The Collector (6 page)

You ate the chicken, I said. I caught her that time.

“But I despise myself. If I was a better person I’d be a vegetarian.”

I said, if you asked me to stop collecting butterflies, I’d do it. I’d do anything you asked me.

“Except let me fly away.”

I’d rather not talk about that. It doesn’t get us anywhere.

“Anyway, I couldn’t respect anyone, and especially a man, who did things just to please me. I’d want him to do them because he believed they were right.” All the time she used to get at me, you’d think we were talking about something quite innocent, and suddenly she’d be digging at me. I didn’t speak.

“How long shall I be here?”

I don’t know, I said. It depends.

“On what?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

“On my falling in love with you?”

It was like nagging.

“Because if it does, I shall be here until I die.”

I didn’t answer that.

“Go away,” she said. “Go away and think it over.”

The next morning she made the first attempt to escape. She didn’t catch me off guard, exactly, but it taught me a lesson. She had her breakfast and then she told me her bed was loose, it was the far back leg, right up in the corner. I thought it was going to collapse, she said, there’s a nut loose. Like a mutt I went to help her hold it and suddenly she gave me a heavy push, just as I was off balance, and ran past me. She was at the steps and up them like lightning. I had allowed for it, there was a safety hook holding the door back open and a wedge she was trying to kick away when I came after her. Well, she turned and ran, screaming help, help, help, and up the steps to the outer door, which was of course locked. She pulled at it and banged it and went screaming on, but I got her then. I hated doing it, but action was necessary. I got her round the waist and one hand over her mouth and dragged her down back. She lucked and struggled, but of course she was too small and I may not be Mr. Atlas but I am not a weakling either. In the end she went limp and I let her go. She stood a moment, then she suddenly jumped and hit me across the face. It didn’t really hurt but the shock of it was most nasty, coming when I least expected it and after I’d been so reasonable when others might have lost their heads. Then she went into the room slamming the door behind her. I felt like going in and having it out with her, but I knew she was angry. There was real hatred in her looks. So I bolted the door and put up the false door.

The next thing was she wouldn’t talk. That next lunch she said not a word when I spoke to her and said I was ready to let bygones be bygones. She just gave me a big look of contempt. It was the same that evening. When I came to clear, she handed me the tray and turned away. She made it very plain she didn’t want me to stay. I thought she’d get over it, but the next day it was worse. Not only she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat.

Please don’t do this, I said. It’s no good.

But she wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t even look at me.

The next day it was the same. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t speak. I’d been waiting for her to wear some of the clothes I’d bought, but she kept on wearing the white blouse and the green tartan tunic. I began to get really worried, I didn’t know how long people could go without food, she seemed pale and weak to me. She spent all the time sitting against the wall on her bed, her back turned, looking so miserable I didn’t know what to do.

The next day I took in coffee for breakfast and some nice toast and cereal and marmalade. I let it wait a bit so she could smell it.

Then I said, I don’t expect you to understand me, I don’t expect you to love me like most people, I just want you to try and understand me as much as you can and like me a little if you can.

She didn’t move.

I said, I’ll make a bargain. I’ll tell you when you can go away, but only on certain conditions.

I don’t know why I said it. I knew really I could never let her go away. It wasn’t just a barefaced lie, though. Often I did think she would go away when we agreed, a promise was a promise, etcetera. Other times I knew I couldn’t let her do it.

She turned then and stared at me. It was the first sign of life she’d shown for three days.

I said, my conditions are that you eat food and you talk to me like you did at the beginning and don’t try to escape like that.

“I can never agree to the last.”

What about the first two, I said. (I thought even if she did promise not to escape, I’d still have to take precautions, so it was pointless, that condition.)

“You haven’t said when,” she said.

In six weeks, I said.

She just turned away again.

Five weeks then, I said after a bit.

“I’ll stay here a week and not a day more.”

Well, I said I couldn’t agree to that and she turned away again. Then she was crying. I could see her shoulders moving, I wanted to go up to her, I did near the bed but she turned so sharp I think she thought I was going to attack her. Full of tears her eyes were. Cheeks wet. It really upset me to see her like that.

Please be reasonable. You know what you are to me now; can’t you see I haven’t made all these arrangements just so you’d stay a week more?

“I hate you, I hate you.”

I’ll give you my word, I said. When the time’s up you can go as soon as you like.

She wouldn’t have it. It was funny, she sat there crying and staring at me, her face was all pink. I thought she was going to come at me again, she looked as if she wanted to. But then she began to dry her eyes. Then she lit a cigarette. And then she said, “Two weeks.”

I said, you say two, I say five. I’ll agree to a month. That’d be November the fourteenth.

There was a pause, and she said, “Four weeks is November the eleventh.”

I was worried about her, I wanted to clinch it, so I said, I meant a calendar month, but make it twenty-eight days. I’ll give you the odd three days, I said.

“Thank you very much.” Sarcastic, of course.

I handed her a cup of coffee, which she took.

“I’ve some conditions too,” she said before she drunk it. “I can’t live all the time down here. I must have some fresh air and light. I must have a bath sometimes. I must have some drawing materials. I must have a radio or a record-player. I need things from the chemist. I must have fresh fruit and salads. I must have some sort of exercise.”

If I let you go outside, you’ll escape, I said.

She sat up. She must have been acting it up a bit before, she changed so quickly. “Do you know what on parole means?”

I replied yes.

“You could let me out on parole. I’d promise not to shout or try to escape.”

I said, have your breakfast and I’ll think about it.

“No! It’s not much to ask. If this house really is lonely, it’s no risk.”

It’s lonely all right, I said. But I couldn’t decide.

“I’m going on hunger strike again.” She turned round, she was really putting on the pressure, as they say.

Of course you can have drawing materials, I said. You only had to ask anyhow. And a gramophone. Any records you want. Books. The same with food. I told you you need only ask. Anything like that.

“Fresh air?” She still had her back turned.

It’s too dangerous.

Well, there was a silence, she spoke as plain as words, though, and in the end I gave in.

Perhaps at night. I’ll see.

“When?” She turned then.

I’ll have to think. I’d have to tie you up.

“But I’d be on parole.”

Take it or leave it, I said.

“The bath?”

I could fix up something, I said.

“I want a proper bath in a proper bath. There must be one upstairs.”

Something I thought a lot about was how I would like her to see my house and all the furnishings! It was partly I wanted to see her there in it, naturally when I had dreams she was upstairs with me, not down in the cellar. I’m like that, I act on impulse sometimes, taking risks others wouldn’t.

I’ll see, I said. I’d have to make arrangements.

“If I gave you my word, I wouldn’t break it.”

I’m sure, I said.

So that was that.

It seemed to clear the air, so to speak. I respected her and she respected me more afterwards. The first thing she did was write out a list of things she wanted. I had to find an art-shop in Lewes and buy special paper and all sorts of pencils and things: sepia and Chinese ink and brushes, special hair and sizes and makes. Then there were things from the chemist: smell-removers and so on. It was a danger getting ladies’ things I couldn’t want for myself, but I took the risk. Then she wrote down food to buy, she had to have fresh coffee, and a lot of fruit and vegetables and greens—she was very particular about that. Anyway after she used to write down almost every day what we had to buy, she used to tell me how to cook it too, it was just like having a wife, an invalid one you had to do shopping for. I was careful in Lewes, I never went to the same shop twice running so that they wouldn’t think I was buying a lot for one person. Somehow I always thought people could tell I lived on my own.

That first day I bought a gramophone too. Only a small one, but I must say she looked very pleased, I didn’t want her to know I didn’t know anything about music but I saw a record with some orchestra music by Mozart so I bought that. It was a good buy, she liked it and so me for buying it. One day much later when we were hearing it, she was crying. I mean, her eyes were wet. After, she said he was dying when he wrote it and he knew he was dying. It just sounded like all the rest to me but of course she was musical.

Well, the next day she brought up the business about having a bath and fresh air again. I didn’t know what to do; I went up to the bathroom to think about it without promising anything. The bathroom window was over the porch round the cellar door. Out the back, which was safer. In the end I got up some wood and boarded across the frame, three-inch screws, so she couldn’t signal with the light or climb out. Not that there was anyone likely to be out the back late at night.

That took care of the bathroom.

What I did next was I pretended she was with me and walked up from below to see where the danger spots would be. The downstairs rooms had wooden inside shutters, it was easy to draw them across and lock them (later I got padlocks) so she couldn’t attract attention through a window and no snoopers could be looking in and seeing things. In the kitchen I made sure all knives etcetera were well out of harm’s way. I thought of everything she could do to try and escape and in the end I felt it was safe.

Well, after supper she was on to me again about the bath and I let her begin to go sulky again and then I said, all right, I will take the risk, but if you break your promise, you stay here.

“I never break promises.”

Will you give me your parole of honour?

“I give you my word of honour that I shall not try to escape.”

Or signal.

“Or signal.”

I’m going to tie you up.

“But that’s insulting.”

I wouldn’t blame you if you broke your word, I said.

“But I…” she didn’t finish, she just shrugged and turned and held her hands behind her. I had a scarf ready to take the pressure of the cord, I did it real tight but not so as to hurt, then I was going to gag her, but first she had me collect up the wash-things she needed and (I was very glad to see) she had chosen some of the clothes I had bought.

I carried her things and went first, up the steps in the outer cellar and she waited till I unlocked the door and came up when I ordered, having first listened to make sure no one was about.

It was very dark of course, but clear, you could see some stars. I took her arm tight and let her stand there for five minutes. I could hear her breathing deep. It was very romantic, her head came just up to my shoulder.

You can hear it’s a long way from anywhere, I said.

When the time was up (I had to pull her) we went in through the kitchen and dining-room and into the hall and up the stairs to the bathroom.

There’s no lock on the door, I said, you can’t shut it even, I’ve nailed a block in, but I shall respect your every privacy providing you keep your word. I shall be here.

I had a chair on the landing outside.

I am now going to take your hand-cords off if you give me your word you will keep the gag on. Nod your head.

Well, she did, so I untied her hands. She rubbed them a bit, just to get at me, I suppose, then went in the bathroom.

All went off without trouble, I heard her have her bath, splashing etcetera, quite natural, but I got a shock when she came out. She hadn’t got the gag on. That was one shock. The other was the way she was changed with the new clothes and her hair washed, it hung all wet and loose on her shoulders. It seemed to make her softer, even younger; not that she was ever hard or ugly. I must have looked stupid, looking angry because of the gag, and then not being able to be it because she looked so lovely.

She spoke very quick.

“Look, it began to hurt horribly. I’ve given you my word. I give it to you again. You can put this back on if you like—here. But I would have screamed by now if I’d wanted to.”

She handed me the gag and there was something in her look, I couldn’t put it on again. I said, the hands will do. She had on her green tunic, but with one of the shirts I bought and I guessed she had on the new underclothes underneath.

I did up her hands behind her back.

I’m sorry I’m so suspicious, I said. It’s just that you’re all I’ve got that makes life worth living. It was the wrong moment to say a thing like that, I know, but having her standing there like that, it was too much.

I said, if you went, I think I’d do myself in.