Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

Julia lay on her side, turned away from the door, her face in darkness, her hair very black against her pillow. It was impossible to say whether she was sleeping or awake.

'Julia,' said Helen, quietly.

'What?' asked Julia after a moment.

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do you hate me?'

'Yes.'

'You don't hate me as much as I hate myself.'

Julia rolled on to her back. 'Do you say that, as some sort of consolation?'

'I don't know,' said Helen. She went closer, put her fingers to Julia's hair.

Julia flinched. 'Your hand's freezing. Don't touch me!' She took Helen's hand. 'For God's sake, why are you so cold? Where have you been?'

'In the bathroom. Nowhere.'

'Get into bed, can't you?'

Helen moved away, to take off her clothes, unpin her hair, draw on her nightdress. She did it all in a creeping, craven sort of way. Julia said again, when she'd got into the bed beside her, 'You're so cold!'

'I'm sorry,' said Helen. She hadn't noticed the chill, before; but now, feeling the warmth of Julia's body, she began to shake. 'I'm sorry,' she said again. Her teeth chattered in her head. She tried to make herself rigid; the trembling grew worse.

'God!' said Julia; but she put her arm around Helen and drew her close. She was wearing a boy's striped nightshirt: it smelt of sleep, of unmade beds, of unwashed hair-but pleasantly, deliciously. Helen lay against her and shut her eyes. She felt exhausted, emptied out. She thought of the evening that had passed, and it was astonishing to her that a single set of hours could contain so many separate states of violent feeling.

Perhaps Julia thought the same. She lifted a hand and rubbed her face. 'What a ridiculous night!' she said.

'Do you really hate me, Julia?'

'Yes. No, I don't suppose so.'

'I can't help myself,' said Helen. 'I don't know myself, when I'm like that. It's like-'

But she couldn't explain it; she never could. It sounded childish, every time. She could never convey to Julia how utterly dreadful it was to have that seething, wizened little gnome-like thing spring up and consume you; how exhausting, to have to tuck it back into your breast when it was done; how frightening, to feel it there, living inside you, waiting its chance to spring again…

She said only, 'I love you, Julia.'

And Julia answered: 'Idiot. Go to sleep.'

They were silent after that. Julia lay tensely for a time, but soon her limbs began to slacken and her breaths to deepen and slow. Once, as if startled by a dream, she jumped, and that made Helen jump, too; but then she settled back into slumber. Out in the street, there were voices. Someone ran laughing along the pavement. In the house next door a plug was drawn from an electric socket, a window went squealing against its frame and was closed with a bang.

Julia stirred in her sleep, made uneasy by dreams again. Who, wondered Helen, was she dreaming of? Not Ursula Waring, after all. But not of me, either , Helen thought… For, wakeful, chastened, she saw it all very plainly now: Julia's staying out so late, when she might so easily have left a note; when she might so easily have done it differently, done it in secret, not done it at all… Don't, Helen , Julia said, in exasperation, every time. But if she didn't want bluster and fuss, why did she make it so easy for Helen to create them? With some part of herself, Helen thought, she must long for them. She must long for them because she knew that, beyond them, there was nothing: deadness, blankness, the arid surface of her own parched heart.

When did Julia stop loving me? Helen wondered now. But it was too frightful a thought to pursue; and she was too exhausted. She lay open-eyed, still pressed close to Julia, still feeling the heat of her limbs, the rising and falling of her breaths. But in time she changed her pose, and moved away.

And as her hand slid across the cotton of Julia's nightshirt, she thought of something else-a silly thing-she thought of a pair of pyjamas she'd once owned, when the war was on, and then had lost. They were satin pyjamas, the colour of pearls: the most beautiful pyjamas, it seemed to her now, as she lay alone and untouched in the darkness at Julia's side; the most beautiful pyjamas she'd ever seen.

Duncan had come home from work that night and heated a kettle full of water; he'd taken the kettle up to his room, stripped down to his vest, and washed his hands, his face and his hair-trying to get the feel of the factory out of them; wanting to look his best, for his evening with Fraser.

Still in his vest and trousers he'd gone downstairs, to polish his shoes, to put a towel on the kitchen counter and iron a shirt. The shirt had a soft collar to it, like the shirts that Fraser wore; and when Duncan put it on, still hot from the iron, he left it unbuttoned at the throat-just as Fraser wore his. He thought, too, of leaving the Brylcreem off his hair. He went back up to his bedroom and stood at his mirror, combing the hair this way and that-trying out different partings, different ways of letting it tumble over his brow… But the hair, as it dried, began to grow downy; he began to remind himself of the little boy in the 'Bubbles' advert for Pears Soap. So he put the Brylcreem on after all-worrying that he'd left it too late; spending five or ten more minutes with the comb, trying to get the waves to sit right.

When he'd finished he went downstairs again and Mr Mundy said, with a dreadful forced sort of brightness, 'My word! The girls are in for a treat tonight, all right! What time's he coming for you, son?'

'Half-past seven,' said Duncan shyly, 'the same as last time. But we're going to a different pub, on a different bit of the river. They sell a better sort of beer, Fraser says.'

Mr Mundy nodded, his face still stretched in a ghastly smile. 'Yes,' he said, 'the girls won't know what's hit them tonight!'

He had not been able to believe it when Duncan had brought Fraser home, that other time, two weeks before. Fraser had not been able to believe it, either. The three of them had sat in the parlour together, at a loss for things to say; in the end the little cat had come trotting innocently in, and that had saved them. They'd spent twenty minutes making her chase after bits of string. Duncan had even got down on the floor and shown Fraser his trick of letting her walk up his body… Mr Mundy had gone around since then like a wounded man. His limp had worsened; he'd begun to stoop. Mr Leonard, in his crooked house in the street off Lavender Hill, had been very dismayed at the change in him. He spoke more passionately to him than ever about the necessity of resisting the lure of Error and False Belief.

Tonight, once Fraser arrived, Duncan planned to get out as quickly as he could. He and Mr Mundy ate their tea, then stood together washing up the dishes; and as soon as the dishes were stacked away, he put on his jacket. He sat in the parlour, at the very front of his chair-ready to spring up the moment he heard Fraser's knock.

But he picked up a book, too, to pass the time, and to make himself look careless. The book was a library book on antique silver, with a table of hallmarks: he worked his finger down the page, trying to memorise the significance of anchors, crowns, lions, thistles-but all the time, of course, listening out for that tap at the door… Half-past seven came and went. He began to grow tense. He started to imagine all the ordinary things that might be keeping Fraser away. He pictured Fraser coming breathlessly to the door-just as he had come breathlessly up to the factory gate, that other time. His face would be pink, his hair would be bouncing over his brow, and he'd say, 'Pearce! Had you given up on me? I'm so sorry! I've been-' The excuses grew wilder as the minutes ticked by. He'd been stuck in an Underground train, going out of his mind with frustration. He'd seen a person get hit by a car, and had to send for an ambulance!