The Night Watch (6 page)

Duncan looked properly into his face; and recognised him at last. He was a man named Fraser-Robert Fraser. He had once been Duncan 's cell-mate in prison.

Duncan was too stunned, for a moment, even to speak. He'd felt, in an instant, plunged right back into the world of their old hall: the smells of it, the muddled, echoey sounds of it, the grinding misery and fear and boredom… His face grew chill, then very warm. He was aware of everyone watching, and felt caught out-caught out by Fraser on the one hand, and by Mrs Alexander, and Len and the girls, on the other.

Fraser, however, had started laughing. He looked as though he felt the oddness of the situation just as Duncan did; but he seemed able to pass it off as a tremendous joke. 'We've met before!' he said, to Mrs Alexander. 'We knew each other-well,' he caught Duncan 's eye, 'years ago.'

Mrs Alexander looked, Duncan thought, almost put out. Fraser didn't notice. He was still grinning into Duncan 's face. He held out his hand, quite formally; but with his other hand he grabbed hold of Duncan 's shoulder and playfully shook him. 'You look exactly the same!' he said.

'You don't,' managed Duncan at last.

For, Fraser had grown up. When Duncan had last seen him he'd been twenty-two: lean and white and angular, with a rash of spots on his jaw. Now he must be almost twenty-five-a little older than Duncan himself, in other words, but he was as different from Duncan as it was possible to imagine: broad-shouldered, where Duncan was slender; tanned, and madly healthy-looking and fit. He was dressed in corduroy trousers, an open-necked shirt, and a brown tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves. He carried a satchel like a hiker's bag, with the strap across his chest. His fair hair was long-Duncan, of course, had only ever seen him with it cropped-and quite ungreased: every so often, because of the vigour of his gestures, a lock of it would tumble over his brow, and he kept putting up a hand to smooth it back. His hands were as sun-tanned as his face. His nails were cut bluntly, but shone as if polished.

He looked so grown-up and confident, and so at home in his ordinary clothes, that Duncan, on top of his embarassment, was suddenly shy of him. In his nervousness he almost laughed; and Mrs Alexander, seeing him smile, smiled too.

'Mr Fraser,' she said, 'has come to write about you, Duncan.'

But at that, he must have looked startled. Fraser said quickly, 'I'm putting together a piece on the factory, that's all, for one of the picture weeklies. That's what I'm doing just now; things like that. Mrs Alexander has been kind enough to show me around. I had no idea-'

For the first time, his grin faltered. He seemed to realise at last what he was doing at Duncan 's bench; and what Duncan was. 'I had no idea,' he finished, 'of finding you here. How long have you been here?'

' Duncan 's been with us for almost three years,' said Mrs Alexander, when Duncan hesitated.

Fraser nodded, taking that in.

'He's one of our ablest workers.-Duncan, since you and Mr Fraser are such old friends, why don't you show him what your job entails? Mr Fraser, perhaps your man could take a photograph?'

Fraser looked round, rather vaguely, and the photographer stepped forward. He moved about, lifting the camera to his eye again, squaring up the shot as, reluctantly, Duncan picked up one of the little stubs of wax and began explaining to Fraser about the wicks, the metal sustainers, the flame-proof cups. He did it badly. When the flash of the camera went he blinked and, for a second, lost the thread of what he was saying. Meanwhile Fraser nodded and smiled, struggling to hear, and gazing with a fixed, preoccupied interest at every new thing that was pointed out to him; once or twice putting back that lock of ungreased hair from before his brow. 'I see how it goes,' he said, and, 'Yes, I've got it. Of course.'

It only took a minute to explain. Duncan put the night light he had made on to the shuffling belt in the middle of the bench, and it was carried off to the cart at the end of it. 'That's all it is,' he said.

Mrs Alexander moved forward. She had been hovering, all this time, and had the slightly disappointed air of a parent who'd seen their child making a mess of its lines in the school play. But, 'There,' she said, as if in satisfaction. 'Quite a simple process. But every one of our little night lights, you see, has to be put together by hand… I suppose you couldn't guess at how many you've assembled in your time here, Duncan?'

'Not really,' answered Duncan.

'No… Still, you're keeping well, I hope? And how's'-she'd thought of a way to save the situation-'how's the collection?' She turned to Fraser. 'I expect you know, Mr Fraser, that Duncan is a great collector of antiques?'

Fraser, looking partly embarassed and partly amused, admitted that he didn't know this. 'Oh!' said Mrs Alexander with great enthusiasm, 'Oh, but it's quite a hobby of his! All the handsome things he turns up! I call him the scourge of the dealers. What's your latest find, Duncan?'

Duncan saw that there was no way out of it. He told her, in a rather stilted way, about the cream-jug he'd shown Viv at Mr Mundy's earlier that week.

Mrs Alexander widened her eyes. Apart from the fact that her voice was raised to combat the din and clatter of the factory floor, she might have been at a tea-party.

'Three-and-six, you say? I shall have to tell my friend Miss Martin. Antique silver's her great passion, she'll be mad with envy. You must bring the little jug in, Duncan, and show me. Will you do that?'

'Yes,' said Duncan. 'If you like.'

'Yes, do.-And how, by the way, is your uncle? Duncan takes great care, Mr Fraser, of his uncle-'

Duncan heard this, and gave a twitch, took a step, almost in panic. Mrs Alexander saw the expression on his face and misinterpreted it. 'There,' she laughed, patting his shoulder, 'I'm embarassing you. I'll leave you to your night lights.' She nodded down the bench. 'Len, how are you? Everything all right, Winnie? Mabel, you've spoken to Mr Greening about your chair? Good girl.' She touched Fraser's arm again. 'Would you care to follow me, now, to the Packing Room, Mr Fraser?'

Fraser said he would, in just a moment. 'I'd like to make a note of something here first,' he said… He waited for her to move off, then began to scribble something in his book. He came close to Duncan again as he did it, saying, in an apologetic way, 'I have to go, Pearce, as you can see. God! This is queer, isn't it? But, look here. Here's my address.' He ripped the page out and handed it over. 'You'll give me a call? Some time this week? Will you?'

'If you like,' said Duncan again.

Fraser grinned at him. 'Good man. We can talk properly then. I want to know everything you've been doing.' He moved off, as if reluctantly. 'Everything!'

Duncan lowered his head, to draw out his stool. When he looked up again, Fraser, the photographer and Mrs Alexander were just going out of the door that took them through to the next building.

The girls started laughing again the moment the door was closed. Winnie called down, in her squashed-up voice: 'What's he given you, Duncan? Is it his address? I'll give you five bob for it!'

'I'll give you six!' said the girl beside her.

She and another girl got up and tried to grab the paper from him. He fought them off, beginning to laugh-relieved that they'd chosen to take the whole thing in this sort of spirit and not another. Len said, about Fraser, 'See how he browned up to you, Duncan? He's heard you're in line for promotion. Where d'you know him from?'

Duncan was still fending off the girls, and didn't answer. By the time they'd finished teasing him and moved on to something else, the scrap of paper with Fraser's address on it had got crumpled almost to a ball. He put it into his apron pocket: he put it right at the bottom of the pocket so that it shouldn't fall out, but for the next hour or so he kept slipping his hand to it, slyly, as if to reassure himself that it was still there. What he really wanted to do was take it out and have a proper look at it; he didn't want to do that, though, with so many people about. At last he could bear it no longer. When Mr Champion came round, he asked permission to go to the lavatory. He went into one of the stalls, and locked the door; and took the paper from his pocket and smoothed it out.

He felt much more excited doing this, than he'd felt when talking to Fraser face to face; he'd been too self-conscious then, but now the fact of Fraser's having turned up, and having been so friendly-having gone to the trouble of writing

down his address, of saying, 'You'll give me a call? Will you?'-seemed wonderful. The address was a Fulham one, and not very far away. Duncan looked at it and began to imagine how it would be if he went round there-say, one evening. He pictured himself making the journey. He thought of the particular clothes he'd wear-not the clothes he was wearing now, that smelt of stearine and scent, but a nice pair of trousers he had, and an open-necked shirt, and a smart jacket. He imagined how he'd be with Fraser when Fraser opened his door. 'Hello, Fraser,' he'd say, nonchalantly; and Fraser would cry, in amazement and admiration: 'Pearce! You look like a proper man at last, now you've left that wretched factory!' 'Oh, the factory,' Duncan would answer, with a wave of his hand. 'I only go there as a favour to Mrs Alexander…'

He went on daydreaming like this for five or ten minutes-playing the same scene over and over, of himself arriving at Fraser's door; unable, quite, to imagine what would happen once Fraser had asked him in… He went on doing it, even though he had no intention, actually, of ever going to Fraser's house; even while a part of him was saying,
Fraser won't want to see you really
.
He gave you his address for politeness' sake
.
He's the sort of person who gets madly pleased over little things, for a minute, and then forgets all about them
…

He heard the swing of the wash-room door, and Mr Champion's voice: 'All right in there, Duncan?'

'Yes, Mr Champion!' he called; and pulled the chain.

He looked again at the paper in his hand. He didn't know what to do with it now. Finally he tore it into little pieces and added them to the swirling water in the lavatory.

'Must you wriggle so, darling?' Julia was saying.

Helen moved a shoulder. She said fretfully, 'It's these taps. This one's freezing; the other nearly burns your ear off.'

They were lying together in the bath. They did this every Saturday morning; they took it in turns who had the smooth end, and this week it was Julia's turn. She was lying with her arms stretched out, her head put back, her eyes closed; she had tied up her hair in a handkerchief but a few strands had fallen and, as the water slopped over them, they moulded themselves to her jaw and throat. Frowning, she tucked them back up behind her ear.

Helen moved again, then found an almost comfortable position and grew still, enjoying at last the lovely creep of the warm water into her armpits, her groin-all the creases and sockets of her flesh. She put her hands flat upon the water's surface, testing its resistance, feeling its skin. 'Look at our legs all mixed up,' she said softly.

She and Julia always spoke quietly when they were taking their bath. They shared the bathroom with the family who lived in the basement of their house; they all had regular bath-times, so there was not much danger of being caught out; but the tiles on the walls seemed to magnify sound, and Julia had the idea that their voices, the splashing, the rub of their limbs in the tub, might be heard in the rooms downstairs.

'Look how dark your skin is, compared to mine,' Helen went on. 'Really, you're as swarthy as a gypsy.'

'The water makes me seem darker, I suppose,' answered Julia.

'It doesn't make
me
seem dark,' said Helen. She prodded the pink and yellowish flesh of her own stomach. 'It makes me look like pressed meat.'

Julia opened her eyes and gazed briefly at Helen's thighs. 'You look like a girl in a painting by Ingres,' she said comfortably.

She was full of ambiguous compliments like this. 'You look like a woman in a Soviet mural,' she had said recently, when Helen had returned from a shopping trip with two bulging string bags; and Helen had pictured muscles, a square jaw, a shadowy lip. Now she thought of
odalisques
with spreading bottoms… She put a hand to Julia's leg. The leg was rough with little hairs, interesting to the palm; the shin was slender and pleasant to grip. On the bone of the ankle a single vein stood out, swollen with heat. She studied it, pressed it, and saw it yield; she thought of the blood gushing inside it, and gave a little shudder. She slid her hand from Julia's ankle to her foot, and began to rub it. Julia smiled: 'That's nice.'

Julia's feet were broad and unhandsome-an Englishwoman's feet, Helen thought, and the only really unlovely part of Julia's whole body; and she held them in a special sort of regard, for that reason. She tugged slowly, now, at the toes, then worked her fingers between them; she put her palm against them and gently pressed them back. Julia sighed with pleasure. A strand of her hair had fallen again, and again clung to her throat-dark, flat and lustrous as a piece of seaweed, or a lock from a mermaid's head. Why, Helen wondered, were the mermaids' heads that you saw in books and films always coloured gold? She was sure that a real mermaid would certainly be dark, like Julia. A real mermaid would be strange, alarming-nothing like an actress or a glamour-girl at all.

'I'm glad you've got feet, Julia, rather than a tail,' she said, working with her thumb at the arch of Julia's foot.

'Are you, darling? So am I.'

'Your breasts would look handsome, though, in a brassière made of shells.' She smiled. She'd remembered a joke. 'What,' she asked Julia, 'did the brassière say to the hat?'

Julia thought about it. 'I don't know. What?'

'“You go on ahead, and I'll give these two a lift.”'

They laughed-not so much at the joke, as at the silliness of Helen's having told it. Julia still had her head put back: her laughter, caught in her throat, was bubbling, childish, nice-not at all like her conventional 'society' laugh, which always struck Helen as rather brittle. She put a hand across her mouth to stifle the sound. Her stomach quivered as she shook, her navel narrowing.