The Night Watch

by Sarah Waters

  She began to dress. Her clothes lay tangled on the floor: she stooped and caught up a bra and knickers, stepped into trousers and drew on a blouse, tucking in her chin and frowning while she fastened up its buttons. She stood at the mirror and smoothed her face.

  Helen lay and watched her, as she had before. It seemed extraordinary that she should be able to, incredible that Julia should offer up her own beauty like this to Helen’s gaze. It was marvellous and almost frightening that, an hour before, Julia had lain in her arms, had opened her mouth, parted her legs, to Helen’s lips and tongue and fingers. It seemed an impossible thing that she would, if Helen rose and went to her now, let herself be kissed…

  Julia caught her eye, and smiled in pretend exasperation.

  ‘Don’t you get tired of looking at me?’

  Helen lowered her gaze. ‘I wasn’t looking, really.’

  ‘If you were a man, I’d say you ought to leave the room while I dressed. I’d want to stay a mystery to you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be a mystery,’ said Helen. ‘I want to know every part of you.’ Then she grew slightly sick. ‘Why did you say that, Julia? You wouldn’t rather a man, would you?’

  Julia shook her head. She was leaning closer to the mirror, pushing out her mouth, putting lipstick on. ‘It’s no good for me, with men,’ she said absently. She worked her lips together. ‘It doesn’t work for me, with men.’

  ‘Only with women?’ asked Helen.

  Only with you, she wanted Julia to say. But Julia said nothing: she was tugging a comb through her hair now, looking critically at her own face. Helen turned away. She thought, What the hell’s the matter with me? For she found she was jealous of Julia’s reflection. She was jealous of Julia’s clothes. She was jealous of the powder on Julia’s face!

  Then she thought of something else: Is this how Kay feels, about me?

  The thought must have shown in her expression. When she turned back to Julia she saw that Julia was watching her, through the mirror. She’d stopped the comb in her hair, but her hands were still raised. She said, ‘OK?’

  Helen nodded, then shook her head. Julia put the comb down, came to her, and put an arm across her shoulders.

  Helen closed her eyes. She said quietly, ‘This is dreadfully wrong, isn’t it?’

  ‘Everything’s dreadfully wrong, just now,’ Julia answered, after a moment.

  ‘But this is worse, because we might put it right.’

  ‘Might we?’

  ‘We might—stop. We might—go back.’

  ‘Could you stop?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Helen, with an effort. ‘For Kay’s sake.’

  ‘But then,’ said Julia, ‘the dreadfully wrong thing would still have been done. It was done, before this. It was done, almost, before we did anything at all. It was done—When was it done?’

  Helen looked up. ‘It was done the day you took me to that house in Bryanston Square,’ she said. ‘Or even, the time before that, when you bought me tea. We stood in the sun, and you closed your eyes and I looked at your face…I think it was done then, Julia.’

  They held each other’s gaze, in silence, then moved together and kissed. Helen was still not quite used to the difference between Julia’s kisses and Kay’s—to the relative strangeness of Julia’s mouth, the softness of it, the dry pull of her lipstick, the tentative pressures of her tongue. But the strangeness was exciting. The kiss, being inexact, quickly became wet. They moved closer together. Julia put her fingers to Helen’s bare breast—touched, then drew the fingers back; touched again, drew back again—and again—until Helen felt her flesh seem to rise, to strain after Julia’s hand.

  They let themselves sink back, awkwardly, on to the bunched-up blankets. Julia moved her hand between Helen’s legs and, ‘Christ!’ she said softly. ‘You’re so wet. I can’t—I can’t feel you.’

  ‘Put your fingers inside me!’ whispered Helen. ‘Push inside me, Julia!’

  Julia pushed. Helen lifted her hips, to meet the movement with a movement of her own. Her breath caught. ‘Do you feel me now?’

  ‘Yes, now I feel you,’ said Julia. ‘I can feel you gripping me. It’s amazing—’

  She had what must have been her four fingers inside Helen, up to the knuckle; but her thumb, outside, was rubbing at Helen’s swollen flesh. Helen raised and lowered her hips, to keep pushing against her. The blankets were rough against her bare back, and as well as the pressure between her legs she could feel Julia’s dry, trousered thigh bearing down on her own naked, damp one; she could make out separate points of discomfort—the chafing against her of the buckle of Julia’s belt, the buttons on her blouse, the strap of her wrist-watch…She stretched out her hands behind her head, wishing with some part of herself that Julia had bound her, fastened her down: she wanted to give herself up to Julia, have Julia cover her with bruises and marks. Julia began to push almost painfully inside her, and she liked it. She was aware of herself growing rigid, as if really pulled by tightening ropes.

  She lifted her head and put her mouth to Julia’s again, and when she started to cry out, she cried into Julia’s mouth and against her lips and cheek.

  ‘Shush!’ said Julia, even as she still pushed frantically at her. She was thinking of the people in the neighbouring flats. ‘Shush, Helen! Shush!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Helen breathlessly; and cried out again.

  It wasn’t like their leisurely love-making from before. Afterwards Helen lay shaken, chastened, as if from an argument. When she stood, she found she was trembling. She went to the mirror: she had Julia’s lipstick all around her mouth, and her lips were swollen as though she’d been hit. Then she moved into the firelight and saw that her thighs and breasts were marked, as if with rashes, from the rubbing of Julia’s clothes. It was what she’d wanted, while Julia was pushing at her; now the marks upset her, absurdly. She moved blindly about the room, picking things up, putting them down—feeling the gathering inside her of a sort of hysteria.

  Julia had gone through to the kitchen to wash her hands and mouth. When she came back, Helen stood before her and said unsteadily, ‘Look at the state of me, Julia! How the hell will I hide this from Kay?’

  Julia frowned. ‘What’s the matter with you? Keep your voice down, can’t you?’

  The words were like a slap. Helen sat, and put her head in her hands.

  ‘What have you done to me, Julia?’ she said at last, still shakily. ‘What have you done? I don’t know myself. I used to loathe the sort of people who did the kind of thing we’re doing. I used to think they must be cruel, or careless, or cowardly. But I don’t want to be cruel to Kay. It seems to me I’m doing this because I care too much! Too much, I mean, for her, and for you. Can that be true, Julia?’

  Julia didn’t answer. Helen looked up once, then lowered her head again. She pressed at her eyes with the heels of her hands, conscious that she mustn’t let herself cry, because crying would only make more marks. ‘And the worst thing is,’ she went on. ‘Do you know what the worst thing of all is? It’s that when I’m with Kay I’m wretched, because she isn’t you; and she sees that I’m wretched, and doesn’t know why; and she comforts me! She comforts me, and I let her! I let her console me, for wanting you!’

  She laughed. The laugh sounded horrible. She put down her hands. ‘I can’t keep doing it,’ she said, more steadily. ‘I have to tell her, Julia. But I’m afraid of it. I’m afraid of how she’ll be. That it should be you, Julia! That it should be you! That she loved you, before, and now—’ She shook her head and couldn’t finish.

  She reached to the pocket of her skirt for a handkerchief, and blew her nose. She felt exhausted—limp, like a doll. Julia had moved across the room to shovel ash on to the coke in the grate; but she had risen, and was standing at the mantelpiece, without having turned around. She didn’t come to Helen’s side, as she had before. She stood as if gazing down at the fire, brooding over the smothered coals. And when she spoke at last, her voice seemed distant. />
  She said, ‘It wasn’t like that, you know.’

  Helen was blowing her nose again, and hardly heard. ‘Like what?’ she asked, not understanding.

  ‘With Kay and me,’ said Julia, still without turning her head. ‘It wasn’t the way you think it was. Kay let you imagine it, I suppose. It’s awfully like her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Julia hesitated. Then, ‘She was never in love with me,’ she said. She said it almost casually, putting down her hand to flick a piece of ash from her trouser-leg. ‘I was the one. I was in love with Kay for years. She tried to love me back, but—it never took. I’m just not her type, I suppose. We’re too similar; that’s all it is.’ She straightened up, and started picking at the paint on the mantelpiece. ‘Kay wants a wife, you see. I said that once before, didn’t I? She wants a wife—someone good, I mean; someone kind, untarnished. Someone to keep things in order for her, hold things in place. I could never do that. I used to tell her she wouldn’t be happy until she’d found herself some nice blue-eyed girl—some girl who’d need rescuing, or fussing over, or something like that…’ She turned her head, and met Helen’s gaze at last. She said, with a sort of infinite sadness, ‘That was rather a joke on me, wasn’t it?’

  Helen stared at her, until she blinked and looked away. She went back to picking at the mantelpiece. ‘Does it matter, either way?’ she asked, in the same low, casual way as before.

  It mattered terribly, Helen knew. At Julia’s words, something inside her had dropped, or shrunk. She felt as though she’d been tricked, made a fool of—

  That was silly, for Julia hadn’t tricked her. Julia hadn’t lied, or anything like that. But still, Helen felt betrayed. She became aware, suddenly, of her own nakedness. She didn’t want to be naked in front of Julia any more! She quickly pulled on her skirt and her blouse. She said, as she did it, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You knew what I thought.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You knew it, three weeks ago!’

  ‘It was the surprise of hearing you say it,’ said Julia. ‘It was thinking of Kay—You know what she’s like, she’s such a bloody gentleman. She’s more of a gentleman than any real man I ever knew. I asked her, you see, not to tell. I never imagined—’ She lifted a hand, and rubbed her eye. She went on tiredly, ‘And then, I was proud. That’s all it was. I was proud; and I was lonely. I was fucking lonely, if you want to know the truth.’

  She blew out her breath in a rough sort of sigh; and looked back again, over her shoulder. ‘Does it make a difference, what I’ve told you? It doesn’t make any difference to me. But if you want, you know, to call the whole show off—’

  ‘No,’ said Helen. She didn’t want that. And she was frightened by Julia’s having raised, so casually, the possibility of their parting. For one terrible moment she saw herself completely alone—abandoned by Julia, as well as by Kay.

  She put on the rest of her clothes without speaking. Julia kept her pose at the fireplace. When, at last, Helen went to her and put her arms around her, she moved into Helen’s embrace with something like relief. But they held each other awkwardly. Julia said, ‘After all, what’s changed? Nothing’s changed, has it?’—and Helen shook her head and said, no, nothing had changed…‘I love you, Julia,’ she said.

  But there was that shrinking or dropping inside her, still—as if her heart, which before had seemed to yearn after Julia, to swell and expand, was drawing in its muscles, closing its valves.

  She finished dressing. Julia moved around the room, putting things away. Now and then they caught each other’s eye, and smiled; if they moved close to each other, they reached out their hands, automatically, and lightly touched, or drily kissed.

  Outside, over London, bombs were still falling. Helen had forgotten all about them. But when Julia went back through the curtained doorway and left her alone for a moment, she moved softly to the window and looked out, through one of the cracks in the talc, at the square. She could see houses, still silvered with moonlight; and as she watched, the sky was lit by a series of lurid sparkles and flares. The booms produced by the explosions started a second later: she felt the slight vibration of them in the board against her brow.

  At every one of them, she flinched. All her confidence seemed to have left her. She began to shake—as if she’d lost the habit, the trick, of being at war; as if she knew, suddenly, only menace, the certainty of danger, the sureness of harm.

  God!’ said Fraser. ‘That was close, wasn’t it?’

  The bombs, and the anti-aircraft fire, had woken them all up. A few men were standing at their windows, calling encouragement to the British pilots and the ack-ack guns; Giggs, as usual, was yelling at the Germans. ‘This way, Fritz!’ It was a kind of pandemonium, really. Fraser had lain very rigidly for fifteen minutes, swearing at the noise; finally, unable to bear it, he’d got out of bed. He’d pulled the table across the cell and was standing on it in his socks, trying to see out of the window. Every time another blast came he flinched away from the panes of glass, sometimes covering his head; but he always moved back to them. It was better, he said, than doing nothing.

  Duncan was still in his bunk. He was lying on his back, more or less comfortably, with his hands behind his head. He said, ‘They sound closer than they are.’

  ‘They don’t disturb you?’ asked Fraser incredulously.

  ‘You get used to it.’

  ‘It doesn’t trouble you, that a bloody great bomb might be heading straight for you and you can’t so much as duck your head?’

  The cell was lit up by the moonlight, weirdly bright. Fraser’s face showed clearly, but his boyish blue eyes, the blond of his hair, and the brown of the blanket across his shoulders had lost their colours; they were all versions of silvery grey, like things in a photograph.

  ‘They say if it’s got your name on,’ said Duncan, ‘it’ll get you wherever you are.’

  Fraser snorted. ‘That’s the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from someone like Giggs. Except that when he says it, I really think he might imagine there’s a factory somewhere on the outskirts of Berlin, stamping Giggs, R, Wormwood Scrubs, England into the casing.’

  ‘All I mean,’ said Duncan, ‘is, if it’s going to get us at all, it might as well get us here.’

  Fraser put his face back to the window. ‘I’d like to think I had a shot at improving my chances, that’s all.—Oh, bugger!’ He jumped, as another explosion sounded, rattling the glass, dislodging stones or mortar in the duct behind the heating grille in the wall. There came cries—whoops and cheers—from other cells; but someone called, too, in a high broken voice, ‘Turn it off, you cunts!’ And after that, just for a moment, there was silence.

  Then the ack-ack guns started up again, and more bombs fell.

  Duncan looked up. ‘You’ll get your face blown off,’ he said. ‘Can you even see anything?’

  ‘I can see the searchlights,’ said Fraser. ‘They’re making their usual bloody muck of things. I can see the glow of fires. Christ knows where they are. For all we know, the whole damn city could be burning to the ground.’ He started biting at one of his fingernails. ‘My eldest brother’s a warden,’ he said, ‘in Islington.’

  ‘Go back to bed,’ said Duncan, after another minute. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘That’s what makes it so bloody! And to think of those damn twirls, down there in their shelter—What do you think they’re doing right now? I bet they’re playing cards and drinking whisky; and rubbing their blasted hands together in glee.’

  ‘Mr Mundy won’t be doing that,’ said Duncan loyally.

  Fraser laughed. ‘You’re right. He’ll be sitting in the corner with a Christian Science tract, imagining the bombs away. Maybe I should take a tip from him. What do you say? He’s persuaded you with all that nonsense, hasn’t he? Is that why you’re so untroubled?’ He drew in his breath, and closed his eyes. When he spoke again, he spoke in
a voice of unnatural calmness. ‘There are no bombs. The bombs are not real. There is no war. The bombing of Portsmouth, Pisa, Cologne—that was nothing but a mass hallucination. Those people did not die, they only made a little mistake in thinking they did, it could happen to anyone. There is no war…’

  He opened his eyes. The night was suddenly silent again. He whispered, ‘Has that done the trick?’ Then he jumped about a foot, as another explosion came. ‘Fuck! Not quite. Try harder, Fraser. You’re not trying hard enough, damn you!’ He pressed his hands to his temples and began to recite again, more softly. ‘There are no bombs. There are no fires. There are no bombs. There are no fires…’

  At last he drew his blanket tighter across his shoulders, got down from the table and, still muttering, began to pace back and forth across the cell. With every fresh explosion, he swore and walked on faster. At last Duncan lifted his head from his pillow to say irritably, ‘Stop walking about, can’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Fraser, exaggeratedly polite, ‘am I keeping you awake?’ He got back on the table. ‘It’s this wretched moon brings them,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘Why can’t there be clouds?’ He rubbed the glass where his breath had misted it. For a minute he said nothing. Then he started up again: ‘There are no bombs. There are no fires. There is no poverty and no injustice. There is no piss-pot in my cell—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Duncan. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of it. It—Well, it isn’t fair on Mr Mundy.’

  Fraser laughed outright at that. ‘Mr Mundy,’ he repeated. ‘Not fair on Mr Mundy. What’s it to you, if I make fun of old Mr Mundy?’ He said this as if still to himself; but then seemed struck by the idea, and turned his head, and asked Duncan properly, ‘Just what sort of a racket do you have going on with Mr Mundy, anyway?’

  Duncan didn’t answer. Fraser waited, then went on, ‘You know what I’m talking about. Did you think I hadn’t noticed? He gives you cigarettes, doesn’t he? He gives you sugar for your cocoa, things like that.’

  ‘Mr Mundy’s kind,’ said Duncan. ‘He’s the only kind twirl here, you can ask anyone.’