Sarah Waters - The Night Watch

'Who told you that?' asked Duncan thickly.

'It doesn't matter. Forget it.'

'Was it Wainwright? Or Binns?'

'No.'

'Who was it, then?'

Fraser looked away. 'It was that little queer Stella, of course.'

' Her! ' said Duncan. 'She makes me sick. They all do, all that crowd. They don't want to go to bed with girls, but they make themselves like girls. They make themselves worse than girls! They need doctors! I hate them.'

'All right,' said Fraser mildly. 'So do I.'

'You think I'm like them!'

'That's not what I said.'

'You think I used to be like them; or that Alec was-'

He stopped. He had never said Alec's name here, aloud, to anyone but Mr Mundy; and now he'd spat it out as if it were a curse.

Fraser was watching him through the gloom. 'Alec,' he said, carefully. 'Was that- Was that your boyfriend?'

'He wasn't my boyfriend!' said Duncan. Why did everybody have to think of it like that? 'He was only my friend. Don't you have friends? Doesn't everyone?'

'Of course. I'm sorry.'

'He was only my friend. If you'd grown up where I grew up, feeling like me, you'd know what that meant.'

'Yes. I expect so…'

The worst of the bombing seemed, for the moment, to have passed on. Fraser blew into his hands, worked his fingers, to get the cold out. Then he got up, reached under his pillow and brought out cigarettes. Almost shyly, he offered one to Duncan. Duncan shook his head.

But Fraser kept the cigarettes held out. 'I should like you to,' he said quietly. 'Go on. Please.'

'It'll be one less for you.'

'I don't care… Better let me light it, though.'

He put two cigarettes to his mouth, then took up the pot that he and Duncan kept their dinner-salt in, and a needle. You could make a flame, by sparking the metal against the stone: it took him a moment or two, but at last the paper caught and the tobacco started to glow. The cigarette he handed over was damp from his lips: collapsed, like a sucked-on straw. A strand or two of tobacco came loose upon Duncan's tongue.

They smoked without speaking. The cigarettes only lasted a minute. And when Fraser's was finished he opened it up, to keep what he could for the next one…

As he did it he said quietly, 'I envy you your friend, Pearce. Truly I do. I don't think I've ever cared so much for a man-or a woman either, come to that-as much as you must have cared for him… Yes, I envy you.'

'You're the only one who does, then,' said Duncan moodily. 'My own father's ashamed of me.'

'Well, so is mine of me, if it comes to that. He thinks my sort ought to be handed over to Germany, since we're all so keen on helping the Nazis along. A man ought to be a source of embarassment to his father, don't you think? If I ever have a son, I hope he makes my life hell. How, otherwise, will there ever be any progress?'

But Duncan wouldn't smile. 'You make a joke of things,' he said. 'It's different for people like you, for people in your world.'

'Have things really been so bad for you?'

'I dare say they wouldn't seem bad, to someone looking in from outside. My father never- He never hit me, or anything like that. It was just-' He struggled, searching for the words. 'I don't know. It was liking things you weren't supposed to like; and feeling things you weren't supposed to feel. Never being able to say the thing that people expected. And Alec felt like I did. He hated the war. His brother had died, right at the start of it, and his father kept on at him to go and fight… And it was the blitz. It was nearly the end of the blitz, though we didn't know that then. It felt like-like the end of the bloody world! It was the worst time for everything. Alec and I never wanted to fight. He wanted to make a difference, to how people felt. Instead- Well-'

'Poor chap,' said Fraser feelingly, when Duncan wouldn't go on. 'He sounds all right. I'd like to have known him.'

'He was all right,' said Duncan. 'He was clever. Not like me. People have always said I'm clever, but that's only because I make myself talk in a certain way. But he was funny. He could never be still. He was always on to something new. He was a bit like you, I suppose; or you're like he would have been, if he'd been to a proper school, had money… He made things seem exciting. He made things-I don't know; he made them seem better than they really were. Even if afterwards, when you thought about it, you realised that some of what he'd said was silly; at the time, when you were with him, you wanted to go along with it. You felt-swept along by him.'

'I'm sorry,' said Fraser quietly. 'I can see why you- Well, why you liked him so much. How old was he?'

'He was just nineteen,' said Duncan quietly. 'He was older than me. That's why he got called up first.'

'Just nineteen. That stinks, Pearce! First his brother, and then him…' He hesitated, and lowered his voice. 'And, then?'

'And then?' repeated Duncan.

'After he died? Then, you-?'

Duncan had another, violent glimpse of the scarlet kitchen in his father's house. He looked at Fraser in the moonlight, feeling his heart begin to race; wanting to tell him what had happened; longing to tell him!-but unable, finally, to say the words. He lowered his gaze and said flatly instead, 'After he died, I didn't. I meant to, and I didn't. That's all. All right?'

Fraser must not have noticed the change in his tone. He went on, 'So they put you in here! There's British justice for you, isn't it! Two lives ruined instead of one. When all you needed, I suppose-'

'Don't let's talk about it,' said Duncan.

'Not if you don't want to. Of course not… It make me sick, that's all. If only somebody, perhaps your father, or- Shit!' He leapt from his chair. 'What the hell was that?'

A bomb had fallen, closer than ever; the blast had come so forcefully, the panes of glass in the window had been blown or sucked against their frames and one, with a sound like a pistol firing, had cracked. Duncan looked up. Fraser had darted back as far as the door and had tried to push it open. The blanket had fallen from his shoulders. 'Shit! Shit!' he said again. 'That was an oil-bomb, wasn't it? They make that whining sound, don't they?'

'I don't know,' said Duncan.

Fraser nodded. 'I've heard them come down before. That was an oil-bomb all right.-God!' Now another one had fallen. He tried the door again, then looked around, his voice rising. 'Suppose an oil-bomb hit this hall: how d'you think we'd do? We'd be roasted in our beds! Do they even have fire-watchers on the roof? I've never heard anyone talk about fire-watchers, have you? Suppose a cluster of them came down? How quickly do you think a twirl could make his way to all the landings, to open all the doors? Would they even bother to come up out of their shelter? Christ! They could at least take us down to the Firsts when the Warning goes. They could let us sleep on our mattresses in the Rec!'

His voice was high and broken as a a boy's; and Duncan understood suddenly how really upset he was, and how hard he had been trying, until now, to make light of his fear. His face was white and strained and sweating. His short hair stood up: he smoothed it back with both his hands, again and again.

Then he caught Duncan's gaze; and when Duncan, embarassed, looked away, he grew calmer. 'You think I'm funking it,' he said.

'No,' said Duncan. 'I wasn't thinking that.'

'Well, perhaps I am.' He showed his hand. He was shaking. 'Look at me!'

'What does it matter?'

'What does it matter?-Christ! You've no idea! I- Shit!'

Now men were beginning to call out. They sounded afraid, like Fraser. One man was shouting for Mr Garnish. Another was thumping with something on his cell door. The windows jumped in their frames again, as another bomb fell, closer than ever… After that bombs fell, or seemed to fall, like rain. It was like being trapped in a dustbin while someone beat on it with a bat.