Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

But then she moved away from the mirror.

'Don't go,' said Kay.

'Just to start my bath off.'

'No,' said Kay. 'Not yet.'

She got off the bed and crossed the room and took Helen in her arms. She ran her fingers over her face, and kissed her lips. She slid her hands beneath the satin jacket to touch the smooth, warm flesh of her back and waist. Then she moved behind her and held her breasts, taking the weight of them against her palms. She felt the swell of Helen's buttocks, the sliding of the skin of her plump thighs inside the satin. She put her cheek against Helen's ear.

'You're beautiful.'

'No,' said Helen.

Kay turned her to face the mirror. 'Can't you see yourself? You're lovely. I knew you were, the first time I saw you. I held your face in my hand. You were smooth, like a pearl.'

Helen closed her eyes. 'I know,' she said.

They kissed again. The kiss went on. But then Helen drew away. 'I have to pee again,' she said. 'I'm sorry, Kay. And I really should bathe.'

The satin made her slippery: she moved from Kay's grasp, turning her head and laughing-playful but determined, like a nymph eluding a satyr. She went back to the bathroom and closed the door. There was the rush of the faucets, the whoosh of flame in the water-heater; and then, in a minute or so, the rub of her heels against the enamel of the tub.

Kay took the coffee-pot to the sitting-room fire and put it close to the grate. She went back to the bedroom, cleared away the tray, made up the bed, folded the torn tissue paper. The flowers she set, in their vase, on the sitting-room table, beside the cards that Helen had already received, by yesterday's post, from her family in Worthing. She moved a chair. Where the chair had stood she saw a sprinkling of crumbs. She got a brush and a pan from the kitchen, and swept them up.

Kay had lived in this flat for almost seven years. She'd got it from a woman she'd once been lovers with, a woman who'd worked here, more or less-though Kay had never told Helen this-as a prostitute. Kay's life had been rather chaotic in those days. She'd had too much money; she'd drunk too much; she'd careered from one unhappy love-affair to another… The woman had taken up with a businessman in the end, and moved to Mayfair; but she'd given Kay the flat as a parting gift.

Kay liked it here more than anywhere she'd ever lived. The flat's rooms were L-shaped; she liked those. She liked, too, the funny little mews or yard that the flat overlooked. The warehouse next door served some of the furniture stores on the Tottenham Court Road; before the war, Kay had been able to stand at her window and watch young men and women in the workshops painting swags and cupids on lovely old tables and chairs. Now the workshops had been closed down. The warehouse was used for holding utility furniture for the Board of Trade. The fact of there being so much wood there, and so much varnish and paint, made the mews a dreadfully unsafe place. But when Kay thought of moving, her heart sank. She felt about the flat rather as she felt about Helen: that it was secret, special, hers.

She checked the warmth of the coffee in its pot. On the mantelpiece was a box of cigarettes; that made her think of the case in her pocket. She took it out, and started to fill it. Presently she heard Helen come out of the bathroom and begin the business of getting dressed. She called to her, across the hall. 'What shall we do today, Helen? What would you like to do?'

'I don't know,' answered Helen.

'I might take you to a smart restaurant for lunch. How about that?'

'You've spent too much on me already!'

'Oh, balls to that!-as Binkie might say. Wouldn't you like a fancy luncheon?'

There was no reply. Kay shut the cigarette case and put it back in her pocket. She poured more coffee into Helen's cup and took it through to the bedroom. Helen was dressed in her bra, her petticoat and stockings. She was combing her hair-combing it carefully, trying to turn the curls into waves. The pyjama-suit lay on the bed, very neatly folded.

Kay set the cup down on the dressing-table. 'Helen,' she said.

'Yes, darling?'

'You seem awfully distracted. Isn't there anywhere you'd like to go? Not Windsor Castle, somewhere like that? The Zoo?'

'The Zoo?' said Helen, laughing, but also frowning. 'My goodness, I feel like a child being offered a day out by its aunt.'

'Well, that's how one's supposed to feel on one's birthday. And you did, you know, mention Windsor Castle -and the Zoo-when we talked about this last week.'

'I know I did,' said Helen. 'I'm sorry, Kay. But Windsor-oh, won't it take an age to get there? Won't the trains be awful?' She had gone to the wardrobe and was looking through her dresses. 'You'll have to be home for work at seven.'

'We have ages till seven,' said Kay. Then she saw the dress that Helen was taking from its hanger. 'That one?' she said.

'Don't you like it?'

'It's your birthday. Wear the Cedric Allen one. I like that one more.'

Helen looked doubtful. 'It's awfully smart.' But she put the first dress back and drew out another-a dark blue dress with cream lapels. It had cost £2 11s, two years before; Kay had bought it, of course. Kay had bought most of Helen's things, especially in those days. A section of the hem was slightly puckered, where it had got worn and had to be darned; but apart from that, it looked almost new. Helen shook it open and stepped inside it.

Kay held out her hands. 'Come here,' she said, 'and I'll hook you up.'

So Helen came to her and turned her back, and lifted up her hair. Kay settled the dress more smoothly on her shoulders, drew close its panels and, starting at the bottom, began to fasten together its hooks. She did it slowly. She'd always liked the sight and the feel of a woman's back. She liked, for example, the look of an evening dress on naked shoulders-the tautness of it-the way, when the shoulder-blades were drawn together, it gaped, giving you a glimpse of the underclothes or the pink, pressed flesh behind… Helen's back was firm-not muscular, but plump, resilient. Her neck was handsome, with a down of fair hair. When Kay had closed the final hook and eye she bent her head and kissed it. Then she put her arms around Helen's waist, laid her hands upon her stomach and pulled her closer.

Helen moved her cheek against Kay's jaw. 'I thought you wanted to go out.'

'But you look so lovely in your dress.'

'Perhaps I ought to take it off, if you feel like that about it.'

'Perhaps I ought to take it off for you.'

Helen pulled away. 'Be sensible, Kay.'

Kay laughed and let her go. 'All right… Now, how about the Zoo?'

Helen had gone back to the dressing-table and was screwing on earrings. 'The Zoo,' she said, frowning again. 'Well, perhaps. But won't it look funny? Two women, our age?'

'Does that matter?'

'No,' said Helen, after a moment, 'I suppose not.'

She sat and drew on her shoes-bending her head, so that her hair fell before her face. 'You don't,' she added lightly, as Kay was turning from the room, 'want to ask other people?'

'Other people?' asked Kay, surprised, turning back. 'You mean, like Mickey?'

'Yes,' said Helen, after a second. Then, 'No, it was just a thought.'

'Would you like to call in on Mickey, on the way?'

'No. It's all right, really.' She straightened up, laughing at herself-her face quite pink, from the effort of leaning forward and reaching to tie her laces.

They didn't go to the Zoo, in the end. Helen said she didn't, after all, like the idea of looking at so many poor little creatures in their cages and pens. They began to walk, and saw a bus marked up for Hampstead; and ran to catch that, instead. They got off at the High Street, and had a lunch of sardines and chips in a little café; they looked in a couple of second-hand bookshops, then made their way, through the handsome, higgledy-piggledy, red-brick streets, to the Heath. They walked arm-in-arm-Helen not minding the fact that they were two women, now, for one expected to see women, she said, on a Saturday afternoon on Hampstead Heath; it was a place for plain, brisk women, spinsters, and dogs.