'Just close your eyes,' she murmured. She brushed at Helen's lashes, and then at the little dints at the side of her nose, the groove above her lip, the corners of her mouth, her cheeks and chin.

'Kay!' called Mickey.

'All right! I'm coming!'

The dust fell away. The skin beneath was pink, plump, astonishingly smooth… Kay brushed a little longer, then moved her hand to the curve of Helen's jaw and cupped it with her palm-not wanting to leave her, after all; gazing at her in a sort of wonder; unable to believe that something so fresh and so unmarked could have emerged from so much chaos.

Thanks to Lennie Goodings and staff at Time Warner Books UK, to Julie Grau and staff at Penguin Putnam Inc, to Judith Murray and everyone at Greene amp; Heaton Ltd; and to the inestimable Sally O-J.

Thanks to Hirāni Himona, Sarah Plescia, Alison Oram, Liz Woodcraft, Amy Rubin, Fidelis Morgan, Robyn Vinten, Bridget Ibbs, Ron Waters, Mary Waters, Caroline Halliday, Mary Garner, Trudie Sacker, Vicky Wharton, Jennifer Vaughan, Pamela Pearce, Roger Haworth, and Lesley Hall; to Terry Spurr at the London Ambulance Service Museum, Christine Goode and Chani Jones at Price's Candles Ltd, Jan Pimblett and staff at the London Metropolitan Archives, staff at the Imperial War Museum Archive, staff at the City of Westminster Archives Centre, staff at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre; and to the various people with whom, over the past four years, I've had conversations about the 1940s-especially those who've given me advice and ideas on ladies' underwear, electric light fittings, and silk pyjamas.

Thanks to Martina Cole for generously bidding to have her name appear in this novel at an Immortality Auction on behalf of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture; and for kindly giving me permission to use her name in abbreviated form.

I drew ideas and inspiration for The Night Watch from many sources, including novels and films of the 1940s, photographs, maps, diaries, letters, and modern accounts of life during and after the Second World War. The non-fiction I found most useful includes the following: Verily Anderson, Spam Tomorrow (London, 1956); Peter Baker, Time Out of Life (London, 1961); George Beardmore, Civilians at War: Journals 1938-1946 (London, 1984); Barbara Bell, Just Take Your Frock Off: A Lesbian Life (Brighton, 1999); ASG Butler, Recording Ruin (London, 1942); Gerald Fancourt Clayton, The Wall is Strong: The Life of a Prison Governor (London, 1958); Diana Cooper, Trumpets from the Steep (London, 1960); Rupert Croft Cooke, The Verdict of You All (London, 1955); Michael De-la-Noy, Denton Welch: The Making of a Writer (Harmondsworth, 1984); Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures (Boston, 1906); Jill Gardiner, From the Closet to the Screen: Women at the Gateways Club, 1945-85 (London, 2003); Pete Grafton, You, You amp; You!: The People Out of Step with World War II (London, 1981); Jenny Hartley (ed.), Hearts Undefeated: Women's Writing of the Second World War (London, 1994); Jenny Hartley (ed.), Millions Like Us: British Women's Fiction of the Second World War (London, 1997); Anthony Heckstall-Smith, Eighteen Months (London, 1954); Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges: A Diary Showing How Unimportant People in London and Birmingham Lived Throughout the War Years 1940-1945 (London, 1999); Elizabeth Jane Howard, Slipstream: A Memoir (London, 2002); Audrey Johnson, Do March in Step Girls: A Wren's Story (Sandford, North Somerset, 1997); Edward Ancel Kimball, Lectures and Articles on Christian Science (Chesterton, Indiana, 1921); Henrietta Frances Lord, Christian Science Healing (London, 1888); Raynes Minns, Bombers and Mash: The Domestic Front 1939-45 (London, 1980); Barbara Nixon, Raiders Overhead (London, 1943); Frank Norman , Bang to Rights: An Account of Prison Life (London, 1958); Patrick O'Hara, I Got No Brother (London, 1967); Frances Partridge, A Pacifist's War (London, 1978); Phyllis Pearsall, Women at War (Aldershot, 1990); Colin Perry, Boy in the Blitz (London, 1972); Philip Priestley, Jail Journeys: The English Prison Experience Since 1918 (London, 1989); Barbara Pym, A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters and Notebooks of Barbara Pym , ed. Hazel Holt and Hilary Pym (London, 1984); Angela Raby, The Forgotten Service: Auxiliary Ambulance Station 39, Weymouth Mews (London, 1999); Julian Maclaren Ross, Memoirs of the Forties (London, 1965); Dorothy Sheridan (ed.), Wartime Women: A Mass-Observation Anthology 1937-45 , (London, 2000); Nerina Shute, We Mixed Our Drinks: The Story of a Generation (London, 1945); Clifford Simmons (ed.), The Objectors (London, 1965); Maureen Waller, London 1945: Life in the Debris of War (London, 2004); Denton Welch, The Journals of Denton Welch , ed. Michael De-la-Noy (London, 1984); Maureen Wells, Entertaining Eric: Letters From the Home Front 1941-44 (London, 1988); Peter Wildeblood , Against the Law (London, 1955); Joan Wyndham, Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary (London, 1985); Joan Wyndham, Love is Blue: A Wartime Diary (London, 1986).