by Sarah Waters
It was quarter-past two, and her room was up on the seventh floor. She might have taken the lift, but the lifts were slow, and she’d got stuck waiting about for them before; she kept to the stairs. She went quickly, steadily, like a distance runner: folding her arms beneath her breasts; keeping her heels up, because the stairs were hard, of marble, and heels made a row. When she passed a man, he laughed. ‘I say! What’s the rush? Do you know something the rest of us don’t?’ That made her slacken her pace slightly, until he’d moved on; then she speeded up again. Only at the turn of the seventh floor did she slow right down, to catch her breath, to blot her face with her handkerchief and smooth her hair.
A mad sort of noise began to reach her now, a crackety-crack-crack-crack!—it was like the bursting of midget shells. She went quickly down a corridor and opened a door, and the noise grew almost deafening: the room beyond was crowded with desks, each with a girl at it, furiously typing. Some wore earphones; most were typing from shorthand notes. They were plunging away so vigorously because their machines held not just one sheet of paper, but two or three and sometimes four, with carbons in between. The room was large, but stuffy. The windows had been gas-proofed years before. The panes had strips of brown paper gummed to them in case of blast.
The smell was a rather overpowering one: a mixture of talcum powder, permanent waves, typewriter ink, cigarette smoke, BO. On the walls were posters from various Ministry campaigns: pictures of Potato Pete and other cheery root vegetables, imploring you to boil them up and eat them; slogans, like old religious samplers.
PLANT NOW!
SPRING and SUMMER will come as usual—
EVEN in WARTIME.
At the head of the room was a table, separated from the others; its chair was empty. But a minute after Viv had sat down, taken off her typewriter’s cover, and started work, the door to Mr Archer’s office opened and Miss Gibson looked in. She glanced once around the room and, seeing the girls all typing away, disappeared again.
The moment the door was closed, Viv felt something small and light strike her on the shoulder and bounce to the floor. Betty had thrown a paper-clip at her from her desk ten feet away.
‘You lead a charmed life, Pearce,’ she mouthed, when Viv looked over.
Viv stuck out her tongue, and went back to her work.
She was typing up a table, a list of foodstuffs and their calorific values—a fiddly job, since you had to type the vertical columns first, with the right sort of space between them, and then you had to take the papers out and put them back in horizontally and type the lines. And you had to do it all, of course, without letting the papers slide about against each other, otherwise the top sheet would look all right, but the copies underneath would turn out crazy.
What with the effort of getting it right, and the noisiness and stuffiness of the room, you might as well, Viv thought, be working in a factory, making precision parts for planes. You’d probably earn more in a factory. And yet people thought it glamorous, when you told them you were a typist at a Ministry; and lots of the girls were upper-class—they had names like Nancy, Minty, Felicity, Daphne, Faye. Viv had nothing much in common with any of them. Even Betty—who chewed gum, and liked to talk like a wise-cracking New York waitress in a film—even Betty had been to a finishing school, and had money coming out of her ears.
Viv, by contrast, had come to the job after completing a secretarial course at a college in Balham; she’d had a nice instructor there, who’d encouraged her to apply. ‘There’s really no reason, these days,’ the instructor had said, ‘why a girl with a background like yours shouldn’t do just as well for herself as a girl from a better sort of family.’ She’d advised Viv to take elocution lessons, that was all; and so, for half an hour each week for three months, Viv had stood blushing in front of an elderly actress in a basement room in Kennington, reciting poetry. She could still remember whole chunks of Walter de la Mare.
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor.
On the day of her interview, the sight and sound of the well-bred young women in the Ministry waiting-room had absolutely appalled her. One had said carelessly, ‘Oh, it’ll be a cinch, girls! They’ll just want to see that our hair’s not dyed, and that we don’t use words like dad and toilet and horrors like that.’
The interview had passed off all right, as it happened. But Viv could never hear the word toilet, even now, after so long, without remembering that moment, and that girl.
When all the trouble with Duncan had started up, she had kept it to herself. No one, not even Betty, knew she had a brother at all. Early on in the war girls at John Adam House had now and then asked her, in the blunt, casual way that people asked you things like that: ‘Don’t you have a brother, Viv? Lucky you! Brothers are awful, I can’t bear mine.’ These days, however, no one asked after brothers, boyfriends, husbands—just in case.
She finished the table she’d been typing, and started on another. The girl at the desk in front of her—a girl named Millicent—leaned back in her chair and shook her head. A hair came flying on to the paper in Viv’s machine: it was long, and brown, quite dry through having been over-waved, but it had a blob of grease on it like a pin-head, where it had been fixed to Millicent’s scalp. Viv blew it to the floor. She’d discovered that if you looked closely at the floor at this time of day, you could see that it was full of hairs like that. She thought, sometimes, of the amazing amount of tangled hair that must end up in the char-ladies’ brooms, when they’d gone through the building and finished sweeping. The thought, just now, on top of the smells and general stuffiness of the room, depressed her rather. For how fed-up she was, she realised, of living with women! How absolutely sick to death she was, of the closeness of so many girls! Of powder! Of scent! Of lipstick marks on the rims of cups and the ends of pencils! Of razored armpits and razored legs! Of bottles of veramon and boxes of aspirin!
That made her think of the aspirin in her bag; and her mind moved from that to Reggie’s card. She pictured Reggie writing it, posting it. She saw his face, heard his voice, felt the touch of him—and began to miss him, dreadfully. She started to count up all the different dingy hotel rooms they’d made love in. She thought of all the times he’d had to leave her, to go to his mother-in-law’s, to his wife. ‘I wish it was you I was going home to,’ he always said. She knew he meant it. God knows what his wife thought about it. Viv wouldn’t let herself wonder. She’d never been the sort to ask things about his family, to pry and make digs. She’d seen a picture of his wife and little boy, but that was years ago. Since then, she might have passed them on the street! She might meet them in a bus, on a train, get talking. ‘What nice, handsome children.’—‘Do you think so? They’re the image of their dad. Let me show you a snapshot—’
Milk, eggs, cheese, bugger, she had typed. She quickly looked up, and had to pull the papers out and start again. What was Reggie doing, she wondered, as she turned the reel, right now? Was he thinking of her? She tried to reach out to him with her mind. My darling, she called him, in her thoughts. She’d never call him that to his face. My darling, my darling…She flicked closed the paper guard and started typing again; but she typed fluently, and one of the advantages—or disadvantages—of being able to type so well was that, while your fingers flew over the keys, your thoughts could start racing. If you had something on your mind, it could seem to pick up the typewriter’s rhythm and run like a train…Now her mind ran with the idea of Reggie. She remembered the feel of him in her arms. She remembered the working of his hands over her thighs. She felt the memory in her own fingers, in her breasts, her mouth, and in between her legs…Awful to be thinking things like that, so vividly, with all these upper-class girls about, and in the arid crack-crack-cracking of so many typewriters. But—She glanced around the room. Weren’t any of these girls in love? Really in love, li
ke she was with Reggie? Even Miss Gibson must once have been kissed. A man must have wanted her; a man might have lain with her on a bedroom floor, taken off her knickers, put himself inside her, pushed and pushed—
Abruptly, the door to Mr Archer’s office opened again and Miss Gibson herself reappeared. Viv blushed, and put her head down. Pork, bacon, beef, lamb, poultry, she typed. Herring, sardine, salmon, shrimp—
But Miss Gibson, having caught her eye, called her over.
‘Miss Pearce,’ she said. She had a roneo stencil in her hand. ‘You seem for some reason to have time to spare. Take this down to the ink room, will you, and have them run off two hundred copies? Quickly as you can, please.’
‘Yes, Miss Gibson,’ said Viv. She took the stencil and went out.
The ink room was two floors down, at the end of another marble corridor. Viv spoke to the girl in charge of it, a plain-faced girl in spectacles, whom no one much liked. She was turning the handle of one of the machines; she looked at Miss Gibson’s stencil and said, with great contempt, ‘Two hundred? I’m making a batch of a thousand here, for Mr Brightman. The trouble with all you people is you seem to think that copies can be whistled up by magic. You’ll have to turn them out yourself, I’m afraid. Ever worked one of these machines? The last girl I had in here made such a muck of things, the drum was unusable for days.’
Viv had been shown how to fit a stencil, but months before. She fumbled about with the cradle now, the girl, still turning her own machine, looking over and calling, witheringly: ‘Not that way!’ and, ‘There, look! There!’
At last the stencil and the paper and the ink were all in place; and all Viv had to do then was stand and turn the handle, two hundred times…The motion hurt her tender breasts. She felt herself begin to grow sweaty. And to make things worse, a man from another department came in, and stood, smiling, and watched her.
‘I always like to see you girls doing that,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘You look just like milkmaids, churning butter.’
He only had a few copies of his own to make. By the time she’d counted out her sheets and let them dry he had finished, and he held the door for her when she went out. He did it rather awkwardly, because he walked with a cane: he’d been an airman, she knew, at the start of the war, and had been lamed in some sort of smash. He was young, quite fair: the kind of man of whom girls said, ‘He’s got nice eyes,’ or, ‘He’s got nice hair’—not because his eyes or his hair were especially handsome, but because the rest of his face wasn’t handsome at all, and yet you wanted to find something pleasant to say about him. They set off together down the corridor and she felt obliged to walk at his pace.
He said, ‘You’re one of Miss Gibson’s girls, aren’t you? Up on the top floor? I thought so. I’ve noticed you about the place before.’
They got to the staircase. Her arm was aching, from turning the handle of the machine. She had an uncomfortable, moistish feeling between her legs. It was probably sweat, but might, she thought, be something worse. If the man hadn’t been with her, she would have run downstairs; but she didn’t want him to see her dashing off to the lavatory. He took the staircase one step at a time, steadying himself by gripping the banister; perhaps he was laying it on a bit thick, too, to give himself a few extra minutes with her…
‘That must be your room along there,’ he said, when they got to the top. ‘I can tell by the clatter.’ He moved his cane from his right hand to his left, so that he could shake hands with her. ‘Well, goodbye, Miss—?’
‘Miss Pearce,’ said Viv.
‘Goodbye, Miss Pearce. Perhaps I’ll see you churning milk again, some time? Or else—Well, if you’d care to make it a stiffer drink—?’
She told him she’d think about it; because she didn’t want him to suppose she wouldn’t, because of his leg. She might even let him take her on a date. She might let him kiss her. Where was the harm? It wouldn’t mean anything. It was just what you did. It wouldn’t be what she had with Reggie.
She gave the papers to Miss Gibson; but on the way back to her seat she hesitated, still thinking of the lavatory. She remembered a girl who, a few weeks before, had been seen all over the building with blood on her skirt. She picked up her handbag, went back to Miss Gibson, and asked if she could be excused.
Miss Gibson looked at the clock, and frowned. ‘Oh, very well. But this is why you girls have lunch-hours, don’t forget.’
This time, to keep herself from being jolted about by the stairs, Viv took the lift. But then she almost ran into the cloakroom: she went into one of the lavatory stalls, pulled up her skirt, lowered her knickers; she pulled a couple of sheets of paper from the box and pressed them between her legs.
When she drew the paper away, however, it was quite unmarked. She thought maybe peeing would bring the blood down. But she peed, and it made no difference.
‘Hell,’ she said, aloud. For periods were annoying enough when they came; but waiting around for them was almost worse. She got the sanitary towel out and pinned it in place, just to be on the safe side; she looked in her bag, and saw Reggie’s card, and was almost tempted to take it out and read it again…
But beside the card there was her little pocket diary: a slim blue Ministry diary, with a pencil in its spine. And when she saw that, she checked herself. She thought of dates. How long had it been since her last period, anyway? It seemed like ages, suddenly.
She got the diary out and opened it up. The pages looked cryptic, like a spy’s, for there were all sorts of codes on them: a symbol for the days she’d visited Duncan, another for her Saturdays with Reggie, and a discreet little asterisk, every twenty-eight or twenty-nine days. She began now to count up the dates from the last asterisk: she got to twenty-nine, and counted on—to thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.
She couldn’t believe it. She went back and counted again. She’d never been so late before. She’d never really been late at all; she always joked to other girls that she was like a clock, like a calendar. She said to herself: It’s because of the raids. That must be what it was. The raids mucked everybody up. It stood to reason. She was tired. She was probably run-down.
She pulled more paper from the box and pressed it between her legs again; and when, again, the paper came away unmarked, she even got to her feet and did a couple of little jumps, trying to jolt the blood out. But jumping made her breasts hurt: they hurt so much they were almost stinging, and when she put her hands to them she felt how swollen they were, how stretched and full.
She picked up the diary again, and went through it a third time. Maybe she’d made some mistake with the last date.
There was no mistake, she knew it. She thought, I can’t be. I can’t! But if she were—Her mind was racing. For if she were, then it must have happened not this last time with Reggie, but the time before; and that was already a month ago—
No, she thought. She wouldn’t believe it. She said to herself, You’ll be all right. She straightened her clothes. Her hands were shaking. Every girl gets scares; but not you. Reggie’s too careful. You’re OK. You’re all right. You can’t be!
Here she is at last,’ said Binkie, as Kay stepped on to Mickey’s boat and opened up the cabin doors. ‘Kay! We thought you weren’t coming.’
The boat rocked about.
‘Hello, Bink. Hello, Mickey. Sorry I’m late.’
‘Never mind. You’re just in time for a drink. We’re making gimlets.’
‘Gimlets!’ said Kay, putting down her bag. She looked at her watch. It was only quarter-past five.
Binkie saw her expression. ‘Oh, balls to that! I can’t speak for your liver, but mine’s still on peacetime hours.’
Kay took off her cap. She was dressed, as Mickey and Binkie were, in uniform, ready for work. But the cabin had a stove in it, and a hissing lamp, and was very warm: she sat down across from Binkie, undid her jacket, and loosened her tie.
Mickey was busy bringing out tumblers, spoons, a siphon of soda water. She put them on a
n upturned beer crate between Binkie and Kay, then got the gin and opened the lime. The gin was some nameless, cheap variety, and instead of cordial she had real lime juice: it was in a brown medicine bottle with a white screw cap; Binkie had bought it from a chemist’s, she said, as a food supplement.
Mickey stirred the ingredients together and handed the glasses over, keeping one for herself. They raised them up, then tasted and winced.
‘It’s like battery acid!’ said Kay.
‘Never mind that, dear girl,’ said Binkie. ‘Think of the Vitamin C.’
She offered round cigarettes. She favoured a rough Turkish brand, difficult to get hold of. She had them in a fancy gold case, but had cut each one in half to make a packet last longer; she smoked with a tarnished ivory holder. Mickey and Kay each took a stub—pinching them, as they had to, between their forefingers and thumbs, leaning very close to the lighter.
‘I feel like my father,’ said Mickey, puffing, moving back. Her father was a bookmaker.
‘You look like a gangster,’ said Kay. ‘Talking of which—’ Her heart gave a little flutter of excitement. ‘Doesn’t either of you want to know what it was that made me late?’
Mickey put the cigarette down. ‘God, I forgot all about it. You’ve been to see those spiv friends of Cole’s! You didn’t go and get yourself arrested, did you?’