We all take what we can get. And if we haven’t had much most of our life we make up for it while the going’s good, I said. Of course you wouldn’t know about that.
Then she was smiling at me, as if she was much older than me. “You need psychiatric treatment.”
The only treatment I need is you to treat me like a friend.
“I am, I am,” she said. “Can’t you see that?”
There was a big silence, then she broke it.
“Don’t you feel this has gone on long enough?”
No, I said.
“Won’t you let me go now?”
No.
“You could gag me and tie me up and drive me back to London. I’d not tell a soul.”
No.
“But there must be something you want to do with me?”
I just want to be with you. All the time.
“In bed?”
I’ve told you no.
“But you want to?”
I’d rather not speak about it.
She shut up then.
I don’t allow myself to think of what I know is wrong, I said. I don’t consider it nice.
“You
Thank you, I said.
“If you let me go, I should want to see you, because you interest me very much.”
Like you go to the zoo? I asked.
“To try and understand you.”
You’ll never do that. (I may as well admit I liked the mystery man side of our talk. I felt it showed her she didn’t know everything.)
“I don’t think I ever should.”
Then suddenly she was kneeling in front of me, with her hands up high, touching the top of her head, being all oriental. She did it three times.
“Will the mysterious great master accept apologies of very humble slave?”
I’ll think about it, I said.
“Humble slave very solly for unkind letter.”
I had to laugh; she could act anything.
She stayed there kneeling with her hands on the floor beside her, more serious, giving me the look.
“Will you send the letter, then?”
I made her ask again, but then I gave in. It was nearly the big mistake of my life.
The next day I drove up to London. I told her I was going there, like a fool, and she gave me a list of things to buy. There was a lot. (I knew later to keep me busy.) I had to buy special foreign cheese and go to some place in Soho where they had German sausages she liked, and there were some records, and clothes, and other things. She wanted pictures by some artist, it had to be just this one name. I was really happy that day, not a cloud in the sky. I thought she had forgotten about the four weeks, well not forgotten, but accepted I would want more. Talk about a dream-world.
I didn’t get back till tea-time and of course went down straight to see her, but I knew at once something was wrong. She didn’t look at all pleased to see me and she didn’t even look at all the things I’d bought.
I soon saw what it was, it was four stones she had made loose, to make a tunnel, I suppose. There was dirt on the steps. I got one out easy. All the time she sat on the bed not looking. Behind it was stone, so it was all right. But I saw her game—the sausages and the special pictures and all that. All the soft soap.
You tried to escape, I said.
“Oh, shut up!” she cried. I began looking for the thing she had done it with. Suddenly something flew past me and clat-tered on the floor. It was an old six-inch nail, I don’t know how she’d got hold of it.
That’s the last time I leave you alone for so long, I said. I can’t trust you any more.
She just turned, she wouldn’t speak, and I was dead scared she’d go off on a hunger strike again, so I didn’t insist. I left her then. Later I brought her her supper. She didn’t talk, so I left her.
The next day she was all right again, though she didn’t talk, except a word, about the escape that nearly was; she never mentioned it after again. But I saw she had a bad scratch on her wrist, and she made a face when she tried to hold a pencil to draw.
I didn’t post the letter. The police are dead cunning with some things. A chap I knew in Town Hall’s brother worked at Scotland Yard. They only needed a pinch of dust and they would tell you where you came from and everything.
Of course when she asked me I went red; I said it was because I knew she didn’t trust me, etcetera. Which she seemed to accept. It may not have been kind to her parents, but from what she said they weren’t up to much, and you can’t think of everybody. First things first, as they say.
I did the same thing over the money she wanted me to send to the H-bomb movement. I wrote out a cheque and showed it to her, but I didn’t send it. She wanted proof (the receipt), but I said I had sent it anonymous. I did it to make her feel better (writing the cheque) but I don’t see the point of wasting money on something you don’t believe in. I know rich people give sums, but in my opinion they do it to get their names published or to dodge the tax-man.
For every bath, I had to screw in the planks again. I didn’t like to leave them up all the time. All went off well. Once it was very late (eleven) so I took her gag off when she went in. It was a very windy night, a proper gale blowing. When we came down she wanted to sit in the sitting-room (I got ticked off for calling it the lounge), hands bound of course, there seemed no harm, so I put the electric fire on (she told me imitation logs were the end, I ought to have real log fires, like I did later). We sat there a bit, she sat on the carpet drying her washed hair and of course I just watched her. She was wearing some slacks I bought her, very attractive she looked all in black except for a little red scarf. She had her hair all day before she washed it in two pigtails, one of the great pleasures for me was seeing how her hair was each day. Before the fire, however, it was loose and spread, which I liked best.
After a time she got up and walked round the room, all restless. She kept on saying the word “bored.” Over and over again. It sounded funny, what with the wind howling outside and all.
Suddenly she stopped in front of me.
“Amuse me. Do something.”
Well what, I asked. Photos? But she didn’t want photos.
“I don’t know. Sing, dance, anything.”
I can’t sing. Or dance.
“Tell me all the funny stories you know.”
I don’t know any, I said. It was true, I couldn’t think of one.
“But you must do. I thought all men had to know dirty jokes.”
I wouldn’t tell you one if I knew it.
“Why not?”
They’re for men.
“What do you think women talk about? I bet I know more dirty jokes than you do.”
I wouldn’t be surprised, I said.
“Oh, you’re like mercury. You won’t be picked up.”
She walked away, but suddenly she snatched a cushion off a chair, turned and kicked it straight at me. I of course was surprised; I stood up, and then she did the same with another, and then another that missed and knocked a copper kettle off the side-table.
Easy on, I said.
“Come, thou tortoise!” she cried (a literary quotation, I think it was). Anyway, almost at once she pulled a jug thing off the mantelpiece and threw that at me, I think she called catch, but I didn’t and it broke against the
