The Night Watch by Sarah Waters Page A

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