by John Fowles
She was unpredictable.
She was always criticizing my way of speaking. One day I remember she said, “You know what you do? You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That’s what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you open your mouth.”
That is just one sample of many, of the way she treated me.
Another day she got round me on the subject of her parents. She’d been on for days about how they would be sick with worry and how mean I was not letting them know. I said I couldn’t take the risk. But one day after supper she said, I’ll tell you how to do it, without any risk. You wear gloves. You buy paper and some envelopes from Woolworth’s. You dictate a letter to me to write. You go to the nearest big town and post it. You can’t be traced. It might be any Woolworth’s in the country.
Well, she kept on at me so about it that one day I did what she suggested and bought some paper and envelopes. That evening I gave her a sheet and told her to write.
“I am safe and not in danger,” I said.
She wrote it, saying, “That’s filthy English, but never mind.”
You write what I say, I answered, and went on, “Do not try to find me, it is impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” she said. Cheeky as usual.
“I am being well looked after by a friend,” I went on. Then I said, that’s all, just put your name.
“Can’t I say, Mr. Clegg sends his regards?”
Very funny, I said. She wrote something more and handed me the sheet of paper. It said, See you soon, love, Nanda, at the bottom.
What’s this? I asked.
“My baby name. They’ll know it’s me.”
I prefer Miranda, I said. It was the most beautiful for me. When she had written the envelope I put the sheet in and then luckily I looked inside. At the bottom of the envelope there was a piece of paper no bigger than half a cigarette paper. I don’t know how but she must have had it ready and slipped it in. I opened it out and looked at her. She was bold as brass. She just leant back in the chair and stared at me. She’d written very very small with a sharp pencil, but the letters were clear. It wasn’t like her other note, it said:
D.M. Kidnapped by madman. F. Clegg. Clerk from Annexe who won pool. Prisoner in cellar lonely timbered cottage date outside 1621 hilly country two hours London. So far safe. Frightened.
M.
I was really angry and shocked, I didn’t know what to do. In the end I said, are you frightened? She didn’t say anything, she just nodded.
But what have I done? I asked.
“Nothing. That’s why I’m frightened.”
I don’t understand.
She looked down.
“I’m waiting for you to do something.”
I’ve promised and I’ll promise again, I said. You get all high and mighty because I don’t take your word, I don’t know why it’s different for me.
“I’m sorry.”
I trusted you, I said. I thought you realized I was being kind. Well, I’m not going to be used. I don’t care about your letter.
I put it in my pocket.
There was a long silence, I knew she was looking at me, but I wouldn’t look at her. Then suddenly she got up and stood in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders so that I had to look at her, she made me look down into her eyes. I can’t explain it, when she was sincere she could draw the soul out of me, I was wax in her hands.
She said, “Now you’re behaving like a little boy. You forget that you are keeping me here by force. I admit it is quite a gentle force, but it is frightening.”
As long as you keep your word, I’ll keep mine, I said. I had gone red, of course.
“But I’ve not given you my word not to try and escape, have I?”
All you live for is the day you see the last of me, I said. I’m just a nobody still, aren’t I?
She turned half away. “I want to see the last of this house. Not of you.”
And mad, I said. Do you think a madman would have treated you the way I have? I’ll tell you what a madman would have done. He’d have killed you by now. Like that fellow Christie, I suppose you think I’m going for you with a carving-knife or something. (I was really fed up with her that day.) How daft can you get? All right, you think I’m not normal keeping you here like this. Perhaps I’m not. But I can tell you there’d be a blooming lot more of this if more people had the money and the time to do it. Anyway there’s more of it now than anyone knows. The police know, I said, the figures are so big they don’t dare say them.
She was staring at me. It was like we were complete strangers. I must have looked funny, it was the most I’d ever said.
“Don’t look like that,” she said. “What I fear in you is something you don’t know is in you.”
What, I asked. I was still angry.
“I don’t know. It’s lurking somewhere about in this house, this room, this situation, waiting to spring. In a way we’re on the same side against it.”
That’s just talk.
“We all want things we can’t have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.”
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 are extraordinary.”
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-t
ime 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 clattered 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 wall.
Steady on, I said.
But another jug followed. All the time she was laughing, there was nothing vicious exactly, she just seemed to be mad, like a kid. There was a pretty green plate with a cottage moulded in relief that hung by the window and she had that off the wall and smashed that. I don’t know why, I always liked that plate and I didn’t like to see her break it, so I shouted, really sharp, stop it!
All she did was to put her thumb to her nose and make a rude sign and put her tongue out. She was just like a street boy.
I said, you ought to know better.
“You ought to know better,” she said, making fun of me. Then she said, “Please come round this side and then I can get at those beautiful plates behind you.” There were two by the door. “Unless you’d like to smash them yourself.”
Stop it, I said again, that’s enough.
But suddenly she came behind the sofa, going for the plates. I got between her and the door, she tried to dodge under my arm; however, I caught hers.
Then she suddenly changed.
“Let go,” she said, all quiet. Of course I didn’t, I thought she might be joking still.
But then suddenly she said, “Let go,” in a nasty voice that I did at once. Then she went and sat down by the fire.
After a while she said, “Get a broom. I’ll sweep up.”
I’ll do it tomorrow.
“I want to clear up.” Very my-lady.
I’ll do it.
“It’s your fault.”
Of course.
“You’re the most perfect specimen of petit bourgeois squareness I’ve ever met.”
Am I?
“Yes you are. You despise the real bourgeois classes for all their snobbishness and their snobbish voices and ways. You do, don’t you? Yet all you put in their place is a horrid little refusal to have nasty thoughts or do nasty things or be nasty in any way. Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that?”
I don’t know what you’re talking about, I said.
“Yes you do. Why do you keep on using these stupid words—nasty, nice, proper, right? Why are you so worried about what’s proper? You’re like a little old maid who thinks marriage is dirty and everything except cups of weak tea in a stuffy old room is dirty. Why do you take all the life out of life? Why do you kill all the beauty?”
I never had your advantages. That’s why.
“You can change, you’re young, you’ve got money. You can learn. And what have you done? You’ve had a little dream, the sort of dream I suppose little boys have and masturbate about, and you fall over yourself being nice to me so that you won’t have to admit to yourself that the whole business of my being here is nasty, nasty, nasty—“
She stopped sudden then. “This is no good,” she said. “I might be talking Greek.”
I understand, I said. I’m not educated.
She almost shouted. “You’re so stupid. Perverse.”
“You have money—as a matter of fact, you aren’t stupid, you could become whatever you liked. Only you’ve got to shake off the past. You’ve got to kill your aunt and the house you lived in and the people you lived with. You’ve got to be a new human being.”
She sort of pushed out her face at me, as if it was something eas
y I could do, but wouldn’t.
Some hope, I said.
“Look what you could do. You could … you could collect pictures. I’d tell you what to look for, I’d introduce you to people who would tell you about art-collecting. Think of all the poor artists you could help. Instead of massacring butterflies, like a stupid schoolboy.”
Some very clever people collect butterflies, I said.
“Oh, clever … what’s the use of that? Are they human beings?”
What do you mean? I asked.
“If you have to ask, I can’t give you the answer.”
Then she said, “I always seem to end up by talking down to you. I hate it. It’s you. You always squirm one step lower than I can go.”
She went like that at me sometimes. Of course I forgave her, though it hurt at the time. What she was asking for was someone different to me, someone I could never be. For instance, all that night after she said I could collect pictures I thought about it; I dreamed myself collecting pictures, having a big house with famous pictures hanging on the walls, and people coming to see them. Miranda there, too, of course. But I knew all the time it was silly; I’d never collect anything but butterflies. Pictures don’t mean anything to me. I wouldn’t be doing it because I wanted, so there wouldn’t be any point. She could never see that.
She did several more drawings of me which were quite good, but there was something in them I didn’t like, she didn’t bother so much about a nice likeness as what she called my inner character, so sometimes she made my nose so pointed it would have pricked you and my mouth was all thin and unpleasant, I mean more than it really is, because I know I’m no beauty. I didn’t dare think about the four weeks being up, I didn’t know what would happen, I just thought there would be arguing and she’d sulk and I’d get her to stay another four weeks—I mean I thought I had some sort of power over her, she would do what I wanted. I lived from day to day, really. I mean there was no plan. I just waited. I even half expected the police to come. I had a horrible dream one night when they came and I had to kill her before they came in the room. It seemed like a duty and I had only a cushion to kill her with. I hit and hit and she laughed and then I jumped on her and smothered her and she lay still, and then when I took the cushion away she was lying there laughing, she’d only pretended to die. I woke up in a sweat, that was the first time I ever dreamed of killing anyone.
