Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'It's a lady-friend, actually.' She sounded prim.

'Well, my mistake.-Oh, now don't be like that!' For she'd folded the paper, begun to screw together the pen. 'Don't leave on my account, will you?'

She said, 'It's nothing to do with you. I've got an appointment.'

He rolled his eyes, then winked at the barman. 'Why do girls always say something like that when I appear?'

He loved all this. He could spin it out for hours. It only put her on edge: she thought they must be like a pair of painful amateur actors. She was always afraid she'd start laughing. Once, in another hotel, she had started laughing; and that had made him laugh; they'd sat there, giggling like kids… She finished her drink. This was the worst part. She picked up her paper, her pen, her bag, and-

'Don't forget this, miss,' he said, touching her arm and taking up her key. He held it out to her by its flat wooden tag.

She blushed again. 'Thank you.'

'Don't mention it.' He straightened his tie. 'That's my lucky number, as it happens.'

Perhaps he winked at the barman again, she didn't know. She went out of the bar and up to her room-so excited now, she was practically breathless. She put on the lamp. She looked in the mirror and re-combed her hair. She began to shiver. She'd got chilled from sitting in the bar in her dress: she put her coat over her shoulders and stood at the tepid radiator, hoping to warm up, feeling the goose-pimples rising on her bare arms and trying to rub them away. She watched the tethered alarm clock, and waited.

After fifteen minutes there was a gentle tapping at the door. She ran to open it, throwing off the coat as she went; and Reggie darted inside.

'Jesus!' he whispered. 'This place is crawling! I had to stand about for ages on the stairs, pretending to tie my shoelaces. A chamber-maid passed me, twice, and gave me the hell of a funny look. I think she thought I was peeping through key-holes.' He put his arms around her and kissed her. 'God! You glorious girl, you.'

It was so wonderful to stand in his arms, she felt suddenly almost light-headed. She even thought, for an awful moment, that she might cry. She kept her cheek against his collar, so that he shouldn't see her face; and when she could speak again what she said was: 'You need a shave.'

'I know,' he answered, rubbing his chin against her forehead. 'Does it hurt?'

'Yes.'

'Do you mind?'

'No.'

'Good girl. To have to start messing about with razors, now, would just about kill me. God! I had a bloody awful time of it getting down here.'

'Are you sorry you came?'

He kissed her again. 'Sorry? I've been thinking of this all day.'

'Only all day?'

'All week. All month. For ever. Oh, Viv.' He kissed her harder. 'I've missed you like hell.'

'Wait,' she whispered, pulling away.

'I can't. I can't! All right. Let me look at you. You look beautiful, you fabulous girl. I saw you downstairs and, I swear to God, it was all I could do to keep my hands off you, it was like torture.'

They moved further into the room, hand-in-hand. He stood rubbing his eyes, looking about. The bulb in the lamp was dim; even so, he saw enough, and made a face.

'This joint is a bit of a hole, isn't it? Morrison said it was OK. I think it's worse than the Paddington one.'

'It's all right,' she said.

'It's not all right. It breaks my heart. You wait till after the war, when I'm back on a proper man's pay. It'll be the Ritz and the Savoy then, every time.'

'I won't care where it is,' she said.

'You wait, though.'

'I won't care where it is, so long as you're there.'

She said it almost shyly. They looked at each other-just looked at each other, getting used to the sight of one another's faces. She hadn't seen him for a month. He was stationed near Worcester, and got to London every four or five weeks. That was nothing, she knew, in wartime. She knew girls with boyfriends in North Africa and Burma, on ships in the Atlantic, in POW camps… But she must be selfish, because she hated time, for keeping him from her even for a month. She hated it for making them strangers to each other, when they ought to be closest. She hated it for taking him away from her again, when she'd just got used to him.

Perhaps he saw all this in her face. He pulled her to him, to kiss her again. But when he felt the press of her against him he moved back, remembering something.

'Hang on,' he said, unbuttoning the flap of his jacket pocket. 'I've got a present for you. Here.'

It was a paper case of hair-grips. She'd been complaining, when she saw him last, about how she had run out. He said, 'One of the boys at the base was selling them. It's not much, but-'

'They're just the thing,' she said shyly. She was touched by his having remembered.

'Are they? I thought they would be. And look, don't laugh.' He'd coloured slightly. 'I brought you these, too.'

She thought he was going to give her cigarettes. He'd produced a bashed-up packet. But he opened it very carefully, then took hold of her hand and gently tipped the contents out into her palm.

They turned out to be three wilting snowdrops. They fell in a tangle of fine green stems.

He said, 'They're not broken, are they?'

'They're beautiful!' said Viv, touching the tight bud-like white flowers, the little ballerina skirts. 'Where did you get them?'

'The train stopped for forty-five minutes, and half of us blokes got out for a smoke. I looked down and there they were. I thought- Well, they made me think of you.'

She could see he was embarassed. She pictured him stooping to pick the flowers, then putting them into that cigarette packet-doing it quickly, so that his friends wouldn't see… Her heart seemed too big, suddenly, for her breast. Again she was afraid that she might cry. But she mustn't do that. Crying was stupid, was pointless!-such a dreadful waste of time. She lifted a snowdrop and gently shook it, then looked at the basin.

'I should put them in water.'

'They're too far gone. Pin them to your dress.'

'I haven't got a pin.'

He took up the hair-grips. 'Use one of these. Or- Here, I've a better idea.'

He fixed the flowers to her hair. He did it rather fumblingly; she felt the point of the grip cut slightly into her scalp. But then he held her face in his swarthy hands, and looked her over.

'There,' he said. 'I swear to God, you get more beautiful every time I see you.'

She went to the mirror. She didn't look beautiful at all. Her face was flushed, her lipstick smeared by his kisses. The stems of the flowers had got crushed by the grip and hung rather limply. But the white of them was vivid, lovely, against the black-brown of her hair.

She turned back to the room. She oughtn't to have moved away from his arms. They seemed to feel the distance, suddenly; and grew shy with each other again. He went to the armchair and sat down, unfastening the top two buttons of his jacket and loosening the collar and tie beneath. After a little silence he cleared his throat and said, 'So. What do you want to do tonight, glamour girl?'

She lifted a shoulder. 'I don't know. I don't mind. Whatever you like.' She just wanted to stay here with him.

'Are you hungry?'

'Not really.'

'We could go out.'

'If you want to.'

'I wish we had some drink.'

'You've just had one!'

'Some whisky, I mean…'

Another silence. She felt herself getting chilly again. She moved to the radiator, and rubbed her arms, as she had before.

He didn't notice. He'd gone back to looking around the room. He asked, as if politely, 'You didn't have any trouble finding this place?'

'No,' she said. 'No, it was easy.'

'Were you working today, or what?'

She hesitated. 'I went to see Duncan,' she said, looking away, 'with Dad.'