The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

  When the couple moved on, she looked at Helen again and said, ‘Tell me you won’t be unhappy tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be ecstatic tonight,’ said Helen unhappily.

  ‘Tell me you won’t be lonely. Tell me—tell me you’ll go to the pub and get canned, and pick up some boy, some soldier—’

  ‘Would you like me to?’

  ‘I’d love it,’ said Kay…‘I’d hate it, you know I would. I’d jump in the river. You’re the only thing that makes this bloody war bearable.’

  ‘Kay—’

  ‘Tell me you love me,’ said Kay, in a whisper.

  ‘I do love you,’ said Helen. She closed her eyes, as if the better to feel it or show it; and her voice grew earnest again. ‘I do love you, Kay.’

  Well, son,’ said Duncan’s father, as he and Viv sat down, ‘how are you? Been treating you all right, have they?’

  ‘Yes,’ Duncan answered, ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Eh?’

  Duncan cleared his throat. ‘I said, Yes, they have.’

  His father nodded, grimacing awfully as he tried to follow the words. This was the worst sort of setting for him, Duncan knew. The room had six tables in it, and theirs was the last; but every table had two prisoners at one end, and the prisoners’ visitors at the other; and everyone was shouting. Duncan’s neighbour was a man named Leddy, a post-office clerk, in for forging money orders. Sitting next to Viv was Leddy’s wife. Duncan had seen her before. She gave Leddy hell, every time she came. ‘If you think I’m happy,’ she was saying now, ‘about having a woman like that come into my home—’ At the table next to her was a girl with a baby. She was jiggling the baby up and down, trying to get it to smile at its father. But the baby was crying: shrieking open-mouthed like a siren, then pulling in great shuddering breaths and shrieking again. The room was just an ordinary small prison room, with ordinary closed prison windows. It smelt of ordinary prison smells—unwashed feet, sour mops, bad food, bad breath. But above the regular smells were other ones, too, much more disturbing: perfume, make-up, permanent waves; the smells of children; the smells of traffic, dogs, pavements, open air.

  Viv was taking off her coat. She was wearing a lavender-coloured blouse done up with little pearl buttons, and the buttons caught Duncan’s eye. He’d forgotten about buttons like that. He’d forgotten what they felt like. He wished he could reach across the table, now, and take one, just for a second, between his finger and his thumb.

  She saw him looking, and moved about as if self-conscious. She folded her coat across her lap. ‘How are you, really?’ she asked, when she’d done it. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m OK.’

  ‘You look awfully pale.’

  ‘Do I? You said that last time, though.’

  ‘I always forget.’

  ‘How’ve you liked this past month, son?’ said his father loudly. ‘Made you jump, has it? I said to Mrs Christie, Jerry’s got us on the hop, he’s caught us with our feet up. What a time of it we had, though, a night or two ago! Bangs so loud, they woke me up! That’ll give you an idea how bad it was.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Duncan, trying to smile.

  ‘Mr Wilson’s place lost its roof.’

  ‘Mr Wilson’s place?’

  ‘You know the one.’

  ‘Where we used to go,’ said Viv, seeing Duncan struggle, ‘when we were little. That man and his sister, who used to give us sweets. Don’t you remember? They had a little bird, in a cage. You used to ask to feed it.’

  ‘—a great big lump of a girl,’ Leddy’s wife was saying now, ‘with habits like that! It turned my stomach—’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Duncan.

  His father was shaking his head, a beat behind, because of his hearing. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you hardly credit it when it all dies down. You’d think from the racket that the world had been smashed to nothing. It gives you a turn to see so many houses still standing up. Puts you right back in the blitz.—Well, they’re calling it the Little Blitz, aren’t they?’ He said this last to Viv, then turned to Duncan again. ‘You won’t feel it so much, I suppose,’ he said, ‘in here?’

  Duncan thought of the darkness, Giggs calling out, the officers going down to their shelter. He moved in his chair. ‘It depends what you mean,’ he said, ‘by “feel it.”’

  But he must have mumbled. His father tilted his head, grimaced again. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It depends what you—God! No, we don’t feel it so much.’

  ‘No,’ answered his father mildly. ‘No, I shouldn’t have thought you would.’

  Mr Daniels walked up and down behind the prisoners, scuffing his shoes. The baby still cried: Duncan’s father started trying to catch its eye, making faces at it. A few tables on, Fraser was sitting; his mother and father had come to see him. Duncan could just make them out. His mother was dressed in black, with a hat with a veil, as if for a funeral. His father’s face was brick-red. Duncan couldn’t hear what they were saying. But he could see Fraser’s hands where they rested on the table, the blistered fingers moving restlessly about.

  Viv said, ‘Dad’s been moved to another shop at Warner’s, Duncan.’

  He looked back at her, blinking, and she touched their father’s arm, spoke into his ear. ‘I was just telling Duncan, Dad, that you’ve been moved to another shop.’

  Duncan’s father nodded. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Duncan. ‘Is it all right?’

  ‘It’s not too bad. I’m working with Bernie Lawson now.’

  ‘Bernie Lawson?’

  ‘And Mrs Gifford’s daughter, June.’ Duncan’s father smiled. He started to tell Duncan some story…Duncan lost the thread of it almost at once. His father never realised. He spoke of all the little factory jokes and intrigues as if Duncan were still at home. ‘Stanley Hibbert,’ he was saying, and, ‘Muriel and Phil. You should have seen their faces! I told Miss Ogilvy—’ Duncan recognised some of the names, but the people were like ghosts to him. He watched the words being formed on his father’s lips, and took his cue from his father’s expressions and nodded and smiled, as if he were deaf himself.

  ‘They said to give you their best, anyway,’ his father finished. ‘They always ask after you. And Pamela sends her love, of course. She said to tell you she’s sorry she can’t get in to see you more.’

  Duncan nodded again—forgetting, for a moment, who Pamela was. Then, with a little jolt, he remembered that she was his other sister…She’d come to see him about three times, in the three years he’d been in here. He didn’t much mind; Viv and his father, however, always looked awkward about it.

  Viv said, ‘It’s hard, when there are babies.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said their father, seizing on this, ‘that makes things hard. No, you don’t want to be hauling kids about with you when you come here. Unless you’re bringing them in to see their dads; that’s a different thing, of course. Mind you’—he glanced at the girl with the crying baby, and tried, and failed, to lower his voice—‘I shouldn’t have cared to have any of you kids see me in a place like this, if it’d been me. Well, it’s not nice. It doesn’t give you nice things to think back on. I hardly liked to have you see your mother, up at the hospital that time.’

  ‘It’s nice for the fathers, though,’ said Viv. ‘It was nice for Mother, I expect.’

  ‘Oh yes, there is that.’

  Duncan glanced down the room again, to Fraser’s parents. This time, too, he saw Fraser himself: Fraser was looking along the tables, as he was. He met Duncan’s gaze, and slightly turned down the corners of his mouth. Then he looked at Duncan’s father and at Viv, in an interested way…Duncan thought of his father’s threadbare coat. He lowered his head and started picking bits of varnish from the table.

  His hands were clean, because he’d taken care to wash them that morning, and to pare his nails. His trousers had a sharp crease down each leg, from where he’d slept with them beneath his mattress the night before. His hair was comb
ed flat, and greased with a mixture of wax and margarine. He had a vision, every time, of how it would be when he was brought in here: he wanted his father and Viv to look at him and be somehow impressed by him; he wanted them to think, He’s a credit to us! But always, at about this point in their visit, his mood began to plunge. He remembered that he and his father had never had anything to say to each other, even years before. And his disappointment—in his father, in himself, even in Viv—would start to rise up and almost choke him. He’d wish, perversely, that he’d come with dirty fingernails and uncombed hair. He’d realise that what he really wanted was for Viv and his father to see that he lived in filth: he wanted them to tell him that he was a sort of hero for doing it without complaining, without being turned by it into a beast. The fact that they talked to him, every time, about ordinary things—as if they’d come to visit him in a hospital or a boarding-school, rather than a prison—made his disappointment turn to rage. Sometimes it would be as much as he could do to look at his father’s face without wanting to hurl himself across the room and hit it.

  He felt himself begin to tremble. His hands were still before him, on the table, and he saw them jump. So he drew them back and folded them together in his lap. He glanced at the visiting-room clock. Eleven minutes still to go…

  Duncan’s father had been making faces at the baby again, and the baby had quietened. Now he and Viv were looking idly about the room. They’ve got bored of me, Duncan thought. He saw them as being like people in a restaurant who’d run out of things to say, who’d reached that point in a dull evening when it became all right to start studying the other diners, to pick out little quirks and flaws. He looked again at the clock. Ten minutes, now. But his hands still trembled. He felt himself, too, begin to sweat. The urge rose in him, suddenly, to muck things up, to do the worst he possibly could; to make Viv and his father hate him. His father turned back to him and said pleasantly, ‘Who’s that chap, son, right down at the end there?’ and he answered with great scorn, as if the question were an utterly fatuous one: ‘That’s Patrick Grayson.’

  ‘He’s a nice-looking fellow, isn’t he? Has he just come in?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. You saw him last time. You said he was nice-looking, then. His time’s almost up.’

  ‘Is it? I bet he’s pleased. I bet his wife is, too.’

  Duncan curled his lip. ‘Do you? He’s going into the army as soon as he gets out. He might as well stay here. At least in here he gets to see her once a month; and there’s no chance, of course, of him getting his head shot off.’

  His father tried to follow the words. ‘Well,’ he said vaguely, ‘he’ll be glad to do his bit, I expect.’ He turned his head again. ‘Yes, he’s a nice-looking chap all right.’

  Duncan exploded. ‘Why don’t you go and sit with him, instead of me, if you like him so much?’

  ‘What’s that?’ said his father, turning back.

  ‘Duncan,’ said Viv.

  But Duncan went on. ‘I expect you’d rather I was like him. I expect you’d rather I was going out, into the army, to get my head blown off. I suppose you’d rather the army was going to make a murderer of me—’

  ‘Duncan,’ said Viv again, looking startled but also tired. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  His father, however, was losing his temper. ‘Don’t talk bloody nonsense,’ he said. ‘Going into the army to get your head blown off? What do you know about it? If you’d gone into the army when you were supposed to—’

  ‘Dad,’ said Viv.

  He ignored her, or didn’t hear her. ‘A spell in the bloody army,’ he said, moving about in his seat, ‘is what he needs. Talking like that. Am I ashamed! Of course I’m bloody well ashamed!’

  She touched his arm. ‘Duncan didn’t mean anything by it, Dad. Did you, Duncan?’

  Duncan didn’t answer. His father glared at him for a second, then said, ‘You don’t know what shame feels like, in here! You’ll know it when you come out, though. You’ll know it, the first time you have to pass that woman and her husband in the street—’

  He meant Alec’s parents. But he could never say Alec’s name. He bit off the words now and, with an effort, swallowed them down. The colour had risen into his face. ‘Am I ashamed!’ he said again. He looked at Duncan. ‘What do you want me to say to you, boy?’

  Duncan shrugged. He felt ashamed himself, now; but curiously better, too, for having made this happen. He went back to picking at the table, saying lightly but clearly, ‘Don’t come, if you feel like that about it.’

  That started his father off again. ‘Don’t come? What are you talking about, don’t come? You’re my own son, aren’t you?’

  ‘So?’

  Mr Pearce looked away in disgust.

  ‘Duncan,’ said Viv.

  ‘What? He doesn’t have to come.’

  ‘Duncan, for God’s sake!’

  But now he’d started to smile. The smile didn’t come from a sense of pleasure. His feelings were plunging about like a madman’s. They were like a kite, in a storm: it was all he could do to keep his balance, hauling at the string…He put his hand across his mouth and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  His father looked up, and his colour rose even higher. ‘What’s he smiling at?’

  ‘He’s not really smiling,’ said Viv.

  ‘If his mother was here—! No wonder you’re poorly.’

  ‘Just leave it, Dad.’

  ‘Vivien’s not well,’ said Mr Pearce aggressively to Duncan. ‘She had to stop, on the way here. The last thing she wants is some of your nonsense. You ought to be grateful she’s come to see you at all! Plenty sisters wouldn’t bother, I can tell you that.’

  ‘They haven’t a clue,’ said Leddy’s wife, chiming in. She’d heard it all, of course. ‘They sit in here. They get their dinners brought to them. They don’t give a thought to what it’s like for us, out there.’

  Viv made some gesture, but wouldn’t answer. Her expression was grim. Duncan gazed into her face and noticed, what he hadn’t seen before, that she was pale beneath her make-up, and her eyes were shadowed and red at the rims. He felt, suddenly, that his father was right. He felt sick with himself, for spoiling things. She’s the nicest, prettiest sister a fellow could have! he thought, almost wildly, still looking at Viv. He wanted to draw the other men’s attention to her. Look here, he wanted to be able to cry, at my nice sister!

  It took all his strength and will just to sit there, wretchedly, in silence. He looked at Mr Daniels, longing for him to call out that visiting-time was up; and finally, with great relief, he saw him checking his watch against the face of the clock, then unlocking a cupboard and bringing out a hand-bell. He gave the bell a couple of half-hearted rings, and the muddle of voices at once grew louder. Chairs were pushed back. People got up quickly—as if, like Duncan, they were relieved. The baby gave a start in its mother’s arms and started crying all over again.

  Duncan’s father rose, grimly, and put on his hat. Viv looked at Duncan in a way that said, Well done.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You ought to be.’ They were speaking too softly, now, for their father to hear. ‘You’re not the only one who’s badly off, you know. You might just try thinking about that.’

  ‘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 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 that 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: dejected, subdued; all of them, like Duncan, with neatly combed hair and pressed 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?’