The Collector

 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.

 It was his heart. Sicked up all over the hideous tangerine carpet. We just sat there when he had finished. When lie got up to go I tried to tell him that I understood, that I wouldn't say anything if he would take me home, but he backed away out. I tried to look very understanding, very sympathetic, but it seemed to frighten him.

 The next morning I tried again, I found out what his name was (vile coincidence!), I was very reasonable, I looked up at him and appealed, but once again it just frightened him.

 At lunch I told him I could see he was ashamed of what he was doing, and that it wasn't too late. You hit his conscience and it gives, but it doesn't hurt him at all. I am ashamed, he says; I know I ought, he says. I told him he didn't look a wicked person. He said, this is the first wicked thing I've ever done.

 It probably is. But he's been saving up.

 Sometimes I think he's being very clever. He's trying to enlist my sympathy by pretending he's in the grip of some third thing.

 That night I tried not being decent, being sharp and bitchy instead. He just looked more hurt than ever. He's very clever at looking hurt.

 Putting the tentacles of his being hurt around me.

 His not being my "class."

 I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch. I remember (the very first time I met him) G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. I didn't really understand, I thought he was just trying to shock Caroline -- and me. But of course, he is right. They're anti-life, anti-art, anti-everything.

 I write in this terrible nightlike silence as if I feel normal. But I'm not. I'm so sick, so frightened, so alone. The solitude is unbearable. Every time the door opens I want to rush at it and out. But I know now I must save up my escape attempts. Outwit him. Plan ahead.

 _Survive_.

    _October 16th_

 It's afternoon. I should be in life class. Does the world go on? Does the sun still shine? Last night, I thought -- I am dead. This is death. This is hell. There wouldn't be other people in hell. Or just one, like him. The devil wouldn't be devilish and rather attractive, but like him.

 I drew him this morning. I wanted to get his face, to illustrate this. But it wasn't any good, and he wanted it. Said he would pay TWO HUNDRED guineas for it. He is mad.

 It is me. I am his madness.

 For years he's been looking for something to put his madness into. And he found me.

 I can't write in a vacuum like this. To no one. When I draw I always think of someone like G.P. at my shoulder.

 All parents should be like ours, then sisters really become sisters. They _have_ to be to each other what Minny and I are.

 Dear Minny.