Sylvia say about the mud on the wheels?
“When the man had made some cloth the farmer sold it, and this kept them going, all three of them. But this hole was so small they couldn’t stretch out. Every night they had to take the loom down before they could sleep, and set it up again every morning. The wool was around them all the time, they slept in it and breathed in it, it must have almost suffocated them, I think. Imagine their dreams.”
“I can’t imagine. Why don’t you just tell me the facts?”
“The facts only? But these must have been the facts. This little hole, no air, no light, the clay and the fleece all around them. Sometimes I think I am not sure of the facts.”
“What’s the point then?”
“The facts were in dispute anyway. Do you think they told the same version afterwards? Long, long after, the story came to light. Who couldn’t imagine? You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t try.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“The hole was under a trapdoor inside the farmhouse. The floor of the farmhouse was made of earth. Soldiers came a few times, but they didn’t find it.”
“How was it ventilated?”
“I don’t know. Barely, it must have been. They couldn’t cook down there.”
“What did they eat?”
“Raw vegetables.”
“God,” Colin said. He turned his face away and looked out at the rain. “I’d better move the car.”
“Yes, you’d better.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you.”
“It’ll keep.”
“Where shall we go?”
“Just drive me home.”
“Do I have to?”
“I think that would be best.” She stared at the stub of her cigarette, greedily, and wound down the window to hurl the glowing end out into the night. She put on her seat belt.
“Will you finish the story?”
“For a year they didn’t have sex, and then they did. They say—he, the man, said—that she had lost her will to live by then. At least he had the work, weaving, putting up the loom and taking it down. She had nothing except the earth and the wool, and thinking over the past and hating him. All this time, you have to remember, she hated him. But she says differently, that he threatened to drive her out of the hole if she wouldn’t have sex with him.”
“He could have raped her. Who could she have complained to?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps he did. After another year they had a child. It was a girl.”
“But how could they?” He was aghast. “How could they, in that hole?”
“You fool,” she said bitterly. “Now do you see why she didn’t want to have sex? Do you think she could pop out and go to the chemist’s for something? Sometimes…very occasionally…they went up into the world and walked about. Only at night. Not very often. They wanted, you understand, to scream at each other, just scream, but the farmer said he’d throw them out if they didn’t keep absolutely quiet.”
“But the baby must have cried, mustn’t she?”
“They put their hands over her mouth. For a year and a half. For a year and a half, the mother had milk, but then it gave out. The baby had to eat the raw vegetables. But you see then, the mother couldn’t kill herself, could she, she couldn’t walk out of the hole. She had the baby.”
They were on the main road now, driving through town. An odd figure under an umbrella scurried away from their sight. A gang of boys huddled under the yellow lights of a shopping centre.
“Shall we stop for a drink?” He looked sideways at her. “Anywhere. It doesn’t matter now if we’re seen. Anywhere you like.”
“Better go home, I think. Shall I finish the story?”
He sighed. “Yes, go on. It’s a terrible story. I don’t like to think about things like that.”
“None of us likes to think of other people’s hells. We avoid it if we can.”
“But you’re paid to do it, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but even so. You see there was food of a kind, shelter, and it was warm—at least it was warm. That’s how they survived. And nobody found them, they did survive. The Russians came. They were sent to a Displaced Persons Camp. I think, later, they went to America, and the couple split up. I don’t know. The end of the story isn’t important.”
“But what about the child?”
“Well that’s what’s most horrible. She was like a wild animal. When she was brought out of the hole she screamed and clawed and attacked people. At other times, she was completely mute. As if they still had their hands over her face.”
“But they’d had to do it. I suppose. Or her existence would have destroyed them all. But later—what became of her?”
