Free The Night Watch by Sarah Waters Page B

extended themselves across the yellow ground… But at last the miserable panic subsided. The darkness shrank, folded itself up. She said to herself, What an idiot you are!Julia loves you . It's only this beast in you she hates, this ridiculous monster -
    She moved her wrist again, so that it just touched Julia's thigh. Julia kept still for a moment, then moved her own wrist, to meet it. She put down her book and propped herself up. She took up an apple and a knife. She peeled the apple in one long strip, then cut the fruit into quarters and handed two of them to Helen. The ate together, watching the running about of dogs and children, as they had before.
    Then they caught each other's gaze. Julia said, with a hint of coolness still, 'All over, now?'
    Helen coloured. 'Yes, Julia.'
    Julia smiled. When she'd finished eating the apple she lay back down, and picked up her book again; and Helen watched her as she read. Her eyes were moving from word to word, but apart from that her face was still, closed, blemishless as wax.
    'You look like a film-star,' said Reggie, as Viv got into his car. He made a show of looking her over. 'Can I have your autograph?'
    'Just get going, will you?' she said. She'd been standing in the sun, waiting for him, for half an hour. They moved together and briefly kissed. He let down the handbrake and the car moved off.
    She was wearing a light cotton dress and a plum-coloured cardigan, and sunglasses with pale plastic frames; instead of a hat she had a white silk scarf, that she'd tied in a knot beneath her chin. The scarf and the sunglasses looked striking against the dark of her hair and the red of her lipstick. She straightened her skirt, making herself comfortable; then wound down her window and sat with her elbow on the sill, her face in the draught-like a girl in an American picture, just as Reggie had said. Slowing the car for a traffic-light, he put his hand on her thigh and murmured admiringly, 'Oh, if the boys in Hendon could only see me now!'
    But of course, he kept well away from north London. He'd picked her up at Waterloo and, having crossed the river and got to the Strand, he headed east. They had places they liked, an hour from the city: villages in Middlesex and Kent, where there were pubs and tea-rooms; little beaches on the coast. Today they were motoring out towards Chelmsford; they were just going to drive, until they found a pretty spot. They had hours together: all afternoon. She'd told her father she was going on a picnic with a girlfriend. She'd stood at one end of the kitchen table the night before, making sandwiches, while he'd sat at the other fixing rubber soles to his shoes…
    They wove through the City and Whitechapel; when they started on a wider, smoother road Reggie put the car in a higher gear and moved his hand back to her thigh. He found the line of her suspender, and began to follow it; her dress being thin, she could feel the pressure of his touch-his thumb and palm and moving finger-as vividly as if she'd been naked.
    But her mood was wrong, somehow. She said, 'Don't,' and caught his hand.
    He gave a groan like a man in torment and pretended to fight against her grip. 'What a teaser you are! Can I stop the car? It's that, you know, or run it off the road.'
    But he didn't stop the car. He speeded up. The streets grew clearer. Billboards appeared at the side of the road, advertising Players, Please! and Wrigley's , “Jiffy” Dyes and Vim . She sat more loosely, watching the peeling back of the city-the blitzed Victorian high streets giving way to red Edwardian villas, the villas giving way to neat little houses like so many bowler-hatted clerks, the little houses becoming bungalows and prefabs. It was like hurtling backwards through time-except that the bungalows and prefabs gave way to open green fields, and after that, she thought, if you narrowed your eyes and didn't look at things like telegraph poles or aeroplanes in the sky, you could have been in any time,