The Night Watch

Each man went straight into his own cell, as if glad to get in there. Duncan sat on his bunk and put his head in his hands.

He stayed like that for three or four minutes. Then he heard firm, soft footsteps on the landing outside his door, and quickly tried to dry his eyes. But he couldn't do it quickly enough.

'Now, then,' said Mr Mundy gently. 'What's all this?'

That made Duncan cry properly. He covered his face and sobbed into his fingers, his shoulders shaking, making the bed-frame jump. Mr Mundy didn't try to stop him; he didn't come to him, put an arm on his shoulder, anything like that. He simply stood, and waited for the worst of the tears to be over; and then he said, 'There. Had a visit from your dad, haven't you? That's right, I saw the Order. Shook you up a bit, has it?'

Duncan nodded, wiping his face on his coarse prison handkerchief. 'A bit.'

'It always shakes a fellow up, seeing faces from home. Well, put it this way, it's hard to be natural. You go on and cry some more, if that's what you want. It won't trouble me. I've seen harder men than you cry, I can tell you.'

Duncan shook his head. His face felt hot, felt bruised and pulled about, from the contortions of his sobs. 'I'm all right, now,' he said unsteadily.

''Course you are.'

'I just- I make such a mess of things, Mr Mundy. I make such a mess of things, every time.'

His voice was rising. He bit his mouth, drew in his arms and clenched his fists, to keep himself from crying again. When the fit passed and he let himself relax, he felt exhausted. He groaned and rubbed his face.

Mr Mundy stood watching for another moment; then he caught hold of Duncan 's chair and turned it and, slightly awkwardly, with a little sigh of discomfort, sat down. 'Tell you what,' he said, as he did it. 'Have a smoke. Look what I've got here.'

He brought out a packet of Player's cigarettes. He opened it up, and leaned to offer it to Duncan. 'Go on,' he said, giving the cigarettes a shake.

Duncan drew a cigarette out. It seemed as fat as a small cigar compared to the usual prison roll-ups. The tobacco was tight inside its smooth, cool sheath of paper-so nice in his hand, he turned it in his fingers and began to feel better.

'All right, isn't it?' said Mr Mundy, watching him.

'It's lovely,' said Duncan.

'Aren't you going to smoke it?'

'I don't know. I ought to keep it, to take the tobacco out. I could get four or five smokes from this.'

Mr Mundy smiled. He started to sing, in a tuneful old man's voice. 'Five little fags in a dainty little packet…' He wrinkled up his nose. 'Smoke it now.'

'Shall I?'

'Go on. I'll keep you company. We can be two chaps, smoking together.'

Duncan laughed. But the laughter came too soon on top of his tears: it caught in his chest and made him tremble. Mr Mundy pretended not to notice. He got out a cigarette for himself, and a box of matches. He held the flame to Duncan first, then drew on it himself. They smoked, for half a minute, in silence. Then Duncan held the cigarette off and said, 'It's making my eyes sting. It's making me giddy! I'm going to faint!'

'Get away with you!' said Mr Mundy, chuckling.

'I am!' said Duncan. He sat back, pretending to swoon. He became like a boy, sometimes, with Mr Mundy… But then he grew serious again. 'God,' he said, 'what a state to be in! Knocked down by one little cigarette!'

He kept his feet on the floor but let himself fall right back, supporting himself on one of his elbows. He wondered where Viv and his father were, now. He tried to picture his father's journey back to Streatham; he couldn't do it. Then he tried to visualise the various rooms of his father's flat. He had, instead, a sudden, violent, vivid image of his father's kitchen on the day he'd last seen it, with the spreading mess of darkening scarlet on the walls and floor-

He sat up again, quickly. Ash fell from his cigarette. He brushed it away, then rubbed his still-aching face and, after a moment, without looking up, said quietly, 'Do you think I'll do all right, Mr Mundy, when I get out?'

Mr Mundy took another puff of his own cigarette. 'Of course you will,' he said comfortably. 'You'll just need time to-well, to find your feet.'

'To find my feet?' Duncan frowned. 'You mean, like a sailor?' He saw himself staggering about on a tilting pavement.

'Like a sailor!' Mr Mundy laughed, tickled by the idea.

'But what will I do, say, for work?'

'You'll be all right.'

'But why should I be?'

'There'll always be jobs for clever young fellows like you. You mark my words.'

It was the sort of thing that Duncan 's father said, that made Duncan want to kill him. But now he bit at one of his fingernails and looked at Mr Mundy across his knuckles and said, 'Do you think so?'

Mr Mundy nodded. 'I've seen all sorts of fellows come through here. They all felt like you, at one time or another. They did just fine.'

'But the sorts of fellows you've seen,' persisted Duncan, 'didn't they probably have wives and children, things like that, to go back home to? Were any of them-frightened, do you think?'

'Frightened?'

'Frightened of what was going to happen to them-how they were going to be-?'

'Now then,' said Mr Mundy again, but more sternly. 'What sort of talk is that? You know what sort it is, don't you?'

Duncan looked away. 'Yes,' he said, after a moment. 'It's letting Error in.'

'That's right. It's the worst thing a boy in your situation can do, to start thinking like that.'

'Yes, I know,' said Duncan. 'It's just- Well, you look so much at walls, in this place. I try to look into the future but that's like a wall, too, I can't see myself getting over it. I try to think of what I'll do, where I'll live. There's my dad's house,'-he saw again that scarlet kitchen-'but my dad's house is only two streets away from-' he lowered his voice, 'from Alec's. Alec, you know, the boy, my friend-? My father used to go down that street to go to work. Now he goes half a mile around it every time, my sister told me. How will it be, if I go back there? I keep thinking about it, Mr Mundy. I keep thinking, if I was to see someone who knew Alec-'

'That boy Alec,' said Mr Mundy firmly, 'was a troubled boy, from everything you've told me. That boy lived in Error, if anybody ever did. He's free of all that now.'

Duncan moved, uncomfortable. 'You said that before. But it never feels like that. If you'd been there-'

'No-one was there,' said Mr Mundy, 'but you. And that's what you might call, your Burden. But I'd lay a pound against a penny Alec is looking at you right now, longing to pluck that Burden from you-saying, Put it down, chum! and wishing you could hear him. I'd bet you he is laughing, but also crying: laughing, to be where he is, in the sunshine; crying, because you are still in the dark…'

Duncan nodded-liking the comforting sound of Mr Mundy's voice; liking the quaintness of the words-pluck, Burden, Error, chum; but not, in his heart, believing any of it. He wanted to think that Alec was where Mr Mundy described: he tried to imagine him surrounded by sunlight and flowers, smiling… But Alec had never been like that, he'd said it was common to sit about in parks and gardens or go bathing; and he hardly ever really smiled, because his teeth were bad and he was ashamed of them.