The Night Watch (15 page)

Viv shrugged. 'We all got tired of it, I suppose. We wanted to forget it.'

'Yes, I suppose so. I never would have thought we'd all forget it, though, so quickly. When it was on- Well, it was the only thing, wasn't it? The only thing you talked about. The only thing that mattered. You tried to make other things matter, but it was always that, you always came back to that…'

'Imagine if it started again,' said Viv.

'Christ!' said Helen. 'What an awful thought! It'd be an end to this place, anyway. Would you go back to your old job?'

Viv considered it. She had worked at the Ministry of Food, just around the corner in Portman Square. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Maybe. It felt-important. I liked that. Even though all I was doing was typing, really… I had a good friend there: a girl called Betty; she was loads of fun. But she married a boy from Australia at the end of the war, and he took her back home… I envy her, now. If it really started again I might go into one of the services. I'd like to travel, get away.' She looked wistful. Then, 'How about you?' she asked Helen. 'Would you go back to your old job?'

'I suppose so, though I was glad enough to leave it. It was funny work-a bit like this, in a way: unhappy people all expecting impossible things. You tried to do your best for them, but you got tired; or you had things of your own to think about… I don't think I'd want to stay in London, though. London will get flattened, won't it, when the next war comes? But then, everywhere will get flattened. It won't be like last time. Even when things were so awful, right in the middle of the blitz, I wanted to stay-didn't you? I hadn't been here very long, but I felt a sort of-a sort of loyalty to the city, I suppose. I didn't want to let it down… It seems crazy, now! A loyalty to bricks and mortar! But then, of course, there were people I knew. I felt a loyalty to them, too. They were in London; and I wanted to be near them.'

'People like Julia?' asked Viv. 'Were you friends with her, then? Was she in London, too?'

'She was in London,' said Helen, nodding; 'but I only knew her at the end of the war. We shared a flat together, even then-a queer little flat, in Mecklenburgh Square. I remember that flat so vividly! All the mismatched bits of furniture.' She closed her eyes, recalling surfaces and scents. 'It had boards across its window. It was falling down, really. There was a man upstairs, who used to pace and make the floor creak.' She shook her head, opening her eyes. 'I remember it clearer than anywhere else I ever lived, I don't know why. We were only there for a year or so. For most of the war I was-' She looked away again; picked up her sandwich. 'Well, for most of it I was somewhere else.'

Viv waited. When Helen didn't go on she said, 'I lived in a boarding-house for Ministry girls. Down by the Strand.'

Helen looked up. 'Did you? I didn't know that. I thought you lived at home, with your father.'

'I did at weekends. But during the week they liked to have us there-so we could get to work if the railways were hit. It was an awful place. So many girls! Everyone running up and down the stairs. Everyone pinching your lipstick and your stockings. Or someone would borrow your blouse or something, and when you got it back it was a different colour or a different shape, they'd dyed it or taken the sleeves off!'

She laughed. She moved her feet to a higher step on the metal ladder-drew up her knees, tucked in her skirt, rested her chin upon her fists. Then her laughter, as it had before, faded. Her gaze grew distant, serious.
Here comes that curtain
, Helen thought… But instead Viv said, 'It's funny, thinking back. It's only a couple of years but, you're right, it seems ages away. Some things were easier, then. There was a way of doing things, wasn't there? Someone else had decided it for you, said that was the best way to do it; and that's what you did. It got me down, at the time. I used to look forward to peace, to all the things I'd be able to do then. I don't know what I thought those things would be. I don't know what I thought would be different. You expect things to change, or people to change; but it's silly, isn't it? Because people and things don't change. Not really. You just have to get used to them…'

Her expression, now, was so stripped, so solemn, Helen reached and touched her arm. 'Viv,' she said. 'You look so awfully sad.'

Viv grew self-conscious again. She coloured, and laughed. 'Oh, don't mind me. I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself lately, that's all.'

'What's the matter? Aren't you happy?'

'Happy?' Viv blinked. 'I don't know. Is anybody happy? Really happy, I mean? People pretend they are.'

'I don't know either,' said Helen, after a moment. 'Happiness is such a fragile sort of thing these days. It's as though there's only so much to go round.'

'As if it's on the ration.'

Helen smiled. 'Yes, exactly! And so you know, when you've got some, that it's going to run out soon; and that keeps you from enjoying it, you're too busy wondering how you're going to feel when it's all gone. Or you start thinking about the person who's had to go without so that you can have your portion.'

How own mood sank, as she thought this. She began picking at blisters of paint on the metal platform, exposing fibres of rust beneath. She went on quietly, 'Maybe it's right, after all, what the newspaper prophets say: that one gets paid back in the way one deserves. Maybe we've all forfeited our right to happiness, by doing bad things, or by letting bad things happen…'

She looked at Viv. They'd never spoken to each other quite so freely before, and she realised, as if for the first time, just how fond she was of Viv, and how much she liked doing this-just this-sitting out here, talking, on this rusting metal platform… And she thought of something else.
Were you friends with Julia then?
Viv had asked lightly, before-as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Helen should have been; as if it was perfectly normal that Helen should have stayed in London, in a war, for a woman's sake…

Her heart began to beat faster. She wanted, suddenly, to be able to confide in Viv. She wanted to, desperately! She wanted to say,
Listen to me, Viv
.
I'm in love with Julia! It's a marvellous thing, but terrible, too
.
Sometimes it makes a sort of child of me
.
Sometimes it feels like it's almost killing me! It leaves me helpless
.
It makes me afraid! I can't control it! Can that be right? Is it like this with other people? Has it ever been like this, with you?

She felt her breath rising, until it seemed trapped in her chest. Her heart was beating wildly now, in her cheeks and fingertips. 'Viv-' she started.

But Viv had turned away. She'd put her hands to the pockets of her cardigan and, 'Oh, heck,' she said. 'I've left my cigs inside. I'll never get through the afternoon without one.' She started to rise, seizing hold of the rail of the platform and making the whole thing rock. She said, 'Will you give me a push-up?'

Helen got to her feet more quickly. 'I'm closer,' she said. 'I'll get them.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, of course. It'll only take a moment.'

Her breath still seemed to be crushed in her chest. She clambered awkwardly over the sill and landed with a thud beside the lavatory. There was still time, she thought, to say something. She wanted to more than ever now. And a cigarette would steady her nerves… She straightened her skirt. Viv called through the window: 'They're in my handbag!'

Helen nodded. She went quickly across the landing and up the short flight of stairs into the waiting-room. She kept her head down as she went, only glancing up at the last minute.

She found a man standing at Viv's desk, looking idly over the papers.

She started so violently at the sight of him, she almost screamed. Startled himself, the man stepped back. Then he began to laugh. 'Good Lord! Am I so terrifying as that?'

'I'm sorry,' said Helen, her hand at her breast. 'I had no idea- But the office is closed.'

'Is it? The door downstairs was open.'

'Well, it really oughtn't to have been.'

'I just walked in and up the stairs. I did wonder where everyone was. I'm sorry to have frightened you, Miss -?'

He looked frankly into her face as he said this. He was young and well-spoken, handsome, fair-haired, quite at his ease-so unlike their usual run of client that she felt at a disadvantage with him. She was aware of herself, breathless and flushed, her hair uncombed. She pictured Viv, too, waiting out on the fire-escape…
Balls
, she thought. But there was still time.

She calmed herself down, and turned to the diary on Viv's desk. 'Well,' she said. 'You don't have an appointment, I suppose?' She ran her finger down the page. 'You're not Mr Tiplady?'

'Mr Tiplady!' He smiled. 'No, I'm rather glad to say I'm not.'

'The fact is, we don't see anyone without an appointment.'

'So I see.' He had turned when she had, and was looking at the page over her shoulder. 'You're certainly doing a roaring trade. That's thanks to the war, I suppose…' He folded his arms and stood more easily. 'Just out of interest, how much do you charge?'

Helen glanced at the clock. Go away . Go away! But she was too polite to let the thought show. 'We charge in the first instance,' she said, 'a guinea-'

'As much as that?' He looked surprised. 'And, what will my guinea get me? I suppose you show me an album of girls, do you? Or, you don't actually bring the girls in-?'

His manner had changed. He seemed really interested-yet was smiling, too, as if at some joke of his own. Helen grew cautious. It was just possible, she thought, that he was some kind of charming lunatic: one of those men-like Heath-driven insane by the mood of the times. She didn't know whether or not to believe him about the door. Suppose he had forced it? She'd often thought how vulnerable she and Viv were, so close to Oxford Street and yet cut off, up here, from the bustle of the pavement.

'I'm afraid I really can't discuss it with you now,' she said, her anxiety and impatience making her prim. 'If you'd care to come back in ordinary hours, I'm sure my colleague-' she glanced involuntarily towards the stairs, the lavatory-'will be happy to explain the whole procedure to you.'

But that seemed to pique his interest even more. 'Your colleague,' he said, as if seizing on the word; and following her gaze with his own; even lifting and weaving his head, and clicking his tongue against his lower lip, thoughtfully, as he did it. 'I suppose your colleague's not available right now, by any chance?'

'I'm afraid we're closed for lunch just now,' said Helen firmly.

'Yes, of course. You said that. What a pity.' He said it vaguely. He was still gazing over at the stairs.

She turned a page in the diary. 'If you could come back tomorrow at, say, four-'

But now he'd looked round, and realized what she was doing. His manner changed again. He almost laughed. 'Look here, I'm sorry. I think I've given you the wrong impression-'

At that moment, Viv came up the stairs and into the office. She must have heard his voice after all, and wondered what was going on. She looked at him as if in amazement; and then, unaccountably, she blushed. Helen caught her eye, and made what she hoped was a little gesture of warning and alarm. She said, 'I was just finding this gentleman an appointment. Apparently the door downstairs was open-'

The man, however, had stepped forward and begun to laugh. 'Hello,' he said, giving Viv a nod. Then he turned back to Helen. 'I'm afraid,' he said to her, in real apology, 'I really did give you the wrong idea. It isn't a wife I'm after, you see. Just Miss Pearce.'

Viv's colour had deepened. She glanced at Helen as if horribly embarassed. She said, 'This is Mr Robert Fraser, Helen, a friend of my brother's. Mr Fraser, this is Miss Giniver… Is Duncan all right?'

'Oh, it's nothing like that,' said the man easily. 'Nothing at all. I was just passing, and thought I'd look in.'

' Duncan asked you to come?'

'I was just hoping you'd be free, to tell you the truth. It was just- Well, it was just a whim.'

He laughed again. There was a moment's awkward silence. Helen thought of the little warning gesture she'd made to Viv a minute ago; and felt a fool. For everything had changed, suddenly. It was just as though someone had taken a piece of chalk and, swiftly but firmly, bent to the floor and drawn a line: a line that had Viv and this man, Robert Fraser, on one side, and herself on the other. She made a vague kind of movement. 'Well,' she said, 'I ought to get on.'

'No, it's all right,' said Viv quickly. Her eyelids fluttered. 'I'll- I'll take Mr Fraser outside. Mr Fraser-?'

'Of course,' he said, moving with her towards the stairs. He nodded pleasantly to Helen as he went by. 'Goodbye! I'm sorry to have disturbed you. If I ever change my mind about that wife, I'll be sure to let you know!'

He went quickly down the staircase with a boyish irregular tread. When the door at the bottom was opened she heard him say to Viv, in a lower but carrying tone: 'I'm afraid I've rather landed you in it-'

There was a thump, as the door was closed.

Helen kept still for a moment; then stepped into her office and got out her cigarettes; but threw the packet down, unopened. She felt more of a fool than ever, now. She recalled the way that, on first coming up the stairs from the lavatory, she'd almost screamed-like some comedy spinster in a play!

Just as she thought this she heard laughter, down in the street. She went to the window and looked out.

The window had had cheesecloth varnished to it at some point in the war; a few scraps of net and some scrapings of varnish remained stuck to the glass, distorting the view. But she could see clearly enough the top of Fraser's head and his wide shoulders, lifting and tilting as he gestured and shrugged. And she could see, too, the curve of Viv's pink cheek and the tip of her ear, the spread of her fingers on the sleeve of her folded arm…

She let her head sink, until her brow met the varnished glass. How easy it was, she thought unhappily as she did it, for men and women. They could stand in a street and argue, flirt-they could kiss, make love, do anything at all-and the world indulged them. Whereas she and Julia-