as though too absorbed in her reading to hear him.
Into her continued silence, he ejects: ‘
‘That devil’s had somebody’s blood already!’ He again looks at her accusingly, as if she were to blame. As she’s still silent, apparently absorbed in the book, he becomes determined to make her attend to him, demanding indignantly: ‘Do you
‘No, of course not.’ She sees that she can’t put off talking to him any longer, and reluctantly raises her head, confronting his angry face; it looks to her hard, blank and impenetrable as a wall, with two blue glass circles for eyes above the hard, almost brutal mouth.
What possible contact can she have with the owner of such a face? It half frightens her. (After all, she’s only just eighteen, and he’s double her age.) Feeling bewildered and helpless, she wonders why she’s been pushed into marrying him.
‘Have you taken your quinine?’ is all she can find to say. She deliberately makes her face blank to hide her apprehension, with the result that she looks almost childish, her badly-cut hair hanging down by her cheeks. Her eyes are slightly inflamed by the glaring sun, and from trying to read in a bad light, and she keeps rubbing them like a little girl who’s been crying.
Her words irritate him almost as much as her pale face, with its faintly bloodshot eyes, the vague, blank expression of which makes him angry because it seems so insulting, as though she were miles away. He too wonders why they are married; why did he ever allow her mother to persuade him into it? He feels he’s been tricked which isn’t far from the truth. But none of this is clear in his head; he is only aware of the inflaming of his permanent grievance against life in general, and her in particular. He blames her for everything. She gets on his nerves so much that he moves his hand as if he meant to hit her, deflecting his aim at the last moment and squashing another mosquito instead.
A clock downstairs strikes ten. He counts the strokes, and is suddenly overcome by the emptiness of the evening. It’s still quite early, and there’s nothing on earth to do. More aggrieved than ever he stares round the room, and seems to be listening. Not a sound comes from below. The servants have finished their work and retired for the night to their separate quarters. If he wants one of them now he will have to shout and go on shouting for some considerable time. He is left with the noise the frogs are making outside, the mosquitoes, and the exasperating girl. What’s the good of a wife who’s no sort of companion? It doesn’t occur to him that he’s in any way responsible for their marriage. He blames her totally for not appreciating the privilege of being married to him.
Meanwhile how is he going to pass the time? Of course, he can get into his car and drive round to the club. But that’s only another form of empty boredom. As he doesn’t play bridge and dislikes the other men, knowing he’s unpopular with them, all he can do there is drink. He might as well do that at home.
Swinging round to the bottles he pours himself a stiff whisky, swallows it, and immediately pours out another, not bothering about his wife, who never drinks. He remains standing, keeping his back to her, saying nothing. He goes on drinking steadily, trying to drink away his boredom, only occasionally interrupting the process to swat another mosquito.
The girl watches with more open apprehension. But she seems more alive; she has thought of something, and is only waiting for the right moment to put her plan into operation. When he notices something of interest on the bloodstained page in his hand and smoothes it out, bending over to read, she stealthily gets up and tiptoes towards her room behind him, keeping her eyes on his back.
The husband knows all the time what she’s doing, and just as she gets to the door suddenly jumps on her, shouting, ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ seizing her wrist so violently that she utters an exclamation of pain, or fright, or disappointment, or all three, but doesn’t speak a word. His blue eyes blaze furiously at her. For some reason he takes her silence now as a sign of conceit, just as he does her continual reading it’s because he hardly ever reads anything but a paper himself that this seems like flaunting conceit and superiority. How dare she pretend she’s superior to him, just because she’s passed some damn fool exam women shouldn’t be allowed to go in for? But what can he do about it? Inwardly raging in his frustration he stands gripping her wrist, until a gratifying idea comes into his head — he’ll show her…! He’ll take the conceit off her face…
His expression suddenly gloating, he orders, ‘Don’t move!’ and hurries off, coming back the next moment with a couple of tennis racquets and thrusting one into her hand.
She accepts it unwillingly, opening her mouth as if to protest, but in the end says nothing. Several seconds later she is still standing in the same position, as if paralysed, the racquet dangling from her hand. He gets on with his drinking, but is careful to make no noise now, all the while listening and watching as well. It’s obvious that both of them are waiting for something to happen, which she dreads, and he’s looking forward to eagerly. Presently the whisky he’s drunk seems to improve his mood, for he speaks to her more amiably, as if in encouragement, his voice only slightly above a whisper. ‘Come on, now! Be a sport — it’s all good clean fun…’ However, the low tone sounds furtive, with an underlying viciousness far from friendly. The girl is not taken in, but seems unable either to speak or move, just standing there, her eyes dilated and horrified.
All at once she gasps loudly. He silences her by a violent gesture. With disagreeable suddenness, as if from nowhere, a small animal has appeared in the room, its head and sensitive twitching nose turned towards them, its body foreshortened. Moving with the same disconcerting and rather unpleasant suddenness, it darts out of sight, reappearing halfway up the wall, where it is seen to have a long tapering leathery tail, like a whiplash, before it vanishes somewhere on the periphery of the ceiling; in the centre of which the fan continues to rotate as if nothing had happened, churning up the oppressive air.
The girl’s eyes, which have been following the beast’s movements, now return to her husband. She doesn’t speak, has not moved, but, since she gasped, her lips have not closed completely and are now trembling, her breathing is faster than usual. She controls herself up to a point, but can’t hide her aversion to this whole procedure, standing petrified, staring at him with wide eyes. He doesn’t speak or move either, but watches the ceiling intently; both are virtually frozen. The room fills with suspense, with the noise of insects, and the drone of the fan.
Suddenly a confused scuffling above is followed by a squeal, cut off in the middle; a small animal — not the same animal as before — falls to the floor with a plop.
Stunned, the rat lies still for a second, then picks itself up and rushes away. The man watches, estimating the distance with narrowed eyes, before swinging the racquet down and hitting the beast fair and square, sending it flying in her direction. ‘Go on lob it back to me! You can’t miss such an easy one!’
Her fingers clench spasmodically on the handle of the racquet she’s holding, but instead of obeying she lets it fall on the floor with a clatter, and drops her face in her hands.
‘Oh, so you won’t play…’ His voice now has an ugly sound. But he’s more interested in the rat, skidding sideways across the boards as fast as its injured legs can move he brings the racquet swooping down on it very much faster.
Standing there triumphant, he pulls out his handkerchief and rubs the strings, while at the same time his foot heavily and repeatedly stamps on the thing on the floor, finally kicking it out of sight under the wardrobe. To horrify the girl even more he says spitefully, without looking round, Perhaps the rat king will come next,’ referring to a legendary monstrosity consisting of six or eight rats (a whole litter presumably), joined together by a single tail. There is no reply. He goes on cleaning his racquet. And when he presently turns his head she is no longer there.
6
Mr Dog Head, quite nude, is inspecting himself in the mirror in his room, but as it is only big enough to show him down to the waist he is dissatisfied and keeps turning and twisting in an attempt to see more. The tough male muscularity of his body is now very apparent. And it is quite true that most of it is covered by the close brown-red pelt, resembling the neat covering of his skull, and that this greatly increases his doglike aspect, which the local
