Sarah Waters: The Night Watch

'It doesn't matter.'

'I'll owe you, then.'

They shared a match. Viv put back her head and sighed out smoke. Then she looked at her watch.

'God! There's ten minutes gone already. Why does time never go so quickly when we've got the clients in?'

'They must work on the clocks,' said Helen. 'Like magnets.'

'I think they must. Just as they suck away at the life of you and me-suck, suck, suck, like great big fleas… Honestly, if you'd told me, when I was sixteen, that I should end up working in a place like this-well, I don't know what I would have thought. It wasn't what I had in mind at all. I wanted to be a solicitor's secretary…'

The words dissolved into another yawn-as if Viv hadn't the energy, even, to be bitter. She patted at her mouth with one of her slim, pale, pretty ringless hands.

She was five or six years younger than Helen, who was thirty-two. Her features were dark, and still vivid with youth; her hair was a rich brownish-black. Right now it lay bunched behind her head against the warm brick wall, like a velvet cushion.

Helen envied Viv her hair. Her own hair was light-or, as she thought of it, colourless; and it did that unforgiveable thing-grew absolutely straight. She wore it waved, and the constant perming dried it out and made it brittle. She'd recently had it waved, now: she could catch the faint stink of the chemicals every time she turned her head.

She thought over what Viv had said, about wanting to be a solicitor's secretary. She said, 'When I was young, I wanted to be a stable-girl.'

'A stable-girl?'

'You know, with horses, ponies. I'd never ridden a horse in my life. But I'd read something or other, I suppose, in a girl's annual or somewhere. I used to go trotting up and down the street, making clopping noises with my tongue.' She remembered the thrill of it, very clearly; and had an urge to get up, now, and try cantering up and down the fire-escape. 'My horse was called Fleet. He was very fast and very muscular.' She drew on her cigarette, then added in a lower tone, 'God knows what Freud would say about it.'

She and Viv laughed, flushing slightly.

Viv said, 'When I was really young I wanted to be a nurse. Seeing my mother in the hospital put me off that, though… My brother wanted to be a magician.' Her gaze grew distant; she started to smile. 'I always remember. My sister and I made him a cloak, from an old curtain. We dyed it black-but of course, we didn't know what we were doing, we were only kids, it came out looking terrible. We told him it was a specially magic one… And then my father got him one of those boxes of magic tricks, for his birthday. I bet it cost a fortune, too! He got everything he wanted, my brother; he was absolutely ruined. He was the sort of kid who, every time you took him into a shop, he'd want something. My auntie used to say, “You could take Duncan into a wool shop, and he'd come out wanting a ball of wool…”'

She sipped her tea, laughing again. 'He was a lovely kid really. My dad gave him that box, and he couldn't believe it. He spent hours reading the book, trying to work the tricks out; but in the end, you know, he put it all away. So we said, “What's the matter? Didn't you like the box after all?” And he said, Well, it was all right; but he'd thought it was going to show him how to do real magic, and it was just tricks.' She bit her lip, and shook her head. 'Just tricks! Poor little thing. He was only about eight.'

Helen smiled. 'It must have been nice, having a baby brother. My brother and I were too close in age; we just used to quarrel. Once he tied one of my plaits to the handle of a door, and slammed it.' She touched her scalp. 'It hurt like hell. I wanted to kill him! I believe I would have, if I'd known how… I do think children would make the most perfect little murderers, don't you?'

Viv nodded-but a little vaguely, this time. She sipped at her tea, smoked her cigarette; and they sat together, for a minute or two, in silence.

There's that curtain come down , thought Helen; for she was used to Viv doing this: giving little confidences, sharing memories-then drawing back suddenly, as though she had given away too much. They had worked together for almost a year, but what Helen knew about Viv's home life she'd had to put together from bits and pieces, scraps that Viv had let drop… She knew, for example, that her background was a very ordinary one; that her mother had died, ages ago; that she lived with her father in South London, cooking his dinners when she went home from work at night, and doing his laundry. She wasn't married or engaged-which seemed odd to Helen, for such a good-looking girl. She never spoke of having lost a lover to the war, but there was something-something disappointed about her, Helen thought. A sort of greyness. A layer of grief, as fine as ash, just beneath the surface.

But it was her brother, this Duncan, who was the biggest mystery. He had some queerness or scandal attached to him-Helen had never been able to work out what. He didn't live at home, with Viv and their father; he lived with an uncle or something like that. And though he was apparently quite healthy, he worked-she'd gathered-in an odd kind of factory, for invalids and charity cases. Viv always spoke about him in a very particular way; she often said, for example, 'Poor Duncan,' just as she had a minute ago. But the tone could have an edge of annoyance to it, too, depending on her mood: 'Oh, he's all right.' 'He hasn't got a clue.' 'He's in a world of his own, he is.' And then, down would come that curtain.

Helen had a respect for curtains like that, however; having one or two things in own life that she preferred to keep in darkness…

She drank more of her tea, then opened up her hand-bag and brought out a piece of knitting. She'd got into the habit, during the war, of knitting socks and scarves for soldiers; now, every month, she sent off a parcel of various lumpy, muddy-coloured items to the Red Cross. Currently she was working on a child's balaclava. The wool was second-hand, with strange kinks; it was hot work for summer; but the turns in the pattern were absorbing. She moved her finger and thumb rapidly along the needle, counting stitches under her breath.

Viv opened her own bag. She got out a magazine and began to leaf through it.

'Want your Stars?' she asked Helen, after a while. And, when Helen nodded: 'Here we are, then. Pisces, The Fish:Caution is the best course today . Others may not be sympathetic to your plans . That's your gentleman from Harrow, earlier on… Where's mine? Virgo, The Maiden:Look out for unexpected visitors .-That makes it sound like I'm going to get nits! Scarlet brings luck .' She made a face. 'It's only a woman in some office somewhere, isn't it? I'd like her job…' She turned another couple of pages, then held the magazine over. 'How about that for a hair-do?'

Helen was counting stitches again. 'Sixteen, seventeen,' she said, and glanced at the picture. 'Not bad. I shouldn't like to have to set and re-set it every time, though.'

Viv yawned again. 'Well, that's one thing I do have: time.'

They spent a few more minutes looking over the fashions, then glanced at their watches again and sighed. Helen made a mark on her paper pattern, and rolled her knitting up. They pulled on their shoes, dusted down their skirts, climbed back over the window-sill. Viv rinsed out the cups. She got out her powder and lipstick and moved to the mirror.

'Better freshen up the old war-paint, I suppose,' she said.

Helen briefly tidied her own face, then went slowly back up into the waiting-room. She straightened the pile of Lilliput s, put away the tea-things and the kettle. She looked through the diary on Viv's desk-turning the pages, reading the names. Mr Symes , Mr Blake , Miss Taylor , Miss Heap … She could guess already at the various disappointments that had prompted them to call: the jilts, the betrayals, the rankling suspicions, the deadnesses of heart.