Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

Actually, there were many young couples about. One or two of the girls wore trousers, like Kay; most were in service uniforms, or in the glamourless austere get-ups that passed, these days, for weekend best. The boys were in battledress: khaki and navy blue and every shade between-the uniforms of Poland, Norway, Canada, Australia, France.

The day was cold. The sky was so white it hurt the eye. Kay and Helen hadn't come to the Heath since the summer before last, when they'd gone bathing in the Ladies' pond; they remembered it as lush, green, lovely. But now the trees were utterly bare, revealing, here and there, the brutal, barbed-wired flanks of anti-aircraft batteries and military gear. The leaves that had fallen months before had turned to mulch, and the mulch had a rime of frost on it: it looked unhealthy, liked rotting fruit. Much of the ground had been marked by shrapnel, or torn by the tyres of trucks; and in the west there were enormous canyons and pits where earth had been dug, at various points, for filling sand-bags.

They tried to keep away from the worst of it-going more or less aimlessly, but following the more secluded routes. At the junction of two broad paths they turned north; the path led them up, then down through a wood, and they emerged, in another few minutes, at a lake. The water was frozen, right across. A dozen or so ducks were huddled together, like refugees, on an island of twigs.

'Poor things,' said Helen, squeezing Kay's arm. 'I wish we'd brought bread.'

They went closer to the water. The ice was thin, but must have been strong, for it was littered with sticks and stones, that people had thrown in an effort to break it. Kay bared her hands-for she was dressed against the cold, in gloves and a belted coat, a scarf and a beret-and picked up a stone of her own, and tossed it, just for the pleasure of seeing it skitter. Then she went right to the lake's edge and pressed at the ice with the toe of her shoe. A couple of children came to watch her: she showed them the silvery pockets of air which bulged beneath the ice's surface, then squatted and prised at the ice with her hands, bringing up great jagged sheets, which she broke into smaller pieces for the children to hold, and fling, or stamp on with their heels. When the ice was crushed, it became white powder-exactly the powder of broken glass at a bomb site.

Helen was standing where Kay had left her, watching. She'd kept her gloved hands in her pockets; the collar of her coat was turned up, and she was wearing a soft wool hat, like a tam o'shanter, pulled down low over her brow. Her expression was a queer one-a smile, that was soft but also troubled. Kay fished out a last piece of ice for the children and went back to her.

'What's up?' she asked.

Helen shook her head, and smiled properly. 'Nothing. I was enjoying looking at you. You looked like a boy.'

Kay was banging her hands together, to knock the chill and the dirt from them. She said, 'Ice turns everyone into boys, doesn't it? The lake at home, when I was a kid, used to freeze sometimes. It was much bigger than this. Or maybe it only seemed big to me, then. Tommy, Gerald and I used to go out on it. My poor mother!-she used to hate it, she used to think we'd all be drowned. I didn't understand. All the boys she knew, of course, were getting killed, one after another… Are you cold?'

Helen had shivered. She nodded. 'A bit.'

Kay looked around. 'There's a milk-bar here somewhere. We could get a cup of tea. Would you like that?'

'Yes, perhaps.'

'You ought to have a cake or a bun, too, on your birthday. Don't you think?'

Helen wrinkled up her nose. 'I'm not sure I want one, really. It's sure to be awful, whatever we get.'

'Oh,' said Kay, 'but you must.'

She thought she knew where the milk-bar was. She put her arm through Helen's and drew her close and led her along a new path; they walked for another twenty minutes, however, without finding anything. So then they went back to the frozen lake, and tried another path. Then, 'There it is!' said Kay.

But when they drew close to the building they saw that it was half burnt-out, the window-frames glassless, the curtains in ribbons, the brickwork black. A notice on the door said, Blitzed Last Saturday . Underneath it someone had fixed a sad-looking paper Union Jack, the kind that had once, before the war, been stuck on sand-castles.

'Damn,' said Kay.

Helen said, 'It's all right. I didn't really want anything.'

'There's sure to be somewhere else.'

'If I have tea, it'll only make me need the lavatory.'

Kay laughed. 'Darling, you'll need the lavatory, whatever you do… And, it's your birthday. You ought to have a cake.'

'I'm too old for cakes!' said Helen, with a touch of impatience. She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. 'God, it's cold! Let's keep walking.'

She was smiling again; but seemed distant to Kay, distracted. Perhaps it was only the weather. It was hard to be cheerful, of course, when it was as cold as this…

Kay lit them both cigarettes. They went back yet again to the lake, and up through the wood-going more quickly, to try and get warm.

The path, from this angle, began to look more familiar to Kay. She remembered, suddenly, an afternoon she'd spent here in the past… She said, without thinking, 'You know, I believe I came this way once, with Julia.'

'With Julia?' asked Helen. 'When was that?'

She spoke with a try at lightness; but self-consciously, too. Kay thought: Bugger . She said, 'Oh, years ago, I don't know. I remember a bridge, something like that.'

'What sort of bridge?'

'Just a bridge. A funny little bridge, quite rococo, overlooking a pond.'

'Where was it?'

'I thought it was this way, but now I'm not sure. It's the sort of thing, I expect, like Shangri-La, that you can only find by not really meaning to look for.'

She wished she'd said nothing. Helen, she thought, was pretending an interest in the bridge-overdoing it slightly, to make up for the awkwardness that had been conjured by the saying of Julia's name. They walked on. Kay tried one way, half-heartedly, and then another; she was about to give it up when the path they were walking on suddenly opened up and they found themselves in exactly the place she'd been looking for.

The bridge wasn't nearly as charming as she'd recalled; it was plainer, not rococo at all. But Helen went at once to the side of it and stood gazing down at the pond beneath, as if enchanted.

'I can see Julia here,' she said, smiling, when Kay joined her.

'Can you?' asked Kay.

She didn't want to think of Julia, especially. She stood for a second, looking down at the new pond; it was iced and littered like the other one, and had its own straggling band of refugee ducks. But then she turned to Helen and gazed at her profile, at her cheek and throat-which had pinked, at last, with what seemed real excitement and interest; and she caught a glimpse, beyond the turned-up collar of Helen's coat, of the cream lapel beneath it, and beneath that, the smooth, blemishless skin. She remembered standing in the bedroom, fastening up the handsome dress; she remembered the sliding of the silk pyjamas, the feel of the weight of Helen's hot, suspended breasts.

She grew warm with desire all over again. She took Helen's arm and drew her closer. Helen turned, saw her expression, and glanced about in alarm.

'Someone will come,' she said. 'Don't, Kay!'

'Don't what? All I'm doing is looking at you.'

'It's the way you're looking.'

Kay shrugged. 'I might be- Here.' She put her hands to one of Helen's earrings and began to unscrew it. She spoke more softly. 'I might be fixing your earring for you. Say your earring was caught? I'd have to unfasten it like this, wouldn't I? Anyone would do that. I'd have to put back your hair, that would only be natural. I might have to move closer…'