The Collector

 I could see he wasn't pleased at the door, but he asked us up. And oh, it was terrible. _Terrible_. Piers was at his slickest and cheapest and Antoinette was almost parodying herself, she was so sex-kittenish. I tried to excuse everyone to everyone else. G.P. was in such a weird mood. I knew he could withdraw, but he went out of his way to be rude. He could have seen Piers was only trying to cover up his feeling of insecurity.

 They tried to get him to discuss his own work, but he wouldn't. He started to be outrageous. Four-letter words. All sorts of bitter cynical things about the Slade and various artists -- things I know he doesn't believe. He certainly managed to shock me and Piers, but of course Antoinette just went one better. Simpered and trembled her eyelashes, and said something fouler still. So he changed tack. Cut us short every time we tried to speak (me too).

 And then I did something even more stupid than the having gone there in the first place. There was a pause, and he obviously thought we would go. But I idiotically thought I could see Antoinette and Piers looking rather amused and I was sure it was because they felt I didn't know him as well as I'd said. So I had to try to prove to them that I could manage him.

 I said, could we have a record, G.P.?

 For a moment he looked as if would he say no, but then he said, why not? Let's hear someone saying something. for a change. He didn't give us any choice, he just went and put a record on.

 He lay on the divan with his eyes closed, as usual, and Piers and Antoinette obviously thought it _was_ a pose.

 Such a thin strange quavering noise, and such a tense awkward atmosphere had built up; I mean it was the music on top of everything else. Piers started to smirk and Antoinette had a fit of --she can't giggle, she's too slinky, her equivalent -- and I smiled. I admit it. Piers cleaned out his ear with his little finger and then leant on his elbow with his forehead on outstretched fingers -- and shook his head every time the instrument (I didn't know what it was then) vibrated. Antoinette half-choked. It was awful. I knew he would hear.

 He did. He saw Piers cleaning his ears again. And Piers saw himself being seen and put on a clever sort of don't-mind-us smile. G.P. jumped up and turned off the player. He said, you don't like it? Piers said, have I got to like it?

 I said, Piers, that wasn't funny.

 Piers said, I wasn't making a noise, was I? Have we got to like it?

 G.P. said, get out.

 Antoinette said, I'm afraid I always think of Beecham. You know. Two skeletons copulating on a tin roof?

 G.P. said (frightening, his face, he can look devilish), first, I'm delighted that you should admire Beecham. A pompous little duckarsed bandmaster who stood against everything creative in the art of his time. Second, if you can't tell that from a harpsichord, Christ help you. Third (to Piers) I think you're the smuggest young layabout I've met for years and you (me) -- are _these_ your friends?

 I stood there, I couldn't say anything, he made me furious, they made me furious and anyhow I was ten times more em-barrassed than furious.

 Piers shrugged, Antoinette looked bewildered, but vaguely amused, the bitch, and I was red. It makes me red again to think of it (and of what happened later -- how could he?).

 Take it easy, said Piers. It's only a record. I suppose he was angry, he must have known it was a stupid thing to say.

 You think that's only a record, G.P. said. Is that it? It's just a record? Are you like this stupid little bitch's aunt -- do you think Rembrandt got the teeniest bit bored when he painted? Do you think Bach made funny faces and giggled when he wrote that? Do you?

 Piers looked deflated, almost frightened. Well, DO YOU? shouted G.P.

 He was terrible. Both ways. He was terrible, because he had started it all, he had determined to behave in that way. And wonderfully terrible, because passion is something you never see. I've grown up among people who've always tried to hide passion. He was raw. Naked. Trembling with rage.

 Piers said, we're not as old as you are. It was pathetic, feeble. Showed him up for what he really is.

 Christ, said G.P. Art students. ART students.

 I can't write what he said next. Even Antoinette looked shocked.

 We just turned and went. The studio door slammed behind us when we were on the stairs. I hissed a damn-you at Piers at the bottom and pushed them out. Darling, he'll murder you, said Antoinette. I shut the door and waited. After a moment I heard the music again. I went up the stairs and very slowly opened the door. Perhaps he heard, I don't know, but he didn't look up and I sat on a stool near the door until it was finished.

 He said, what do you want, Miranda?

 I said, to say I'm sorry. And to hear you say you're sorry.

 He went and stared out of the window.

 I said, I know I was stupid, I may be little, but I'm not a bitch.

 He said, you try (I think he didn't mean, you try to be a bitch).

 I said, you could have told us to go away. We would have understood.