The Collector

She got up and went up to the end wall.

You did it once, I said. You can do it again.

“God, God, it’s like a lunatic asylum.” She looked all round the room like I wasn’t there, like there was someone else listening or she was going to bust down the walls.

Either you do it or you don’t go out at all. No walking out there. No baths. No nothing.

I said, you took me in for a bit. You’ve just got one idea. Get away from me. Make a fool of me and get the police on to me.

You’re no better than a common street-woman, I said. I used to respect you because I thought you were above what you done. Not like the rest. But you’re just the same. You do any disgusting thing to get what you want.

“Stop it, stop it,” she cried.

I could get a lot more expert than you in London. Any time. And do what I liked.

“You disgusting filthy mean-minded bastard.”

Go on, I said. That’s just your language.

“You’re breaking every decent human law, every decent human relationship, every decent thing that’s ever happened between your sex and mine.”

Hark at the pot calling the kettle black, I said. You took your clothes off, you asked for it. Now you got it.

“Get out! Get out!”

It was a real scream.

Yes or no, I said.

She turned and picked up an ink-bottle on her table and hurled it at me.

So that was that. I went out and bolted up. I didn’t take her any supper, I let her stew in her own juice. I had the chicken I bought in case and had some of the champagne and poured the rest down the sink.

I felt happy, I can’t explain, I saw I was weak before, now I was paying her back for all the things she said and thought about me. I walked about upstairs, I went and looked at her room, it made me really laugh to think of her down there, she was the one who was going to stay below in all senses and even if it wasn’t what she deserved in the beginning she had made it so that she did now. I had real reasons to teach her what was what.

Well, I got to sleep in the end, I looked at the previous photos and some books and I got some ideas. There was one of the books called Shoes with very interesting pictures of girls, mainly their legs, wearing different sorts of shoes, some just shoes and belts, they were really unusual pictures, artistic.

However, when I went down in the morning, I knocked and waited as usual before going in, but when I did I was very surprised she was still in bed, she’d been asleep with her clothes on just under the top blanket and for a moment she didn’t seem to know where she was and who I was, I just stood there waiting for her to fly at me, but she just sat up on the edge of the bed and rested her arms on her knees and her head on her hands, like it was all a nightmare and she couldn’t bear to wake up.

She coughed. It sounded a bit chesty. She looked a real mess.

So I decided not to say anything then, and went and got her breakfast. She drank the coffee when I brought it and ate the cereal, the no eating was off, and then she just went back to the same position, her head on her hands. I knew her game, it was to try and get my pity. She looked properly beaten but I consider it was all a pose to make me fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness or something daft.

Do you want some Coldrex, I asked. I knew she had the cold all right.

Well, she nodded, her head still in her hands, so I went and got them and when I came back she hadn’t changed her position. You could see it was a big act. Like a sulk. So I thought, well, let her sulk away. I can wait. I asked if she wanted anything, she shook her head, so I left her.

That lunch-time she was in bed when I went down. She just looked over the bedclothes at me, she said she wanted just some soup and tea, which I brought, and left. It was more or less the same at supper. She wanted aspirins. She hardly ate anything. But that was the game she played once before. We didn’t speak twenty words together all that day.

The next day it was the same, she was in bed when I went in. She was awake though, because she was lying watching me.

Well, I asked. She didn’t answer, she just lay there.

I said, if you think you take me in with all this lying in bed lark you’re mistaken.

That made her open her mouth.

“You’re not a human being. You’re just a dirty little masturbating worm.”

I acted like I hadn’t heard, I just went and got her breakfast. When I went to bring her her coffee, she said “Don’t come near me!” Real poison in her voice.

Supposing I just left you here, I said, teasing. What’d you do then?

“If only I had the strength to kill you. I’d kill you. Like a scorpion. I will when I’m better. I’d never go to the police. Prison’s too good for you. I’d come and kill you.”

I knew she was angry because her game wasn’t working. I had the cold, I knew it wasn’t much.

You talk too much, I said. You forget who’s boss. I could just forget you. Nobody’d know.

She just shut her eyes at that.

I left then, I went into Lewes and got the food. At lunch she seemed to be asleep when I said it was ready, but she made a sort of movement, so I left.