Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

Watling looked prim. 'Well, I don't know about that.'

'He's not so different, anyway, from you,' said Duncan.

Fraser was still smiling. 'What do you mean?'

'It's like Watling said. You both think the world can be perfect, don't you? But at least he's doing something to make it perfect, by willing bad things away. Instead of just- Well, instead of just sitting in here, I mean.'

Fraser's smile faded. He looked at Duncan, then looked away. There was an awkward little silence… Then Watling moved forward again. 'Let me ask you this, Fraser,' he said, with an air of continuing a conversation in which Duncan had no part. 'If at your Tribunal they had told you…'

Fraser folded his arms and listened, and gradually started smiling again-his good humour, apparently, quite restored.

Duncan waited, then turned away. The men on the other side of him had just finished a game. Two of them were lightly clapping. 'Well played,' said one, politely. He and his neighbour passed over the tiny twists of tobacco they were using as wagers; then the three of them began to flip the dominoes over and mix them up, to start again. 'Care to join us?' they asked, seeing Duncan sitting more or less alone; but Duncan shook his head. He had the impression that he'd hurt Fraser's feelings, and was sorry. He was going to wait another minute, to see if Fraser might give up the argument with Watling and turn back to him…

But Fraser didn't turn; and soon the stink of the blocked recess grew too much to bear. Duncan put his knife and fork together and, 'See you later,' he said to the domino players.

'Yes, see you later Pearce. Don't-'

Their words were interrupted by a cry: ' Yoo hoo! Miss Tragedy! Yoo hoo! '

It was Auntie Vi, and a couple of her friends-two boys a few years older than Duncan, called Monica and Stella. They were mincing down the hall between the tables, smoking, and waving their hands. They must have noticed Duncan getting to his feet. Now they called again: 'Yoo hoo! What's the matter, Miss Tragedy? Don't you like us?'

Duncan pushed in his chair. Fraser, he saw, had looked up as if irritated. Watling was making another prim, repressive sort of face… Auntie Vi, and Monica and Stella, minced closer. Duncan took up his plate and moved off with it just as they drew level with his table.

'Off she trips, look!' he heard Monica say, behind his back. 'Where's she going in such a hurry? Do you think she has a husband, up in that flowery of hers?'

'Not her, my dears,' said Aunti Vi, puffing on her roll-up. 'Not while she's still in black for the last one. Why, she's sitting like Patience on a Monument, positively grinning at Grief! You know her story, don't you? Haven't you ever seen her in Mailbags One? Stitch, stitch, stitch she goes, with her little white hand; and at night, my dears I swear she creeps back over there and pulls all the stitches out…'

Their voices faded as they moved on. But Duncan felt himself blushing at their words-blushing horribly, guiltily, from his throat to his scalp. And, what was worse, he glanced back to his table and saw Fraser's face; and Fraser's expression was such an unpleasant one-such a mixture of awkwardness and anger and distaste-he grew almost sick.

He scraped the uneaten food from his plate, then swilled the plate and his knife and fork in the tub of soapless cold water that was provided for them to wash their dinner-things in. He went across the hall to the staircase and began to climb it, as quickly as he could.

He grew breathless almost at once. Any sort of exercise left them all winded. At the Threes he had to pause to catch his breath. At his own landing he leaned on the rail outside his cell, waiting for his heart to slow. He folded his arms and rested on his elbows and looked back down into the hall.

The din of quarrelling voices, of laughter and shouts, was milder up here. The view was horribly impressive. For the hall was as long as a small city street, with a roof of blacked-out glass. Strung right across it, at the level of the first landing, was a net: Duncan saw the men through a haze of wire and cigarette smoke and sickly, artificial light; it was like gazing at creatures in a cage or under water; they were like strange, pallid things that never saw daylight. And what you noticed most, he thought, from this height, was the drabness of it all: the concrete floor, the lustreless paint upon the walls, the shapeless grey uniforms with their single spots of red, the spew-coloured oilcloths on the tables… Only Fraser, it still seemed to him, stood out as a single point of brightness: for his cropped hair was fair, where most of the other men's was dark or dull brown; and he moved animatedly, where others slouched; and when he laughed-as he did again now-he laughed with a shout, that carried even to here.

He was talking to Watling, still; he was listening hard to something Watling was saying, and occasionally nodding his head. He didn't like Watling much, Duncan knew; but the fact was he'd talk to anyone, for hours at a time, just for the sake of it: it didn't mean anything when he looked at you, spoke passionately to you, he was passionate about everything…

'That boy Fraser oughtn't to be here,' Mr Mundy had said to Duncan, privately. 'Coming from a family like that, with all the advantages he's had!' He took Fraser's being here as a sort of insult to the other men. He said he was playing at being in prison. He didn't like the fact that Duncan had to share a cell with him; he said that he'd end up giving Duncan queer ideas. If he could have found a way to do it, he would have got Duncan a cell all to himself.

Perhaps Mr Mundy was right, Duncan thought, looking again at Fraser's smooth fair head. Perhaps Fraser was only playing at being in prison-like a prince, dressing up as a pauper. But then, what was the difference, in a place like this, between playing at something and doing it for real? It was like playing at being tortured, or being killed! It was like going into the army and saying you were only doing it for fun: the soldiers shooting at you from the other side wouldn't know you were only pretending…

Fraser stretched right back in his chair again, raising his arms, putting out his long legs. But he kept his back to Duncan; and Duncan suddenly found himself wishing that he would turn and look up. He stared at the back of Fraser's head and tried to will him to turn around. He concentrated all his mind on it-sent out the words as a sort of ray. Look, Fraser! he thought. Look, Robert Fraser! He even used Fraser's prison number. Look, 1755 Fraser! 1755 Robert Fraser, look at me!

But Fraser didn't look. He kept on talking with Watling, and laughing; and at last Duncan gave it up. He blinked, and rubbed his eyes. And when he looked again, it was Mr Mundy's gaze he met: for Mr Mundy must have spotted him leaning there, and been watching him. He gave Duncan a nod, and then moved on slowly between the tables. Duncan turned and went into his cell and lay down, exhausted.

'You're late,' said Viv's friend Betty, as Viv ran down the stairs to the cloakroom at Portman Court.

'I know,' said Viv breathlessly. 'Has Gibson noticed?'

'She's in with Mr Archer. They sent me all the way to the basement, for these.' Betty held up files. 'If you hurry you'll be OK. Where've you been, anyway?'

Viv shook her head, smiling. 'Nowhere.'

She ran on, pulling off her gloves and her hat as she went; throwing back the locker door when she got to it and bundling her coat inside. Miss Gibson let them keep their handbags at their desks, so she held on to that; but before she closed the locker door she quickly opened the handbag up and looked inside it, to be sure she had, what she thought she might need-because her period was due, and her breasts and stomach were sore-a sanitary towel and a box of aspirin. She'd have liked to go to the lavatory and put the towel in place right now, but there wasn't the time. She took an aspirin, anyway, as she started back up the stairs-chewing it up without any water and swallowing it down, making a face against the bitter chalky taste of it.