The Collector - Страница 19

I thought it all out that night. I knew I had to have time, I had to pretend I would do it. Go through the motions, as they say.

The other thing I thought was something I could do when it came to the point.

The next morning I went down, I said I’d thought things over, I saw her point, I’d looked into the matter, etcetera — one room could be converted, but it would take me a week. I thought she would start sulking but she took it O.K.

“But if this is another put-off, I will fast. You know that?”

I’d do it tomorrow, I said. But it needs a lot of wood and bars special. It may take a day or two to get them.

She gave me a good old tight look, but I just took her bucket.

After that, we got on all right, except that I was pretending all the time. We didn’t say much, but she wasn’t sharp. One night she wanted a bath and she wanted to see the room and what I’d done. Well, I knew she would; I had got some wood and made it look as if I was seriously doing things to the window (it was a back bedroom). She said she wanted one of those old Windsor chairs in it (quite like old times, her asking for something) which I got the next day and actually took down and showed her. She wouldn’t have it down there, it had to go back up. She said she didn’t want anything she had (in the way of furniture) downstairs upstairs. It was dead easy. After she saw the room and the screw-holes she really seemed to think I was going to be soft enough to let her come up.

The idea was I would go down and bring her up and we would have supper upstairs and then she would have her first night upstairs and in the morning she would see daylight.

She got quite gay sometimes. I had to laugh. Well, I say laugh, but I was nervous, too, when the day came.

The first thing she said when I went down at six was she had my cold, the one I got at the hairdresser in Lewes.

She was all bright and bossy, laughing up her sleeve at me, of course. Only the joke was going to be on her.

“These are my things for tonight. You can bring up the rest tomorrow. Is it ready?” She already asked that at lunch, and I said yes.

I said, it’s ready.

“Come on then. Must I be tied?”

There’s just one thing, I said. One condition.

“Condition?” Her face dropped. She knew at once.

I’ve been thinking, I said.

“Yes?” Really burning, her eyes were.

I’d like to take some photographs.

“Of me? But you’ve taken a lot already.”

Not the sort I mean.

“I don’t understand.” But I could see she did.

I want to take pictures of you like you were the other evening, I said.

She sat on the end of her bed.

“Go on.”

And you’ve got to look as if you enjoyed posing, I said. You got to pose the way I tell you.

Well she just sat there, not saying a word. I thought at least she would get angry. She just sat there wiping her nose.

“If I do it?”

I’ll keep my side of the bargain, I said. I got to protect myself. I want some photos of you what you would be ashamed to let anyone else see.

“You mean I’m to pose for obscene photographs so that if I escape I shan’t dare tell the police about you.”

That’s the idea, I said. Not obscene. Just photos you wouldn’t want to be published. Art-photographs.

“No.”

I’m only asking what you did without asking the other day.

“No, no, no.”

I know your game, I said.

“What I did then was wrong. I did it, I did it out of despair that there is nothing between us except meanness and suspicion and hate. This is different. It’s vile.”

I don’t see the difference.

She got up and went up to the end wall.

You did it once, I said. You can do it again.

“God, God, it’s like a lunatic asylum.” She looked all round the room like I wasn’t there, like there was someone else listening or she was going to bust down the walls.

Either you do it or you don’t go out at all. No walking out there. No baths. No nothing.

I said, you took me in for a bit. You’ve just got one idea. Get away from me. Make a fool of me and get the police on to me.

You’re no better than a common street-woman, I said. I used to respect you because I thought you were above what you done. Not like the rest. But you’re just the same. You do any disgusting thing to get what you want.

“Stop it, stop it,” she cried.

I could get a lot more expert than you in London. Any time. And do what I liked.

“You disgusting filthy mean-minded bastard.”

Go on, I said. That’s just your language.

“You’re breaking every decent human law, every decent human relationship, every decent thing that’s ever happened between your sex and mine.”

Hark at the pot calling the kettle black, I said. You took your clothes off, you asked for it. Now you got it.

“Get out! Get out!”

It was a real scream.

Yes or no, I said.

She turned and picked up an ink-bottle on her table and hurled it at me.

So that was that. I went out and bolted up. I didn’t take her any supper, I let her stew in her own juice. I had the chicken I bought in case and had some of the champagne and poured the rest down the sink.

I felt happy, I can’t explain, I saw I was weak before, now I was paying her back for all the things she said and thought about me. I walked about upstairs, I went and looked at her room, it made me really laugh to think of her down there, she was the one who was going to stay below in all senses and even if it wasn’t what she deserved in the beginning she had made it so that she did now. I had real reasons to teach her what was what.

Well, I got to sleep in the end, I looked at the previous photos and some books and I got some ideas. There was one of the books called Shoes with very interesting pictures of girls, mainly their legs, wearing different sorts of shoes, some just shoes and belts, they were really unusual pictures, artistic.

However, when I went down in the morning, I knocked and waited as usual before going in, but when I did I was very surprised she was still in bed, she’d been asleep with her clothes on just under the top blanket and for a moment she didn’t seem to know where she was and who I was, I just stood there waiting for her to fly at me, but she just sat up on the edge of the bed and rested her arms on her knees and her head on her hands, like it was all a nightmare and she couldn’t bear to wake up.

She coughed. It sounded a bit chesty. She looked a real mess.

So I decided not to say anything then, and went and got her breakfast. She drank the coffee when I brought it and ate the cereal, the no eating was off, and then she just went back to the same position, her head on her hands. I knew her game, it was to try and get my pity. She looked properly beaten but I consider it was all a pose to make me fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness or something daft.

Do you want some Coldrex, I asked. I knew she had the cold all right.

Well, she nodded, her head still in her hands, so I went and got them and when I came back she hadn’t changed her position. You could see it was a big act. Like a sulk. So I thought, well, let her sulk away. I can wait. I asked if she wanted anything, she shook her head, so I left her.

That lunch-time she was in bed when I went down. She just looked over the bedclothes at me, she said she wanted just some soup and tea, which I brought, and left. It was more or less the same at supper. She wanted aspirins. She hardly ate anything. But that was the game she played once before. We didn’t speak twenty words together all that day.

The next day it was the same, she was in bed when I went in. She was awake though, because she was lying watching me.

Well, I asked. She didn’t answer, she just lay there.

I said, if you think you take me in with all this lying in bed lark you’re mistaken.

That made her open her mouth.

“You’re not a human being. You’re just a dirty little masturbating worm.”

I acted like I hadn’t heard, I just went and got her breakfast. When I went to bring her her coffee, she said “Don’t come near me!” Real poison in her voice.

Supposing I just left you here, I said, teasing. What’d you do then?

“If only I had the strength to kill you. I’d kill you. Like a scorpion. I will when I’m better. I’d never go to the police. Prison’s too good for you. I’d come and kill you.”

I knew she was angry because her game wasn’t working. I had the cold, I knew it wasn’t much.

You talk too much, I said. You forget who’s boss. I could just forget you. Nobody’d know.

She just shut her eyes at that.

I left then, I went into Lewes and got the food. At lunch she seemed to be asleep when I said it was ready, but she made a sort of movement, so I left.

At supper she was still in bed but sitting up and reading her Shakespeare I bought.

I asked her if she was better. Sarcastic, of course.

Well, she just went on reading, wouldn’t answer, I nearly snatched the book away to teach her then, but I kept control. Half an hour later, after I had my own supper, I went back and she hadn’t eaten and when I commented on that she hadn’t, she said, “I feel sick. I think I’ve got the flu.”

However, she was stupid enough to say next, “What would you do if I needed a doctor?”

Wait and see, I answered.

“It hurts so when I cough.”