The Collector

 Of course G.P. was always trying to get me into bed. I don't know why but I see that more clearly now than I ever did at the time. He shocked me, bullied me, taunted me -- never in nasty ways. Obliquely. He didn't ever force me in any way. Touch me. I mean, he's respected me in a queer way. I don't think he really knew himself. He wanted to shock me -- to him or away from him, he didn't know. Left it to chance.

 More photos today. Not many. I said it hurt my eyes too much. And I don't like him always ordering me about. He's terribly obsequious, would I do this, would I oblige by . . . no he doesn't say "oblige." But it's a wonder he doesn't.

 You ought to go in for beauty comps, he said when he was winding up his film.

 Thank you, I said. (The way we talk is mad, I don't see it till I write it down. He talks as if I'm free to go at any minute, and I'm the same.)

 I bet you'd look smashing in a wotchermercallit, he said.

 I looked puzzled. One of those French swimming things, he said.

 A bikini? I asked.

 I can't allow talk like that, so I stared coldly at him. Is that what you mean?

 To photograph like, he said, going red.

 And the weird thing is, I know he means exactly that. He didn't mean to be nasty, he wasn't hinting at anything, he was just being clumsy. As usual. He meant literally what he said. I would be interesting to photograph in a bikini.

 I used to think, it must be there. It's very deeply suppressed, but it must be there.

 But I don't any more. I don't think he's suppressing anything. There's nothing to suppress.

 A lovely night-walk. There were great reaches of clear sky, no moon, sprinkles of warm white stars everywhere, like' milky diamonds, and a beautiful wind. From the west. I made him take me round and round, ten or twelve times. The branches rustling, an owl hooting in the woods. And the sky all wild, all free, all wind and air and space and stars.

 Wind full of smells and far-away places. Hopes. The sea. I am sure I could smell the sea. I said (later, of course I was gagged outside), are we near the sea? And he said, ten miles. I said, near Lewes. He said, I can't say. As if someone else had strictly forbidden him to speak. (I often feel that with him -- a horrid little cringing good nature dominated by a mean bad one.)

 Indoors it couldn't have been more different. We talked about his family again. I'd been drinking scrumpy. I do it (a little) to see if I can get him drunk and careless, but so far he won't touch it. He's not a teetotaller, he says. So it's all part of his warderishness. Won't be corrupted.

 M. Tell me some more about your family.

 C. Nothing more to tell. That'd interest _you_.

 M. That's not an answer.

 C. It's like I said.

 M. As I said.

 C. I used to be told I was good at English. That was before I knew you.

 M. It doesn't matter.

 C. I suppose you got the A level and all that.

 M. Yes, I did.

 C. I got O level in Maths and Biology.

 M. (_I was counting stitches -- jumper -- expensive French wool_) Good, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen . . .

 C. I won a prize for hobbies.

 M. Clever you. Tell me more about your father.

 C. I told you. He was a representative. Stationery and fancy goods.

 M. A commercial traveller.

 C. They call them representatives now.

 M. He got killed in a car-crash before the war. Your mother went off with another man.

 C. She was no good. Like me. (_I gave him an icy look. Thank goodness his humour so rarely seeps out_.)

 M. So your aunt took you over.

 C. Yes.

 M. Like Mrs. Joe and Pip.

 C. Who?

 M. Never mind.

 C. She's all right. She kept me out of the orphanage.

 M. And your cousin Mabel. You've never said anything about her.

 C. She's older than me. Thirty. There's her older brother, he went out to Australia after the war to my Uncle Steve. He's a real Australian. Been out there years. I never seen him.

 M. And haven't you any other family?

 C. There's relations of Uncle Dick. But they and Aunt Annie never got on.

 M. You haven't said what Mabel's like.

 C. She's deformed. Spastic. Real sharp. Always wants to know everything you've done.

 M. She can't walk?

 C. About the house. We had to take her out in a chair.

 M. Perhaps I've seen her.

 C. You haven't missed much.

 M. Aren't you sorry for her?

 C. It's like you have to be sorry for her all the time. It's Aunt Annie's fault.

 M. Go on.

 C. She like makes everything round her deformed too. I can't explain. Like nobody else had any right to be normal. I mean she doesn't complain outright. It's just looks she gives, and you have to be dead careful. Suppose, well, I say not thinking one evening, I nearly missed the bus this morning, I had to run like billy-o, sure as fate Aunt Annie would say, think yourself lucky you can run. Mabel wouldn't say anything. She'd just look.

 M. How vile!

 C. You had to think very careful about what you said.

 M. Carefully.

 C. I mean carefully.

 M. Why didn't you run away? Live in digs?

 C. I used to think about it.

 M. Because they were two women on their own. You were being a gent.

 C. Being a charley, more like it. (_Pathetic, his attempts at being a cynic_.)