The Night Watch Read Online Free PDF

smiling.
    'Come and see!' called Duncan again.
    She pushed at the parlour door and went inside. Duncan was lying on his stomach on the hearth-rug with an open book before him, and in the small of his back sat Mr Mundy's little tabby cat. The cat was working its two front legs as if kneading dough, flexing and retracting its toes and claws, purring ecstatically. Catching sight of Viv, it narrowed its eyes and worked faster.
    Duncan laughed. 'What do you think? She's giving me a massage.'
    Viv felt Mr Mundy at her shoulder. He had come to watch, and to laugh along with Duncan. His laugh was light, and dry-an old man's chuckle. There was nothing to do but laugh too. She said, 'You're barmy.'
    Duncan began to lift himself up, as if about to start physical jerks. 'I'm training her.'
    'What for?'
    'The circus.'
    'She'll snag your shirt.'
    'I don't mind. Watch.'
    The cat worked on as if demented while Duncan raised himself higher. He began to straighten up. He tried to do it in such a way that the cat could keep her place on his back-even, could walk right up his body. All the time he tried it, he kept laughing. Mr Mundy called encouragement… At last though, the cat had had enough, and sprang to the floor. Duncan brushed at his trousers.
    'Sometimes,' he said to Viv, 'she gets on my shoulders. I walk about-don't I, Uncle Horace?-with her draped around my neck. Quite like your collar, in fact.'
    Viv had a little false-fur collar on her coat. He came and touched it. She said, 'She's snagged your shirt after all.'
    He twisted to look. 'It's only a shirt. I don't have to be smart like you. Doesn't Viv look smart, Uncle Horace? A smart lady secretary.'
    He gave her one of his charming smiles, then let her hug him and kiss his cheek. His clothes had a faintly perfumed smell-that, she knew, was from the candle factory-but beneath the scent he smelt like a boy; and when she lifted her hands to him his shoulders seemed ridiculously narrow and full of slender bones. She thought of the story she'd told Helen that afternoon, about the box of magic tricks; and remembered him vividly, again, when he was little-how he'd used to come into her and Pamela's bed, and lie between them. She could still feel his thin arms and legs, and his forehead, that would get hot, the dark hair sticking to it, fine as silk… She wished for a moment that they were all children again. It still seemed extraordinary to her, that everything had turned out the way it had.
    She took off her coat and her hat, and they sat down. Mr Mundy had gone back out to the kitchen. There came the sounds of him, after a minute, preparing tea.
    'I ought to go and give a hand,' she said. She said this every time she came. And Duncan always answered, as he did now, 'He prefers it on his own. He'll start up singing in a minute. He had his treatment this afternoon; he's a little bit better. Anyway, I'll do the washing up. Tell me how you are.'
    They exchanged their little pieces of news.
    'Dad sends his love,' she said.
    'Does he?' He wasn't interested. He'd only been seated for a moment, but now he got up excitedly and brought something down to her from a shelf. 'Look at this,' he said. It was a little copperish jug, with a dent in its side. 'I got it on Sunday, for three and six. The man asked seven shillings, and I knocked him down. I think it must be eighteenth-century. Imagine ladies, V, taking tea, pouring cream from this! It would have been silvered then, of course. Do you see where the plating's come off?' He showed her the traces of silver, at the join of the handle. 'Isn't it lovely? Three and six! That bit of damage is nothing. I could knock that out if I wanted.'
    He turned the jug in his hands, delighted with it. It looked like a piece of rubbish to Viv. But he had some new object to show her every time she came: a broken cup, a chipped enamel box, a cushion of napless velvet. She could never help thinking of the mouths that had touched the china, the grubby hands and sweating