The Night Watch (9 page)

They began to look about for a place to stop the car and eat their lunch, and took a track that led between fields towards a wood. The track seemed well-maintained at first; the further they drove, however, the rougher and narrower it grew. The car bumped about, getting whipped by brambles, and long grass swept and crackled underneath it like rushing water beneath a boat. Viv bounced on the seat, laughing. But Reggie frowned, leaning forward, tugging at the steering-wheel. 'If we meet someone coming the other way, we're buggered,' he said. And she knew he was thinking about what would happen if they were to have an accident, smash up the car, get stuck…

But the track dipped and turned and they found themselves, all at once, in a lush green clearing beside a stream, breathtakingly pretty. Reggie put on the brake and turned off the engine; they sat for a moment, amazed and awed by the quiet of the place. Even after they'd opened the doors and begun to climb out they hesitated, feeling like intruders: for all they could hear was the tumbling of the stream, the calling of birds, the shushing of leaves.

'It sure as hell ain't Piccadilly,' said Reggie, getting out at last.

'It's lovely,' said Viv.

They spoke almost in murmurs. They stretched their arms and legs, then walked across the grass to the edge of the stream. When they gazed along the bank they could see, half hidden in the trees, an old stone building with shattered windows and a broken roof.

'That's a mill,' said Reggie, moving towards it, catching hold of Viv's hand. 'Can you see the shaft of the wheel? This must have been a proper river once.'

She pulled him back. 'Someone might be there.'

But no-one was there. The house had been abandoned years before. Grass grew through the gaps between its flagstones. Pigeons fluttered in its beams, and its floors were covered with bird droppings and broken slate and glass. Somebody, at some point, had cleared a space and made a fire; there were cans and bottles, and filthy messages on the walls. But the cans were rusty, the bottles silvery with age.

'Tramps,' said Reggie. 'Tramps, or deserters. And courting couples.' They went back to the stream. 'I bet this is a regular Lovers' Lane.'

She gave him a pinch. 'Trust you to find it, then.'

He still had hold of her hand. He lifted her fingers to his lips, looking coy, pretending modesty. 'What can I say? Some men are gifted like that, that's all.'

They were talking, now, in normal voices, had lost their sense of awe and caution and begun to feel as though the place was theirs: that it had been waiting, picturesquely, just for them to come and claim it. They followed the stream in the other direction and found a bridge. They stood on the hump of it, smoking cigarettes; Reggie put his arm around her waist and rested his hand on her backside, moving his thumb, making her dress and her petticoat slide against the silk of her knickers.

They threw the ends of their cigarettes into the stream and watched them race. Then Reggie peered more closely at the water.

'There's fish in there,' he said. 'Big sods, look at that!' He went down to the side of the stream, took off his wristwatch and dipped in his hand. 'I can feel them nibbling!' He was as excited as a boy. 'They're like a bunch of girls, all kissing! They think my hand's a man-fish. They think their luck's in!'

'They think you're lunch,' Viv called back. 'They'll have one of your fingers if you're not careful.'

He leered. 'That's like a girl, too.'

'The sort of girls you know, maybe.'

He rose and shook water at her. She laughed and ran away. The water struck the lenses of her sunglasses and when she wiped them, the lenses smeared.

'Now look what you've done!'

They went back to the car for their picnic, leaving the car's doors open. Reggie got out a tartan rug from the boot and they spread it on the grass. He brought out a bottle of gin and orange, too, and a couple of beakers-one pink, one green. The beakers were meant for children, Viv knew: they were rough against the lip where they'd been bitten and thrown about. But she was used to that sort of thing; there was simply no point minding. The gin and orange had become warm in the car: she swallowed, and felt the glow of it almost once, loosening her up. She unwrapped the sandwiches. Reggie ate his in great, quick bites, swallowing the bread before he'd chewed it, then biting again; talking with the food still on his tongue.

'This is that Canadian ham, isn't it? It's not too bad after all.'

He'd pulled at his tie, undone the button of his shirt. The sun was on him, making him frown, showing up the creases in his forehead and beside his nose. He was thirty-six, but had recently, Viv thought, begun to look a little older. His face was sallow-that was the Italian blood in him-and his hazel eyes were still very handsome, but he was losing his hair-losing it not neatly, in a round little patch; it was thinning all over, his scalp here and there showing luminously through. His teeth, which were straight and very even, and which Viv remembered as having once been dazzlingly white, were turning yellow. The flesh of his throat was getting loose; there were folds in the skin in front of ears…
He looks like his father
, she thought, watching him chew. He'd shown her a picture once.
He could be forty, at least
.

But he caught her eye, and gave her a wink; and something of her old, pure affection for him flared up in her heart. When they'd finished their sandwiches he drew her to him and they lay on the rug, he on his back with his arm around her, she with her cheek in the firm, warm hollow between his shoulder and his chest. Now and then she raised herself a little to sip, awkwardly, at her drink; finally she swallowed it all in a gulp and let the empty beaker fall. He rubbed his face against her head, his rough chin plucking at her hair.

She looked into the sky. Her view of it was framed by branches, by the restless tips of trees. The branches were thick with leaves still, but the leaves were ruddy, or golden, or the greenish-yellow of army uniforms. The sky itself was perfectly cloudless: blue as the bluest skies of summer.

'What bird is that?' she asked, pointing.

'That? That's a vulture.'

She gave him a nudge. 'What is it, really?'

He shaded his eyes. 'It's a kestrel. See how it hovers? It's waiting to dive. It's after a mouse.'

'Poor mouse.'

'There he goes!' He lifted his head, the muscles in his chest and throat growing tight beneath her cheek. The bird had swooped, but now rose again with empty claws. He lay back down. 'He's lost it.'

'Good.'

'It's only another sort of lunch. He's entitled to his bit of lunch, isn't he?'

'It's cruel.'

He laughed. 'I'd no idea you were so tender-hearted.-Look, now he's trying again.'

They watched the bird for a minute, marvelling together at the buoyancy of it, its graceful swoops and soars. Then Viv took off her sunglasses, to see it more clearly; and Reggie looked, not at the kestrel, but at her.

'That's better,' he said. 'It was like talking to a blind girl, before.'

She settled back on the rug and closed her eyes. 'You're used to them, of course.'

'Ha-ha.'

He was still for a moment, then reached across her and picked something up. After a second she felt a tickling on her face, and brushed her cheek, thinking a fly had settled on it. But it was him: he had a long blade of grass and was stroking her with the tip of it. She frowned, but closed her eyes again and let him do it. He followed the lines of her brow and her nose, the curve above her mouth; he worked the grass across her temples.

'You've changed your hair, haven't you?' he said.

'I got it cut, ages ago.-You're tickling me.'

He moved the blade of grass more firmly. 'How's that?'

'That's better.'

'I like it.'

'Like what?'

'Your hair.'

'Do you? It's all right.'

'It suits you… Open your eyes, Viv.'

She opened them, briefly, then screwed them up again. 'The sun's too bright.'

He raised his hand-held it a foot away from her face, to make a shade. 'Open them now,' he said.

'What for?'

'I want to look into your eyes.'

She laughed. 'Why?'

'I just do.'

'They're the same as they were the last time you looked into them.'

'That's what you think. Women's eyes are never the same. You're like cats, the lot of you.'

He tickled her face until she did as he asked and opened her eyes again. But she opened them wide, being silly.

'Not like that,' he said. So she looked at him properly… 'That's better.' His expression was soft. 'You've got lovely eyes. You've got beautiful eyes. Your eyes were the first thing I noticed about you.'

'I thought it was my legs you noticed first.'

'Your legs, too.'

He held her gaze, then threw the blade of grass away and leaned and kissed her. He did it slowly, parting her lips with his own, pushing gently into her mouth. He tasted of the ham, still; the ham and the gin and orange. She supposed she must taste of it too. As the kiss went on, a speck of something-meat, or bread-came between their tongues, and he broke away to pick it from his mouth. But when he came back to her, he kissed her harder; and began to lean more heavily against her. He ran his hand down her body, from her cheek to her hip; then he stroked upwards again and cupped her breast. His hand was hot, and gripped her hard, almost painfully. When he drew it away and began to pluck instead at the buttons at the front of her dress, she stopped his fingers and lifted her head.

'Someone might come, Reg.'

'There's nobody about,' he said, 'for miles!'

She looked at his hand, still tugging at the buttons. 'Don't. You'll crease it.'

'Undo it for me, then.'

'All right. Wait.'

She looked around, conscious that anyone could be watching, hidden in the shadows of the trees. The sun was bright as a spotlight, the piece of ground they were lying on flat and quite unobscured. But the only sounds, still, were those of the stream, the birds, the restless leaves. She unfastened two of the buttons on her dress; then, after a moment, two more. Reggie drew the bodice back, exposing her bra; he put his mouth to the silk of it, feeling for her nipple, drawing at her breast. She moved about under his touch… But the queer thing was, she'd wanted him more, before, in the car in the middle of Stepney; she'd wanted him more while they were standing on that bridge. He kept his mouth fixed hard to her breast, and moved his hand back down her body to her thigh. When he caught hold of her skirt and began to push it up, she stopped his fingers again, and again said, 'Someone might see.'

He moved away, wiped his mouth. He tugged at the rug. 'I'll put this over us.'

'They could still see.'

'Jesus, Viv, I'm at that point where a troupe of girl-guides could go past and it wouldn't put me off! I swear, I'm bursting. I've been bursting for you all day.'

She didn't think he had been. For all his talk, for all his nonsense-here, and in the car-she didn't think he had been; and she wanted it less than ever now. He pulled up the rug and tucked it around her, then put his arm beneath it and tried to reach between her legs again. But she kept her thighs closed; and when he looked at her she shook her head-let him think what he liked. She said, 'Let me-' and moved her own hand to the buttons of his trousers, easing them open one by one, then sliding inside.

He groaned, at the feel of her bare fingers. He twitched against her palm. He said, 'Oh, Viv. Christ, Viv.'

The seams of his underpants were taut against her wrist and made her clumsy; after a moment he reached and brought himself right out, then put his hand loosely

around hers. He kept the hand there as she was doing it, and had his eyes shut tight the whole time; in the end she felt he might as well be doing it himself. The tartan rug went up and down over their fists. Two or three times she lifted her head and looked around, still anxious.

And she remembered, as she did it, other times, from years before, when he'd been in the army. They'd had to meet in hotel rooms-grubby rooms, but the grubbiness hadn't mattered. Being together was what had mattered. Pushing against each other's bodies, each other's skin and muscle and breath. That was what bursting for somebody meant. It wasn't this. It wasn't jokes about feather beds and Lovers' Lanes…

At the very last second he closed her hand, to make a sort of trap for the spunk. Then he lay back, flushed and sweating and laughing. She held on to him a little longer before she drew her fingers away. He raised his head, the flesh of his throat bunching up. He was worried for his trousers.

'Got it all?'

'I think so.'

'Careful.'

'I am being careful.'

'Good girl.'

He tucked himself away, then fastened up his buttons. She looked around for a handkerchief, something like that; and finally wiped her hand on the grass.

He watched her do it, approvingly. 'That's good for the ground,' he said. He was full of life now. 'That'll make a tree grow. That'll make a tree, and a knickerless girl will one day come and climb it; and she'll get in the club, by me.' He held out his arms. 'Come here and give me a kiss, you beautiful creature!'

The simplicity of him, she thought, was quite amazing. But it had always been his faults and frailties that she'd loved most. She'd wasted her life on his weaknesses-his apologies, his promises… She moved back into his embrace. He lit another cigarette and they lay and smoked it together, gazing up again into the trees. The kestrel had vanished; they didn't know if it had caught its mouse or gone after another. The blue of the sky seemed to have thinned.

But then, it was September-the end of September-and not summer: presently she gave a shiver, getting cold. He rubbed her arms, but soon they sat up, drank the last of the gin and orange, then stood and brushed down their clothes. He turned the cuffs of his trousers inside out, to shake the grass from them. He borrowed her handkerchief, and wiped her lipstick and powder from his mouth. He walked a little way off, and turned his back, and had a pee.