Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'There we are,' said Viv's father, as they waited. He was trying to make the best of things. 'It's another month done, I suppose.'

'Yes, that's right.'

'And how did you think he was looking? Did you think he was looking all right?'

She nodded. 'Yes, he looked all right.'

'Yes… And what I always think to myself, Vivien, is this: at least we know where he is. We know he's being looked after. There's plenty fathers can't say that of their sons in wartime, can they?'

'No.'

'There's plenty fathers would envy me.'

He took out his handkerchief again and wiped his eyes. But his look grew bitter rather than sad. And after a moment he said, in a different voice, 'God help me, though, for talking ill of the dead; but it ought to be that other boy in there, not Duncan!'

She pressed his arm, saying nothing. She saw the anger in him, tightening then draining away. He let out his breath, patted her hand.

'Good girl. You're a good girl, Vivien.'

They stood without speaking until another train roared in. Then, 'Here you are,' she said. 'Go on, now. I'll be all right.'

'You don't want me to walk you up to Portman Square?'

'Don't be daft! Go on, look… And give my love to Pamela!'

He didn't hear her. She watched him board but, the windows being all blacked out, when he moved further in to find a seat she lost sight of him. But she didn't want him to glimpse her rushing away: she waited for the doors to close and the train to start up, before moving off herself.

Then, however, it was as though she became a different girl. The slightly exaggerated manner she had to adopt when speaking to her father-the mouthing, the gestures-fell away. She was suddenly neat, smart, guarded: she looked at her watch and went quickly, her heels clicking on the concrete floor. Anyone watching her, after hearing the conversation she'd just had, would have been baffled: for she didn't head for the steps that would have taken her up to the street; she didn't even glance that way. Instead she went purposefully across to the westbound platform and waited there for a train; and when the train drew in, she got on it and travelled back in the direction she'd just come from. And at Notting Hill Gate she changed to the Circle Line, and rode to Euston Square.

She didn't have to go back to work, after all. She was going to a hotel in Camden Town. She was meeting Reggie. He'd sent her the address of a place and a rough sort of map, and she'd memorised it, so that now, when she left the train, she could go quickly and not hang about. She was dressed in her sober office clothes and a navy mackintosh and scarf, and the day had darkened properly. She moved like a shadow through the blacked-out streets around Euston, heading north.

These streets were full of small hotels. Some were nicer than others. Some were not nice at all: they looked like places that tarts would use; or they had refugee people in them, families from Malta, Poland, Viv wasn't sure where else. The one she wanted was in a street off Mornington Crescent. It smelt of gravy dinners and dusty carpets. But the woman at the desk was all right. 'Miss Pearce,' she said, smiling, looking at Viv's identification card, then going through her book for the reservation. 'Just passing through? That's right.'

For there were a thousand reasons, these days, why a girl should spend a night on her own in a London hotel.

She gave Viv a key with a wooden tag on it. The room was a cheap one, up three flights of creaking stairs. There was a single bed, an ancient-looking wardrobe, a chair with cigarette burns, and a little wash-basin in the corner that was coming away from the wall. A radiator, painted over and over with different kinds of paint, gave off a tepid heat. On the bedside table was an alarm clock, fastened down with a length of wire. The clock said ten past six. She thought she had thirty or forty minutes.

She took off her coat, and opened her satchel. Inside were two bulky buff Ministry of Food envelopes, marked Confidential . One held a pair of evening shoes. In the other was a dress, and real silk stockings. She had been worried about the dress all day, because it was crêpe and easily creased: she took it carefully from the envelope and let it hang from her hands, then spent a few minutes tugging at it, trying to flatten out the folds. The stockings she had worn and washed many times; there were patches of darning, the stitches tiny and neat, like fairy-work. She ran them over her fingers, liking the feel of them, looking for faults.

She wished she could bathe. She thought she could feel the sour prison smells still clinging to her. But there wasn't time for it. She went down the hall and used the lavatory, then came back to her room and stripped to her brassière and knickers, to wash herself at the little basin.

There was no hot water, she discovered: the tap went round and round in her hand. She ran the cold, and splashed her face, then lifted her arms and leaned to the wall and rinsed her armpits-the water running down to her waist, making her shiver, wetting the carpet. The towel was yellowy-white and thin, like a baby's napkin. The soap had fine grey seams in it. But she'd brought talcum powder with her; and she dabbed scent, from a little bottle, on her wrists and throat and collarbones, and between her breasts. When she put on the flimsy crêpe dress, and replaced her lisle winter stockings with the flesh-coloured silk ones, she felt as though she was in her nightie, light and exposed.

So she went a little self-consciously down to the bar, and got herself a drink-a gin and ginger-to settle her nerves.

'It's only one each miss, I'm afraid,' the barman said; but he made the measure, it seemed to her, a large one. She sat at a table, keeping her head down. It was nearly dinner-time, and people were just beginning to come in. If some man were to catch her eye, drift over, insist on joining her, it would spoil everything. She'd brought a pen and a piece of paper with her, and now spread the paper out. She actually started to write a letter to a girl she knew, in Swansea.

Dear Margery-Hello there, how are you getting along? This is just a word to let you know that I am still alive, despite Hitler doing his best, ha ha . Hope things are a bit quieter where you are -

He arrived at just after seven. She'd been glancing slyly over at every man who had appeared, but had heard a step and, for some reason not thinking it was his, looked up unguardedly: she met his gaze as he crossed the doorway, and blushed like crazy. A moment later she heard him talking with the woman at the desk-telling her that he was meeting someone, a man. Would they mind if he waited? The woman said they wouldn't mind it one little bit.

He came into the bar, had a joke with the barman: 'Just pour me a drop of that stuff there, will you?'-nodding to one of the fancy bottles that were kept, for show, on the shelves behind the counter. In the end he got gin, like everyone else. He brought it to the table next to hers and set it down on a beer-mat. He was dressed in his uniform-wearing it badly, as he always did, the jacket looking as though it was meant for someone half a size bigger. He plucked at his trousers, and sat; then got out a packet of service cigarettes and caught her eye.

'How do you do?' he said.

She changed her pose, drew in her skirt. 'How do you do?'

He offered the cigarettes. 'Care to smoke?

'No, thank you.'

'You won't mind if I do?'

She shook her head, and went back to her letter-though with the nearness of him, the excitement of it all, she'd lost the sense of what she'd been writing… After a second she saw him tilt his head: he was trying to read the words over her shoulder. When she turned to him, he straightened up as if caught out.

'Must be the hell of a fellow,' he said, nodding to the page, 'to get all that.'