The Collector

The next morning she made the first attempt to escape. She didn’t catch me off guard, exactly, but it taught me a lesson. She had her breakfast and then she told me her bed was loose, it was the far back leg, right up in the corner. I thought it was going to collapse, she said, there’s a nut loose. Like a mutt I went to help her hold it and suddenly she gave me a heavy push, just as I was off balance, and ran past me. She was at the steps and up them like lightning. I had allowed for it, there was a safety hook holding the door back open and a wedge she was trying to kick away when I came after her. Well, she turned and ran, screaming help, help, help, and up the steps to the outer door, which was of course locked. She pulled at it and banged it and went screaming on, but I got her then. I hated doing it, but action was necessary. I got her round the waist and one hand over her mouth and dragged her down back. She lucked and struggled, but of course she was too small and I may not be Mr. Atlas but I am not a weakling either. In the end she went limp and I let her go. She stood a moment, then she suddenly jumped and hit me across the face. It didn’t really hurt but the shock of it was most nasty, coming when I least expected it and after I’d been so reasonable when others might have lost their heads. Then she went into the room slamming the door behind her. I felt like going in and having it out with her, but I knew she was angry. There was real hatred in her looks. So I bolted the door and put up the false door.

The next thing was she wouldn’t talk. That next lunch she said not a word when I spoke to her and said I was ready to let bygones be bygones. She just gave me a big look of contempt. It was the same that evening. When I came to clear, she handed me the tray and turned away. She made it very plain she didn’t want me to stay. I thought she’d get over it, but the next day it was worse. Not only she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat.

Please don’t do this, I said. It’s no good.

But she wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t even look at me.

The next day it was the same. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t speak. I’d been waiting for her to wear some of the clothes I’d bought, but she kept on wearing the white blouse and the green tartan tunic. I began to get really worried, I didn’t know how long people could go without food, she seemed pale and weak to me. She spent all the time sitting against the wall on her bed, her back turned, looking so miserable I didn’t know what to do.

The next day I took in coffee for breakfast and some nice toast and cereal and marmalade. I let it wait a bit so she could smell it.

Then I said, I don’t expect you to understand me, I don’t expect you to love me like most people, I just want you to try and understand me as much as you can and like me a little if you can.

She didn’t move.

I said, I’ll make a bargain. I’ll tell you when you can go away, but only on certain conditions.

I don’t know why I said it. I knew really I could never let her go away. It wasn’t just a barefaced lie, though. Often I did think she would go away when we agreed, a promise was a promise, etcetera. Other times I knew I couldn’t let her do it.

She turned then and stared at me. It was the first sign of life she’d shown for three days.

I said, my conditions are that you eat food and you talk to me like you did at the beginning and don’t try to escape like that.

“I can never agree to the last.”

What about the first two, I said. (I thought even if she did promise not to escape, I’d still have to take precautions, so it was pointless, that condition.)

“You haven’t said when,” she said.

In six weeks, I said.

She just turned away again.

Five weeks then, I said after a bit.

“I’ll stay here a week and not a day more.”

Well, I said I couldn’t agree to that and she turned away again. Then she was crying. I could see her shoulders moving, I wanted to go up to her, I did near the bed but she turned so sharp I think she thought I was going to attack her. Full of tears her eyes were. Cheeks wet. It really upset me to see her like that.

Please be reasonable. You know what you are to me now; can’t you see I haven’t made all these arrangements just so you’d stay a week more?

“I hate you, I hate you.”

I’ll give you my word, I said. When the time’s up you can go as soon as you like.

She wouldn’t have it. It was funny, she sat there crying and staring at me, her face was all pink. I thought she was going to come at me again, she looked as if she wanted to. But then she began to dry her eyes. Then she lit a cigarette. And then she said, “Two weeks.”

I said, you say two, I say five. I’ll agree to a month. That’d be November the fourteenth.

There was a pause, and she said, “Four weeks is November the eleventh.”

I was worried about her, I wanted to clinch it, so I said, I meant a calendar month, but make it twenty-eight days. I’ll give you the odd three days, I said.

“Thank you very much.” Sarcastic, of course.

I handed her a cup of coffee, which she took.