The Night Watch

1941

Viv was on a train, somewhere between Swindon and London-it was impossible to say where exactly, for the train kept stopping at what might or might not have been stations; and there was no point trying to see from the windows, for the blinds were down and, anyway, the station names all painted over or removed. Viv had been sitting for the last four hours with seven other people in a second-class compartment meant for six. The mood was awful. A couple of soldiers kept larking about with lighted matches, trying to set fire to each other's hair; a po-faced WAAF officer kept asking them to stop. Another woman was knitting, and the knobs of her needles were striking the thighs of the people sitting next to her. One of them-a girl in trousers-had just said, 'Do you mind? These slacks weren't cheap. Your needles are making snags in them.'

The knitting woman had drawn in her chin. 'Snags?' she was saying. 'You don't think there are rather more important things to worry about, just now?'

'No, I don't, as it happens.'

'Well, I'd like to know what sort of slacks you think you'd be able to buy if the Nazis were to invade.'

'If the Nazis invade, I don't suppose I'll care about it one way or the other. But until they do-'

'The Nazis would marry you off, all you girls like you, in no time,' said the woman. 'How should you like to have an SS man for a husband?'

The argument went on. Viv turned her head from it. In the place to her left was a younger girl, a well-to-do girl of about thirteen, gawky and earnest. She had an album filled with pictures of horses; she kept passing it across the compartment to her father, a Naval man with braid on his sleeve. 'That one's just like Cynthia's, Daddy,' she'd say as she did it. Or, 'This one's like Mabel's, he's a dear thing, isn't he? This one has exactly White Boy's head, White Boy's just a shade fuller in the flank, that's all…'

Her father would glance at the picture and grunt. He was filling in the blanks in a crossword puzzle in a newspaper, tapping with his pen against the page. But for the past couple of hours, too, he had been trying to catch Viv's eye. Every time she looked his way, he'd wink. If she crossed her legs, he'd let his gaze travel up and down her calves. Once he'd got out his case of cigarettes and leaned across to offer her one, but the po-faced WAAF officer had stopped him and said, 'I'm afraid I'm asthmatic. If you're going to smoke, I'd appreciate it if you could do it in the corridor.' After that he'd sat back and smirked horribly at Viv, as if the WAAF had made conspirators of them.

'Look at this great brute, Daddy. He's like the fellow we saw at Colonel Webster's that time… Daddy! You're not looking!'

'For heaven's sake, Amanda,' he said irritably now, 'there are only so many ponies a father can take.'

'Fathers must be pretty silly, then, that's all I can say. Anyway, they're not ponies, they're horses.'

'Well, whatever they are I'm bored to death of them. And there, look-' Viv had got to her feet. She was going to the lavatory. 'This young lady's bored to death of them too. I shouldn't be surprised if she's so bored of them she's going to find an open window and throw herself out of it. I might very well join her.-Is there something,' he said to Viv, rising and touching her arm, 'I can help you with?'

'No, thanks,' she answered, shaking him off.

'Daddy,' his daughter cried, 'how rotten you are!'

'It would be kinde, kirche,' the knitting woman was saying to the trousered girl, 'and no more running about in a pair of slacks, I can tell you that-'

Viv stepped unsteadily to the door of the compartment and slid it back. She looked down the train-hesitating a little, because the corridor was crowded. A group of Canadian airmen had boarded at Swindon: they were propped against the windows or sitting on the floor, playing cards and smoking. The blue of their uniforms was intense, in the indigo light of the train, and the smoke from their cigarettes made them appear as if wreathed in drifting bolts of silk; they looked, in fact, for a single moment, quite beautiful and unearthly.

But when they saw Viv beginning to make her way along the narrow passage, they started into life-drawing back elaborately so that she might pass, scrambling to their feet. The bolts of silk seemed to billow, to tear and unravel, about the sharpness of their movements. There were whistles and calls: 'Whoops!' 'Look out!' 'Make way for the lady, boys!'

'Are those loaded, Mary?' said one of them, nodding to Viv's chest. Another put his arms up to steady her when the motion of the train made her sway: 'Shall we dance?'

'Want to powder your nose?' a boy asked, when she reached the end of the corridor and looked around. 'There's a place right here. My pal's been keeping it warm for you.'

She shook her head and pressed on. She'd rather not go to the lavatory at all, than go with so many men outside the door. But they grabbed at her hands, trying to pull her back. 'Don't leave us, Susie!' 'You're breaking our hearts!' They offered her beer and swigs of whisky. She shook her head again, smiling. They offered her chocolate.

'I'm watching my figure,' she said at last, pulling away. They called after her: 'So are we! It's beautiful!'

The next corridor was quieter, the one after that quieter still: some of its lights had failed, and she passed along it almost in darkness. There were more servicemen here, but they must have started their journey sooner than the others: they didn't want to joke, they sat with their knees drawn up, their greatcoats belted, their heads lowered, trying to sleep. Viv had to pick her way around them-stepping awkwardly, reaching for holds on the walls and windows as the train shuddered and rocked.

At the end of this corridor there were another two lavatories; and the lock on one of them, she was relieved to see, was turned to Vacant. But when she caught hold of the door-knob and pushed, the door only moved a little way inwards and then was thrust hurriedly closed again. There was someone behind it: a soldier, in khaki; she got a glimpse of him in the mirror above the sink, turning his head. She saw the look of alarm on his face as the door was opened; she thought she'd caught him peeing, and was embarrassed. She moved back, to the junction of the carriages, and waited.

The lavatory door stayed shut for almost another minute. Then she saw the knob being slowly turned, and the door was drawn back, as if cautiously. The soldier put out his head, bit by bit, like a man expecting gunfire… When he caught her eye, he straightened up and came out properly.

'Sorry about that.'

'That's all right,' said Viv, still a little embarassed. 'The lock's not broken, is it?'

'The lock?' He looked vague. He was glancing about from side to side, and now began to bite at one of his fingernails. His fingers, she saw, had short crisp hairs on them, dark as a monkey's. His cheeks were blueish: he needed a shave. His eyes were red at the corners and rims. As she moved past him he leaned towards her and said, confidentially, 'Haven't seen the guard about, have you?'

She shook her head.

'They're like ruddy sharks.'

He took his hand from his mouth as he spoke, raised the thumb of it to suggest a fin, and moved it as a fish might move through water; then opened and closed his fingers: Snap. But he did it in an unexcited sort of way, still glancing about from side to side; finally biting at the nail again and frowning, and moving off. She went into the lavatory and closed the door and locked it, and more or less forgot him.

She used the toilet-stooping, rather than sitting on the stained wooden seat; swaying about again with the rocking of the train, feeling the pull of the muscles in her calves and thighs. She washed her hands, looking into the smeary mirror, going over the details of her face-thinking, as she always did, that her nose was too narrow, her lips too thin; imagining that, at twenty, she was getting old, looked tired… She re-did her make-up and combed her hair. The single hairs and bits of fluff that got caught in the teeth of the comb she pulled out; she made a ball of them and tucked it away, neatly, in the bin under the basin.

She was just putting the comb back into her bag when someone knocked at the door. She took one last look in the mirror and called, 'All right!'

The knock came again, louder than before.

'All right! Just a sec!'

Then the handle was tried. She heard a voice, a man's voice, trying to force itself into a whisper. 'Miss! Open up, will you?'

'God!' she said to herself. She could only suppose it was one of the Canadians, larking about. Or it might, at a pinch, be the father of the horse-mad girl… But when she drew back the bolt and opened the door, a hand came around it to keep her from shutting it again; and she recognised the short black hairs on its fingers. Then came his khaki sleeve, his shoulder, his unshaven chin and bloodshot eye.

'Miss,' he said. He'd taken off his cap. 'Do me a favour, will you? The guard's on his way. I've lost my ticket and he'll give me hell-'

'I'm just coming out,' she said, 'if you'll let me.'

He shook his head. Now he was keeping her from opening the door, as well as from closing it. He said, 'I've seen this bloke and, honest to God, he's a tartar. I heard him earlier on, tearing a strip off some poor devil who had the wrong sort of warrant. If he knocks and hears my voice, he'll still want his ticket.'

'Well, what do you want me to do about it?'

'Can't you just let me in till he's gone past?'

She looked at him in amazement. 'In here, with me?'

'Just till he's gone by. And when he knocks, you can slip your ticket under the door… Please, miss. It's a thing girls do for servicemen all the time.'

'I'll bet it is. Not this girl, though.'

'Come on, I'm begging you. I'm in an awful squeeze. I've got compassionate leave, only forty-eight hours. I've spent half of that already, freezing my- Well, freezing my feet off, on Swindon station. If he throws me out I'm done for. Be a sport. It's not my fault. I had the ticket in my hand and put it down for half a minute. I think some Navy boy saw me do it-'

'A minute ago you said you'd lost it.'

He touched his hair distractedly. 'Lost it, had it pinched, what's the difference? I've been dodging up and down this train like a ruddy lunatic, in and out of lavatories all the way. All I'm looking for is someone tender-hearted to give me a bit of a break. It'll be no skin off your nose, will it? You can trust me, I swear to God. I'm not-' He stopped and drew back his head; then his face reappeared, he gave a hiss-'Here he comes!'-and before she could do anything about it he had made a scuffling rush into the lavatory, bundling her back into it in the process. He shot the bolt and stood with his ear at the crack of the door-frame, his lower lip caught between his teeth.

Viv said, 'If you think-!'

He put his finger to his mouth: 'Shh!' He still had his ear pressed to the door-frame, and now began moving his head up and down it-like a doctor, desperately trying to find a heartbeat in the bosom of a dying man.

Then there was a smart, authoritative tap-tap-tap! on the door that made him jump as though he'd been shot.

'All tickets, please!'

The soldier looked at Viv and grimaced dreadfully. He went through a mad sort of pantomime, pretending to take a ticket from his pocket, stoop, and shove it under the door.

'All tickets!' the guard called again.

'This lavatory's taken!' Viv cried at last. Her voice was flustered, silly-sounding.

'I know it's taken,' came the reply from the corridor. 'I need to see your ticket please, miss.'

'Can't you see it later?'

'I need to see it now, please.'

'Just- Just a minute.'

What could she do? She couldn't open the door, the guard would take one look at the soldier and think the worst… So she got out her ticket, and, 'Move over,' she hissed, flapping her hand furiously. The soldier took a step away from the door so that she could stoop and slip the ticket under it. She bent her legs self-consciously-aware of the smallness of the space they were in; aware that she was making it smaller, by stooping; feeling, in fact, her thigh pass against his knee, so that the wool of her skirt clung momentarily to the khaki of his trousers.

Her ticket lay flat in the shadow of the door for a second and then, as if through some weird agency of its own, gave a quiver and slid away. There was a moment's suspense. She stayed awkwardly squatting, and didn't look up. But at last, 'Very good, miss!' came the call. The ticket was returned, with a neat little hole punched out of it; and the guard moved on.

She stood up, stepped back, put her ticket into her bag and snapped closed its clasp.

'Happy now?'

The soldier was wiping his forehead with his sleeve. 'Miss,' he said, 'you're an angel! The sort of girl, I swear to God, who restores a fellow's faith in life. The sort of girl the songs are written for.'

'Well, you can write one now,' she said, moving forward, 'and sing it to yourself.'

'What?' He put his arm across the door. 'You can't go yet. Suppose the ticket fellow comes back? Give it another minute, at least. Look-' He put his hand to his jacket pocket and brought out a crumpled packet of Woodbines. 'Just keep me company for the length of a smoke, that's all I ask. Give him time to get down to First Class. I swear to God, if you knew the journey I've had, the hoops I've had to jump through-'

'That's your look-out.'

He started to smile. 'You'll be helping the war-effort. Think of it that way.'

'How many girls have you used that line on?'

'You're the first. I swear!'

'The first today, you mean.'

But now he was almost grinning. His lips parted and she saw his teeth. Rather distracting teeth, they were: very straight and very even and white, and seeming to be whiter against the stubble of his chin. They made the rest of his face good-looking, suddenly. She noticed the hazel of his eyes, the thick black lashes. His hair was dark, darker even than her own; he'd tried to flatten it down with Brylcreem but individual locks were pulling against the grease, lifting back into curls.

His uniform, however, looked as though he'd slept in it. The jacket was stained and badly-fitting. The trouser legs were creased in horizontal bands like stretched-out concertinas. But he held out the packet of Woodbines, imploringly; and she pictured her own empty narrow seat in the crowded compartment: the Navy man making passes, the asthmatic WAAF, the horse-mad girl.

'All right,' she said at last. 'Give me a cigarette, just for a minute. I must want my head read, though!'

He smiled more broadly, in relief. His teeth were more distracting than ever, she thought, when seen all together like that… He lit a match for her, from a match-book, and she moved forward to the flame; but then she moved back and stood guardedly, with one arm folded across herself, the wrist of it propping up the elbow of the other, and the heel of her foot pressed tight to the wall, a brace against the lurching of the train. It was hard to ignore the presence of the porcelain lavatory-over which, after all, she'd recently stooped with her bottom bared. Then again, like everyone else she'd had to get used to sharing odd spaces with strangers recently. On another train journey, two months before, a raid had started up and all the passengers had had to get down on the floor. She'd had to lie for forty minutes with her face more or less in a man's lap; he'd been awfully embarassed…

This man, at least, seemed quite at his ease. He leaned on the counter which held the basin and started to yawn. The yawn became a low sort of yodelling groan, and when that was finished he put his cigarette between his lips and rubbed his face-rubbed it in that vigorous, unselfconscious way with which men always handled their own faces, and girls never did.

Then the train began to slow. Viv looked anxiously at the window. 'That's not Paddington, is it?'

'Paddington!' he said. 'Christ, I wish it was!' He leaned to the blind and drew it back a little and tried to look out; but it was impossible to see anything. 'God knows where we are,' he said. 'Just past Didcot, I should say.-There we go.' He'd almost staggered. 'They're throwing in a fun-fair ride, for free.'

The train had run quickly for a moment, then abruptly slowed; now it was moving with a series of jolts. He and Viv bounced about like jumping beans. Viv put out her arms, looking for hand-holds. It was impossible not to smile. The soldier shook his head, too, in disbelief. 'Has it been like this all the way? Where did you get on?'

After a little show of reluctance, she told him: Taunton. She'd been to visit her sister and her baby; they'd gone down there, she said, away from the bombs… He listened, nodding.

' Taunton,' he said. 'I went there once. Nice couple of pubs as I recall. One called The Ring-ever drink there? Landlord-' he made fists of his hands-'used to box. Little chap, but with a great squashed nose. Keeps a pair of gloves in a glass case on the counter… Boy!' He sighed and folded his arms, as the train ran more smoothly. 'What I wouldn't give to be there now! A glass of Black and White at my elbow, roaring fire in the grate… You haven't got any whisky on you, by any chance?'

'Whisky!' she said. 'No, I haven't.'

'All right, don't be like that about it! You'd be surprised how much liquor does get carried around in lady's purses, in my experience. Girls like to drink it, I suppose, against the bombs… You wouldn't need that, of course, with nerves like yours.'

'Nerves like mine?'

'I saw your hand when you put your ticket away. Steady as a rock. You'd make a good spy.' He narrowed his eyes and looked her over. 'You might be a spy, come to that. A lady-spy, like Mata Hari.'

She said, 'You'd better watch your step, then.'

'But for all you know,' he went on, 'I might be a spy, too. Or, not a spy, but the chap the spies are after. Isn't there always one of those? Some poor sap who's got a secret message on him, because he's accidentally put on another bloke's boots, or picked up another bloke's umbrella? And he and the girl always end up tied to a chair, with the sort of knot that looks like it was done by a bad boy scout.'

He laughed to himself, liking the idea-liking the sound of his own voice, she thought, conventionally; though the fact was, it was a nice voice, and she found she rather liked it, too… 'How would you feel,' he went on, 'about being tied to a chair with me?-I'm only asking out of interest, by the way. I'm not shooting you a line, or anything like that.'

'No?'

'Oh, no. I like to get to know a girl a little, before I start shooting lines at her.'

She drew on her cigarette. 'Suppose she won't let you get to know her?'

'Oh, but there are a thousand little things a fellow can find out about a girl, just by looking at her… Take you, for example.' He nodded to her hand. 'You're not married. That means you're smart. I like smartness in a woman… Fingernails rather long, so you're not on the land or in a factory.' He dropped his gaze, and worked slowly back up. 'Legs too nice to put in trousers. Figure too good to hide you away in some back-room job… I'd say you were secretary to some bigwig-Admiral of the Fleet, something like that. Am I close?'

She shook her head. 'Nowhere near. I'm a common typist, that's all.'

'A typist. Ah… Yes, that fits. Where have they got you? Some government racket or other?'

'Just something in London.'

'Just something in London, I see… And, what's your name? Or is that hush-hush, too?'

She hesitated, but only for a moment; then thought, Where's the harm? and told him. He nodded, thinking it over, looking into her face. 'Vivien,' he said at last. 'Yes, it suits you.'

'Does it?'

'It's a name for a glamour girl, isn't it? Wasn't there a Lady Vivien, or someone like that? In King Arthur's times? I used to know all those stories when I was a kid; I've forgotten them now… Anyway,' he leaned forward to shake her hand, 'my name's Reggie. Reggie Nigri.-Yes, I know, I know, it's lousy. And I've been stuck with it all my life. The boys at school used to call me “Nigger”; now the fellows at camp call me “Musso”. Work that one out if you can… My old grandad came over from Naples. You should see the pictures! He had a moustache out to here, a waistcoat, a handkerchief round his neck; all he needed was the monkey. He sold hokey-pokey from a cart in the street. I've got second cousins twice removed-or something like that-who are fighting, now, for the other team, in Italy. They're probably just about as keen on this ruddy war as I am… Have you got any brothers, Vivien?-You don't mind me calling you Vivien? I'd call you Miss Pearce, but it sounds old-fashioned in times like these.-Have you got any brothers?'

Viv nodded. 'Just one.'

'Older, or younger?'

'Younger,' she said. 'Seventeen.'

'Seventeen! I bet he loves all this, doesn't he? Can't wait to join up?'

She thought of Duncan. 'Well-'

'I would too, if I was his age. Instead- I'm nearly thirty, and look at me. Two years ago I was selling motor cars in Maida Vale, and doing very nicely. Then the war starts up and, bingo, that's the end of that. I got a bit of work with a pal of mine for a while, in the costume jewellery trade; that wasn't too bad. Now I'm stuck in a ruddy OCTU in Wales, being taught which end of a rifle the bullets are supposed to come out. I've been there four months, and I swear to God it's rained every day. It's all right for our CO, he stays in a hotel. I'm living in a hut with a tin roof on it…'

He went on like this, telling her about his duties at the camp, the hopeless squaddies he was billeted with, the hopeless pubs and hotel bars, the hopeless weather… He made her laugh. The boys she met, of her own age, were full of the war: they wanted to talk about types of aeroplane and ship; about Army bets and Navy quarrels. He was past all that. He was past boasting. He yawned and rubbed his eyes again, and his very tiredness seemed appealing somehow. She liked the grown-up, casual way he'd said 'when I was a kid'. She liked the way he'd said her name; that he'd thought it over and said it suited her. She liked it that he knew about King Arthur. She liked the fact, after all, that his uniform didn't fit him. She pictured him in an ordinary jacket, a shirt and tie, a vest. She looked again at his monkey-like hands and imagined the rest of him: swarthy, stocky, with swirls of hair on his chest, his shoulders, his buttocks and legs-

The handle of the door was tried and, abruptly, he fell silent. There came a knock, and a cry: 'Hey! What's taking you all this time?'

It was one of the Canadians. Reggie didn't answer for a second. Then the knock came again and he called out, 'This one's busy, chum! Try another!'

'You've been in there for half an hour!'

'Can't a bloke have a bit of time to himself?'

The airman kicked the door as he moved off. 'Fuck you!'

Reggie flushed. 'Go to hell!'

He seemed more embarassed than angry. He caught Viv's eye, then looked away. 'Nice chap,' he muttered.

She shrugged. 'Don't worry. I hear worse than that from the girls in the typing pool…'

She'd finished her cigarette, and now dropped the end of it, covering it over with her shoe. When she looked up, she found him gazing at her. His flush had faded and his expression slightly changed. He was smiling, but had drawn together his brows as if perplexed by something.

'You know,' he said, after a moment, 'you really are the hell of a good-looking girl… It's like my luck, as well.-Getting holed up with a beautiful girl, I mean, in the one establishment in town where I can't even say, politely, “Have a seat.”'

That made her laugh again. He watched her face, and laughed too. 'Hey, that wasn't bad going, was it, for a bloke who's dead on his feet? You should hear me when I've had some sleep. I'm telling you, I'm a killer…' He bit his lip, and again that look of slight perplexity crossed his face. 'You're not by any chance some sort of hallucination, are you?'

She shook her head. 'Not as far as I know.'

'Well, that's what you say. Hallucinations are clever like that. For all I know, I'm might still be on a bench on Swindon station, fast asleep. I need some sort of a shock. I need a key dropped down my collar, or- I've got it.' He turned and ground out his cigarette in the basin, then drew back his sleeve and held out his arm. 'Give me a pinch, will you?'

'A pinch?'

'Just to prove to me that I'm awake.'

She looked at his bare wrist. There was a point where the smooth pale flesh at the base of his thumb gave way to hair; and again she thought, unwillingly but not unpleasantly, of the swarthy arms and legs of him… She reached and gave him a nip with her fingers. Her nails got caught up in it, and he quickly drew the arm back.

'Ouch! You've been practising that! I think you are a ruddy spy!' He rubbed the spot she'd pinched, then blew on it. 'Look at that.' He showed her the mark. 'I shall turn up at home and they'll suppose I've been in a fight. I'll have to say, “It wasn't a soldier, it was a girl I got talking to in the lavatory of a train…” That'll go down well, in the circumstances.'

'What circumstances?' she asked, laughing again.

He was still blowing on his wrist. 'I told you, didn't I? I've got compassionate leave.' He lifted the wrist to his mouth and sucked it. 'My wife,' he said, over the ball of his thumb, 'has just had a baby.'

She thought he was joking, and kept on smiling. When she saw that he was serious her smile grew fixed, and she blushed from her collar to her hair.

'Oh,' she said, folding her arms. She might have guessed, from the age of him, even from the manner of him, that he was married; but she hadn't thought about it. 'Oh. Is it a boy, or a girl?'

He lowered his hand. 'Little girl. We've got the boy already, so you could say, I suppose, that now we've got the set.'

She said politely, 'It's nice for you.'

He almost shrugged. 'It's nice for my wife. It keeps her happy. It won't keep us rich, I know that… But here, look. Have a look at this. Here's the first one.'

He put his hand to his pocket again and brought out a wallet; he fumbled about with the papers inside it, then drew out a photo and passed it over. It was slightly grubby, and torn at the corners; it showed a woman and a little boy, sitting together, perhaps in a garden. A bright day in summer. A tartan rug on a mown lawn. The woman was shading her eyes with her hand, her face half-hidden, her fair hair loose; the boy had tilted his head and was frowning against the light. He had some home-made toy or other in his hand, a baby's motor-car or train, another home-made toy lay at his feet. Just visible in the bottom right-hand corner of the square was the shadow of the person-Reggie himself, presumably-taking the picture.

Viv passed it back. 'He's a nice-looking boy. He's dark, like you.'

'He's a good little kid. The little girl's fairer, so they tell me…' He gazed at the photo, then tucked it away. 'But what a world to bring babies into, eh? I wish my wife would do what your sister's done, and get the hell out of London. I keep thinking of the poor little buggers growing up, going to bed every night under the kitchen table and supposing it's normal…'

He buttoned up his pocket, and they stood for a time without speaking-reminded of London, the war, all of that. Viv grew conscious again, too, of the lavatory: it seemed much queerer to be standing beside it in silence than when Reggie was talking and grumbling and making her laugh… But he'd gone back to biting at the skin around his fingernail; soon he lowered his hand and folded his arms and gazed moodily at the floor. It was like the dimming-down of a light, she thought. She became aware, as if for the first time, of the roar and motion of the train, the ache in her legs and in the arches of her foot from standing rigid.

She changed her pose, made a movement, and he looked up.

'You're not going?'

'We ought to, oughtn't we? Somebody else will only try the door if we don't… Are you still thinking about the guard? Did you really lose your ticket?'

He looked away. 'I won't tell you a lie. I did have a travel warrant, but a bloke took it off me in a game of cards… But no, the guard can go hang himself for all I care. The truth is-' He looked embarassed again. 'Well, the truth is I don't want to go out and face all those bloody airmen. They look at me as though I'm an old man. I am an old man, compared to boys like that!'

He met her gaze, and blew out his cheeks. He said, tiredly and simply, 'I'm sick of being an old man, Viv. I'm sick of this bloody war. I've been on the move since Wednesday morning; I'm going to go home now and see my wife, we'll just about have time for an argument before I'll have to turn round and come back. Her sister'll be with her; she hates my guts. Her mother doesn't think much of me either. My little boy calls me “Uncle”; he sees more of the air raid warden than he does of me. I wouldn't be surprised if my wife does, too… The dog, at least, will be pleased I'm home-if the dog's still there. They were talking of having it shot, last I heard. Said the standing in line for horse-meat was getting them down…'

He rubbed his red-rimmed eyes again, and passed his hand over his chin. 'I need a bath,' he said. 'I need a shave. Next to those lumberjacks out there, I look like Charlie bloody Chaplin. But somehow-' He hesitated, then began to smile. 'Somehow I've got myself locked in a room with a glamour girl; the most gorgeous glamour girl I think I ever saw in my life. Let me enjoy it, just for a few more minutes. Don't make me open that door. I'm begging you. Look-'

His mood was lifting again already. He moved forward and gently took hold of her hand, raising her knuckles to his lips. The gesture was a corny one, yet had an edge of seriousness to it; and when she laughed, she laughed most in embarassment, because she was over-aware of his hand around hers: the maleness of it, the niceness of it, the squareness of the palm, the tufted fingers and the short hard nails. His chin was rough as sandpaper against her knuckles, but his mouth was soft.

He watched her laugh, as he had before; and smiled with pleasure. She saw again his straight white teeth. Later she'd say to herself, I fell in love with him teeth-first.

When she tried to think of the wife, the son, the baby, the home, that the train was speeding him towards, she couldn't do it. They might have been dreams to her, or ghosts; she was too young.

Tap-tap-tap, there came, outside Duncan 's bedroom window. Tap-tap-tap. And the queer thing was, he'd got used to sirens, to gunfire and bombs; but this noise, that was so little, like the pecking of a bird, woke him up and nearly frightened the life out of him. Tap-tap-tap… He put out his hand to the bedside table and switched on his torch; his hand was shaking, so that when he moved the beam of light to the window the shadows in the folds of the curtains seemed to bulge, as if the curtains were being pushed out from behind. Tap-tap-tap… Now it sounded less like the beak of a bird and more like a claw or a fingernail. Tap-tap-tap… He thought, for a second, of running to his dad.

Then he heard his name called, hoarsely: ' Duncan! Duncan! Wake up!'

He recognised the voice; and that changed everything. He threw off the covers, clambered quickly across the bed, and pulled back the curtain. Alec was there, at the next window-the window of the parlour, where Duncan slept at weekends. He was still tapping at the glass, still calling out for Duncan to wake up. But now he saw the light of Duncan's torch: he turned, and the beam of it struck his face-making him shrink back, screw up his eyes, put up his hand. His face looked yellowish, lit like that. His hair was combed back, greased flat to his head, and the fine, sharp lines of his brow and cheeks made hollow-looking shadows. He might have been a ghoul. He waited for Duncan to lower the torch, then came to his window and gestured madly to the catch: 'Open it up!'

Duncan lifted the sash. His hands were still shaking, and the sash kept sticking as it rose, the glass rattling in the frame. He moved it slowly, afraid of the noise.

'What's the matter?' he hissed, when the window was up.

Alec tried to see past him. 'What are you doing in there? I've been knocking at the other window.'

'Viv's not back. I'm sleeping in here. How long have you been there? You woke me up. You scared me to death! What's going on?'

'I've bloody well had it, Duncan, that's what,' said Alec, his voice rising. 'I've bloody well had it!'

There was the bursting of flares in the sky behind him, and a series of crackles. Duncan looked at the sky, growing afraid. He could only think that something dreadful must have happened to Alec's family, Alec's house. He said, 'What is it? What's happened?'

'I've bloody well had it!' Alec said again.

'Stop saying that! What do you mean? What's the matter with you?'

Alec twitched, as if forcing himself to be calm. 'My papers have come,' he said at last.

Duncan grew frightened, then, in a different way. He said, 'They can't have!'

'Well, they bloody well have! I'm not going, Duncan. They're not going to make me. I mean it. I mean it, and no-one believes me-'

He worked his mouth. There was the flash of another bomb, and more explosions. Duncan looked at the sky again. 'How long,' he asked, 'has the raid been on?' He must have slept right through the Warning. 'Did you come, through the raid?'

'I don't care about the bloody raid!' said Alec. 'I was glad when the raid started. I was hoping I'd get hit! I've been all down Mitcham Lane, right in the middle of the road.' He leaned over the sill and caught hold of Duncan 's arm. His hand was freezing. 'Come out with me, too.'

'Don't be daft,' said Duncan, pulling away. He glanced at the bedroom door. He was supposed to wake his father when a raid started up. They were supposed to go down the road to the public shelter. 'I should get my dad.'

Alec plucked at his arm. 'Do it in a bit. Come out with me first. I've got something to tell you.'

'What? Tell me now.'

'Come out.'

'It's too late. It's too cold.'

Alec drew his hand back, raised it to his mouth, and started biting at his fingers. 'Let me in, then,' he said, after a second. 'Let me in, with you.'

So Duncan moved away from the window and Alec hoisted himself on to the sill, working his knees and his feet over it and dropping into the room. He did it awkwardly, as he did anything like that-landing heavily, so that the floorboards thumped, and the bottles and jars on Viv's dressing-table rattled and skidded about.

Duncan drew down the sash and fixed the curtains. When he turned on the light, he and Alec blinked. The light made everything seemed weirder. It made it feel later, even, than it was. There might have been sickness in the house… Duncan had a sudden vivid memory of his mother, when she was ill: his father sending out for his auntie, and then for a doctor-people coming and going, murmuring, in the middle of the night; the excitement of it, turning to disaster…

He started to shiver with the cold. He put on his slippers and dressing-gown. As he tied the cord, he looked at what Alec was wearing: a zip-up jacket, dark flannel trousers, and dirty canvas shoes. He saw Alec's bare white bony ankles and said, 'You haven't got any socks on!'

Alec was still blinking against the light. 'I had to get dressed really fast,' he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 'I've been going mad, wanting to tell you! I went to Franklin 's this afternoon, looking for you, and you weren't there. Where were you?'

'To Franklin 's?' Duncan frowned. 'What time did you come?'

'I don't know. About four.'

'I was taking some parcels for Mr Manning. No-one said you'd been.'

'I didn't ask anyone, I just looked. I just walked in and looked around. No-one stopped me.'

'Why didn't you come after tea, tonight?'

Alec looked bitter. 'Why do you think? I got into a row with my bloody father. I got-' His voice grew high again. 'He bloody well hit me, Duncan! Look! Can you see?' He turned his head and showed Duncan his face. There was a faint red mark, high on his cheekbone. But his eyes, Duncan saw now, were redder than anything. He had been crying… He saw Duncan looking, and turned away again. 'He's a bloody brute,' he said quietly, as if ashamed.

'What did you do?'

'I told them I wasn't going to go, that they couldn't make me. I wouldn't have told them about the papers at all, except that the postman made such a thing out of it when he brought them. My mother got hold of the letter first. I said, “It's got my name on it, I can do what I want with it-”'

'What's it like? What does it say?'

'I've got it, look.'

He unzipped his jacket and brought out a buff-coloured envelope. Duncan sat on the bed beside him, so that he could see. The papers were addressed to A. J. C. Planer; they told him that, in accordance with the National Service Acts, he was called upon for service in the Territorial Army, and was required to present himself in two weeks' time to a Royal Artillery Training Regiment at Shoeburyness. There was information on how he should get there and what he should take; and a postal order for four shillings, in advance of service pay… The pages were stamped all over with dates and numbers-but were creased dreadfully, as if Alec had screwed them up then flattened them out again.

Duncan looked at the creases in horror. 'What have you done to them?'

'It doesn't matter, does it?'

'I don't know. They might- They might use it against you.'

'Use it against me? You sound like my mother! You don't think I'm going to go, do you? I've told you-' Alec took the papers back and, with a gesture of disgust, he crumpled them up and threw them to the floor; then, like a spring recoiling, he pounced on them again, unscrewed them, and tore them right across-even the postal order. 'There!' he said. His face was flushed, and he was shaking.

'Crumbs,' said Duncan, his horror turning to admiration. 'You've done it now, all right!'

'I told you, didn't I?'

'You're a bloody lunatic!'

'I'd rather be a lunatic,' said Alec, tossing his head, 'than do what they want me to do. They're the lunatics. They're making lunatics of everybody else, and no-one's stopping them, everyone's acting as if it's ordinary. As if it's an ordinary thing, that they make a soldier of you, give you a gun.' He got up, and agitatedly smoothed back his already greased-down hair. 'I can't stand it any more. I'm getting out of it, Duncan.'

Duncan stared at him. 'You're not going to register as a conchy?'

Alec snorted. 'I don't mean that. That's as bad as the other thing. Having to stand in a room and say your piece, in front of all those strangers? Why should I have to do that? What's it to anybody else, if I won't fight? Anyway,' he added, 'my bloody father would kill me.'

'What do you mean, then?'

Alec put his hand to his mouth and began to bite at his fingers again. He held Duncan's gaze. 'Can't you tell?'

He said it with a sort of suppressed excitement-as if, despite everything, wanting to laugh. Duncan felt his heart seem to shrink in his breast. 'You're not- You're not running away?'

Alec wouldn't answer.

'You can't run away! It's not fair! You can't do it. You haven't got anything with you. You'd need money, you'd need coupons, you'd need to buy food. Where would you go? You're not- You're not going to go to Ireland, are you?' They'd talked, before, about doing that. But they'd talked about doing it together. 'They've got ways of finding you, even in Ireland.'

'I don't care,' said Alec, suddenly furious, 'about fucking Ireland! I don't care what happens to me. I'm not going to go, that's all. Do you know what they do to you?' He turned down the corners of his mouth. 'They do filthy things! Handling you all over, looking at you-up your arse and between your legs. A row of them, Michael Warren said: a row of old men, looking you over. It's disgusting. Old men! It's all right for them. It's all right for my father, and your father. They've had their lives; they want to take our lives from us. They had one war, and now they've made another one. They don't care that we're young. They want to make us old like them. They don't care that it's not our quarrel-'

His voice was rising. 'Stop shouting!' said Duncan.

'They want to kill us!'

'Shut up, can't you!'

Duncan was thinking of the people upstairs, and of his father. His father was deaf as a bloody post; but he had a sort of radar in him, where Alec was concerned… Alec stopped talking. He kept on biting at his fingers, but started pacing around the room. Outside, the sounds of the raid had grown worse-had drawn together into a deep, low throb. The glass in Duncan's window started, very slightly, to vibrate.

'I'm getting out of it,' said Alec again, as he paced. 'I'm getting out. I mean it.'

'You're not running away,' said Duncan firmly. 'It's just not fair.'

'Nothing's fair any more.'

'You can't. You can't leave me in Streatham, with bloody Eddie Parry, and Rodney Mills, and boys like that-'

'I'm getting out. I've had it.'

'You could- Alec!' said Duncan, suddenly excited. 'You could stay here! I could hide you here! I could bring you food and water.'

'Here?' Alec looked around, frowning. 'Where would I hide?'

'You could hide in a cupboard, somewhere like that, I don't know. You'd only have to do it while my dad was here. And then on the nights when Viv was away, you could come out. You could sleep in with me. You could do it, even while Viv was here. She wouldn't mind. She'd help us. You'd be like-like the Count of Monte Cristo!' Duncan thought about it. He thought about making up plates of food-keeping back the meat, the tea and the sugar, from his own ration. He thought about secretly sharing his bed with Alec, every single night…

But Alec looked doubtful. 'I don't know. It would have to be for months and months, wouldn't it? It would have to be till the end of the war. And you'll get your papers, too, next year. You'll get them sooner, if they put the age down. You might get them in July! What would we do then?'

'It's ages till July,' answered Duncan. 'Anything could happen between now and July. We'll probably get blown up, by July!'

Alec shook his head again. 'We won't,' he said bitterly. 'I know we won't. I wish we would! Instead, it's kids and old ladies and babies and stupid people who die-stupid people who don't mind the war. Boys who are too stupid to mind being soldiers, too stupid to see that the war's not their war but a load of government men's… It's not our war, either; we have to suffer in it, though. We have to do the things they tell us. They don't even tell us the truth! They haven't told us about Birmingham. Everybody knows that Birmingham 's been practically burned to the ground. How many other towns and cities are like that? They won't tell us about the weapons Hitler's got, the rockets and gas. Horrible gas, that doesn't kill you but makes your skin come off; gas that does a thing to your brain, to make a sort of robot of you, so that Hitler can take you and turn you into a slave… He's going to put us all in camps, do you know that? He's going to make us work in mines and factories, the men all digging and working machines, the women having babies; he'll make us go to bed with women, one after the other, just to make them pregnant. And all the old men and old ladies he'll just kill. He's done it in Poland. He's probably done it in Belgium and Holland, too. They don't tell us that. It isn't fair! We never wanted to go to war. There ought to be a place for people like us. They ought to let the stupid people fight, and everybody else-everyone who cares about important things, things like the Arts, things like that-they ought to be allowed to go and live somewhere on their own, and to hell with Hitler-'

He kicked at one of Duncan's shoes; then went back to walking about and biting at his hands. He bit madly, moving his hand when one patch of skin or nail was gnawed, and starting on another. His gaze grew fixed, but on nothing. His face had whitened again, and his red-rimmed eyes seemed to blaze like a lunatic's.

Duncan thought of his father again. He imagined what his father would think if he could see Alec like this. That boy's bloody crackers, he'd said to Duncan more than once. That boy needs to grow up. He's a waste of bloody time. He'll put ideas in your bloody head, that boy will-

'Stop biting your fingers like that, will you?' he said uneasily. 'You look dotty.'

'Dotty?' hissed Alec. 'I shouldn't be surprised if I go off my bloody head! I got so worked up tonight I thought I was going to be sick. I had to wait for them all to go to sleep. Then I thought there was someone in the house. I could hear men, moving about-footsteps, and whispers. I thought my father had fetched the police.'

Duncan was appalled. 'He wouldn't do that, would he?'

'He might. That's how much he hates me.'

'In the middle of the night?'

'Of course then!' said Alec impatiently. 'That's just when they do come! Don't you know that? It's when you least expect them to-'

Abruptly, they stopped talking. Duncan looked at the door-remembering his mother's illness again; feeling weird again; half-expecting to hear the sound of people creeping about in the hall… What he heard instead was the steady throb of aircraft, the monotonous crump-crump of bombs, followed by the slither of soot in the chimney-breast.

He looked back at Alec; and grew more unnerved than ever. For Alec had lowered his hands at last, and seemed suddenly unnaturally calm. He met Duncan's gaze, and made some slightly theatrical gesture-shrugged his narrow shoulders, turned his head, showed his fine, handsome profile.

'This is wasting time,' he said, as if casually.

'What is?' asked Duncan, afraid. 'What do you mean?'

'I told you, didn't I? I'd rather be dead than do what they want me to do. I'd rather die than have them put a gun in my hand and make me shoot some German boy who feels just like I do. I'm getting out. I'm going to do it, before they do it to me.'

'But, do what?' Duncan asked him, stupidly.

Alec made the theatrical gesture again-as if to say, it was nothing to him, one way or the other. 'I'm going to kill myself,' he said.

Duncan stared at him. 'You can't!'

'Why not?'

'You just can't. It's not fair. What- What will your mother think?'

Alec coloured. 'That's her hard luck, isn't it? She shouldn't have married my oaf of a father. He'll be pleased, anyway. He wants to see me dead.'

Duncan wasn't listening. He was thinking it through and growing tearful. He said, 'But, what about me?' His voice sounded strangled. 'It'll be harder on me than on any of them, you know it will! You're my best friend. You can't kill yourself and leave me here.'

'Do it too, then,' said Alec.

He said it quietly. Duncan was wiping his nose on his sleeve, and wasn't sure he'd heard him properly. He said, 'What?'

'Do it too,' said Alec again.

They looked at each other. Alec's face had flushed pinker than ever; he'd drawn back his lips, unguardedly, in a nervous smile, and his crooked teeth were showing. He moved closer to Duncan and put his hands on his shoulders, so that he was facing Duncan squarely, only the length of a curved arm away. He gripped Duncan hard, almost shook him. He looked right into his eyes and said excitedly, 'It'll show them, won't it? Think how it'll look! We can leave a letter, saying why we've done it! We'll be two young people, giving up our lives. It'll get into the papers. It'll get everywhere! It might bloody well stop the war!'

'Do you think it would?' asked Duncan-excited too, suddenly; impressed and flattered; wanting to believe it, but still afraid.

'Why wouldn't it?'

'I don't know. Young people are dying all the time. That hasn't changed anything. Why should it be different with us?'

'You chump,' said Alec, curling his lip, drawing off his hands and moving away. 'If you can't see- If you're not up to it- If you're windy-'

'I didn't say that.'

'-I'll do it on my own.'

'I won't let you do it on your own!' said Duncan. 'I told you, you're not going to leave me.'

Alec came back. 'Help me write the letter, then,' he said, excited again. 'We can write it- Look.' He stooped and picked up one of the torn-off halves of the call-up paper. 'We can write it on the back of this. It'll be symbolic. Give me a pen, will you?'

Duncan 's leather writing-case was on the floor, beside the bed. Automatically, Duncan took a step towards it; then checked himself. He went instead, as if casually, to the mantelpiece, picked up a pencil, and held it out. But Alec wouldn't take it. 'Not that,' he said. 'They'll think a bloody kid wrote it, if I use that! Let me have your fountain pen.'

Duncan blinked and looked away. 'It isn't in here.'

'You bloody liar, I know it is!'

'It's just,' said Duncan, 'if a pen's any good, you're not suppose to let other people use it.'

'You always say that! It doesn't matter now, does it?'

'I don't want you to, that's all. Use the pencil. My sister bought me that pen.'

'She'll be proud of you, then,' said Alec. 'They'll probably put that pen in some sort of frame, after they find us! Think of it like that. Come on, Duncan.'

Duncan hesitated a little longer, then reluctantly unzipped the writing-case and drew out his pen. Alec was always badgering him for a go with this pen, and he took it from Duncan now with obvious relish: making a business of unscrewing the lid, examining the nib, testing the weight of the pen in his hand. He took the writing-case too, then sat down on the edge of the bed with the case on his knee, and he smoothed out the paper, trying to press the creases from it. When he'd got it as flat as he could, he started to write.

'To whom it may concern…' He looked at Duncan. 'Shall I put that? Or shall I put, To Mr Winston Churchill?'

Duncan thought it over. 'To whom it may concern sounds better,' he said. 'And it might be to Hitler and Goering and Mussolini then, too.'

'That's true,' said Alec, liking the idea. He thought for a second, sucking at his lip, tapping with the pen against his mouth; and then wrote more. He wrote swiftly, stylishly-like Keats or like Mozart, Duncan thought-dashing the nib with little flourishes across the paper, pausing to frown over what he had put, then writing stylishly again…

When he'd finished, he passed the letter over to Duncan, and gnawed at his knuckle while Duncan read.

To whom it may concern. If you are reading this, it means that we, Alec J.C. Planer and Duncan W. Pearce, of Streatham, London, England, have succeeded in our intentions and are no more. We do not undertake this deed lightly. We know that the country we are about to enter is that “dark, undiscovered one” from which “no traveller returns”. But we do what we are about to do on behalf of the Youth of England, and in the name of Liberty, Honesty and Truth. We would rather take our own lives freely, than have them stolen from us by the Pedlars of War. We ask for one epitaph only, and it is this: that, like the great T.E. Lawrence, we “drew the tides of men into our hands, and wrote our will across the sky in stars.”

Duncan gazed at Alec in amazement. He said, 'That's bloody wizard!'

Alec flushed. He said, as if shyly, 'D'you really think so? I thought of some of it, you know, on my way here.'

'You're a genius!'

Alec started to laugh. The laugh came out as a sort of giggle, like a girl's. 'It is all right, isn't it? It'll bloody well show them, anyway!' He held out his hand. 'Give it back, though, for me to sign. Then you sign it, too.'

They added their names, and then the date. Alec raised the page up and looked it over, tilting his head. 'This date,' he said, 'will become like the ones we learned in school. Isn't that a funny thought? Isn't it funny to think of kids being made to remember it, in a hundred years' time?'

'Yes,' said Duncan, vaguely… He'd thought of something else, and was only half listening. As Alec smoothed out the paper again he asked diffidently, 'Can't we put something in it for our families, too, Alec?'

Alec curled his lip. 'Our families! Of course we can't, don't be stupid.'

'I'm thinking of Viv. She'll be bloody upset by all this.'

'I told you,' said Alec, 'she'll be proud of you. They all will. Even my father will. He calls me a bloody coward. I'd like to see his face when this gets into the papers! We'll be like-like martyrs!' He grew thoughtful. 'All we need to do now is decide on how we're going to do it… I suppose we could gas ourselves.'

'Gas!' said Duncan in horror. 'That'll take too long, won't it? That'll take ages. And anyway, the gas will get out, we might end up gassing my father. He's an old sod but, you know, that wouldn't be very fair.'

'It wouldn't be sporting,' said Alec.

'It wouldn't be cricket, old chap.'

They began to laugh. They laughed so hard, they had to cover their mouths with their hands. Alec fell back on to the bed and buried his face in Duncan's pillow. He said, still laughing, 'We could poison ourselves. We could eat arsenic. Like that old tart, Madame Bovary.'

'An admirable plan, Mr Holmes,' said Duncan in a silly voice, 'but one with one substantial flaw. My father keeps no arsenic in the house.'

'No arsenic? And you call this a modern, well-appointed establishment? What about rat-poison, pray?'

'No rat-poison, either. Anyway-wouldn't poison hurt like billy-oh?'

'It's going to hurt like billy-oh, you imbecile, whatever we do. It wouldn't be a gesture if it didn't hurt.'

'Even so-'

Alec had stopped laughing. He lay thinking for a second, then sat up. 'How about,' he said seriously, 'if we drown ourselves? We'd see our life flash before our eyes. Not that I want to see mine, my life's been lousy-'

Duncan said, 'I'd see my mother again.'

'There you are. A man should see his mother before he dies. You can ask her why the hell she married your father.'

They laughed again. 'But, how could we do it?' asked Duncan at last. 'We'd have to find a canal or something.'

'No, we wouldn't. You can drown in four inches of water; I thought everybody knew that. It's a scientific fact. Don't you keep your bath filled up in this house, against fire?'

Duncan looked at him. 'Bloody hell, you're right!'

'Let's do it, D.P.!'

They got to their feet. 'Bring the letter,' said Duncan, 'and a drawing-pin.-Wait! Let me comb my hair.'

'The man wants to comb his hair,' said Alec, 'at a time like this!'

'Shut up!'

'Go ahead, Leslie Howard.'

Duncan stood at the dressing-table mirror and quickly tidied himself up. Then, as quietly as they could, he and Alec went out of the bedroom and down the hall, through the parlour and into the kitchen. The doors were open, in case of blast; Duncan closed them, very softly. He could hear his father as he did it, snoring his head off. Alec whispered, 'Your father sounds like a Messerschmit!'-and that set them off laughing, all over again.

They put the kitchen light on. The shadeless bulb was rather weak, and made the room spring into life in flat, drab colours: the stained white of the sink, the grey and yellow of the patched linoleum floor, the brown-as-gravy of the woodwork… The bath was next to the kitchen table, against the wall; Duncan's father had boxed it in with more gravy-coloured wood, years before, and made a cover for it. The cover was used as a draining-board: it had bits of crockery on it, and some of Duncan's and his father's underwear, soaking in soda in a big zinc pail. Duncan blushed when he saw this, and quickly moved the pail aside. Alec moved the crockery, piece by piece, to the kitchen table.

Then they each took an end of the bath cover and lifted it off.

The water beneath was left over from a bath that Duncan's father had taken days before. It was cloudy, and filled with little hairs-coarse, curling hairs, more embarassing even than the underwear, so that Duncan took one look at them and had to turn away. He made fists of his hands. If his father had been before him now, he would have punched him. 'That swine!' he said.

'There's about enough, anyway,' said Alec dubiously. 'How will we do it, though? We can't both lie in it at once… I suppose we could hold each other's heads in?'

The thought of putting his face in that filthy water, that had sloshed round his father's feet, his private parts, his arse, made Duncan want to be sick. 'I don't want to,' he said.

'Well, I don't, much,' Alec answered. 'But look here, we can't afford to be choosy.'

'Let's make it gas, after all, and risk it.'

'Shall we?'

'Yes.'

'All right. Or- Crikey, I've got it!' Alec snapped his fingers. 'Let's hang ourselves!'

The idea was almost a relief. Duncan didn't mind what they did, now, so long as it didn't involve his father's bath-water. They put the draining-board cover back in place, then looked about, at the walls and ceiling, in search of hooks, something to tie ropes to. They decided at last that the pulley of the laundry-rack would take the weight of one of them; the other could hang himself, they thought, from the coat-hook on the back of the kitchen door.

'Have you got any rope?' asked Alec next.

'I've got this,' said Duncan, with a flash of inspiration. He meant the cord of his dressing-gown. He untied it, pulled it out of its loops, and tested the strength of it with his hands. 'I think it'll hold me.'

'That's you taken care of, then. What about me? You haven't got another, I suppose?'

'I've got plenty of belts and things like that. I've got plenty of ties.'

'A tie would do it.'

'Shall I go and get one? What kind do you want?'

Alec frowned. 'A black one, I suppose.-No! The one with the blue and gold stripe. That looks like a university tie.'

'What difference does that make?'

'There might be photographs. It'll make more of an impression.'

'All right,' said Duncan reluctantly-for, as it happened, he felt about that particular tie more or less as he'd felt about his fountain pen: that it was a good one, and belonged to him; and what was the point of using one like that, when an ordinary one would do? But he wouldn't argue about it now. He went quietly back through the parlour and hall, into the bedroom, and got the tie out. He could hear his father, still snoring, and he stood for a second in the darkness, with the tie in his hand-half wanting to go in and give his father a kicking, to scream and yell into his face. You bloody old fool! I'm going to kill myself! I'm going to go out to the kitchen and actually do it! Wake up, can't you?

His father snored on. Duncan went softly back out to Alec. 'My old man sounds like a bloody Hurricane now!' he said, as he closed the kitchen door.

But Alec didn't answer. He'd put the dressing-gown cord down and was standing at the sink, half-turned away. He'd picked something up from beside the taps.

' Duncan,' he said, in a queer, low voice. 'Look at this.'

He had Duncan 's father's old-fashioned razor in his hand. He'd drawn out the blade, and was gazing at it as if mesmerized-as if he had to tear his eyes away from it to look at Duncan. He said, 'I'm going to use this. That's what I'm going to do. You can hang yourself if you like. But I'm going to use this. It's better than a rope. It's quicker, and cleaner. I'm going to cut my throat.'

'Your throat?' said Duncan. He looked at Alec's slender white neck-at the cords in it, and the Adam's apple, that seemed hard, not soft like something you could slice through…

'It's sharp, isn't it?' Alec put his finger to the blade-then quickly drew the finger back and sucked it. 'God!' He laughed. 'It's sharp as anything. It won't hurt at all, if we do it quick enough.'

'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm sure. It's how they kill animals, isn't it? I'm going to do it, right now. You'll have to go second. Will you mind? There might be a bit of mess, I'm afraid. The best thing will be, not to look too hard. If only we had two of them! Then we could do it at the same time… Look.' He gestured with the razor to the bit of paper he'd written their letter on. 'Be a good chap and pin that letter to the wall. Somewhere they'll see it.'

Duncan picked up the letter and the pin; but glanced anxiously at the razor. He said, 'Don't do it while my back's turned, will you?' He was afraid to look away… He gazed quickly about for a place, and ended up fixing the note to the door of a cupboard. 'Is that all right?'

Alec nodded. 'Yes, that's good.'

He'd begun to grow breathless. He was still holding the open razor as if simply madly admiring it; but now, as Duncan watched, he grasped its handle more firmly in his two hands, lifted the blade and put it tight against his throat. He put it just below the bend of his right jaw, where the skin was quivering because of the pulse.

Duncan took an involuntary step towards him. He said nervously, 'You're not going to do it straight away?'

Alec's eyelids fluttered. 'I'm going to do it in just a minute.'

'How does it feel?'

'It feels OK.'

'Are you scared?'

'A bit,' said Alec. 'How about you? You've gone white as a sheet! Don't faint, before it's your turn.' He changed his grip on the handle of the razor. He closed his eyes, and stood still… Then, with his eyes shut tight, and in a slightly different voice from before, he said, 'What will you miss, Duncan?'

Duncan bit his lip. 'I don't know. Nothing! No, I'll miss Viv… What about you?'

'I'll miss books,' said Alec, 'and music and art, and fine buildings'-so that Duncan wished that he'd said that too, instead of his sister. 'But those things are all gone, anyway. A year from now, people will start to forget that there ever were those things.'

He opened his eyes, and swallowed, then changed his hold again. Duncan could see that his fingers were sweating; he could see the marks they left on the razor's tortoiseshell handle. He didn't want Alec to do it, now. The whole thing had raced forward too quickly. Again he almost wished that his father would wake up, come out, and stop them. What was the point of having a father, if he let you do things like this? He said-as a way of keeping Alec talking; as a way of stringing everything out-'What do you think will happen to us, Alec, after we die?'

Alec thought about it, with the blade still close to his throat. Then, 'Nothing,' he said quietly. 'We'll just go out, like lights do. There can't be anything else. There can't be a God. A God would've stopped the war! There can't be a heaven or a hell or anything like that. This is hell, where we are… And if there is a place, then we'll be there together, anyway.' He held Duncan's gaze, with his blazing red-rimmed eyes. 'That would be the worst thing, wouldn't it?' he said simply. 'To be there on your own?'

Duncan nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, that would be awful.'

Alec drew in his breath. The pulse in his neck began to beat more quickly, to almost jump against the blade. But when he spoke, he spoke as if casually, so that Duncan thought he was joking, and almost laughed. He said, 'See you then, Duncan.' And he tightened his grip and raised his elbows, as if about to swing a bat; and then he cut.

'It's this way,' the warden was saying. Kay and Mickey followed him, carefully, over the rubble.

The rubble, until very recently, had been a four-storey terraced Pimlico house. The house appeared, in the almost-darkness, to have been neatly plucked from its socket. A woman had been killed outright by the blast; her body had already been removed, by another driver. But a girl was still caught by her legs in the rubble; the Rescue and Demolition workers were planning to set up a hoist to lift the beams that were pinning her. They couldn't do that, however, until they'd brought out another woman and a boy who were thought to be trapped in the basement.

'We've sent for lights,' the warden said, 'but the fellows have been digging for half an hour. One's managed to get himself pretty badly cut.'

'How long,' Kay asked, 'before they get to the basement?'

'I'd say, an hour. Maybe two.'

'And the girl who's caught?'

'Yes, take a look at her, will you? She seems all right, but that might be shock, I don't know. She's over there. One of the men is with her, keeping her spirits up.'

He showed Kay where to walk. She left Mickey to see to the man who'd got cut, and began to pick her way to the back of the site. Her steps broke glass; once a board gave way beneath her and she sank into a mess of plaster and wood almost to the thigh. The crack of the board as it snapped was a sharp one, and she heard a girl cry out at the sound.

'It's all right,' said someone, softly. Kay flipped up her torch and made out the figure of a man, squatting on the rubble twenty feet away. He had his arms on his knees, his ARP helmet pushed matily back; he saw Kay coming, and lifted his hand. 'Ambulance? We're here. Watch out for the doo-dah, look.' He gestured to an object in her path: pale, gleaming, queerly shaped. It took her a moment to realise that it was a lavatory. 'Been blown clean out of its moorings,' said the man, straightening up. 'Lost its seat, though.'

He reached forward, to help guide Kay over the last stretch of chaos; and as she drew nearer to him she noticed something at his feet. She took it to be a heap of curtains or bedclothes, at first; but now, as she watched, the bedclothes seemed to billow or bulge, as if inflated from beneath; and an arm and a white face showed-showed as palely, almost, as the displaced lavatory. It was the girl who was trapped. She was covered in a film of plaster, and buried to the waist by a mess of beams and bricks. She was pushing herself up by her arms, to look at Kay. Kay went to her side and squatted, as the man had.

'I say, you are in a fix.' She gave the man a nod, and he went off.

The girl put her hand on Kay's ankle. 'Please,' she said, 'can you tell me?' Her voice was gritty, and light with fear. She coughed. 'Are they coming to get me out?'

'They are,' said Kay, 'just as soon as they can. Right now, however, I have to see if you're all right. May I feel for your pulse?' She took the girl's powdery arm. The pulse was quick, but pretty strong. 'There. And now, will you mind very much if I just shine this torch into your eyes? It won't take a moment.'

She put her fingers to the girl's chin, to steady her face. The girl blinked in apprehension. The rims and corners of her eyes were pink as a rabbit's against the white of the plaster dust. Her pupils shrank from the probing of the light. She seemed young, but not as young as Kay had thought her at first; perhaps twenty-four or -five. She turned her head before the beam of the torch was lowered, and tried to peer across the site.

'What are they doing?' she asked, of the men.

'They think there might be people,' Kay told her, 'a woman and a boy, trapped in the basement of your house.'

'Madeleine, and Tony?'

'Are those their names? Are they friends of yours?'

'Madeleine is Mrs Finch's daughter.'

'Mrs Finch?'

'My landlady. She-'

She didn't go on. Kay guessed that Mrs Finch was the woman who'd been killed. She began to feel the girl's arms and shoulders. 'Can you tell me,' she said as she did it, 'if you think you might be injured?'

The girl swallowed, and coughed again. 'I don't know.'

'Can you move your legs?'

'I think I could, a minute ago. I don't like to try, in case it topples the stuff and it crushes me.'

'Can you feel your feet?'

'I don't know. They're cold. It is just the cold, isn't it? What else could it be? It's not something worse, is it?'

She'd begun to shiver. She was dressed in what must have been a nightdress and dressing-gown, but the ARP man had put a blanket across her shoulders for extra warmth. Kay drew the blanket tighter, then looked around for something else. She found what might have been a bath-sheet; but it was sodden, and black with soot. She threw it away, then saw a cushion, its horsehair stuffing spilling from a gash in its velvet case. She put this against the girl's side, where she thought the sharp edges of rubble might be cutting or pressing against her.

The girl didn't notice. She was peering across the site again. She said, in an agitated way, 'What's that? Have they switched on lights? Tell them they mustn't!'

A lorry had come, bringing a single lamp and a little generator, and the R and D men had fitted them up and set them running. They'd tried to keep the lamp dim by stretching a square of tarpaulin above it; but light was leaking across the site, changing the look and the feel of things. Kay glanced about and saw quite plainly objects which, a moment before, had baffled her eye: an ironing-board with broken legs, a bucket, a little box to which someone had pasted shells… The lavatory lost its nacreous glamour and showed its stains. The walls of the houses rising up on either side of the heap of rubble were revealed to be not walls at all, but open rooms, with beds and chairs and tables and fireplaces in them, all intact.

'Tell them to turn off the lights!' the girl was still saying; but she was looking around, too, as Kay was-as if understanding, for the first time, the nature of the chaos in which she was trapped; perhaps seeing fragments of her old life in it… Then, 'Oh!' she said. The men had begun to hammer. She shuddered with every thud. 'What are they doing?'

'They have to work quickly,' said Kay. 'There might be gas, or water, you see, filling up the basement.'

'Gas or water?' asked the girl, as if not understanding. Then she winced, as another thud came. She must have been able to feel the blows through the rubble… She began to cry. She rubbed at her face, and the plaster grew thick with her tears. Kay touched her shoulder.

'Are you in pain?'

The girl shook her head. 'I can't tell. I don't think so. It's just- I'm so frightened.'

She put both her hands across her eyes and at last grew silent and almost still. When she took the hands away and spoke again her voice had changed, she sounded calmer, and older. 'What a coward you must think me,' she said.

Kay said gently, 'Not at all.'

The girl wiped her eyes and nose on a corner of the blanket. She made a face against the taste and the feel of the grit on her tongue. She said, 'I don't suppose you could give me a cigarette?'

'I'm afraid I can't, while there might be gas.'

'Of course not… Oh!' The men were hammering again. She held herself rigid.

Kay watched, growing rigid too, in sympathy. 'I think you must be in pain,' she said at last. 'There's a doctor coming. You must be brave just a little bit longer.'

Then they both turned their heads. Mickey was making her way towards them, her boots making boards crack, as Kay's had.

'Blimey!' she said, seeing the lavatory. Then she made out the figure of the girl. 'Blimey again! You are in trouble.'

'You'll forgive us,' Kay said to her, 'if we don't get up?' She turned back to the girl. 'This is my great friend, Miss Iris Carmichael. Did you ever see anything less like an iris in your life? Be nice to her, and she might let you call her Mickey.'

The girl was looking up, blinking. Mickey crouched and took her hand, squeezing her fingers. 'Not broken? Glad to hear it… How do you do?'

'Not so well just now,' said Kay, when Mickey got no answer. 'But soon to be better. But, what a rotten hostess I am!' She turned back to the girl. 'I never took the trouble to find out your name.'

The girl swallowed. She said awkwardly, 'It's Giniver.'

'Jennifer?'

The girl shook her head. 'Giniver. Helen Giniver.'

'Helen Giniver,' repeated Kay, as if trying it out. Then: 'Mrs, or Miss?'

Mickey laughed. She said softly, 'Give the girl a break.'

But, 'Miss,' said Helen, not understanding.

Kay shook her hand, as Mickey had, and introduced herself. Helen looked into her face, then turned to Mickey. 'I thought you were a boy,' she said, beginning to cough again.

'Everyone does,' answered Mickey. 'I'm used to it. Here, have some water.'

She had brought a flask. While Helen drank, Kay fished out an injury label from her jacket pocket, and filled in various details; she attached the label to Helen's collar. 'There. Just like a parcel, you see?' Then she and Mickey stood up for a moment, to watch the men at work on the demolition.

The men moved with what seemed maddening slowness: for there was something queer, Mickey said, about the way the house had fallen, and it made the job a stickier one than they'd supposed. But at last they put their hammers aside and fixed ropes to a flattened section of wall, and began to pull. The wall was raised, and stood eerily upright for a moment; then the ropes tugged it backwards and it toppled and broke, sending out a new cloud of dust.

In the patch of freshly-exposed ground there seemed only more rubble and a mess of twisted pipes; but a man moved quickly forward to the pipes, took up a brick, and gave a series of taps on the lead. He held up his hand. Another man called, sharply, for silence. The little generator was switched off, and the scene grew dark again, and still. There was the drone, of course, of aeroplanes, the thudding of the guns from Hyde Park and elsewhere; but those sounds had been there, it seemed incessantly, for the past six months: you filtered them out, Kay found, as you filtered out the roaring of the blood in your own ears.

The man with the brick said something too low for Kay to catch. He gave another tap on the pipes… And then, very faintly, there came a cry-like the mewing of a cat, from beneath the rubble.

Kay had heard such sounds before: they were thrilling and unnerving, much more so than the sight of blasted limbs and mucked-up bodies. They made her shiver. She let out her breath. The site had grown noisy and alive again, as if in response to some small electric charge. The generator was started up, and the light switched back on. The men moved in and began to work with a new kind of purpose.

A car drew up, bumping over the broken road, a white cross gleaming from its bonnet. Mickey went to meet it. Kay hesitated, then squatted again at Helen's side.

Helen was bracing herself awkwardly against the rubble. She'd been straining to listen, too. 'Those voices,' she said, 'that was Madeleine and Tony, wasn't it? Are they all right?'

'We hope they are.'

'They will be, won't they? But how can they be? Mrs Finch-' She shook her head. 'I saw them taking her away, before you came. We'd been out in the kitchen. She wanted her glasses, that was all. I said I'd run up and get them for her. They were on the table, beside her bed. I had them, right here-' She held up her hand and looked at her palm, then gazed around, as if suddenly bewildered. 'She didn't want me to go,' she said. 'She wanted Tony to do it, she wanted Tony to go-'

Her voice had begun to shake. She looked at Kay, her eyes wide open. Then, 'Listen,' she said suddenly. 'Listen, would you mind very much if I were to hold your hand?'

'Mind?' said Kay, moved by the simplicity of the request. 'Good heavens! I would have offered it at the start; only, you know, I didn't want to seem forward.'

She took hold of Helen's fingers and began to chafe them between her own; then she raised them, and breathed on them-breathed slowly, steadily, on the knuckles and the palm.

Helen kept her gaze on her face as she did it, her eyes still wide. She said, 'You must be so brave. You and your friend. I could never be brave like that.'

'Nonsense,' said Kay, still chafing her hand. '-Is that better? It's easier to be out in the fuss, that's all, than sitting home listening to it.'

Helen's fingers were chill and dusty in her own, but the palm and the pads of the fingertips were soft, yielding. Kay pressed them harder, then let them go. 'Here's the doctor,' she said, hearing cracking boards again. And she added quietly: 'That was a secret, by the way, about its being easier to be out.'

The doctor was a brisk, handsome woman of forty-five or so. She was dressed in dungarees and a turban. 'Hello,' she said, seeing Helen, 'what have we here?'

Kay moved away while the woman squatted at Helen's side. She heard her murmur, and caught Helen's replies: 'No… I don't know… A little… Thank you…'

'Impossible to tell the extent of the trouble,' said the doctor, joining Kay again, wiping dust from her hands, 'until the legs are freed. I don't think there's any blood loss, but she seems pretty feverish, which might be from pain. I've given her a shot of morphia, take her mind off things.' She stretched, and grimaced.

Kay asked, 'Bad night?'

'You might say that. Nine dead from a shell on Victoria Street, four gone at Chelsea. Two here, I gather? We were told this blasted woman and her boy would be out for us to take a look at; no time to hang about now. There's a chap with his hands blown off, apparently, over in Vauxhall.'

As she spoke, a demolition man called out that there was no more fear of gas, and automatically she reached into her pocket and brought out a packet of cigarettes. She opened it up, and held it out.

'Give me two, could you?' said Kay.

'You've a nerve.'

Kay laughed. 'The first's for me; the other's medicinal.' She lit them both from the woman's lighter, and went back to Helen. 'Hey,' she said gently, 'look what I have.'

She put a cigarette between Helen's lips, then took one of her hands and held it, simply, as before. Helen's eyes, as she narrowed them against the smoke, were darker, and her voice had changed again.

'How kind you are,' she said.

'Don't mention it.'

'I seem to be drunk. How can that be?'

'It's the morphia, I expect.'

'How nice that doctor was!'

'Yes, wasn't she?'

'Should you like to be a doctor?'

'Not much,' said Kay. 'Should you?'

'I know a boy who means to be one.'

'Yes?'

'A boy I was in love with.'

'Ah.'

'He threw me over for another girl.'

'Silly chap.'

'He's gone into the army now… You're not in love with anyone, are you?'

'No,' said Kay. 'Someone's in love with me, as it happens. A grand person, too… But that's another secret. I'm thinking of the morphia, you see. I'm counting on your not being able to remember any of this.'

'Why is it a secret?'

'I promised the person it would be, that's all.'

'But you won't love him back?'

Kay smiled. 'You'd think I would, wouldn't you? But, isn't it funny-we never seem to love the people we ought to, I can't think why…'

'Don't let go of my hand, will you?'

'Never.'

'Are you holding it? I can't feel it.'

'There! Do you feel that?'

'Yes, I feel that. Keep it like that, will you? Just like that.'

They smoked in silence, and presently Helen seemed to doze: the cigarette smouldered forgotten in her hand, so Kay took it gently from her fingers and smoked the last of it herself. The demolition work went on. From time to time the drone of planes and the thump of shells grew louder; there were spectacular flashes in the sky, green and red, and tumbling flares. Now and then Mickey came over, to sit beside Kay and to yawn. Two or three times Helen stirred, and mumbled, or spoke quite clearly: 'Are you there?' 'I can't see you.' 'Where are you?'

'I'm here,' Kay answered, every time, and squeezed her hand a little harder.

'She'll be yours for life,' said Mickey.

And then, finally, the demolition work revealed a fallen staircase, and when this was raised by a winch the woman and her son were found beneath it, almost perfectly unharmed. The boy came out first-head-first, as he must have come out of the womb; but rigid, dry, dusty, his hair an old man's. He and his mother stood quite stunned. 'Where's Mum?' Kay heard the woman say. Mickey went to them with blankets, and Kay got to her feet.

Helen felt her move, and woke, and reached for her. 'What is it?'

'Madeleine and Tony are freed.'

'Are they all right?'

'They seem to be. Can you see? Now the men will come and free you.'

Helen shook her head. 'Don't leave me. Please!'

'I have to go.'

'Please don't.'

'I must go, so the men can free you.'

'I'm afraid of it!'

'I have to drive the woman and her son to the hospital.'

'Your friend can do it, can't she?'

Kay laughed. 'Look here, do you want to get me chucked out of the service?'

She put her hand to Helen's head, to brush back the dusty hair from her brow. She did it casually enough; but the sight of Helen's anxious expression-the large, darkened eyes, above the plaster-white cheeks-made her hesitate.

'Just a second,' she said. 'You must look your best, for the R and D men.'

She ran to Mickey, and returned to Helen with the flask of water. She fished out her handkerchief, and wet it; and began, very gently, to wipe the dust from Helen's face. She started at her brow, and worked downwards. 'Just close your eyes,' she murmured. She brushed at Helen's lashes, and then at the little dints at the side of her nose, the groove above her lip, the corners of her mouth, her cheeks and chin.

'Kay!' called Mickey.

'All right! I'm coming!'

The dust fell away. The skin beneath was pink, plump, astonishingly smooth… Kay brushed a little longer, then moved her hand to the curve of Helen's jaw and cupped it with her palm-not wanting to leave her, after all; gazing at her in a sort of wonder; unable to believe that something so fresh and so unmarked could have emerged from so much chaos.