Ruth Rendell - The Thief

© 2006

THE FIRST TIME SHE stole something Polly was eight years old. She and her mother had gone in the car to have tea with her aunt, so that she could play with her cousins, James and Lizzie. It was a fine sunny day in the middle of summer. Chairs and tables were out in the garden under a big sunshade. There was a blow-up pool and the hose was on. James and Lizzie were in swimsuits and Polly put hers on. They splashed about in the water. Polly got very excited, splashed water over her mother and Auntie Pauline and took hold of Lizzie, holding her head under the water. Her mother told her to stop and then, when Polly didn’t stop, she told her again.

‘Stop that at once, Polly. You’re spoiling the game for the others!’

Polly had stopped for a while, then begun again, splashing with both hands. Her aunt got up, said to her, ‘Come into the house. I’ve got something I want to show you.’

So Polly got out of the water, dried herself on a towel and followed Auntie Pauline into the house. She thought she was going to get a present. Auntie Pauline had said that once before and had given her the thing she had shown her. Not this time. As soon as they were inside and the door was shut her aunt put her over her knee and smacked her hard, ten sharp blows across her bottom. Then Auntie Pauline went back into the garden.

When her aunt had gone and left her crying, Polly had hated her. She would have liked to kill her. Rubbing her eyes, she had walked slowly through the rooms. In one of them was a desk and on the desk, lying face-down, the book Auntie Pauline was reading. Polly took it. She put it in the big bag her mother had left in the hallway. It wasn’t her aunt’s book but one from the Public Library. If it was missing Auntie Pauline would have to pay for it…

When it was time to go, she and her mother got into the car and while her mother was driving Polly took the book out of her bag and hid it under her jacket. She meant to destroy it. But how? There was nowhere to burn it. She found her mother’s scissors and while her parents were watching the news on TV she went up to her bedroom and cut the book into a hundred small pieces.

Polly’s mother and Auntie Pauline had a lot of talks about the missing book. Polly was always there and heard what they said. Where could the book have gone? Auntie Pauline had asked everyone, Uncle Martin and Lizzie and James and the lady who came to clean. No one knew anything about it.

‘You haven’t seen it, have you, Polly?’ her mother asked.

Polly looked her right in the eyes. ‘Oh, no, Mummy, of course I haven’t.’

She was a good liar. It seemed too that she was a good thief.

In the same class at school there was a girl called Abigail Robinson. She wasn’t one of Polly’s crowd. Polly thought Abby was the only person in the class who didn’t like her. No, it wasn’t a matter of not liking. Abby really disliked her. And it was more than that; not hating but despising. Abby looked at her as if she was something dirty you trod in in the street. And she never spoke to Polly if she could help it.

One day Polly said to her, ‘What’s wrong with me, I’d like to know?’

Abby just shrugged her shoulders.

‘My mother says you’ve got an attitude problem,’ Polly said.

Her mother hadn’t said this. She knew nothing about Abby Robinson and her not speaking to Polly.

‘I suppose that’s a lie,’ said Abby. ‘ Another lie. You’re always lying. That’s why I don’t want to know you.’

Abby had a watch she was very proud of. It was gold with a dark green face and gold hands. At swimming class she left it on a shelf in the changing room and when everyone else had gone into the pool Polly hung back and took Abby’s watch. She put it in the pocket of her school blazer and put the blazer in her locker.

After the class Abby couldn’t find her watch and there was a hunt for it. Polly didn’t stay to join the hunt. It was three-thirty, time to go home. When she got home she went into the shed where her father kept his tools and smashed the watch with a hammer. Then, carrying the pieces, she went out into the street and dropped the remains of the watch down the drain.

Everyone at school was asked about the missing watch. The head teacher asked Polly along with the rest of her class. She looked into the head teacher’s eyes, stared into her eyes, and put on her honest face.

‘I never saw it, Mrs Wilson,’ she said. ‘I haven’t touched it.’

And all the time she had a little cut on her hand where a piece of broken glass had scratched her.

Stealing things from people who had upset her was something Polly did quite a lot. Only she didn’t call it stealing but ‘taking’. Later on, when she was older, she had a boyfriend called Tom. He was a student and he hadn’t much money. Music was what he loved and he loved his CD Walkman too. Polly thought he loved it much more than he loved her. She was right, he did, and after they had been together for a year he told her he wanted them to split up.

‘I can’t take you lying all the time,’ he said. ‘I never know what the truth is any more with you. You even lie about the time you left work or where you’ve been if you’re late or who you’ve met. It’s just easier for you to lie so you do it.’

‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t. Tell me just one lie I’ve told.’

‘You said the phone didn’t ring while I was out but I know it did. It must have rung three times. That’s one. You said you didn’t have a drink with Alex Swain last night but I know you did. John saw you. They say that even a liar must tell more truths than lies but you tell more lies than truths.’

He said he’d be moving out the next day. She took his Walkman while he was in the shower. He had left it lying in the bedroom on a chair on top of his jacket, a round blue and silver Walkman. She picked it up, ran down the stairs with it and out into the street. The place they lived in was at a crossroads with traffic lights. It was early morning and the traffic was heavy with big lorries waiting at the red light before taking the M1 up to the north. Polly was excited and breathing heavily. When the traffic light turned green, she threw the Walkman into the road, in front of a big truck. She heard the crunching cracking sound when the huge wheels went over it.

Tom knew he had left it somewhere in the room and he hunted everywhere for it. Of course he asked Polly if she had seen it. She looked him in the eye and told him she hadn’t.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Believe what you like,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen your stupid old Walkman. You must have left it somewhere.’

What could he do about it? He walked out on her the next day but not before he told her he had seen the broken blue and silver pieces in the road.

Polly wasn’t alone for long. She started seeing Alex Swain and she fell in love with him. He fell in love with her too and they moved in together. Alex was different from any boyfriend she had had before. He was five years older with a house of his own and a car and a good job. Apart from that, he was a grown-up person who made rules for life and kept them. As well as being very good-looking, Alex was kind and loving and, above all, an honest man who valued truth-telling. He often said how much he hated lying, even the kind of lies people tell to get out of going somewhere they don’t want to go. Even the lies they tell to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. If you spoke firmly and with kindness, he said, you need not lie.