The Night Watch

Wi

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 Wi

'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 gri

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 stu

Fraser, however, had started laughing. He looked as though he felt the oddness of the situation just as Duncan did; but he seemed able to pass it off as a tremendous joke. 'We've met before!' he said, to Mrs Alexander. 'We knew each other-well,' he caught Duncan 's eye, 'years ago.'

Mrs Alexander looked, Duncan thought, almost put out. Fraser didn't notice. He was still gri

'You don't,' managed Duncan at last.

For, Fraser had grown up. When Duncan had last seen him he'd been twenty-two: lean and white and angular, with a rash of spots on his jaw. Now he must be almost twenty-five-a little older than Duncan himself, in other words, but he was as different from Duncan as it was possible to imagine: broad-shouldered, where Duncan was slender; ta

He looked so grown-up and confident, and so at home in his ordinary clothes, that Duncan, on top of his embarassment, was suddenly shy of him. In his nervousness he almost laughed; and Mrs Alexander, seeing him smile, smiled too.

'Mr Fraser,' she said, 'has come to write about you, Duncan.'

But at that, he must have looked startled. Fraser said quickly, 'I'm putting together a piece on the factory, that's all, for one of the picture weeklies. That's what I'm doing just now; things like that. Mrs Alexander has been kind enough to show me around. I had no idea-'

For the first time, his grin faltered. He seemed to realise at last what he was doing at Duncan 's bench; and what Duncan was. 'I had no idea,' he finished, 'of finding you here. How long have you been here?'

' Duncan 's been with us for almost three years,' said Mrs Alexander, when Duncan hesitated.

Fraser nodded, taking that in.

'He's one of our ablest workers.-Duncan, since you and Mr Fraser are such old friends, why don't you show him what your job entails? Mr Fraser, perhaps your man could take a photograph?'

Fraser looked round, rather vaguely, and the photographer stepped forward. He moved about, lifting the camera to his eye again, squaring up the shot as, reluctantly, Duncan picked up one of the little stubs of wax and began explaining to Fraser about the wicks, the metal sustainers, the flame-proof cups. He did it badly. When the flash of the camera went he blinked and, for a second, lost the thread of what he was saying. Meanwhile Fraser nodded and smiled, struggling to hear, and gazing with a fixed, preoccupied interest at every new thing that was pointed out to him; once or twice putting back that lock of ungreased hair from before his brow. 'I see how it goes,' he said, and, 'Yes, I've got it. Of course.'

It only took a minute to explain. Duncan put the night light he had made on to the shuffling belt in the middle of the bench, and it was carried off to the cart at the end of it. 'That's all it is,' he said.

Mrs Alexander moved forward. She had been hovering, all this time, and had the slightly disappointed air of a parent who'd seen their child making a mess of its lines in the school play. But, 'There,' she said, as if in satisfaction. 'Quite a simple process. But every one of our little night lights, you see, has to be put together by hand… I suppose you couldn't guess at how many you've assembled in your time here, Duncan?'

'Not really,' answered Duncan.

'No… Still, you're keeping well, I hope? And how's'-she'd thought of a way to save the situation-'how's the collection?' She turned to Fraser. 'I expect you know, Mr Fraser, that Duncan is a great collector of antiques?'

Fraser, looking partly embarassed and partly amused, admitted that he didn't know this. 'Oh!' said Mrs Alexander with great enthusiasm, 'Oh, but it's quite a hobby of his! All the handsome things he turns up! I call him the scourge of the dealers. What's your latest find, Duncan?'

Duncan saw that there was no way out of it. He told her, in a rather stilted way, about the cream-jug he'd shown Viv at Mr Mundy's earlier that week.