Night Watch, The by Waters Sarah

Author:Waters, Sarah [Waters, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Novel, World War II
ISBN: 9780748129331
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2010-12-29T14:00:00+00:00

‘Here she is at last,’ said Binkie, as Kay stepped on to Mickey’s boat and opened up the cabin doors. ‘Kay! We thought you weren’t coming.’

The boat rocked about.

‘Hello, Bink. Hello, Mickey. Sorry I’m late.’

‘Never mind. You’re just in time for a drink. We’re making gimlets.’

‘Gimlets!’ said Kay, putting down her bag. She looked at her watch. It was only quarter-past five.

Binkie saw her expression. ‘Oh, balls to that! I can’t speak for your liver, but mine’s still on peacetime hours.’

Kay took off her cap. She was dressed, as Mickey and Binkie were, in uniform, ready for work. But the cabin had a stove in it, and a hissing lamp, and was very warm: she sat down across from Binkie, undid her jacket, and loosened her tie.

Mickey was busy bringing out tumblers, spoons, a siphon of soda water. She put them on an upturned beer crate between Binkie and Kay, then got the gin and opened the lime. The gin was some nameless, cheap variety, and instead of cordial she had real lime juice: it was in a brown medicine bottle with a white screw cap; Binkie had bought it from a chemist’s, she said, as a food supplement.

Mickey stirred the ingredients together and handed the glasses over, keeping one for herself. They raised them up, then tasted and winced.

‘It’s like battery acid!’ said Kay.

‘Never mind that, dear girl,’ said Binkie. ‘Think of the Vitamin C.’

She offered round cigarettes. She favoured a rough Turkish brand, difficult to get hold of. She had them in a fancy gold case, but had cut each one in half to make a packet last longer; she smoked with a tarnished ivory holder. Mickey and Kay each took a stub—pinching them, as they had to, between their forefingers and thumbs; leaning very close to the lighter.

‘I feel like my father,’ said Mickey, puffing, moving back. Her father was a bookmaker.

‘You look like a gangster,’ said Kay. ‘Talking of which—’ Her heart gave a little flutter of excitement. ‘Doesn’t either of you want to know what it was that made me late?’

Mickey put the cigarette down. ‘God, I forgot all about it. You’ve been to see those spiv friends of Cole’s! You didn’t go and get yourself arrested, did you?’

‘Not those beastly black-market boys?’ said Binkie, taking the ivory holder from her mouth. ‘Oh Kay, how could you?’

‘I know,’ said Kay, raising her hands. ‘I know. I know. It’s perfectly lousy. But I’ve been getting whisky from them for months.’

‘Whisky doesn’t count. Whisky’s practically medicinal in a job like ours. Anything else—’

‘But Bink, it’s for Helen. It’s her birthday at the end of the month. Have you looked in the shops lately? They’re worse than ever. I wanted to get her—I don’t know, something handsome. A bit of glamour. This filthy war’s knocked all the glamour out of life for women like her. It’s all right for us, we can just kick about in the muck and pretty well like it—’

‘But stolen goods, Kay! Stolen goods!’

‘Cole says the insurers take care of all that.

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