The Collector

by John Fowles

  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.”

  It’s only a cold, I said.

  “It’s not a cold.” She really shouted at me.

  Of course it’s a cold, I said. And stop acting. I know your game.

  “I am not acting.”

  Oh, no. You never acted in your life, I said. Of course not.

  “Oh, God you’re not a man, if only you were a man.”

  Say that again, I said. I had had some more champagne with my supper, there was a shop I found in Lewes with half-bottles, so I was not in the mood for her silliness.

  “I said you are not a man.”

  All right, I said. Get out of bed. Go on, get up. From now on I give the orders.

  I had had enough, most men would have had it long before. I went and pulled the bedclothes off her and got hold of her arm to pull her up and she started to fight, scratching at my face.

  I said, all right, I’m going to teach you a lesson.

  I had the cords in my pocket and after a bit of a struggle I got them on her and then the gag, it was her own fault if they were tight, I got her on a short rope tied to the bed and then I went and fetched the camera and flash equipment. She struggled of course, she shook her head, she looked daggers with her eyes, as they say, she even tried to go all soft, but I kept at her. I got her garments off and at first she wouldn’t do as I said but in the end she lay and stood like I ordered (I refused to take if she did not co-operate). So I got my pictures. I took her till I had no more bulbs left.

  It was not my fault. How was I to know she was iller than she looked. She just looked like she had a cold.

  I got the pictures developed and printed that night. The best ones were with her face cut off. She didn’t look much anyhow with the gag, of course. The best were when she stood in her high heels, from the back. The tied hands to the bed made what they call an interesting motif. I can say I was quite pleased with what I got.

  The next day she was up when I went in, in her housecoat, like she was waiting for me. What she did was very surprising, she took a step forward and went down on her knees at my feet. Like she was drunk. Her face was very flushed, I did see; she looked at me and she was crying and she had got herself up into a state.

  “I’m terribly ill. I’ve got pneumonia. Or pleurisy. You’ve got to get a doctor.”

  I said, get up and go back to bed. Then I went to get her coffee.

  When I came back I said, you know you’re not ill, if it was pneumonia you couldn’t stand up even.

  “I can’t breathe at nights. I’ve got a pain here, I have to lie on my left side. Please take my temperature. Look at it.”

  Well I did and it was a 102 but I knew there were ways you could fake temperatures.

  “The air’s stifling here.”

  There’s plenty of air, I said. It was her fault for having used that game before.

  Anyway I got the chemist in Lewes to give me something he said was very good for congestion and special anti-flu pills and inhaler, all of which she took when offered. She tried to eat something at supper, but she couldn’t manage it, she was sick, she did look off-colour then, and I can say that for the first time I had reason to believe there might be something in it all. Her face was red, bits of her hair stuck on it with perspiration, but that could have been deliberate.

  I cleaned up the sick and gave her her medicines and was going to leave when she asked me to sit on the bed, so she wouldn’t have to speak loud.

  “Do you think I could speak to you if I wasn’t terribly ill? After what you’ve done.”

  You asked for what I did, I said.

  “You must see I’m really ill.”

  It’s the flu, I said. There’s a lot in Lewes.

  “It’s not the flu. I’ve got pneumonia. Something terrible. I can’t breathe.”

  You’ll be all right, I said. Those yellow pills will do the trick. The chemist said they’re the best.

  “Not fetching a doctor is murder. You’re going to kill me.”

  I tell you you’re all right. It’s fever, I said. As soon as she mentioned doctor, I was suspicious.

  “Would you mind wiping my face with my flannel?”

  It was funny, I did what she said and for the first time for days I felt a bit sorry for her. It was a woman’s job, really. I mean it was a time when women need other women. She said thanks.

  I’ll go now then, I said.

  “Don’t go. I’ll die.” She actually tried to catch hold of my arm.

  Don’t be so daft, I told her.

  “You must listen, you must listen,” and suddenly she was crying again; I could see her eyes filling with tears and she sort of banged her head from side to side on the pillow. I felt sorry for her by then, as I say, so I sat on the bed and gave her a handkerchief and told her I would never not get a doctor if she was really ill. I even said I still loved her and I was sorry and some other things. But the tears just kept on coming, she hardly seemed to listen. Not even when I told her she l
ooked much better than the day before, which was not strictly true.

  In the end she grew calm, she lay there with her eyes shut for a while and then when I moved she said, “Will you do something for me?”

  What, I asked.

  “Will you stay down here with me and let the door be open for air?”

  Well, I agreed, and we turned out the lights in her room, with only the light from outside and the fan, and I sat by her for quite a time. She began to breathe in a funny quick way like she’d just run upstairs, as she said she was stifled, and she spoke several times—once she said, please don’t, and another I think she said my name but it was all blurred—well, I felt she was asleep and after I said her name and she didn’t answer, I went out and locked up and then set the alarm for early the next morning. I thought she went off to sleep so easy, I wasn’t to tell. I thought it was for the best, and I thought the pills might do the trick and she would be better the next morning, with the worst past. I even felt it was a good thing, her being ill, because if she hadn’t there would have been a lot of trouble of the old kind.

  What I am trying to say is that it all came unexpected. I know what I did next day was a mistake, but up to that day I thought I was acting for the best and within my rights.

  2

  October 14th?

  It’s the seventh night.

  I keep on thinking the same things. If only they knew. If only they knew.

  Share the outrage.

  So now I’m trying to tell it to this pad he bought me this morning. His kindness.

  Calmly.

  Deep down I get more and more frightened. It’s only surface calm.

  No nastiness, no sex thing. But his eyes are mad. Grey with a grey lost light in them. To begin with I watched him all the time. I thought it must be sex, if I turned my back I did it where he couldn’t spring at me, and I listened. I had to know exactly where he was in the room.

  Power. It’s become so real.

  I know the H-bomb is wrong. But being so weak seems wrong now too.

  I wish I knew judo. Could make him cry for mercy.

  This crypt-room is so stuffy, the walls squeeze in, I’m listening for him as I write, the thoughts I have are like bad drawings. Must be torn up at once.

  Try try try to escape.

  It’s all I think of.

  A strange thing. He fascinates me. I feel the deepest contempt and loathing for him, I can’t stand this room, everybody will be wild with worry. I can sense their wild worry.

  How can he love me? How can you love someone you don’t know?

  He wants desperately to please me. But that’s what madmen must be like. They aren’t deliberately mad, they must be as shocked in a way as everyone else when they finally do something terrible.

  It’s only this last day or two I could speak about him so.

  All the way down here in the van it was nightmare. Wanting to be sick and afraid of choking under the gag. And then being sick. Thinking I was going to be pulled into some thicket and raped and murdered. I was sure that was it when the van stopped, I think that was why I was sick. Not just the beastly chloroform. (I kept on remembering Penny Lester’s grisly dormitory stories about how her mother survived being raped by the Japanese, I kept on saying, don’t resist, don’t resist. And then someone else at Ladymont once said that it takes two men to rape you. Women who let themselves be raped by one man want to be raped.) I know now that wouldn’t be his way. He’d use chloroform again, or something. But that first night it was, don’t resist, don’t resist.

  I was grateful to be alive. I am a terrible coward, I don’t want to die, I love life so passionately, I never knew how much I wanted to live before. If I get out of this, I shall never be the same.

  I don’t care what he does. So long as I live.

  It’s all the vile unspeakable things he could do.

  I’ve looked everywhere for a weapon, but there’s nothing of any use, even if I had the strength and skill. I prop a chair against the iron door every night, so at least I shall know if he tries to get in without my hearing.

  Hateful primitive wash-stand and place.

  The great blank door. No keyhole. Nothing.

  The silence. I’ve got a little more used to it now. But it is terrible. Never the least sound. It makes me feel I’m always waiting.

  Alive. Alive in the way that death is alive.

  The collection of books on art. Nearly fifty pounds’ worth, I’ve added them up. That first night it suddenly dawned on me that they were there for me. That I wasn’t a haphazard victim after all.

  Then there were the drawers full of clothes—shirts, skirts, dresses, coloured stockings, an extraordinary selection of week-end-in-Paris underwear, night-dresses. I could see they were about my size. They’re too large, but he says he’s seen me wear the colours.

  Everything in my life seemed fine. There was G.P. But even that was strange. Exciting. Exciting.

  Then this.

  I slept a little with the light on, on top of the bed. I would have loved a drink, but I thought it might be drugged. I still half expect the food to be doped.

  Seven days ago. It seems like seven weeks.

  He looked so innocent and worried when he stopped me. He said he’d run over a dog. I thought it might be Misty. Exactly the sort of man you would not suspect. The most unwolflike.

  Like falling off the edge of the world. There suddenly being an edge.

  Every night I do something I haven’t done for years. I lie and pray. I don’t kneel, I know God despises kneelers. I lie and ask him to comfort M and D and Minny, and Caroline who must feel so guilty and everyone else, even the ones it would do good to suffer for me (or for anyone else). Like Piers and Antoinette. I ask him to help this misery who has me under his power. I ask him to help me. Not to let me be raped or abused and murdered. I ask him for light.

  Literally. Daylight.

  I can’t stand the absolute darkness. He’s bought me night-lights. I go to sleep with one glowing beside me now. Before that I left the light on.

  Waking up is the worst thing. I wake up and for a moment I think I’m at home or at Caroline’s. Then it hits me.

  I don’t know if I believe in God. I prayed to him furiously in the van when I thought I was going to die (that’s a proof against, I can hear G.P. saying). But praying makes things easier.

  It’s all bits and pieces. I can’t concentrate. I’ve thought so many things, and now I can’t think of one.

  But it makes me feel calmer. The illusion, anyway. Like working out how much money one’s spent. And how much is left.

  October 15th

  He has never had any parents, he’s been brought up by an aunt. I can see her. A thin woman with a white face and a nasty tight mouth and mean grey eyes and dowdy beige tea-cosy hats and a thing about dirt and dust. Dirt and dust being everything outside her foul little back-street world.

  I told him he was looking for the mother he’d never had, but of course he wouldn’t listen.

  He doesn’t believe in God. That makes me want to believe.

  I talked about me. About D and M, in a bright little matter-of-fact voice. He knew about M. I suppose the whole town knows.

  My theory is that I have to unmartyr him.

  The time in prison. Endless time.

  The first morning. He knocked on the door and waited ten minutes (as he always does). It wasn’t a nice ten minutes, all the consoling thoughts I’d scraped together during the night ran away and I was left alone. I stood there and said, if he does, don’t resist, don’t resist. I was going to say, do what you like, but don’t kill me. Don’t kill me, you can do it again. As if I was washable. Hard-wearing.

  It was all different. When he came in he just stood there looking gawky and then at once, seeing him without a hat on, I knew who he was. I suppose I memorize people’s features without thinking. I knew he was the clerk from the Town Hall Annexe. The fabulous pools
win. His photo in the paper. We all said we’d seen him about.

  He tried to deny it, but he went red. He blushes at everything.

  Simple as sneezing to put him on the defensive. His face has a sort of natural “hurt” set. Sheepish. No, giraffish. Like a lanky gawky giraffe. I kept on popping questions, he wouldn’t answer, all he could do was look as if I had no right to ask. As if this wasn’t at all what he’d bargained for.

  He’s never had anything to do with girls. With girls like me, anyway.

  A lilywhite boy.

  He’s six feet. Eight or nine inches more than me. Skinny, so he looks taller than he is. Gangly. Hands too big, a nasty fleshy white and pink. Not a man’s hands. Adam’s apple too big, wrists too big, chin much too big, underlip bitten in, edges of nostrils red. Adenoids. He’s got one of those funny inbetween voices, uneducated trying to be educated. It keeps on letting him down. His whole face is too long. Dull black hair. It waves and recedes, it’s coarse. Stiff. Always in place. He always wears a sports coat and flannels and a pinned tie. Even cuff-links.

  He’s what people call a “nice young man.”

  Absolutely sexless (he looks).

  He has a way of standing with his hands by his side or behind his back, as if he doesn’t know what on earth to do with them. Respectfully waiting for me to give my orders.

  Fish-eyes. They watch. That’s all. No expression.

  He makes me feel capricious. Like a dissatisfied rich customer (he’s a male assistant in a draper’s).

  It’s his line. The mock-humble. Ever-so-sorry.

  I sit and eat my meals and read a book and he watches me. If I tell him to go, he goes.

  He’s been secretly watching me for nearly two years. He loves me desperately, he was very lonely, he knew I would always be “above” him. It was awful, he spoke so awkwardly, he always has to say things in a roundabout way, he always has to justify himself at the same time. I sat and listened. I couldn’t look at him.