Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

Duncan, of course, even then, had thought Fraser marvellous. He thought anyone marvellous, who could talk cleverly, in a well-bred voice. Viv had arrived at Mr Mundy's on Tuesday night, and he had come to let her in, his dark eyes flashing with excitement. 'Guess who I met! You never will! He's coming round here, later on.' He'd sat listening out for Fraser, all evening; and when, a little later, Fraser had actually turned up, he'd leapt to his feet and gone rushing to the door…

It had all filled Viv with dismay. She and Mr Mundy had sat, uncomfortable, embarassed-hardly knowing where to look.

Now she watched Fraser fiddling about with the pipe, and said, 'I still don't know what it is you want me to do.'

He laughed. 'To be perfectly honest with you, neither do I.'

'You said you're a writing for a newspaper or something like that. You're not going to write about Duncan, are you?'

He looked as if the idea hadn't occurred to him. 'No,' he said. 'Of course not.'

'Because if that's what all this is about-'

'It's not “about” anything at all. How suspicious you are!' He began to laugh again. But when she still looked grave, he put back his hair, and changed his tone.

'Look,' he said. 'I know it's queer, my coming along out of the blue like this. I suppose it seems odd to you, my taking an interest in your brother after so long. I don't quite know myself why I should feel so strongly about it. It was just, coming across him so suddenly at the candle-works that time; thinking of somebody like him having to work in a place like that! And then-my God! Seeing him with Mr Mundy! I couldn't believe it. He'd told me where he was living and I thought he was joking! I can't tell you the start it gave me, the first time he took me to the house. I've been back there since, two or three times, and it still unnerves me. Has your brother really been there ever since his release? Right from the day he got out? It seems incredible.'

'It's what he wanted,' said Viv. She added: 'Mr Mundy's been very kind.'

It sounded feeble, even to her. Fraser raised his eyebrows. 'He's certainly got things nice and cosy… I'm just thinking back, to when we were inside. He was plain Mr Mundy then, of course. There was none of this “Uncle Horace” business. I thought I was hearing things, the first time I heard that!'

'It doesn't matter, does it?'

'Don't your family mind?'

'Why should they?'

'I don't know. It seems an odd sort of life, that's all, for a boy like Duncan. He's not even a boy any more, is he? And yet it's impossible to think of him as anything else. He might have got stuck. I think he has got stuck. I think he's made himself be stuck, as a way of-of punishing himself, for all that happened, years ago, all that he did and didn't do… I think Mr Mundy is taking very good care to keep him stuck; and-if you don't mind my saying so-after seeing the way you were with him on Tuesday night, I don't think anyone else is doing anything to, as it were, unstick him… All that fascination of his with things from the past, for instance.'

'That's just a hobby,' said Viv.

'It's a pretty morbid one, don't you think? For a boy like him?'

She lost her patience suddenly. '“A boy like him,”' she said. '“A boy like him.” People have always said that about Duncan, ever since he was little. “A boy like him shouldn't be at a school like this, he's too sensitive for it.” “A boy like him should go to college.”'

Fraser frowned at her. 'Did it occur to you that those people might have been saying it, because it was true?'

'Of course it was true! But what was the point of it? And look where it got him! We had to deal with all that, Mr Fraser-my family and I, not you. Four years, going back and forth to that awful place. Four years, and more, fretting about it. It nearly killed my father! Perhaps if Duncan had been like you when he was young-had the things you had, I mean, the same sort of people around him, the same sort of start-perhaps things would have been different. He went to Mr Mundy's when he came out because he felt he'd nowhere else. Where were you, then? If you're so big a friend of his, where were you?'

Fraser looked away, lowered the pipe, turned it in his fingers; and didn't answer. She went on more quietly, 'Anyway, it doesn't matter now. But I can't help thinking your coming along like this- Well, what's it going to do? When Duncan told me he'd met you, I'll be quite honest with you, I wished he hadn't. What's the good of it? It's not going to get him anywhere. It's just going to give him ideas again; it's just going to stir things up and upset him.'

He was fishing for matches, and spoke stiffly. 'You could let him decide that for himself, of course.'

'But you know what he's like. You said, just now. He's got a sort of-a sort of wisdom about some things; but in so many ways he's still more or less a boy. He can be pushed into things, like a boy can. He can be-'

She stopped, embarassed. Fraser had the box of matches in his hand but had turned, and was looking at her. 'What do you think,' he asked her slowly, 'I'm going to push him into?'

She swallowed, and dropped her gaze. 'I don't know.'

He went on, 'You're thinking of that boy, aren't you? The boy who died? Alec?' And then, when she looked up, he nodded. 'Yes. You see, I know all about him… You don't think I'm like him, though, surely?' She didn't answer. He coloured, as if angry. 'Is that what you think? Because if you do- Well, I could give you a list of girls, you know, who could put you straight on that!'

He said it seriously; but then must have caught the earnestness in his own voice. He blushed harder, put his hand again to his hair, and ducked his head. The gesture, unstudied and a little gauche, was the most appealing thing he'd done. She let herself see, for the first time, how nice-looking he was, how smooth and unmarked. He was young, after all: younger than her.

He still had the pipe and the matches in his hand, but was sitting still, with his hands slackly in his lap. He said, 'I'm sorry. I only wanted to see you as a way of helping your brother.'

'Well, I think you might help him best just by leaving him alone.'

'But, is that really what you'd like? To just leave him there, living with Mr Mundy in that peculiar way?'

'There's nothing peculiar about it!'

'Are you quite sure?' He held her gaze; and when she looked away he said slowly, 'No, you're not, are you? I saw it in your face, last week… And what about that job, that factory? You want to see him working at it for the rest of his life? Making night lights, for nurseries?'

'People work in factories, it doesn't matter what they make. My father's worked in a factory for thirty years!'

'Is that any reason your brother should?'

'So long as he's happy,' she said. 'That's what you don't seem to understand. I just want Duncan to be happy. We all do.'

But her words, as before, sounded weak. And she knew, in her heart, that he was right. She knew that part of the reason she'd been so dismayed to see him arrive at Mr Mundy's last week was that she'd looked at the house with him in it, and seen it all as if through his eyes… But, she was tired. She said to herself-as she always ended up saying to herself, about Duncan - It's not my fault . I did my best . I've got my own problems to think about .

And even as these words glided familiarly into her mind, she heard the quarter hour struck out on a nearby clock; and remembered the time.

'Mr Fraser-'

'Oh, call me Robert, will you?' he said, beginning to smile again. 'I'm sure your brother would want you to. I certainly do.'

So she said, 'Robert-'

'And may I call you Vivien? Or-what Duncan calls you-Viv?'

'If you like,' she said, feeling herself blush. 'I really don't care. It's kind of you to try and help Duncan like this. But the fact is, I can't talk about it now. I haven't got time.'