by Sarah Waters
Viv said, ‘If you think—!’
He put his finger to his mouth: ‘Shh!’ He still had his ear pressed to the door-frame, and now began moving his head up and down it—like a doctor, desperately trying to find a heartbeat in the bosom of a dying man.
Then there was a smart, authoritative tap-tap-tap! on the door that made him jump as though he’d been shot.
‘All tickets, please!’
The soldier looked at Viv and grimaced dreadfully. He went through a mad sort of pantomime, pretending to take a ticket from his pocket, stoop, and shove it under the door.
‘All tickets!’ the guard called again.
‘This lavatory’s taken!’ Viv cried at last. Her voice was flustered, silly-sounding.
‘I know it’s taken,’ came the reply from the corridor. ‘I need to see your ticket please, miss.’
‘Can’t you see it later?’
‘I need to see it now, please.’
‘Just—just a minute.’
What could she do? She couldn’t open the door, the guard would take one look at the soldier and think the worst. So she got out her ticket, and, ‘Move over,’ she hissed, flapping her hand furiously. The soldier took a step away from the door so that she could stoop and slip the ticket under it. She bent her legs self-consciously, aware of the smallness of the space they were in; aware that she was making it smaller, by stooping; feeling, in fact, her thigh pass against his knee, so that the wool of her skirt clung momentarily to the khaki of his trousers.
Her ticket lay flat in the shadow of the door for a second and then, as if through some weird agency of its own, gave a quiver and slid away. There was a moment’s suspense. She stayed awkwardly squatting, and didn’t look up. But at last, ‘Very good, miss!’ came the call. The ticket was returned, with a neat little hole punched out of it, and the guard moved on.
She stood up, stepped back, put her ticket into her bag, and snapped closed its clasp.
‘Happy now?’
The soldier was wiping his forehead with his sleeve. ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘you’re an angel! The sort of girl, I swear to God, who restores a fellow’s faith in life. The sort of girl the songs are written for.’
‘Well, you can write one now,’ she said, moving forward, ‘and sing it to yourself.’
‘What?’ He put his arm across the door. ‘You can’t go yet. Suppose the ticket fellow comes back? Give it another minute, at least. Look—’ He put his hand to his jacket pocket and brought out a crumpled packet of Woodbines. ‘Just keep me company for the length of a smoke, that’s all I ask. Give him time to get down to first class. I swear to God, if you knew the journey I’ve had, the hoops I’ve had to jump through—’
‘That’s your look-out.’
He started to smile. ‘You’ll be helping the war effort. Think of it that way.’
‘How many girls have you used that line on?’
‘You’re the first. I swear!’
‘The first today, you mean.’
Now he was almost grinning. His lips parted and she saw his teeth. Rather distracting teeth, they were: very straight and very even and white, and seeming to be whiter against the stubble of his chin. They made the rest of his face good-looking, suddenly. She noticed the hazel of his eyes, the thick black lashes. His hair was dark, darker even than her own; he’d tried to flatten it down with Brylcreem but individual locks were pulling against the grease, lifting back into curls.
His uniform, however, looked as though he’d slept in it. The jacket was stained and badly fitting. The trouser legs were creased in horizontal bands like stretched-out concertinas. But he held out the packet of Woodbines, imploringly; and she pictured her own empty narrow seat in the crowded compartment: the Navy man making passes, the asthmatic WAAF, the horse-mad girl.
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘Give me a cigarette, just for a minute. I must want my head read, though!’
He smiled more broadly, in relief. His teeth were more distracting than ever, she thought, when seen all together like that. He lit a match for her, from a match-book, and she moved forward to the flame; but then she moved back and stood guardedly, with one arm folded across herself, the wrist of it propping up the elbow of the other, and the heel of her foot pressed tight to the wall, a brace against the lurching of the train. It was hard to ignore the presence of the porcelain lavatory—over which, after all, she’d recently stooped with her bottom bared. Then again, like everyone else she’d had to get used to sharing odd spaces with strangers recently. On another train journey, two months before, a raid had started up and all the passengers had had to get down on the floor. She’d had to lie for forty minutes with her face more or less in a man’s lap; he’d been awfully embarrassed…
This man, at least, seemed quite at his ease. He leant on the counter which held the basin and started to yawn. The yawn became a low sort of yodelling groan, and when that was finished he put his cigarette between his lips and rubbed his face—rubbed it in that vigorous, unself-conscious way in which men always handled their own faces, and girls never did.
Then the train began to slow. Viv looked anxiously at the window. ‘That’s not Paddington, is it?’
‘Paddington!’ he said. ‘Christ, I wish it was!’ He leant to the blind and drew it back a little and tried to look out; but it was impossible to see anything. ‘God knows where we are,’ he said. ‘Just past Didcot, I should say. There we go.’ He’d almost staggered. ‘They’re throwing in a fun-fair ride, for free.’
The train had run quickly for a moment, then abruptly slowed; now it was moving with a series of jolts. He and Viv bounced about like jumping beans. Viv put out her arms, looking for handholds. It was impossible not to smile. The soldier shook his head, too, in disbelief. ‘Has it been like this all the way? Where did you get on?’
After a little show of reluctance, she told him: Taunton. She’d been to visit her sister and her baby; they’d gone down there, she said, away from the bombs. He listened, nodding.
‘Taunton,’ he said. ‘I went there once. Nice couple of pubs as I recall. One called the Ring—ever drink there? Landlord’—he made fists of his hands—‘used to box. Little chap, but with a great squashed nose. Keeps a pair of gloves in a glass case on the counter. Boy!’ He sighed and folded his arms, as the train ran more smoothly. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be there now! A glass of Black and White at my elbow, roaring fire in the grate…You haven’t got any whisky on you, by any chance?’
‘Whisky!’ she said. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘All right, don’t be like that about it! You’d be surprised how much liquor does get carried around in ladies’ purses, in my experience. Girls like to drink it, I suppose, against the bombs. You wouldn’t need that, of course, with nerves like yours.’
‘Nerves like mine?’
‘I saw your hand when you put your ticket away. Steady as a rock. You’d make a good spy.’ He narrowed his eyes and looked her over. ‘You might be a spy, come to that. A lady spy, like Mata Hari.’
She said, ‘You’d better watch your step, then.’
‘But for all you know,’ he went on, ‘I might be a spy, too. Or, not a spy, but the chap the spies are after. Isn’t there always one of those? Some poor sap who’s got a secret message on him, because he’s accidentally put on another bloke’s boots, or picked up another bloke’s umbrella? And he and the girl always end up tied to a chair, with the sort of knot that looks like it was done by a bad Boy Scout.’
He laughed to himself, liking the idea—liking the sound of his own voice, she thought, conventionally; though the fact was, it was a nice voice, and she found she rather liked it, too. ‘How would you feel,’ he went on, ‘about being tied to a chair with me? I’m only asking out of interest, by the way. I’m not shooting you a line, or anything like that.’
‘No?’
‘Oh, no. I like to get to know a girl a little, before I start shooting lines at her.’
She drew on her cigarette. ‘Suppose sh
e won’t let you get to know her?’
‘Oh, but there are a thousand little things a fellow can find out about a girl, just by looking at her. Take you, for example.’ He nodded to her hand. ‘You’re not married. That means you’re smart. I like smartness in a woman…Fingernails rather long, so you’re not on the land or in a factory.’ He dropped his gaze, and worked slowly back up. ‘Legs too nice to put in trousers. Figure too good to hide you away in some back-room job. I’d say you were secretary to some bigwig—Admiral of the Fleet, something like that. Am I close?’
She shook her head. ‘Nowhere near. I’m a common typist, that’s all.’
‘A typist. Ah…Yes, that fits. Where have they got you? Some government racket or other?’
‘Just something in London.’
‘Just something in London, I see. And, what’s your name? Or is that hush-hush, too?’
She hesitated, but only for a moment; then thought, Where’s the harm? and told him. He nodded, thinking it over, looking into her face. ‘Vivien,’ he said at last. ‘Yes, it suits you.’
‘Does it?’
‘It’s a name for a glamour girl, isn’t it? Wasn’t there a Lady Vivien, or someone like that? In King Arthur’s times? I used to know all those stories when I was a kid; I’ve forgotten them now. Anyway’—he leant forward to shake her hand—‘my name’s Reggie. Reggie Nigri.—Yes, I know, I know, it’s lousy. And I’ve been stuck with it all my life. The boys at school used to call me “Nigger”; now the fellows at camp call me “Musso”. Work that one out if you can. My old grandad came over from Naples. You should see the pictures! He had a moustache out to here, a waistcoat, a handkerchief round his neck; all he needed was the monkey. He sold hokey-pokey from a cart in the street. I’ve got second cousins twice removed—or something like that—who are fighting, now, for the other team, in Italy. They’re probably just about as keen on this ruddy war as I am…Have you got any brothers, Vivien?—You don’t mind me calling you Vivien? I’d call you Miss Pearce, but it sounds old-fashioned in times like these.—Have you got any brothers?’
Viv nodded. ‘Just one.’
‘Older, or younger?’
‘Younger,’ she said. ‘Seventeen.’
‘Seventeen! I bet he loves all this, doesn’t he? Can’t wait to join up?’
She thought of Duncan. ‘Well—’
‘I would, too, if I was his age. Instead—I’m nearly thirty, and look at me. Two years ago I was selling motor cars in Maida Vale, and doing very nicely. Then the war starts up and, bingo, that’s the end of that. I got a bit of work with a pal of mine for a while, in the costume jewellery trade; that wasn’t too bad. Now I’m stuck in a ruddy OCTU in Wales, being taught which end of a rifle the bullets are supposed to come out. I’ve been there four months, and I swear to God it’s rained every day. It’s all right for our CO; he stays in a hotel. I’m living in a hut with a tin roof on it.’
He went on like this, telling her about his duties at the camp, the hopeless squaddies he was billeted with, the hopeless pubs and hotel bars, the hopeless weather…He made her laugh. The boys she met, of her own age, were full of the war: they wanted to talk about types of aeroplane and ship; about Army bets and Navy quarrels. He was past all that. He was past boasting. He yawned and rubbed his eyes again, and his very tiredness seemed appealing somehow. She liked the grown-up, casual way he’d said ‘when I was a kid’. She liked the way he’d said her name; that he’d thought it over and said it suited her. She liked it that he knew about King Arthur. She liked the fact, after all, that his uniform didn’t fit him. She pictured him in an ordinary jacket, a shirt and tie, a vest. She looked again at his monkey-like hands and imagined the rest of him: swarthy, stocky, with swirls of hair on his chest, his shoulders, his buttocks and legs—
The handle of the door was tried and, abruptly, he fell silent. There came a knock, and a cry: ‘Hey! What’s taking you all this time?’
It was one of the Canadians. Reggie didn’t answer for a second. Then the knock came again and he called out, ‘This one’s busy, chum! Try another!’
‘You’ve been in there for half an hour!’
‘Can’t a bloke have a bit of time to himself?’
The airman kicked the door as he moved off. ‘Fuck you!’
Reggie flushed. ‘Go to hell!’
He seemed more embarrassed than angry. He caught Viv’s eye, then looked away. ‘Nice chap,’ he muttered.
She shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. I hear worse than that from the girls in the typing pool.’
She’d finished her cigarette, and now dropped the end of it, covering it over with her shoe. When she looked up, she found him gazing at her. His flush had faded and his expression slightly changed. He was smiling, but had drawn together his brows as if perplexed by something.
‘You know,’ he said, after a moment, ‘you really are the hell of a good-looking girl. It’s like my luck, as well. Getting holed up with a beautiful girl, I mean, in the one establishment in town where I can’t even say, politely, “Have a seat.”’
That made her laugh again. He watched her face, and laughed, too. ‘Hey, that wasn’t bad going, was it, for a bloke who’s dead on his feet? You should hear me when I’ve had some sleep. I’m telling you, I’m a killer.’ He bit his lip, and again that look of slight perplexity crossed his face. ‘You’re not by any chance some sort of hallucination, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Well, that’s what you say. Hallucinations are clever like that. For all I know, I might still be on a bench on Swindon station, fast asleep. I need some sort of a shock. I need a key dropped down my collar, or—I’ve got it.’ He turned and ground out his cigarette in the basin, then drew back his sleeve and held out his arm. ‘Give me a pinch, will you?’
‘A pinch?’
‘Just to prove to me that I’m awake.’
She looked at his bare wrist. There was a point where the smooth pale flesh at the base of his thumb gave way to hair; and again she thought, unwillingly but not unpleasantly, of the swarthy arms and legs of him…She reached and gave him a nip with her fingers. Her nails got caught up in it, and he quickly drew the arm back.
‘Ouch! You’ve been practising that! I think you are a ruddy spy!’ He rubbed the spot she’d pinched, then blew on it. ‘Look at that.’ He showed her the mark. ‘I shall turn up at home and they’ll suppose I’ve been in a fight. I’ll have to say, “It wasn’t a soldier, it was a girl I got talking to in the lavatory of a train.” That’ll go down well, in the circumstances.’
‘What circumstances?’ she asked, laughing again.
He was still blowing on his wrist. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I’ve got compassionate leave.’ He lifted the wrist to his mouth and sucked it. ‘My wife,’ he said, over the ball of his thumb, ‘has just had a baby.’
She thought he was joking, and kept on smiling. When she saw that he was serious her smile grew fixed, and she blushed from her collar to her hair.
‘Oh,’ she said, folding her arms. She might have guessed, from the age of him, even from the manner of him, that he was married; but she hadn’t thought about it. ‘Oh. Is it a boy, or a girl?’
He lowered his hand. ‘Little girl. We’ve got the boy already, so you could say, I suppose, that now we’ve got the set.’
She said politely, ‘It’s nice for you.’
He almost shrugged. ‘It’s nice for my wife. It keeps her happy. It won’t keep us rich, I know that. But here, look. Have a look at this. Here’s the first one.’
He put his hand to his pocket again and brought out a wallet; he fumbled about with the papers inside it, then drew out a photo and passed it over. It was slightly grubby, and torn at the corners; it showed a woman and a little boy, sitting together, perhaps in a garden. A bright day in summer. A tartan rug on a mown lawn. The woman was shading her eyes with her hand, her face half-hidden, her fair hair loose; the boy had tilted his head and was frowning against the light. He ha
d some home-made toy or other in his hand, a baby’s motor car or train; another home-made toy lay at his feet. Just visible in the bottom right-hand corner of the square was the shadow of the person—Reggie himself, presumably—taking the picture.
Viv passed it back. ‘He’s a nice-looking boy. He’s dark, like you.’
‘He’s a good little kid. The little girl’s fairer, so they tell me.’ He gazed at the photo, then tucked it away. ‘But what a world to bring babies into, eh? I wish my wife would do what your sister’s done, and get the hell out of London. I keep thinking of the poor little buggers growing up, going to bed every night under the kitchen table and supposing it’s normal.’
He buttoned up his pocket, and they stood for a time without speaking—reminded of London, the war, all of that. Viv grew conscious again, too, of the lavatory: it seemed much queerer to be standing beside it in silence than when Reggie was talking and grumbling and making her laugh. But he’d gone back to biting at the skin around his fingernail; soon he lowered his hand and folded his arms and gazed moodily at the floor. It was like the dimming-down of a light, she thought. She became aware, as if for the first time, of the roar and motion of the train, the ache in her legs and in the arches of her foot from standing rigid.
She changed her pose, made a movement, and he looked up.
‘You’re not going?’
‘We ought to, oughtn’t we? Somebody else will only try the door if we don’t. Are you still thinking about the guard? Did you really lose your ticket?’
He looked away. ‘I won’t tell you a lie. I did have a travel warrant, but a bloke took it off me in a game of cards…But no, the guard can go hang himself for all I care. The truth is—well, the truth is I don’t want to go out and face all those bloody airmen. They look at me as though I’m an old man. I am an old man, compared to boys like that!’
