Colin Wilson - Ritual in the Dark

Not a hope. Christine daren't even let them know she still sees me. I had a fight with her father once.

Blimey! How?

Glasp shrugged, then shook himself, grimacing, as if rejecting an unpleasant memory.

He's a drunk, a blustering stupid drunk. Christine's brother saw us in a cafe and told her parents. They gave her a thrashing and made her promise not to see me again. Luckily, we spotted the brother when he saw us, and I was able to warn Christine not to tell her parents everything — to say she'd only met me once or twice in the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Otherwise she might have told them about posing for me and had the skin beaten off her. Anyway, the next day I was passing a pub in Hanbury Street when her father came out and started to yell at me.

How did he recognise you?

Oh, he'd seen me around, and I'd seen him — they only live five hundred yards away, round the corner.

What was he shouting about?

Stupid lies… filthy lies. If a quarter of it had been true, he could have had me thrown in gaol for ten years. I didn't know what to do… I didn't want him to get Christine into any more trouble. So I tried soothing him. That only made him worse. He was half drunk. He grabbed my collar and started shouting in my face — shooting spit and beer all over me. I told him to let go and he just shouted louder. So I jerked my knee into his crotch, and hit him in the face.

Sorme exclaimed: Christ! He found it hard to imagine Glasp hitting anyone.

Then luckily a policeman came along and threatened to throw us both inside, so we broke it up and separated pretty quickly. The Whitechapel police don't stand much nonsense — they're a rough crowd. I half expected him to start telling the policeman I'd seduced his daughter, but he didn't. He just slunk off. I was pretty shaken…

Did he take it out on Christine?

No, that's the odd thing. She came round the next day and told me about it. She'd been in the kitchen when he came in, and he started to yell about taking her to a doctor to get evidence against me. Then her mother flew into a rage and threatened to leave him if he tried anything of the sort. And later her mother questioned her about me — wanted to know if anything had ever happened with me, and, of course, Christine denied it, and her mother believed her.

Sorme listened gravely, nodding, wondering how to phrase the question that was forming and anxious not to let it appear on his face. He said:

But even if he'd taken her, nothing would have come of it?

Nothing… except gossip, probably. That'd be bad enough. If it came out that she'd posed for me it might cause trouble.

Did she pose often?

Oh yes… I drew her the first time she came. But not in the nude, of course.

Then why should there be trouble?

Because later on she started posing naked for me.

Ah… that's difficult. Did she want to?

Oh yes. At first she was shy. Then one day she fell in the brook in Victoria Park and got soaked. Her mother'd threatened to whip her if she played near water again, so she came around to me to get dry. She got into bed while I made a fire — it was a summer evening — and stayed there till her clothes were dry. Well, I persuaded her to pose sitting in front of the fire, and made a good sketch of her with the firelight behind her — one of the best things I ever did. After that she often posed.

Sorme said:

I can't help feeling you're playing with fire. Her father doesn't sound the kind who'd forget a quarrel.

Glasp said hopelessly:

I know. What can I do? Stop seeing her?

Well… that's up to you, of course. Would it make a big difference if you stopped seeing her for a few months — just to let things cool down?

Of course.

But you've done a lot for her. You've shown her a different way of life. She won't change now.

Glasp grimaced, shrugging:

I'm not so sure. Two of her sisters work in a hosiery factory. That's what her family want her to do. Besides, it's a pretty awful environment to fight against.

It must be a bit of a slum with seven kids.

It is. Sacking on the floor instead of mats, and boxes instead of chairs. And they're considered pretty well off because they live in a thirty-bob-a-week Council flat.

But as you say, she'll be sixteen in a few years' time, and you can take her out of it…

To what? My three pounds ten a week?

It'd be luxury after what she's been used to.

That's… not the point. It's not that I want to marry her. That'd only be a way of getting her legally outside her parents' grasp. That's what matters.

Sorme stretched in the chair, oppressed by the heat. He said slowly:

There could be other ways of doing that. Get someone to agree to act as guardian to her and send her to art school. Someone like Gertrude. If her parents could be persuaded…

Gertrude! Glasp said. That'd be out of the frying-pan into the fire!

Would it?

Glasp leaned forward, staring hard at Sorme; his forehead was twitching again, giving the thin face a slightly insane expression. He said:

You don't understand. I don't want someone else to get her. I don't want other people to keep getting in the way.

The intensity in his voice and the twitching forehead produced a curiously unpleasant impression on Sorme. He made his voice casual, saying:

Yes, I see your point. But you said you didn't particularly want to marry her.

And why should I? Glasp said; there was something strained and irritable about his vehemence. What would that give me, except a legal right to sleep with her?

Oh, a lot…

Glasp interrupted:

But I don't want to sleep with her. I don't even want to touch her. I'm not a bloody pervert. Don't you see? I just want her. I want her more than I've ever wanted anything…

He leaned back, his shoulders slumping; Sorme could almost feel the exhaustion that surrounded him like a grey air. He said soothingly:

That's OK. You've nothing to worry about, have you? You're not likely to lose her. And she's lucky she met you. What have you got to worry about?

Glasp said tiredly:

Not much. Not much at all.

Sorme stood up. He said:

Look here, I've got to go downstairs. Why don't we go out and get a last drink before the pubs close?

Glasp's voice sounded dead.

I don't want another drink. It's time I went back, anyway.

Just as you like…

Going down the stairs, he experienced a feeling of revolt about Glasp and his problems, a sudden understanding that Glasp's mind was no more like his own than Nunne's was, that his intellect was driven by emotions working at steam-heat; the stuffy heat of the room seemed like a physical counterpart of the climate of Glasp's mind. He breathed deeply and gratefully the cold air of the bathroom, smelling of damp plaster and escaping gas from the Ascot, thinking irritably: He needs something to love like the rest of us, but it couldn't be a kitten or a puppy or even a woman, it had to be an under-age girl, so the emotions can work up a nice pressure. And one day the boiler bursts.

He was glad Glasp had decided to leave; his sudden exhaustion had communicated itself to Sorme.

Across the waste ground he could see the light in his room; it puzzled him. He could remember switching it off. As he opened the front door, he thought suddenly: Damnation, Austin, and was glad he had seen Glasp on to the escalator at Camden Town Underground. Mounting the flight of stairs to his room, he saw the open door, and the straw basket that leaned against the doorjamb. It was full of empty beer bottles. He pushed open the door, prepared to say: Hello, Austin.

The old man stood on the rug, his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a neat black suit with a collar and tie. He smiled apologetically at Sorme.