Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'I do. It's just-' He couldn't explain it. He said instead, 'Are you really not well?'

She looked away. 'I'm all right. I'm just tired, that's all.'

'Because of the raids?'

'Yes, I expect so.'

He watched her stand and shrug on her coat. Her lavender blouse, with its little pearl buttons, got covered over. Her hair fell forward as she dipped her head, and she tucked it back, behind her ear. He saw again how pale she was beneath her powder.

They weren't allowed to kiss or embrace, but before she moved off she reached her arm across the table and just touched her hand to his.

'Look after yourself, all right?' she said, without smiling, as she drew the hand back.

'I will. Look after yourself, too.'

'I'll try,' she said.

He nodded to his father-wanting to catch his father's eye, but afraid of it, too. He said, 'Goodbye, Dad. I'm sorry, for the silly things I said.'

But perhaps he didn't say it clearly enough. His father turned away while he was still speaking, dipping his head, looking for Viv's arm so that he could link his own with it.

Ten minutes earlier Duncan had almost wanted to strike his face; now he stood with his thighs pressed hard against the table, watching Viv and his father find a place in the crowd of visitors; not wanting to leave the room until his father had left it, in case his father should look back.

But only Viv looked back-just once, very briefly. And a second later Mr Daniels came to Duncan and gave him a push.

'Into the line with you, Pearce. And you, Leddy… All right, you buggers, let's go.'

He took them out of the visiting-room, back to the junction of passages which led to the workshops, and handed them over to Mr Chase. Mr Chase looked wearily at his watch. It was twenty to five. The men from the Basket Shop, he said, could make their way back to it by themselves; one of them was a Redband. As for the others-well, he was fucked if he was going to escort them all the way over to Mailbags One and Two, just for the sake of twenty minutes; he led them back to the hall instead. They walked without speaking: depressed, subdued; all of them, like Duncan, with neatly combed hair and creaseless trousers and clean hands… The hall looked vast with no-one in it. There were so few of them-eight men, only-that when they trudged up the staircases the landings made that chilly, shivering sound that Duncan listened for at night.

Each man went straight into his own cell, as if glad to get in there. Duncan sat on his bunk and put his head in his hands.

He stayed like that for three or four minutes. Then he heard firm, soft footsteps on the landing outside his door, and quickly tried to dry his eyes. But he couldn't do it quickly enough.

'Now, then,' said Mr Mundy gently. 'What's all this?'

That made Duncan cry properly. He covered his face and sobbed into his fingers, his shoulders shaking, making the bed-frame jump. Mr Mundy didn't try to stop him; he didn't come to him, put an arm on his shoulder, anything like that. He simply stood, and waited for the worst of the tears to be over; and then he said, 'There. Had a visit from your dad, haven't you? That's right, I saw the Order. Shook you up a bit, has it?'

Duncan nodded, wiping his face on his coarse prison handkerchief. 'A bit.'

'It always shakes a fellow up, seeing faces from home. Well, put it this way, it's hard to be natural. You go on and cry some more, if that's what you want. It won't trouble me. I've seen harder men than you cry, I can tell you.'

Duncan shook his head. His face felt hot, felt bruised and pulled about, from the contortions of his sobs. 'I'm all right, now,' he said unsteadily.

''Course you are.'

'I just- I make such a mess of things, Mr Mundy. I make such a mess of things, every time.'

His voice was rising. He bit his mouth, drew in his arms and clenched his fists, to keep himself from crying again. When the fit passed and he let himself relax, he felt exhausted. He groaned and rubbed his face.

Mr Mundy stood watching for another moment; then he caught hold of Duncan 's chair and turned it and, slightly awkwardly, with a little sigh of discomfort, sat down. 'Tell you what,' he said, as he did it. 'Have a smoke. Look what I've got here.'

He brought out a packet of Player's cigarettes. He opened it up, and leaned to offer it to Duncan. 'Go on,' he said, giving the cigarettes a shake.

Duncan drew a cigarette out. It seemed as fat as a small cigar compared to the usual prison roll-ups. The tobacco was tight inside its smooth, cool sheath of paper-so nice in his hand, he turned it in his fingers and began to feel better.

'All right, isn't it?' said Mr Mundy, watching him.

'It's lovely,' said Duncan.

'Aren't you going to smoke it?'

'I don't know. I ought to keep it, to take the tobacco out. I could get four or five smokes from this.'

Mr Mundy smiled. He started to sing, in a tuneful old man's voice. ' Five little fags in a dainty little packet …' He wrinkled up his nose. 'Smoke it now.'

'Shall I?'

'Go on. I'll keep you company. We can be two chaps, smoking together.'

Duncan laughed. But the laughter came too soon on top of his tears: it caught in his chest and made him tremble. Mr Mundy pretended not to notice. He got out a cigarette for himself, and a box of matches. He held the flame to Duncan first, then drew on it himself. They smoked, for half a minute, in silence. Then Duncan held the cigarette off and said, 'It's making my eyes sting. It's making me giddy! I'm going to faint!'

'Get away with you!' said Mr Mundy, chuckling.

'I am!' said Duncan. He sat back, pretending to swoon. He became like a boy, sometimes, with Mr Mundy… But then he grew serious again. 'God,' he said, 'what a state to be in! Knocked down by one little cigarette!'

He kept his feet on the floor but let himself fall right back, supporting himself on one of his elbows. He wondered where Viv and his father were, now. He tried to picture his father's journey back to Streatham; he couldn't do it. Then he tried to visualise the various rooms of his father's flat. He had, instead, a sudden, violent, vivid image of his father's kitchen on the day he'd last seen it, with the spreading mess of darkening scarlet on the walls and floor-

He sat up again, quickly. Ash fell from his cigarette. He brushed it away, then rubbed his still-aching face and, after a moment, without looking up, said quietly, 'Do you think I'll do all right, Mr Mundy, when I get out?'

Mr Mundy took another puff of his own cigarette. 'Of course you will,' he said comfortably. 'You'll just need time to-well, to find your feet.'

'To find my feet?' Duncan frowned. 'You mean, like a sailor?' He saw himself staggering about on a tilting pavement.

'Like a sailor!' Mr Mundy laughed, tickled by the idea.

'But what will I do, say, for work?'

'You'll be all right.'

'But why should I be?'

'There'll always be jobs for clever young fellows like you. You mark my words.'

It was the sort of thing that Duncan 's father said, that made Duncan want to kill him. But now he bit at one of his fingernails and looked at Mr Mundy across his knuckles and said, 'Do you think so?'

Mr Mundy nodded. 'I've seen all sorts of fellows come through here. They all felt like you, at one time or another. They did just fine.'

'But the sorts of fellows you've seen,' persisted Duncan, 'didn't they probably have wives and children, things like that, to go back home to? Were any of them-frightened, do you think?'

'Frightened?'

'Frightened of what was going to happen to them-how they were going to be-?'

'Now then,' said Mr Mundy again, but more sternly. 'What sort of talk is that? You know what sort it is, don't you?'

Duncan looked away. 'Yes,' he said, after a moment. 'It's letting Error in.'