Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

She picked up the diary again, and went through it a third time. Maybe she'd made some mistake with the last date.

There was no mistake, she knew it. She thought, I can't be . I can't! But if she was- Her mind was racing. For if she was, then it must have happened not this last time with Reggie, but the time before; and that was already a month ago-

No , she thought. She wouldn't believe it. She said to herself, You'll be all right . She straightened her clothes. Her hands were shaking. Every girl gets scares; but not you . Reggie's too careful . You're OK . You're all right . You can't be!

'Here she is at last,' said Binkie, as Kay stepped on to Mickey's boat and opened up the cabin doors. 'Kay! We thought you weren't coming.'

The boat rocked about.

'Hello, Bink. Hello, Mickey. Sorry I'm late.'

'Never mind. You're just in time for a drink. We're making gimlets.'

'Gimlets!' said Kay, putting down her bag. She looked at her watch. It was only quarter past five.

Binkie saw her expression. 'Oh, balls to that! I can't speak for your liver, but mine's still on peace-time hours.'

Kay took off her cap. She was dressed, as Mickey and Binkie were, in uniform, ready for work. But the cabin had a stove in it, and a hissing lamp, and was very warm: she sat down across from Binkie, undid her jacket and loosened her tie.

Mickey was busy bringing out tumblers, spoons, a siphon of soda water. She put them on an upturned beer crate between Binkie and Kay, then got the gin and opened the lime. The gin was some nameless, cheap variety, and instead of cordial she had real lime juice: it was in a brown medicine bottle with a white screw cap; Binkie had bought it from a chemist's, she said, as a food supplement.

Mickey stirred the ingredients together and handed the glasses over, keeping one for herself. They raised them up, then tasted and winced.

'It's like battery acid!' said Kay.

'Never mind that, dear girl,' said Binkie. 'Think of the Vitamin C.'

She offered round cigarettes. She favoured a rough Turkish brand, difficult to get hold of. She had them in a fancy gold case, but had cut each one in half to make a packet last longer; she smoked with a tarnished ivory holder. Mickey and Kay each took a stub-pinching them, as they had to, between their forefingers and thumbs; leaning very close to the lighter.

'I feel like my father,' said Mickey, puffing, moving back. Her father was a bookmaker.

'You look like a gangster,' said Kay. 'Talking of which-' Her heart gave a little flutter of excitement. 'Doesn't either of you want to know what it was that made me late?'

Mickey put the cigarette down. 'God, I forgot all about it. You've been to see those spiv friends of Cole's! You didn't go and get yourself arrested, did you?'

'Not those beastly black-market boys?' said Binkie, taking the ivory holder from her mouth. 'Oh Kay, how could you?'

'I know,' said Kay, raising her hands. 'I know. I know . It's perfectly lousy. But I've been getting whisky from them for months.'

'Whisky doesn't count. Whisky's practically medicinal in a job like ours. Anything else-'

'But Bink, it's for Helen. It's her birthday at the end of the month. Have you looked in the shops lately? They're worse than ever. I wanted to get her-I don't know, something handsome. A bit of glamour. This filthy war's knocked all the glamour out of life for women like her. It's all right for us, we can just kick about in the muck and pretty well like it-'

'But stolen goods, Kay! Stolen goods!'

'Cole says the insurers take care of all that. Anyway, most of it's stuff from before the war-left over, lying useless. Not actually looted. Good God, I'd never touch looted stuff.'

'I'm glad to hear it! But you can hardly expect me to approve. And if Headquarters should find out-'

'I don't approve, either,' said Kay. 'You know I don't. It's just-' She grew self-conscious. 'Well, I'm sick of gazing into Helen's face and seeing it look more and more tired and worn. If I were her husband I'd be off fighting, there wouldn't be a thing I could do about it. But the fact is, I'm here-'

Binkie put up a hand. 'Save the hearts and flowers,' she said, 'for your tribunal. God knows it'll be my tribunal, too, if it gets out that I've been a party to something like this.'

'You haven't been a party to anything, yet!' said Mickey impatiently. 'What did you get, Kay? What was it like?'

Kay described the place she had been to-a room in the basement of a ruined shop, in Bethnal Green.

'They were perfectly polite,' she said, 'once they knew I was a friend of Cole's and not a lady detective. And oh! if you could see the things they have there! Crates and crates of cigarettes! Soaps! Razor blades! Coffee! '

'Coffee!'

'And stockings. I was tempted by the stockings, I must admit. But you see, I had in mind a nightdress. Helen's nightdress is absolutely falling to bits, it breaks my heart. They picked through all the things they had-cotton bed-jackets, flannel pyjamas… And then, I saw this.'

She had picked up her bag, and opened it now to bring out a flat rectangular box. The box was pink, with a silk bow across it. 'Look at it,' she said, as Binkie and Mickey leaned in to see. 'It looks like the kind of thing-doesn't it?-that a fellow in an American picture would be carrying under his arm, when he calls on a chorus-girl, backstage.'

She set the box flat upon her lap-paused a moment, for effect-then carefully lifted off the lid. Inside were layers of silver paper. She put them back, and revealed a satin pyjama-suit, the colour of pearls.

'Wow,' said Mickey.

'Wow, and how,' said Kay. She lifted up the jacket and shook it out. It was as heavy, in her hands, as a girl's full head of hair; and though it was cold, from having been carried about in its box, she felt it warming even as she held it. Something about it-the smoothness of it, the lustre of it-had made her think of Helen. She thought of Helen again, now, as she shook it again to watch it ripple.

'Look at its shine!' she said. 'Look at the buttons!'-for the buttons were bone, fine as wafers, and amazingly pleasing to the finger and the eye.

Binkie moved her cigarette-holder from one hand to the other, so that she could lift up the jacket's cuff and run her thumb over the satin. She said, 'It's damn fine stuff, I'll give you that.'

'D'you see the label? It's French, look.'

'French?' said Mickey. 'There you are, then. Helen'll be doing her bit for the Resistance, just by wearing it.'

'Dear girl,' said Binkie. 'She won't be putting up any resistance once she's in this.'

They laughed. Kay turned the jacket about, to marvel at it a little longer; she even stood, and held it and the trousers against herself: 'They look absurd on me, of course, but you get the idea…'

'They're lovely,' said Mickey, sitting back. 'I bet they cost a fortune though, didn't they? Come on, tell us the truth: how much did you give for them?'

Kay had started to fold the suit up; and felt herself colour. 'Oh,' she said, without lifting her head. 'You know.'

'No,' said Mickey watching her. 'Not really.'

'One doesn't expect a quality thing like this to come cheaply. Not in wartime-'

'How much? Kay, you're blushing!'

'It's warm, that's all. It's that damn stove!'

'Five pounds? Six?'

'Well, I've got to squander the Langrish family fortune on something! And what the hell else is there, these days, to spend one's money on? There's no liquor in the pubs, no tobacco in the tobacconists'-'

'Seven pounds? Eight?' Mickey stared at her. 'Kay, not more?'

Kay said quickly, but rather vaguely, 'No. About eight.'

In fact she'd paid ten for the pyjamas, and another five pounds for a bag of coffee beans and a couple of bottles of whisky; but was too embarassed to admit it.