Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'Do we have time?' asked Kay.

'I think so.'

They went, as quickly as they could, down a couple of side-streets until they reached the Regent's Canal. A hundred yards along the tow-path there was a line of house-boats and barges. Mickey had lived here since before the start of the war. It was quite a little village. There were warehouses and boatyards all about it, but the residents were artists and writers as well as real bargees-all rather self-consciously 'interesting' and 'picturesque', Kay sometimes thought them; all rather overpleased with the figures they knew they cut to the people who lived in ordinary flats and houses. Still, perhaps that was fair enough. Mickey's boat- Irene -was a stubby little barge with a pointed prow, that always made Kay think of a clog. Its hull was tarred, and patched alarmingly. Every morning Mickey had to spend twenty minutes or more thrusting and drawing on the handle of a horrid little pump. Her WC was a bucket, set up behind a canvas screen. In winter the contents of the bucket could turn to ice.

But the interior of the boat was very charming. The walls were panelled with varnished wood, and Mickey had made shelves for ornaments and books. The lights were Tilly lamps, and candles in coloured shades. The galley kitchen was like a giant version of a child's pencil-box, with secret drawers and sliding panels. The plates and cups were kept in their places with bars and straps. Everything was fastened as if against the swell of a high sea; in fact, the roll of the surface of the canal was quite gentle, and only disconcerting if you were unused to it or had forgotten what to expect.

Kay always stooped a little, when she stood in Mickey's boat. If she straightened, the top of her head just brushed the ceiling. Mickey herself moved about with perfect ease and comfort-sliding back some of the panels in the galley to bring out tea, a tea-pot, two enamel mugs. 'I can't boil the water,' she said-the stove had gone out, and they hadn't time to relight it-'but I'll get some from the girl next door.'

She went off with the tea-pot in her hand, and Kay sat down. The boat rocked, bumping hollowly against the bank, as a series of barges went by. She heard the voices of men, unnervingly clear: '- up Dalston way . I swear to God! Going up and down, like a ruddy great monkey on a -'

Mickey returned with the water, and set out tin plates. Kay picked up her bun, then put it down again. She took out her cigarettes instead-but paused, with the lighter in her hand. She gestured to the stains on Mickey's shirt.

'I suppose it's all right to smoke around you? After all that prancing about, I mean, with the petrol-gun. You won't go up in a whoosh of flame or anything?'

'Not if you're careful,' said Mickey, laughing.

'Well, thank goodness for that. For I should hate it, you know, if you did.' She held the cigarettes out. 'Care for a tickler?'

Mickey took one. Kay lit it for her, then lit her own. Behind her head was a sliding window: she pushed it open, to draw off the smoke.

'How are things at Sandy 's?' she asked, turning back.

Mickey shrugged. She was only at the garage, really, because it was one of the few places a woman could work and wear trousers. She had to have some sort of job: she didn't, like Kay, have a wealthy family behind her, an income of her own. She'd begun to think, she told Kay now, of trying for a post as a chauffeur. She liked the idea of driving again, and of getting out of London…

They talked this over while they smoked. Mickey ate her bun, then opened the bag and ate another. Kay, however, left her own bun sitting in front of her, untasted; and Mickey said at last, 'Aren't you going to eat that?'

'Why? Do you want it?'

'That's not what I meant.'

'I've already eaten.'

'I bet you have. I know your meals. Tea and tobacco.'

'And gin, if I'm lucky!'

Mickey laughed again. The laugh became a cough. But, 'Eat it up,' she said, wiping her mouth. 'Go on. You're still too thin.'

'So what?' said Kay. 'Everybody's thin, aren't they? I'm in fashion, that's all.'

Actually the greasy, saccharine look of the bun had made her start to feel almost queasy; but now, for Mickey's sake, she picked the thing up and began to nibble at it. The sensation of the dough on her tongue and in her throat was horrible; but Mickey watched until she'd eaten it all.

'All right now, matron?'

'Not bad,' said Mickey, narrowing her eye, looking like the Artful Dodger again. 'Next time, I'll buy you a dinner.'

'You want to feed me up.'

'Why not? We could make a night of it, get a bit of a crowd together.'

Kay pretended to shudder. 'I'd be the skeleton at the feast. Besides-' she tossed her head like a debutante-'I'm awfully busy these days. I go out all the time.'

'You go to funny places.'

'I go to the cinema,' said Kay; 'there's nothing funny about that. Sometimes I sit through the films twice over. Sometimes I go in half-way through, and watch the second half first. I almost prefer them that way-people's pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures. Or perhaps that's just me… But you can get up to all sorts at the movies; you take my word for it. You can even-'

'Even what?'

Kay hesitated. Even get up a woman , she'd been going to say, crudely; for one night recently at the cinema she'd got talking to a tipsy girl, and had finished by leading the girl into an empty lavatory and kissing her and feeling her up. The thing had been rather savagely done; she felt ashamed, thinking of it now. 'Even nothing,' she said flatly, at last. 'Even nothing… Anyway, you could always come and visit me.'

'At Mr Leonard's?' Mickey made a face. 'He gives me the creeps.'

'He's all right. He's a miracle worker. One of his patients told me. He cured her shingles. He could fix your chest.'

Mickey drew back, coughing again. 'No fear!'

'You dear butch thing,' said Kay. 'He wouldn't actually have to look at it. You just sit in a chair and he whispers at you.'

'He sounds bloody depraved. You've been there too long; you can't tell how queer it is any more… And what about that house? When's it going to fall down?'

'It's on its way,' said Kay, 'believe me. When the wind gets up, I can feel it swaying. I can feel it groaning. It's like being at sea. I think it's only thanks to Mr Leonard that it stays up at all. I think he keeps the place standing through sheer force of mind.'

Mickey smiled. But she was looking into Kay's face, and her gaze had grown serious. And when her smile had faded she said, in a different sort of voice, 'How much longer are you going to stay there, Kay?'

'Till the day it collapses, I hope!'

'I mean it,' said Mickey. She hesitated, as if thinking something over. Then, 'Listen,' she said, leaning forward. 'Why don't you come and live here with me?'

'Live here?' said Kay, surprised. 'On the Quaint Irene ?' She glanced around. 'She's not much bigger than a shoe-box. That's all right for a little powder-monkey like you.'

'Just for a while,' said Mickey. 'If I get that driving job, I'd be away on overnights.'

'What about the rest of the time? Say you brought a girl back?'

'We could work something out.'

'Hang up a blanket? No fear! I might as well be back at boarding-school… Besides, I couldn't leave Lavender Hill. You don't know what it means to me. I'd miss Mr Leonard. I'd miss the little boy with his great big boot. I'd miss the Stanley Spencer couple! I've grown attached to the old place.'

'I know you have,' said Mickey. She said it in a way that meant: That's what bothers me .

Kay looked away. She'd been talking lightly all this time-putting on an act, trying to hide the fact that, as before, real emotion was rising up in her, making her embarassed and afraid. For here, she thought, was Mickey, on about a pound a week, ready to share it-just like that, at the drop of a hat, through simple kindness. And here was Kay herself, with money unspent, and with absolutely nothing wrong with her, living like a cripple, like a rat…