Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'Why did you stop me that day, Julia?' asked Helen, after a moment. 'Why did you ask me to have tea with you?'

'Why did I?' said Julia. 'Shall I tell you? I'm almost afraid to. It might make you hate me. I did it-well, out of curiosity, I suppose you'd have to call it.'

'Curiosity?'

'I wanted to-get the measure of you, something like that.' She gave an uncomfortable little laugh. 'I thought you might have guessed it.'

Helen didn't answer. She was remembering the odd, sly way in which Julia had glanced at her, when they'd been talking about Kay; she was thinking of the feeling she'd had, that Julia was testing her, weighing her up… She said slowly at last, 'I think I did guess. You wanted to see, didn't you, if you could find in me what Kay does?'

Julia moved, as if embarassed. 'It was a lousy thing to do. I'm sorry now.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Helen. 'Truly, it doesn't. After all-' Her feelings had faltered, just a little, but now rose again-buoyed up, by wine, by the darkness. 'After all, we're in a funny sort of situation, you and I.'

'Are we?'

'I mean, because of what happened between you and Kay-'

At once, even in the darkness, she knew that she had made a mistake. Julia stiffened. She said sharply, 'Kay told you that?'

'Yes,' said Helen, growing wary, speaking slowly. 'At least, I guessed it.'

'And you spoke with Kay about it?'

'Yes.'

'What did she say?'

'Only, that there had been a-'

'A what?'

Helen hesitated. Then, 'A misaffection, she called it,' she said.

'A misaffection?' Julia laughed. 'Christ!' She turned away again.

Helen reached for her arm. She caught hold of the sleeve of her coat instead. 'What's the matter?' she said. 'What is it? It doesn't matter, does it? It's never mattered to me, in the past. Is that what you're thinking? Or are you thinking, that it's none of my business? But then, it has been my business, in a way… And since Kay was so open and honest about it with me-' She was forgetting, in her anxiety, that Kay had not really been open with her about it, at all. 'Since Kay was so open and honest about it, then shouldn't you and I be open and honest about it, too? If it's never mattered to me, why should it matter, now, to us?'

'How gallant you sound,' said Julia.

She said it so coldly, Helen felt afraid. 'Is it a matter for gallantry? I hope not. All I'm trying to say is, that I should hate for any of this to make a sort of-of coolness, or shadow, between us. Kay's never wanted that-'

'Oh, Kay,' said Julia. 'Kay's a great sentimentalist. Don't you think? She pretends to be so hard-boiled, but- I remember I once took her to see an Astaire and Rogers picture. She cried all the way through it. “What were you weeping at?” I asked her at the end. “The dancing,” she said…'

Her manner had changed completely. She sounded almost bitter, now. 'I wasn't at all surprised,' she went on, 'when Kay met you. I wasn't surprised at the way she met you, I mean. It was like something from a picture in itself, wasn't it?'

'I don't know,' said Helen, confused. 'I suppose so. It didn't seem like that at the time.'

'Didn't it? Kay told me all about it-about how she found you, and so on. She put it that way, you see: that she found you… She said how frightened it made her, when she thought of how nearly you might have been lost. She described touching your face…'

'I remember hardly any of it,' said Helen, wretchedly. 'That's the stupid thing.'

'Kay remembers very well. But then, as I say, Kay's a sentimentalist. She remembers it as though there were a touch of fate to it, a touch of kismet.'

'There was a touch of kismet to it!' said Helen. 'But don't you see, how dreadfully tangled the whole thing is? If I'd never met Kay, I should never have met you , Julia. But Kay would never have loved me at all, if you had let her love you-'

'What?' said Julia.

'I used to be grateful to you,' Helen went on, her voice rising and starting to break. 'It seemed to me, that in not wanting Kay you had somehow given her to me. Now I've done what she did.'

' What? ' said Julia again.

'Haven't you guessed?' said Helen. 'I've fallen in love with you, Julia, myself!'

She hadn't known, until that moment, that she'd been going to utter the words; but as soon as she said them, they became true.

Julia didn't answer. She had turned her face back to Helen's and her breath, as it had before, came fluttering, warm and bitter, against the wetness of Helen's cold lips. She sat quite still, then put out her hand and caught hold of Helen's fingers; and she gripped them hard, almost madly-as someone would clutch at a hand, or a strap of leather, blindly, in pain or grief. She said, 'Kay-'

'I know!' said Helen. 'But I simply can't help it, Julia! It makes me hate myself; but I can't help it! If you'd seen me, today. She was so kind. And all I could think of, was you. I wished she was you! I wished-' She stopped. 'Oh, God! '

For she'd felt, very clearly, that odd little thrill or vibration that always came before the sounding of the Warning; and even before her voice had died away, the sirens started up. On and on they went, rising hectically up the scale again after every plunge towards silence; and it was impossible, even after so many years, to sit perfectly still and not mind them, not feel the urgent pull of them, the little clawing out of panic from within one's breast.

With the darkness all about, the effect was magnified. Helen put her hands across her ears and said, 'Oh, it's not fair! I can't bear them! They're like wails of grief! They're like-like the bells of London! They've got voices! Take cover! they're saying. Run and hide! Here comes the chopper to chop off your head! '

'Don't,' said Julia, touching her arm; and a moment after that, the Warning ceased. The silence, then, was almost more unnerving still. They sat very tensely, straining their ears for the sound of bombers; at last they began to make out the faint groan of engines. Crazy, it was, to think of the boys inside those funny tubes of metal, wishing you harm; to think of them having walked about, two hours before-eaten bread, drunk coffee, smoked cigarettes, shrugged on their jackets, stamped their feet against the cold… Then there came the first thump-thump-thump of anti-aircraft fire, perhaps two or three miles away.

Helen put back her head and looked up. Searchlights were on, the quality of the darkness had changed; she saw, instead of the sky, the rising wall of the tower against which she was sitting. She felt the hardness of the door against her scalp, through her hair; she imagined the stones above it coming down, great pitiless blocks of masonry and mortar. She seemed to feel it swaying and lurching about, even as she peered at it.

She thought suddenly, What am I doing here? And then she thought, Where's Kay?

She scrambled to her feet.

'What is it?' asked Julia.

'I'm frightened. I don't want to stay here. I'm sorry, Julia-'

Julia drew up her legs. 'It's all right. I'm frightened, too. Help me to stand.'

She grabbed Helen's hand, braced herself against her weight, and rose. They switched on their torches and began to walk. They walked quickly, back up Idol Lane -or Idle Lane, whichever it was-to Eastcheap. But here they stopped, unsure of the safest route to take. When Julia turned to the right, Helen pulled her back.

'Wait,' she said, breathlessly. The sky, that way, was cut with the beams of searchlights. 'That's east, isn't it? That's towards the docks. Isn't it? Don't let's go that way. Let's go back the way we came.'

'Through the City? We could go into Monument Station.'

'Yes. Anywhere. I can't bear to be still, that's all, and think of things coming down-'