The Collector

Well, at seven I had my best suit and shirt and a new tie I bought on and I went down to see her. It was raining, which was all to the good. She made me wait about ten minutes and then she came out. You could have knocked me down with a feather. For a moment I thought it wasn’t her, it looked so different. She had a lot of French scent which I gave her on and she was really made up for the first time since she was with me; she had the dress on and it really suited her, it was a creamy colour, very simple but elegant, leaving her arms and her neck bare. It wasn’t a girl’s dress at all, she looked a real woman. Her hair was done up high unlike before, very elegant. Empire, she called it. She looked just like one of those model girls you see in magazines; it really amazed me what she could look like when she wanted. I remember her eyes were different too, she’d drawn black lines round them so she looked sophisticated. Sophisticated, that’s exactly the word. Of course, she made me feel all clumsy and awkward. I had the same feeling I did when I had watched an imago emerge, and then to have to kill it . . . I mean, the beauty confuses you, you don’t know what you want to do any more, what you should do.

“Well?” she said. She turned round, showing off.

Very nice, I said.

“Is that all?” She gave me a look under her eyebrows. She looked a real sensation.

Beautiful, I said. I didn’t know what to say, I wanted to look at her all the time and I couldn’t. I felt sort of frightened, too.

I mean, we seemed further apart than ever. And I knew more and more I couldn’t let her go.

Well, I said, shall we go up?

“No cords, no gag?”

It’s too late for that, I said. That’s all over.

“I think what you’re doing today, and tomorrow, is going to be one of the best things that ever happened to you.”

One of the saddest, I couldn’t help saying.

“No, it’s not. It’s the beginning of a new life. And a new you.” And she reached out her hand and took mine and led me up the steps.

It was pouring and she took one breath only before she went into the kitchen and through the dining-room into the lounge.

“It’s nice,” she said.

I thought you said that word meant nothing, I said.

“Some things are nice. Can I have a glass of sherry?” I poured us one out each. Well, we stood there, she made me laugh, she kept on pretending that the room was full of people, waving at them, and telling me about them, and them about my new life, and then she put a record on the gramophone, it was soft music, and she looked beautiful. She was so changed, her eyes seemed alive, and what with the French scent she had that filled the room and the sherry and the heat from the fire, real logs, I managed to forget what I had to do later. I even said some silly jokes. Anyway she laughed.

Well, she had a second glass and then we went through to the other room where I’d slipped my present in her place, which she saw at once.

“For me?”

Look and see, I said. She took off the paper and there was this dark blue leather case and she pressed the button and she just didn’t say anything. She just stared at them.

“Are they real?” She was awed, really awed.

Of course. They’re only little stones, but they’re high quality.

“They’re fantastic,” she said. Then she held out the box to me. “I can’t take them. I understand, I think I understand why you’ve given them to me, and I appreciate it very much, but . . . I can’t take them.”

I want you to, I said.

“But . . . Ferdinand, if a young man gives a girl a present like this, it can only mean one thing.”

What, I asked.

“Other people have nasty minds.”

I want you to have them. Please.

“I’ll wear them for now. I’ll pretend they’re mine.”

They are yours, I said.

She came round the table with the case.

“Put them on,” she said. “If you give a girl jewellery, you must put it on yourself.”

She stood there and watched me, right up close to me, then she turned as I picked up the stones and put them round her neck. I had a job fastening them, my hands were trembling, it was the first time I had touched her skin except her hand. She smelt so nice I could have stood like that all the evening. It was like being in one of those adverts come to life. At last she turned and there she was looking at me.

“Are they nice?” I nodded, I couldn’t speak. I wanted to say something nice, a compliment.

“Would you like me to kiss you on the cheek?”

I didn’t say, but she put her hand on my shoulder and lifted up a bit and kissed my cheek. It must have seemed hot, I was red enough by that time to have started a bonfire.

Well, we had cold chicken and things; I opened the champagne and it was very nice, I was surprised. I wished I’d bought another bottle, it seemed easy to drink, not very intoxicating. Though we laughed a lot, she was really witty, talking with other people that weren’t there again and so on.

After supper we made coffee together in the kitchen (I kept a sharp eye open, of course) and took it through to the lounge and she put on jazz records I’d bought her. We actually sat on the sofa together.