The Night Watch

'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 ilclass="underline" 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?'