Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

He knew about Duncan -at least, he knew where Duncan was. He thought he was in for stealing money… His manner changed. He looked at her properly again.

'Poor baby! I thought you seemed a bit blue. How was it?'

'It was all right.'

'It's stinking, you having to go to a place like that!'

'He doesn't have anyone else, except Dad.'

'It's lousy, that's all. If it was me, and my sister-'

He stopped. There had come the bang of a closing door, amazingly close; and now voices started up, on the other side of the wall. A man's and a woman's, slightly raised, perhaps in argument: the man's sounding most clearly, but both of them muffled, fitful-like the squeals made by a cloth as it polished a table.

'Hell!' whispered Reggie. 'That's all we need.'

'Do you think they can hear us?'

'Not if we're quiet; and not if they carry on like that. Let's hope they do! The fun'll start if they decide to kiss and make up.' He smirked. 'It'll be like a race.'

'I know who'd win,' she said, at once.

He pretended to be hurt. 'Give a fellow a chance!'

He looked her over, in a new sort of way; then held out his hand and said, in a coaxing voice, 'Come here, glamour girl.'

She shook her head, smiling, and wouldn't go to him.

'Come here,' he said again; but she still wouldn't go. So he rose, and reached for her fingers, and drew her to him-pulling at her arm as a sailor pulls on a rope, hand over hand. 'Look at me,' he murmured as he did it. 'I'm a drowning man. I'm a goner. I'm desperate, Viv.'

He kissed her again-lightly enough, at first; but then, as the kiss went on, they both grew serious, almost grim. The stir of feelings which, a moment before, had been gathered about her heart, expanded further. It was as if he was drawing all the life of her to the surface of her flesh. He began to move his hands over her, cupping and working her hips and buttocks, pressing her to him so that she could feel, through her flimsy dress, the points and bulges of his uniform jacket, the buttons and the folds. He began to grow hard: she felt the movement of it, inside his trousers, against her belly. An amazing thing, she thought it, even now; she'd never got used to it. Sometimes he'd move her hand to it. 'That's thanks to you,' he might say, jokily. 'That's all yours. That's got your name on it.' But today he said nothing. They were both too serious. They pulled and pressed at one another as if ravenous for each other's touch.

She was aware of the voices, still sounding fitfully in the neighbouring room. She heard someone walk, whistling a dance-tune, past the door. Down in the stairwell a gong was rung, calling guests to dinner… She and Reggie kissed on, at the centre of it all, silent and more or less still, but, as it seemed to her, enveloped by a storm of motion and noise: the rushing of breath, of blood, of moisture, the straining of fabric and of skin.

She began to move her hips against his. He let her do it for a moment, then pulled away.

'Jesus!' he whispered, wiping his mouth. 'You're killing me!'

She drew him back. 'Don't stop.'

'I'm not going to stop. I just don't want to finish before I've started. Hang on.'

He took off his jacket and threw it down, then shrugged off his braces. He put his arms around her again and walked her to the bed, meaning to lie her down on it. As soon as they sank upon it, however, it creaked. It creaked, whichever spot they tried. So he spread his jacket out on the floor and they lay down together on that.

He pulled up her skirt and ran his hand over the bare part of her leg, beneath her buttock. She thought of the crêpe dress getting creased, her precious fairy-worked stockings snagging-but let the thought go. She turned her head, and the snowdrops tumbled from her hair and were squashed, and she didn't care. She caught the dusty, nasty smell of the hotel carpet; she pictured all the men and women who might have embraced on it before, or who might be lying like this, now, in other rooms, in other houses-strangers to her, just as she and Reggie were strangers to them… The idea was lovely to her, suddenly. Reggie lowered himself properly upon her and she let her limbs grow loose, giving herself up to the weight of him; but still moving her hips. She forgot her father, her brother, the war; she felt pressed out of herself, released.

The waiting about, Kay thought, was the hardest part; she had never got used to it. When the Warning went, at just after ten, she actually felt better. She stretched in her chair and yawned, luxuriously.

'I'd like a couple of simple fractures tonight,' she told Mickey. 'Nothing too bloody, I've had enough blood and guts for a while. And no-one too heavy. I nearly broke my back last week, on that policeman in Ecclestone Square! No, a couple of slim little girls with broken ankles would just about do it.'

'I'd like a nice old lady,' said Mickey, yawning too. She was lying on the floor, on a camping-mattress, reading a cowboy book. 'A nice old lady with a bag of sweets.'

She had just put the book aside and closed her eyes when Binkie, the station leader, came into the common-room clapping her hands. 'Wake up, Carmichael!' she told Mickey. 'No snoozing on the job. That was the Yellow, didn't you hear? I should say we've an hour or two before the fun starts, but you never know. How about making a tour of the fuel stores? Howard and Cole, you can go too. And put the water on, on your way, for the bottles in the vans. All right?'

There were various curses and groans. Mickey climbed slowly to her feet, rubbing her eyes, nodding to the others. They got their coats, and went out to the garage.

Kay stretched again. She looked at the clock, then glanced around for something to do: wanting to keep herself alert, and take her mind off the waiting. She found a deck of greasy playing cards, picked them up and gave them a shuffle. The cards were meant for servicemen, and had pictures of glamour girls on them. Over the years, ambulance people had given the girls beards and moustaches, spectacles and missing teeth.

She called to Hughes, another driver. 'Fancy a game?'

He was darning a sock, and looked up, squinting. 'What's your stake?'

'Penny a pop?'

'All right.'

She shuffled her chair over to his. He was sitting right beside the oil-stove, and could never be persuaded away from it; for the room-which was part of the complex of garages under Dolphin Square, close to the Thames-had a concrete floor and walls of whitewashed brick, and was always chilly. Hughes wore a black astrakhan coat over his uniform and had turned up the collar. His hands and wrists, where they projected from his long, voluminous sleeves, looked pale and waxy. His face was slender as a ghost's, his teeth very stained from cigarettes. He wore glasses with dark tortoiseshell frames.

Kay dealt him a hand, and watched him sorting delicately through his cards. She shook her head. 'It's like gaming with Death,' she said.

He held her gaze, and extended a hand-pointed a finger, then turned and crooked it. ' Tonight ,' he whispered in horror-film tones.

She threw a penny at him. 'Stop it.' The coin bounced to the floor.

'Hey, what's the idea?' said someone-a woman called Partridge. She was kneeling on the concrete, cutting out a dress from paper patterns.

Kay said, 'Hughes was giving me the creeps.'

'Hughes gives everyone the creeps.'

'This time he was actually meaning to.'

Hughes did his Death-act, then, for Partridge. 'That's not funny, Hughes,' she said. When two more drivers passed through the room, he did it for them. One of them shrieked. Hughes got up and went to the mirror and did it for himself. He came back looking quite unnerved.

'I've had a whiff of my own grave,' he said, picking up his cards.

Presently Mickey came back in.