telling them…'
'It sounds as though you have a bad memory.'
'You don't understand. They're all - wicked things.'
'Religious mania? Now that would be very interesting.'
'It's not religious. It's just - just hate.' There was a tap at the door and an elderly woman came in with a tea tray. She put it down on the desk and went out again.
'Sugar?' said Dr. Stillingfleet.
'Yes, please.'
'Sensible girl. Sugar is very good for you when you've had a shock.' He poured out two cups of tea, set hers at her side and placed the sugar basin beside it. 'Now then,' he sat down. 'What were we talking about? Oh yes, hate.'
'It is possible, isn't it, that you could hate someone so much that you really want to kill them?'
'Oh, yes,' said Stillingfleet cheerfully still. 'Perfectly possible. In fact, most natural. But even if you really want to do it you can't always screw yourself up to the point, you know. The human being is equipped with a natural braking system and it applies the brakes for you just at the right moment.'
'You make it sound so ordinary,' said Norma. There was a distinct overtone of annoyance in her voice.
'Oh, well, it is quite natural. Children feel like it almost every day. Lose their tempers, say to their mothers or their fathers: 'You're wicked, I hate you, I wish you were dead'. Mothers, being sometimes sensible people, don't usually pay any attention. When you grow up, you still hate people, but you can't take quite so much trouble wanting to kill them by then. Or if you still do - well, then you go to prison. That is, if you actually brought yourself to do such a messy and difficult job. You aren't putting all this on, are you, by the way?' he asked casually.
'Of course not.' Norma sat up straight. Her eyes flashed with anger. 'Of course not. Do you think I would say such awful things if they weren't true?'
'Well, again,' said Dr. Stillingfleet, 'people do. They say all sorts of awful things about themselves and enjoy saying them.' He took her empty cup from her. 'Now then,' he said, 'you'd better tell me all about everything. Who you hate, why you hate them, what you'd like to do to them.'
'Love can turn to hate.'
'Sounds like a melodramatic ballad. But remember hate can turn to love, too. It works both ways. And you say it's not a boy friend. He was your man and he did you wrong. None of that stuff, eh?'
'No, no. Nothing like that. It's - it's my stepmother.'
'The cruel stepmother motif. But that's nonsense. At your age you can get away from a stepmother. What has she done to you beside marrying your father? Do you hate him too, or are you so devoted to him, that you don't want to share him?'
'It's not like that at all. Not at all. I used to love him once. I loved him dearly. He was - he was - I thought he was wonderful.'
'Now then,' said Dr. Stillingfleet, 'listen to me. I'm going to suggest something. You see that door?' Norma turned her head and looked in a puzzled fashion at the door.
'Perfectly ordinary door, isn't it? Not locked. Opens and shuts in the ordinary way. Go on, try it for yourself. You saw my housekeeper come in and go out through it, didn't you? No illusions. Come on. Get up. Do what I tell you.' Norma rose from her chair and rather hesitatingly went to the door and opened it.
She stood in the aperture, her head turned towards him enquiringly.
'Right. What do you see? A perfectly ordinary hallway, wants redecorating but it's not worth having it done when I'm just off to Australia. Now go to the front door, open it, also no tricks about it. Go outside and down to the pavement and that will show you that you are perfectly free with no attempts to shut you up in any way. After that when you have satisfied yourself that you could walk out of this place at any minute you like, come back, sit in that comfortable chair over there and tell me all about yourself. After which I will give you my valuable advice. You needn't take it,' he added consolingly. 'People seldom do take advice, but you might as well have it. See? Agreed?' Norma got up slowly, she went a little shakily out of the room, out into - as the doctor had described - the perfectly ordinary hallway, opened the front door with a simple catch, down four steps and stood on the pavement in a street of decorous but rather uninteresting houses. She stood there a moment, unaware that she was being watched through a lace blind by Dr. Stillingfleet himself. She stood there for about two minutes, then with a slightly more resolute bearing she turned, went up the steps again, shut the front door and came back into the room.
'All right?' said Dr. Stillingfleet. 'Satisfy you there's nothing up my sleeve? All clear and above board?
The girl nodded.
'Right. Sit down there. Make yourself comfortable. Do you smoke?'
'Well, I - '
'Only reefers - something of that kind?
Never mind, you needn't tell me.'
'Of course I don't take anything of that kind.'
'I shouldn't have said there was any 'of course' about it, but one must believe what the patient tells one. All right. Now tell me all about yourself.'
'I - I don't know. There's nothing to tell really. Don't you want me to lie down on a couch?'
'Oh, you mean your memory of dreams and all that stuff? No, not particularly. I just like to get a background. You know.
You were born, you lived in the country or the town, you have brothers and sisters or you're an only child and so on. When your own mother died, were you very upset by her death?'
'Of course I was.' Norma sounded indignant.
'You're much too fond of saying of course, Miss West. By the way, West isn't really your name, is it? Oh, never mind, I don't want to know any other one. Call yourself West or East or North or anything you like. Anyway, what went on after your mother died?'
'She was an invalid for a long time before she died. In nursing homes a good deal. I stayed with an aunt, rather an old aunt, down in Devonshire. She wasn't really an aunt, she was Mother's first cousin. And then my father came home just about six months ago. It - it was wonderful.' Her face lighted up suddenly. She was unaware of the quick, shrewed glance the apparently casual young man shot at her. 'I could hardly remember him, you know. He must have gone away when I was about five.
I didn't really think I'd ever see him again. Mother didn't very often talk about him. I think at first she hoped that he'd give up this other woman and come back.'
'Other woman?'
'Yes. He went away with someone. She was a very bad woman. Mother said.
Mother talked about her very bitterly and very bitterly about Father too, but I used to think that perhaps - perhaps Father wasn't as bad as she thought, that it was all this woman's fault.'
'Did they marry?'
'No. Mother said she would never divorce Father. She was a-is it an Anglican? - very High Church, you know. Rather like a Roman Catholic. She didn't believe in divorce.'
'Did they go on living together? What was the woman's name or is that a secret too?'
'I don't remember her last name.' Norma shook her head. 'No, I don't think they lived together long, but I don't know much about it all, you see. They went to South Africa but I think they quarrelled and parted quite soon because that's when Mother said she hoped Father might come back again. But he didn't. He didn't write even. Not even to me. But he sent me things at Christmas. Presents always.'
'He was fond of you?'
'I don't know. How could I tell?
Nobody ever spoke about him. Only Uncle Simon - his brother, you know.
He was in business in the City and he was very angry that Father had chucked up everything. He said he had always been the same, could never settle to anything, but he said he wasn't a bad chap really. He said he was just weak. I didn't often see Uncle Simon. It was always Mother's friends.
Most of them were dreadfully dull. My whole life has been very dull.
'Oh, it seemed so wonderful that Father was really coming home. I tried to remember him better. You know, things he had said, games he had played with me. He used to make me laugh a lot. I tried to see if I couldn't find some old snapshots or photographs of him. They seem all to have been thrown away. I think Mother must have torn
