Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'We all said what a nit she was,' said Viv. 'God, I wish she was here now! She got-' She looked around, and spoke in a murmur. 'She got some pills, didn't she? From a chemist's?'

'I don't know,' said Betty.

'She did,' said Viv. 'I'm sure she did…'

'You could take Epsom salts.'

'I've done that. It didn't work.'

'You could try a red-hot bath, and gin.'

Viv almost laughed. 'At John Adam House? I'd never get the water hot enough. And then, imagine if someone saw, or smelt the gin… I couldn't do it at my father's, either.' She shuddered, just thinking about it. 'Isn't there anything else? There must be other things.'

Betty thought it over. 'You could squirt yourself, with soapy water. That's supposed to work. You have to hit the right spot, though… Or you could use-you know-a knitting needle-'

'God!' said Viv, growing sick again. 'I don't think I could bear to. Could you, if you were me?'

'I don't know. I might, if I was worried enough… Can't you just-lift weights?'

'What weights?' said Viv.

'Sandbags, things like that? Can't you jump up and down on the spot?'

Viv thought of the various uncomfortable ordinary journeys she'd had to make in the past two weeks: the bumping about on trains and buses, the flights of stairs she'd climbed at work… 'That kind of thing won't do it,' she said. 'It doesn't want to come out like that, I know it doesn't.'

'You could soak pennies in drinking-water.'

'That's just an old wives' tale, isn't it?'

'Well, don't old wives know a thing or two? That's why they're old wives, after all, and not-'

'And not old you-know-whats, like me?'

'That's not what I meant.'

Viv looked away. It was quite dark now. From the pavements beyond the garden there was the occasional blur of shaded torchlight, the shrinking and spreading and darting about of beams. But the tall, flat houses which edged the square were perfectly still… She felt Betty shiver, and shivered herself. But they didn't get up. Betty drew in her collar and folded her arms. She said, again, 'You could talk to Reggie.'

'No,' said Viv. 'I'm not going to tell him.'

'Why not? It's his, isn't it?'

'Of course it is!'

'Well, I'm only asking.'

'What a thing to say!'

'You ought to tell him, though. I'm not being funny, Viv, but the fact is, well, him being a married man… He ought to have an idea of what you could do.'

'He won't have a clue,' said Viv. 'His wife-she's kid-crazy. It's all she wants him for. What he gets from me, it's different.'

'I'll bet it is.'

'It is!'

'Well, not in nine months' time it won't be.-Eight months' time, I mean.'

'That's why I've got to fix it by myself,' said Viv. 'Don't you see? If it turns out that, after all, I'm just like her-'

'And you really want to fix it? You couldn't- Well, you couldn't have it, and keep it, or-?'

'Are you kidding?' said Viv. 'My father- It would kill my father!'

It would kill him , she meant, after everything with Duncan … She couldn't say that, however, to Betty; and suddenly the burden of so many secrets, so much caution and darkness and care, seemed unbearable. 'Oh!' she said. 'It's so bloody unfair! Why does it have to be like this, Betty? As if things weren't hard enough already!-then this comes along, to make things harder. It's such a little thing-'

'I hate to break this to you kid,' said Betty, 'but it won't be little for long.'

Viv looked at her, through the darkness. She folded her arms across her stomach. 'That's what I can't bear,' she said quietly, 'the thought of it inside me, getting bigger and bigger.' She seemed, all at once, to be able to feel it, sucking at her like a leech… She said, 'What's it like? It's like a fat little worm, isn't it?'

'A fat little worm,' answered Betty, 'with Reggie's face.'

'Don't say things like that! If I start thinking about it like that, it'll make it worse… I've got to try the pills that Felicity Withers tried.'

'But they didn't work for her. That's why she chucked herself down the stairs! And didn't they make her sick?'

'Well, I feel sick anyway! What's the difference?'

She didn't exactly feel sick now, however. She felt agitated, almost feverish. It seemed to her, suddenly, that she'd been living in a kind of trance. She couldn't believe it. She thought of the days and days that had slipped by, while she'd done nothing. She sat up straighter and looked around.

'I need a chemist's shop,' she said. 'Where can I find that kind of chemist's? Betty, come on.'

'Hang on,' said Betty. She'd opened her bag. 'Hell, you can't just drop this sort of thing on a girl, and then expect her to- Let me just have a cigarette.'

'A cigarette?' repeated Viv. 'How can you be thinking about a cigarette?'

'Calm down,' said Betty.

Viv pushed her. 'I can't calm down! Do you think you'd be able to calm down, if you were me?'

But all at once she felt exhausted. She slumped back again, and closed her eyes. When she looked up, she found Betty watching her. Her expression, in the darkness, was hard to read. There might have been pity in it, or fascination; even a touch of scorn.

'What are you thinking?' Viv asked quietly. 'You're thinking I'm soft, aren't you? Like we said Felicity Withers was.'

Betty shrugged. 'Any girl can get caught out.'

'You never have.'

'God!' Betty took off her glove and tapped like mad at the bench. 'Touch wood, can't you? That's all it is, after all: just luck, good luck and bad…' She fished about in her bag again, looking for her lighter. 'I still say, anyway, that you should tell Reggie. What's the point of going with a married man, if you can't tell him things like this?'

'No,' said Viv, almost soundlessly. They'd gone back to speaking in murmurs. 'I'll try the pills first; and if they don't work, I'll tell him then. And then, if they do, he'll be none the wiser.'

'Unlike you, hopefully.'

'You do think I'm soft.'

'All I'm saying is, if he had worn his raincoat-'

'He doesn't like it!'

'That's too bad. You can't muck about, Viv, when you're a chap in Reggie's shoes. If he was a single boy it would be different, you could take chances; the worst thing would be, you'd end up married sooner than you meant.'

'You're making it sound,' said Viv miserably, 'like it's something you think about, something you plan-like buying a three-piece suite! You know how we feel about each other. It's like you said just now, about touching wood. He's only married to another girl through rotten luck, through bad timing. Some things just can't be helped, that's all; it's just how they are.'

'And it'll go on being just how things are, for years and years,' said Betty. 'And he'll be grand, thank you very much; and how will you be?'

'You can't think like that,' said Viv. 'Nobody thinks like that! We might all be dead tomorrow. You have to take what you want, don't you? What you really want? You don't know what it's like. There isn't anything else for me, except Reggie. If I didn't have him-' Her voice thickened. She took out her handkerchief and blew her nose. 'He makes me happy,' she said, after a minute. 'You know he does. He makes me laugh.'

Betty finally found her lighter. 'Well,' she said, as she struck it, 'you're not laughing now.'

Viv watched the spurting up of the flame; she blinked against the plunge back into darkness, and didn't answer. She and Betty sat almost without speaking until it grew too cold to sit any longer; then they linked arms, wearily, and stood.

They had just moved off across the garden when they heard the sirens go. Betty said, 'There you are. That'd put an end to all your problems-a nice fat bomb.'

Viv looked up. 'God, it would. And no-one would know, except for you.'