Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'In a minute,' said Fraser. 'Drink some of this beer, first.'

'All right. But you'll-you'll have to pour it.'

Fraser lifted the jug and filled their glasses. Duncan took a gulp, and then another. He had to hold his glass with two hands, to keep it from spilling… In time, however, he began to feel calmer. He wiped his mouth and glanced at Fraser.

'I suppose you must think me a bit of a fool.'

'Don't talk tripe! Don't you remember-?'

Duncan spoke over his words. 'I'm not used, you see, to going about like this, on my own. I'm not like you.'

Fraser shook his head, as if annoyed or exasperated. He looked at Duncan, then looked away. He seemed embarassed about something. He shifted his pose, drank more of his beer… Finally he said, very awkwardly, 'I wish, Pearce, that I'd kept in touch with you. I wish I'd written, more than I did. I- I let you down. I see that now, and I'm sorry. I let you down badly. But that year, in the Scrubs: once I'd got out, it seemed-I don't know-it seemed like a dream…' He met Duncan 's gaze, his eyelids fluttering. 'Do you understand me? It seemed like someone else's life, not mine. It was just as though I'd been plucked right out of time-then dropped back in it, and had to take up where I left off.'

Duncan nodded. He said slowly, 'It wasn't like that, for me. When I came out, everything was different. Everything was changed. I'd always known it would be, and it was. People said, “You'll do all right.” But I knew I never would.'

They sat without speaking, as if both exhausted. Fraser got out his matches and his pipe-and now the flame showed brightly, the day was darkening. He rolled down his sleeves and fastened his cuffs, and Duncan felt him shiver.

They watched the movement of the river. The surface of the water, in just a few minutes, had lost its hectic, restless look. The shore had narrowed further already, the water creeping forwards as if, like a cat's rough tongue, it was wearing the land away with every stroke and lap. Then a tug went rapidly by, and made waves: they rushed and were sucked back, then rushed again; then wore themselves out and ran more feebly.

Fraser threw a stone. He said, 'How does Arnold have it? The eternal note of sadness -is it? And the something naked shingles of the world …' He passed his hand over his face, laughing at himself. 'Christ, Pearce, the moment I start quoting poetry, we're done for! Come on.' He levered himself up. 'Forget the beer, and let's go. I'll walk you home. Right to the door. And you can introduce me to your-Uncle Horace, was it?'

Duncan thought of Mr Mundy, pacing the parlour, coming limping to answer their ring… But he hadn't the energy, now, for fear or embarassment or anything like that. He got to his feet, and followed Fraser up the water-stairs; and they started off together-northwards, towards White City, through the steadily darkening streets.

'Don't you know the war's over?' the man behind the counter in a baker's shop asked Kay.

He said it because of her trousers and hair, trying to be funny; but she had heard this sort of thing a thousand times, and it was hard to smile. When he caught her accent, anyway, his manner changed. He handed over the bag, saying, 'There you are, Madam.' But he must have given some sort of look behind her back because, as she went out, the other customers laughed.

She was used to that, too. She tucked the bag under her arm and put her hands in her trouser pockets. The best thing to do was brazen it out, throw back your head, walk with a swagger, make a 'character' of yourself. It was tiring, sometimes, when you hadn't the energy for it; that's all.

Today, as it happened, her spirits were rather high. The idea had come to her, that morning, to pay a visit to a friend. She'd walked from Lavender Hill to Bayswater, and was now heading up the Harrow Road. Her friend, Mickey, worked in a garage there, as an attendant on the pumps.

Kay could see her in the forecourt of the garage as she drew closer: Mickey had set up a canvas chair, and was lounging in it reading a book. Her legs were spread out-for she was dressed, not exactly mannishly, as Kay was, but like a boy-mechanic, in dungarees and boots. Her hair was fair, the colour and texture of dirty rope; it was sticking up as if she had just got out of bed. As Kay watched, she licked a finger and turned a page. She didn't hear Kay coming, and Kay walked towards her with a queer sort of stirring in her heart. It was simply the pleasure of seeing a friend, after seeing, for weeks at a time, only strangers; that's all it was. But for a second Kay thought the feeling was going to expand up into her throat and make her cry. She imagined how ridiculous she'd look to Mickey, turning up out of the blue like this, in tears. And she thought seriously of giving the whole thing up-slipping away before Mickey should see her.

But then the feeling shrank back down again.

'Hello, Mickey,' she called blandly.

Mickey looked up, saw Kay, and laughed with pleasure. She laughed all the time, in an unforced, natural sort of way that people found awfully winning. Her voice was a throaty one, with a permanent cough in it. She smoked too much. 'Hey!' she said.

'What's the book?'

Mickey showed the cover. She read the books that people left in their cars, when they brought their cars to the garage to be fixed. This one was a paperback copy of Wells's The Invisible Man . Kay took it, and smiled. 'I read that,' she said, 'when I was young. Have you got to the bit where he makes the cat invisible, except for its eyes?'

'Yes, isn't it funny?' Mickey was rubbing her greasy palm on her dungarees, so that she could take Kay's hand. She was so small and slender, her hand was not much bigger than a child's. She tilted her head, half-closed one eye. She looked like the Artful Dodger. She said, 'I'd just about given up on you, I haven't seen you in so long! How are you keeping?'

'I thought it might be your lunch-break. Do you get a lunch-break? I brought you some buns.'

'Buns!' said Mickey, taking the bag and looking inside it. Her blue eyes widened. 'Jam ones!'

'With genuine saccharine.'

A car drew in. 'Hang on,' said Mickey. She put the buns down and went to speak to the driver; and after a second, began the business of filling up the car's tank. Kay took her place in the canvas chair, lifting the book and opening it at random.

“But you begin to realise now,” said the Invisible Man, “the full disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter-no covering-to get clothing was to forgo all my advantage, to make of myself a strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely visible again.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Kemp.

Meanwhile, the pump had sprung into life and begun to throb and whine and click, and the smell of petrol, which had been faint before, grew heady. Kay put the book down and looked at Mickey. She was standing rather nonchalantly, one hand on the roof of the car, the other tense about the trigger of the petrol-gun, her eyes on the tumbling counters on the face of the machine. She was not quite handsome, but carried herself with a certain style; and it was extraordinary how many girls-even normal girls-could be intrigued and impressed by a pose like this.

The driver of this car, however, was a man. Mickey tapped the last few drops of petrol from the gun, screwed on the cap of his tank, took his coupons; and came sauntering back to Kay, pulling a face.

'No tip?' said Kay.

'He gave me threepence, and told me to buy a lipstick with it. His motor was rubbish, too. Wait here, will you? I'll talk to Sandy.'

She disappeared into the garage. When she came back a few minutes later she had taken off her dungarees to reveal ordinary blue slacks and a funny little Aertex shirt, full of creases and stains. She had washed her face and combed her hair. 'He's given me forty-five minutes. Shall we go to the boat?'