The Night Watch (23 page)

'It's only one each miss, I'm afraid,' the barman said; but he made the measure, it seemed to her, a large one. She sat at a table, keeping her head down. It was nearly dinner-time, and people were just beginning to come in. If some man were to catch her eye, drift over, insist on joining her, it would spoil everything. She'd brought a pen and a piece of paper with her, and now spread the paper out. She actually started to write a letter to a girl she knew, in Swansea.

Dear Margery-Hello there, how are you getting along? This is just a word to let you know that I am still alive, despite Hitler doing his best, ha ha
.
Hope things are a bit quieter where you are
-

He arrived at just after seven. She'd been glancing slyly over at every man who had appeared, but had heard a step and, for some reason not thinking it was his, looked up unguardedly: she met his gaze as he crossed the doorway, and blushed like crazy. A moment later she heard him talking with the woman at the desk-telling her that he was meeting someone, a man. Would they mind if he waited? The woman said they wouldn't mind it one little bit.

He came into the bar, had a joke with the barman: 'Just pour me a drop of that stuff there, will you?'-nodding to one of the fancy bottles that were kept, for show, on the shelves behind the counter. In the end he got gin, like everyone else. He brought it to the table next to hers and set it down on a beer-mat. He was dressed in his uniform-wearing it badly, as he always did, the jacket looking as though it was meant for someone half a size bigger. He plucked at his trousers, and sat; then got out a packet of service cigarettes and caught her eye.

'How do you do?' he said.

She changed her pose, drew in her skirt. 'How do you do?'

He offered the cigarettes. 'Care to smoke?

'No, thank you.'

'You won't mind if I do?'

She shook her head, and went back to her letter-though with the nearness of him, the excitement of it all, she'd lost the sense of what she'd been writing… After a second she saw him tilt his head: he was trying to read the words over her shoulder. When she turned to him, he straightened up as if caught out.

'Must be the hell of a fellow,' he said, nodding to the page, 'to get all that.'

'It's a lady-friend, actually.' She sounded prim.

'Well, my mistake.-Oh, now don't be like that!' For she'd folded the paper, begun to screw together the pen. 'Don't leave on my account, will you?'

She said, 'It's nothing to do with you. I've got an appointment.'

He rolled his eyes, then winked at the barman. 'Why do girls always say something like that when I appear?'

He loved all this. He could spin it out for hours. It only put her on edge: she thought they must be like a pair of painful amateur actors. She was always afraid she'd start laughing. Once, in another hotel, she
had
started laughing; and that had made him laugh; they'd sat there, giggling like kids… She finished her drink. This was the worst part. She picked up her paper, her pen, her bag, and-

'Don't forget this, miss,' he said, touching her arm and taking up her key. He held it out to her by its flat wooden tag.

She blushed again. 'Thank you.'

'Don't mention it.' He straightened his tie. 'That's my lucky number, as it happens.'

Perhaps he winked at the barman again, she didn't know. She went out of the bar and up to her room-so excited now, she was practically breathless. She put on the lamp. She looked in the mirror and re-combed her hair. She began to shiver. She'd got chilled from sitting in the bar in her dress: she put her coat over her shoulders and stood at the tepid radiator, hoping to warm up, feeling the goose-pimples rising on her bare arms and trying to rub them away. She watched the tethered alarm clock, and waited.

After fifteen minutes there was a gentle tapping at the door. She ran to open it, throwing off the coat as she went; and Reggie darted inside.

'Jesus!' he whispered. 'This place is crawling! I had to stand about for ages on the stairs, pretending to tie my shoelaces. A chamber-maid passed me, twice, and gave me the hell of a funny look. I think she thought I was peeping through key-holes.' He put his arms around her and kissed her. 'God! You glorious girl, you.'

It was so wonderful to stand in his arms, she felt suddenly almost light-headed. She even thought, for an awful moment, that she might cry. She kept her cheek against his collar, so that he shouldn't see her face; and when she could speak again what she said was: 'You need a shave.'

'I know,' he answered, rubbing his chin against her forehead. 'Does it hurt?'

'Yes.'

'Do you mind?'

'No.'

'Good girl. To have to start messing about with razors, now, would just about kill me. God! I had a bloody awful time of it getting down here.'

'Are you sorry you came?'

He kissed her again. 'Sorry? I've been thinking of this all day.'

'Only all day?'

'All week. All month. For ever. Oh, Viv.' He kissed her harder. 'I've missed you like hell.'

'Wait,' she whispered, pulling away.

'I can't. I can't! All right. Let me look at you. You look beautiful, you fabulous girl. I saw you downstairs and, I swear to God, it was all I could do to keep my hands off you, it was like torture.'

They moved further into the room, hand-in-hand. He stood rubbing his eyes, looking about. The bulb in the lamp was dim; even so, he saw enough, and made a face.

'This joint is a bit of a hole, isn't it? Morrison said it was OK. I think it's worse than the Paddington one.'

'It's all right,' she said.

'It's not all right. It breaks my heart. You wait till after the war, when I'm back on a proper man's pay. It'll be the Ritz and the Savoy then, every time.'

'I won't care where it is,' she said.

'You wait, though.'

'I won't care where it is, so long as you're there.'

She said it almost shyly. They looked at each other-just looked at each other, getting used to the sight of one another's faces. She hadn't seen him for a month. He was stationed near Worcester, and got to London every four or five weeks. That was nothing, she knew, in wartime. She knew girls with boyfriends in North Africa and Burma, on ships in the Atlantic, in POW camps… But she must be selfish, because she hated time, for keeping him from her even for a month. She hated it for making them strangers to each other, when they ought to be closest. She hated it for taking him away from her again, when she'd just got used to him.

Perhaps he saw all this in her face. He pulled her to him, to kiss her again. But when he felt the press of her against him he moved back, remembering something.

'Hang on,' he said, unbuttoning the flap of his jacket pocket. 'I've got a present for you. Here.'

It was a paper case of hair-grips. She'd been complaining, when she saw him last, about how she had run out. He said, 'One of the boys at the base was selling them. It's not much, but-'

'They're just the thing,' she said shyly. She was touched by his having remembered.

'Are they? I thought they would be. And look, don't laugh.' He'd coloured slightly. 'I brought you these, too.'

She thought he was going to give her cigarettes. He'd produced a bashed-up packet. But he opened it very carefully, then took hold of her hand and gently tipped the contents out into her palm.

They turned out to be three wilting snowdrops. They fell in a tangle of fine green stems.

He said, 'They're not broken, are they?'

'They're beautiful!' said Viv, touching the tight bud-like white flowers, the little ballerina skirts. 'Where did you get them?'

'The train stopped for forty-five minutes, and half of us blokes got out for a smoke. I looked down and there they were. I thought- Well, they made me think of you.'

She could see he was embarassed. She pictured him stooping to pick the flowers, then putting them into that cigarette packet-doing it quickly, so that his friends wouldn't see… Her heart seemed too big, suddenly, for her breast. Again she was afraid that she might cry. But she mustn't do that. Crying was stupid, was pointless!-such a dreadful waste of time. She lifted a snowdrop and gently shook it, then looked at the basin.

'I should put them in water.'

'They're too far gone. Pin them to your dress.'

'I haven't got a pin.'

He took up the hair-grips. 'Use one of these. Or- Here, I've a better idea.'

He fixed the flowers to her hair. He did it rather fumblingly; she felt the point of the grip cut slightly into her scalp. But then he held her face in his swarthy hands, and looked her over.

'There,' he said. 'I swear to God, you get more beautiful every time I see you.'

She went to the mirror. She didn't look beautiful at all. Her face was flushed, her lipstick smeared by his kisses. The stems of the flowers had got crushed by the grip and hung rather limply. But the white of them was vivid, lovely, against the black-brown of her hair.

She turned back to the room. She oughtn't to have moved away from his arms. They seemed to feel the distance, suddenly; and grew shy with each other again. He went to the armchair and sat down, unfastening the top two buttons of his jacket and loosening the collar and tie beneath. After a little silence he cleared his throat and said, 'So. What do you want to do tonight, glamour girl?'

She lifted a shoulder. 'I don't know. I don't mind. Whatever you like.' She just wanted to stay here with him.

'Are you hungry?'

'Not really.'

'We could go out.'

'If you want to.'

'I wish we had some drink.'

'You've just had one!'

'Some whisky, I mean…'

Another silence. She felt herself getting chilly again. She moved to the radiator, and rubbed her arms, as she had before.

He didn't notice. He'd gone back to looking around the room. He asked, as if politely, 'You didn't have any trouble finding this place?'

'No,' she said. 'No, it was easy.'

'Were you working today, or what?'

She hesitated. 'I went to see Duncan,' she said, looking away, 'with Dad.'

He knew about Duncan -at least, he knew where Duncan was. He thought he was in for stealing money… His manner changed. He looked at her properly again.

'Poor baby! I thought you seemed a bit blue. How was it?'

'It was all right.'

'It's stinking, you having to go to a place like that!'

'He doesn't have anyone else, except Dad.'

'It's lousy, that's all. If it was me, and my sister-'

He stopped. There had come the bang of a closing door, amazingly close; and now voices started up, on the other side of the wall. A man's and a woman's, slightly raised, perhaps in argument: the man's sounding most clearly, but both of them muffled, fitful-like the squeals made by a cloth as it polished a table.

'Hell!' whispered Reggie. 'That's all we need.'

'Do you think they can hear us?'

'Not if we're quiet; and not if they carry on like that. Let's hope they do! The fun'll start if they decide to kiss and make up.' He smirked. 'It'll be like a race.'

'I know who'd win,' she said, at once.

He pretended to be hurt. 'Give a fellow a chance!'

He looked her over, in a new sort of way; then held out his hand and said, in a coaxing voice, 'Come here, glamour girl.'

She shook her head, smiling, and wouldn't go to him.

'Come here,' he said again; but she still wouldn't go. So he rose, and reached for her fingers, and drew her to him-pulling at her arm as a sailor pulls on a rope, hand over hand. 'Look at me,' he murmured as he did it. 'I'm a drowning man. I'm a goner. I'm desperate, Viv.'

He kissed her again-lightly enough, at first; but then, as the kiss went on, they both grew serious, almost grim. The stir of feelings which, a moment before, had been gathered about her heart, expanded further. It was as if he was drawing all the life of her to the surface of her flesh. He began to move his hands over her, cupping and working her hips and buttocks, pressing her to him so that she could feel, through her flimsy dress, the points and bulges of his uniform jacket, the buttons and the folds. He began to grow hard: she felt the movement of it, inside his trousers, against her belly. An amazing thing, she thought it, even now; she'd never got used to it. Sometimes he'd move her hand to it. 'That's thanks to you,' he might say, jokily. 'That's all yours. That's got your name on it.' But today he said nothing. They were both too serious. They pulled and pressed at one another as if ravenous for each other's touch.

She was aware of the voices, still sounding fitfully in the neighbouring room. She heard someone walk, whistling a dance-tune, past the door. Down in the stairwell a gong was rung, calling guests to dinner… She and Reggie kissed on, at the centre of it all, silent and more or less still, but, as it seemed to her, enveloped by a storm of motion and noise: the rushing of breath, of blood, of moisture, the straining of fabric and of skin.

She began to move her hips against his. He let her do it for a moment, then pulled away.

'Jesus!' he whispered, wiping his mouth. 'You're killing me!'

She drew him back. 'Don't stop.'

'I'm not going to stop. I just don't want to finish before I've started. Hang on.'

He took off his jacket and threw it down, then shrugged off his braces. He put his arms around her again and walked her to the bed, meaning to lie her down on it. As soon as they sank upon it, however, it creaked. It creaked, whichever spot they tried. So he spread his jacket out on the floor and they lay down together on that.

He pulled up her skirt and ran his hand over the bare part of her leg, beneath her buttock. She thought of the crêpe dress getting creased, her precious fairy-worked stockings snagging-but let the thought go. She turned her head, and the snowdrops tumbled from her hair and were squashed, and she didn't care. She caught the dusty, nasty smell of the hotel carpet; she pictured all the men and women who might have embraced on it before, or who might be lying like this, now, in other rooms, in other houses-strangers to her, just as she and Reggie were strangers to them… The idea was lovely to her, suddenly. Reggie lowered himself properly upon her and she let her limbs grow loose, giving herself up to the weight of him; but still moving her hips. She forgot her father, her brother, the war; she felt pressed out of herself, released.