The Night Watch by Sarah Waters Read Free Book Online Page A

notes in a little book. The other man had a camera: he wasn't interested in how the machine worked; he kept moving about, looking for the best shot of it and the man who ran it. He took a picture, and then another. The camera flashed like bombs.
    'Time and Motion,' said Len authoritatively. 'I bet they're Time and- Look out, they're coming!'
    He sat forward again, took up a stub of wax and a length of wick and started to fit them together with an air of tremendous industry and concentration. The girls all down the bench fell silent, and worked on as nimbly as before. But when they saw the photographer coming, well ahead of Mrs Alexander and the other man, they began to lift their heads, boldly, one by one. The photographer was lighting a cigarette, his camera swinging from his shoulder on its strap.
    Winnie called to him, 'Aren't you going to take our picture?'
    The photographer looked her over. He looked at the girls who sat beside her-one of whom had a burnt face and hands, shiny with scars, another of whom was almost blind. But, 'All right,' he said. He waited for them to draw together and smile, then held up his camera and put his eye to it. But he only pretended to release the shutter. He pressed the button half-way and made a clicking sound with his tongue.
    The girls complained. 'The bulb didn't flash!'
    The photographer said, 'It flashed all right. It's a special, invisible one. It's an x-ray kind. It sees through clothes.'
    This was so obviously something he had come up with to flatter plain girls who pestered him to take their picture, Duncan was almost embarassed. But Winnie herself, and the other girls, all shrieked with laughter. Even the older women laughed. They were still laughing when Mrs Alexander came over with the fair-haired man.
    'Well, ladies,' she said indulgently, in her well-bred Edwardian voice, 'what's all this?'
    The girls tittered. 'Nothing, Mrs Alexander.' Then the photographer must have winked or made some gesture, because they all burst out laughing again.
    Mrs Alexander waited, but could see at last that she wasn't going to be let in on the joke. She turned her attention, instead, to Duncan. 'How are you, Duncan?'
    Duncan wiped his hands on his apron and got slowly to his feet. He was well-known, throughout the factory, as one of Mrs Alexander's favourites. People would say to each other, in his hearing, 'Mrs Alexander's going to leave Duncan all her money! You'be better be nice to Duncan Pearce, he's going to be your boss one day!' Sometimes he made the most of it, hamming it up, raising a laugh. But he always felt a sort of pressure when Mrs Alexander singled him out; and he felt that pressure even more today, because she had brought her visitors with her, and was very obviously about to introduce him to them as if he was her 'star worker'.
    She turned her head, looking for the fair-haired man, who was still putting notes in his book about the candle-making machine. She reached, and just touched his arm. 'May I show you-?' Along the bench, the girls had stopped tittering and were all looking up, expectant. The man drew nearer and raised his head. 'Here's our little night light department,' Mrs Alexander said to him. 'Perhaps Duncan could explain the process to you? Duncan, this is-'
    The man, however, had stopped in his tracks and was gazing at Duncan as if he couldn't believe his eyes. He started grinning. 'Pearce!' he said, before Mrs Alexander could go on. And then, at Duncan 's blank stare: 'Don't you know me?'
    Duncan looked properly into his face; and recognised him at last. He was a man named Fraser-Robert Fraser. He had once been Duncan 's cell-mate in prison.
    Duncan was too stunned, for a moment, even to speak. He'd felt, in an instant, plunged right back into the world of their old hall: the smells of it, the muddled, echoey sounds of it, the grinding misery and fear and boredom… His face grew chill, then very warm. He was aware of everyone watching, and felt caught out-caught