Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'No time for your brother?'

'I've got time for my brother; but not for this.'

He narrowed his eyes. 'You don't think much of my motives, do you?'

She said, 'I still don't know what your motives are.' And she added: 'I'm not sure you do.'

That made him colour slightly again. For a moment they sat in silence, both of them blushing. Then she changed her pose, getting ready to go-putting her hands into the pockets of her coat. The pockets had old bus tickets in it, stray coins and paper wrappers-but then her fingers found something else: that little parcel of cloth, with the heavy gold ring inside it.

Her heart gave a jolt. She stood up, abruptly. 'I've got to go,' she said. 'I'm sorry, Mr Fraser.'

'Robert,' he corrected, getting to his feet.

'I'm sorry, Robert.'

'That's all right. I ought to go, too. But, look here. I don't like you misunderstanding me. Let me walk with you and we can talk as we go.'

'I'd really rather-'

'Which way are you going?'

She didn't want to tell him. He saw her hesitate, and chose to take it, she supposed, as an invitation. When she started to walk he walked alongside her; once his arm brushed hers, and he made a show of apologising and moving further away. But an odd thing had happened between them. Somehow, in letting him go with her, she'd managed to put their relationship on a subtly different footing. As they headed back to Oxford Street they had to pause at a kerb alongside a window; she saw the two of them reflected in it, and met his gaze through the glass. He started to smile, seeing what she did: that they looked like a couple-a simple, nice-looking, young courting couple.

His manner changed. As they wove through the traffic at Oxford Circus he struggled to keep up with her and said, in a different tone from any he'd used with her yet, 'You know where you're going, anyway. I like that in a woman… Are you meeting a girlfriend?'

She shook her head.

'A boyfriend, then?'

'It's nobody,' she said, to shut him up.

'You're meeting nobody? Well, that shouldn't take long, in a town like this… Look, you've got me all wrong, you know. What do you say to us starting again-this time, with a drink?'

They had drawn near a pub at the end of Carnaby Street. She shook her head and kept going. 'I can't.'

He touched her arm. 'Not just for twenty minutes?'

She felt the pressure of his fingers, and slowed, and met his gaze. He looked young and earnest again. She said, 'I can't. I'm sorry. There's something I've got to do.'

'Couldn't I do it with you?'

'I'd rather you didn't.'

'Well, I could wait.'

The awkwardness must have shown on her face. He looked around, at a loss. He said, 'Where the hell are you making for, anyway? Your evening job in a leg-show? You don't need to be bashful, if that's what it is. You'll find me a broad-minded sort of bloke. I could sit in the audience and keep off the rowdies.' He pushed back his long hair, and smiled. 'Let me go a bit further with you, at least. I couldn't think of myself as a gentleman, and leave you on your own in streets like these.'

She hesitated, and then, 'All right,' she said. 'I'm going to the Strand. You can come with me, of you really want to, as far as Trafalgar Square.'

He bowed. ' Trafalgar Square it is.'

He offered her his arm. She didn't want to take it-then thought of the minutes ticking by… She put her hand, lightly, in the crook of his elbow, and they moved off together. His arm was amazingly firm to the touch, the muscles shifting, beneath her fingers, with the rhythm of his walk.

As he'd hinted, the streets they were entering now were rather sleazy ones: a mixture of boarded-up houses and fenced-off ground, depressed-looking nightclubs, pubs and Italian cafés. The smell was of rotting vegetables, brick-dust, garlic, parmesan cheese; here and there an open doorway or window let out the blare of music. Yesterday she'd come this way on her own and a man had plucked at her arm and said in a phoney New York accent, 'Hey, Bombshell, how much for a grind?' He'd meant it as a sort of compliment, too… But tonight men looked but called nothing, because they assumed she was Fraser's girl. It was half amusing, half annoying. She noticed it more, perhaps, because she was unused to it. She never came anywhere like this with Reggie. They never went to nightclubs or restaurants. They only ever went from one lonely place to another; or they sat in his car with the radio on. She thought of bumping into somebody she knew, and grew nervous. Then she realised she had nothing to be nervous of…

While they walked, Fraser spoke about Duncan. He spoke as if he and she were agreed on the whole issue; as if all they had to do was put their heads together, spend a little time on it, and they'd be able to sort Duncan out. They had to do something, for a start, he said, about his job at that factory. He had a friend who worked in a printing-shop in Shoreditch; he thought this friend might be able to find Duncan a place, learning the trade. Or he knew another man, who ran a bookshop. The pay would be negligible, but maybe that sort of work would appeal to Duncan more. Did she think it would?

She frowned, not really listening; still aware of the ring in its parcel in her pocket; conscious of the time… 'Why don't you ask Duncan,' she said at last, 'instead of me?'

'I wanted your opinion on it, that's all. I thought we might- Well, I hoped we'd be friends. If nothing else, we'll be bound to run into each other again at Mr Mundy's, and-'

They had reached the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square, and begun to slacken their pace. Viv turned her head-looking for a clock. When she looked back into Fraser's face she found him gazing at her with an odd expression.

'What?' she said.

He smiled. 'You look so like your brother sometimes. You looked like him just then. You really are remarkably like him, aren't you?'

'You said that at Mr Mundy's.'

'You don't think so?'

'It's one of those things, I suppose, that you can't really see for yourself.' She caught sight of the clock on St Martin 's church: twenty to seven. 'Now, I really must go.'

'All right. But, just a minute. Look.'

He fished about in his jacket pocket and got out a piece of paper and a pencil. He quickly wrote something down: the telephone number of the house he was living in. 'You'll give me a call,' he said, as he handed it over, 'if you ever want to talk to me, in private? Not just about your brother, I mean.' He smiled. 'About other things, too.'

'Yes,' she said, stuffing the paper in her pocket. 'Yes, all right. I-' She gave him her hand. 'I'm sorry, Mr Fraser. I've got to go, now. Goodbye!'

And she turned and left him-went hurriedly across the rest of the square, without looking back. Probably he stood and watched her running, wondering who on earth she was meeting, and why; she didn't care. She ran on, through a break in the traffic, and headed into the Strand.

The evenings were drawing in at last. The street was darker than it had been when she'd driven through it that time with Reggie: the thickness of the twilight gave everyone flat, featureless faces and she found herself peering at people, as she hurried, with a mixture of frustration, excitement, dread… It wasn't true, what she'd told Fraser. She didn't have an appointment to keep. She was looking for Kay, that was all. This was the fifth or sixth time she'd come here in the past two weeks. She was hoping to see her; just hoping to pick her out of the crowd…

She drew close to the Tivoli cinema, keeping to the north side of the street, where the view was widest. She slowed her step, then moved into a doorway, out of the way.

She must have looked crazy to anyone watching, gazing so keenly from face to face. She kept seeing figures she thought were Kay's; she kept moving forward, her heart thudding. But every time, as they drew nearer the figures turned out to be not Kay at all-turned out to wildly unlikely people, teenage boys or middle-aged men.