Read The Night Watch for Free Online

weighted down by the old-fashioned atmosphere, like her. She checked the face of it against her wristwatch. Twenty to eight… How slowly the time ran here. As slowly as at work. How unfair it was! For she knew that later-when she would want it-it would seem to rush.
    Tonight, at least, there was a distraction. Mr Mundy came in and sat down in his armchair beside the fire, as he always did after dinner; Duncan, however, wanted Viv to cut his hair. They went out to the kitchen. He put down newspaper on the floor, and set a chair in the middle. He filled a bowl with warm water, and tucked a towel into the collar of his shirt.
    Viv dipped a comb in the water, wet his hair and started cutting. She used a pair of old dressmaking scissors; God knows what Mr Mundy was doing with those. Probably he did his own sewing, she wouldn't put it past him… The newspaper crackled under her shoes as she moved about.
    'Not too short,' said Duncan, hearing her clip.
    She turned his head. 'Keep still.'
    'You did it too short last time.'
    'I'll do it how I do it… There such a things as a barber's, you know.'
    'I don't like the barber's. I always think he's going to cut me up and put me in a pie.'
    'Don't be silly. Why would he want to do that?'
    'Don't you think I'd make a nice pie?'
    'There's not enough meat on you.'
    'He'd make a sandwich of me, then. Or he'd put me in one of those little tins. And then-' He turned and caught her eye, looking mischievous.
    She straightened his head again. 'It'll end up crooked.'
    'It doesn't matter, there's no-one to see. Only Len, at the factory. I haven't got any admirers. I'm not like you-'
    'Will you shut up?'
    He laughed. 'Uncle Horace can't hear. He wouldn't mind, even if he could. He doesn't trouble over things like that.'
    She stopped cutting and put the point of the scissors to his shoulder. 'You haven't told him, Duncan?'
    'Of course I haven't.'
    'Don't you, ever!'
    'Cross my heart.' He licked his finger, touched his chest; looked up at her, still smiling.
    She wouldn't smile back. 'It isn't a thing to joke about.'
    'If you can't joke about it, why do you do it?'
    'If Dad should hear-'
    'You're always thinking about Dad.'
    'Well, somebody has to.'
    'It's your life, isn't it?'
    'Is it? I wonder, sometimes.'
    She cut on in silence-unsettled, but wanting to say more; almost hoping that he'd keep teasing her; for she had no-one else to talk to, he was the only person she'd told… But she left it too long; he got distracted, tilting his head to look at the damp black locks on the newspaper under his chair. They'd falled as curls, but as they dried they were separating into individual strands and growing fluffy. She saw him grimace.
    'Isn't it queer,' he said, 'how nice one's hair is when it's on one's head; and how gruesome it becomes, the instant it's cut off. You ought to take one of those curls, V, and put it in a locket. That's what a proper sister would do.'
    She straightened his head again, less gently than before. 'I'll proper sister you in a minute, if you don't keep still.'
    He put on a silly Cockney voice. ' I was proper sistered! '
    That made them laugh. When she'd finished cutting he moved the chair aside and opened the back door. She got her cigarettes, and they sat together on the step, gazing out, smoking and chatting. He told her about his visit to Mr Leonard's; about the buses he and Mr Mundy had had to take, their little adventures… The sky was like water with blue ink in it, the darkness sinking, stars appearing one by one. The moon was a slim and perfect crescent, almost new. The little cat appeared, and wound itself around their legs, then threw herself on to its back and writhed, ecstatic again.
    Then Mr Mundy came out from the parlour-came out to see what they were doing, Viv supposed; had perhaps heard them laughing, through the window. He saw Duncan 's hair and said, 'My word! That's a bit better, now, than the cuts you used to get from Mr Sweet!'
    Duncan got up and started