John Fowles - The Collector

We just stood staring at each other.

“Get out of the way. I’m going to leave.” And she came straight towards me, towards the door. But I didn’t budge. I thought for a minute she was going to attack me, but she must have seen it was silly. I was determined, she couldn’t have won. She stopped right up close to me and said, “Get out of the way.”

I said, you can’t go yet. Please don’t oblige me to use force again.

She gave me a fierce cold look, then she turned away. “I don’t know who you think I am. If you think I’m somebody rich’s daughter and you’re going to get a huge ransom, you’ve got a shock coming.”

I know who you are, I said. It’s not money.

I didn’t know what to say, I was so excited, her there at last in the flesh. So nervous. I wanted to look at her face, at her lovely hair, all of her all small and pretty, but I couldn’t, she stared so at me. There was a funny pause.

Suddenly she said accusing like, “And don’t I know who you are?”

I began to go red, I couldn’t help it, I never planned for that, I never thought she would know me.

She said slowly, “Town Hall Annexe.”

I said, I don’t know what you mean.

“You’ve got a moustache,” she said.

I still don’t know how she knew. She saw me a few times in the town, I suppose, perhaps she saw me out of the windows of their house sometimes, I hadn’t thought of that, my mind was all in a whirl.

She said, “Your photo was in the paper.”

I’ve always hated to be found out, I don’t know why, I’ve always tried to explain, I mean invent stories to explain. Suddenly I saw a way out.

I said, I’m only obeying orders.

“Orders,” she said. “Whose orders?”

I can’t tell you.

She would keep staring at me. Keeping her distance, too. I suppose she thought I would attack her.

“Whose orders?” she said again.

I tried to think of someone. I don’t know why, the only name I could think of she might know was Mr. Singleton. He was the manager of the Barclays. I knew her father banked there. I saw him several times in there when I was, and talking with Mr. Singleton.

Mr. Singleton’s orders, I said.

She looked really amazed, so I went on quick. I’m not meant to tell you, I said, he’d kill me if he knew.

“Mr. Singleton?” she said, as if she wasn’t hearing properly.

He’s not what you think, I said.

Suddenly she sat down on the arm of the armchair, like it was all too much for her. “You mean Mr. Singleton ordered you to kidnap me?”

I nodded.

“But I know his daughter. He’s . . . oh, it’s mad,” she said.

Do you remember the girl in Penhurst Road?

“What girl in Penhurst Road?”

The one that disappeared three years ago.

It was something I invented. My mind was really quick that morning. So I thought.

“I was probably away at school. What happened to her?”

I don’t know. Except he did it.

“Did what?”

I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to her. But he did it, whatever it was. She’s never been heard of since.

Suddenly she said, “Have you got a cigarette?”

I was all awkward, I got a packet out of my pocket and my lighter and went and passed them to her. I didn’t know if I ought to light her cigarette, but it seemed silly.

I said, you haven’t eaten anything.

She held the cigarette, very ladylike, between her fingers. She’d cleaned the jumper up. The air was stuffy.

She took no notice. It was funny. I knew she knew I was lying.

“You’re telling me that Mr. Singleton is a sex maniac and he kidnaps girls and you help him?”

I said, I have to. I stole some money from the bank, I’d go to prison if they found out, he holds it over me, you see.

All the time she was staring at me. She had great big clear eyes, very curious, always wanting to find out. (Not snoopy, of course.)

“You won a lot of money, didn’t you?”

I knew what I said was confused. I felt all hot and bothered.

“Why didn’t you pay back the money then? What was it—seventy thousand pounds? You didn’t steal all that? Or perhaps you just help him for the fun of it?”

There’s other things I can’t tell you. I’m in his power.

She stood up with her hands in her skirt pockets. She stared at herself in the mirror (metal, of course, not glass) for a change.

“What’s he going to do to me?”

I don’t know.

“Where is he now?”

He’ll be coming. I expect.

She said nothing for a minute. Then she suddenly looked as if she’d thought of something nasty, what I said might be true sort of thing.

“Of course. This must be his house in Suffolk.”

Yes, I said, thinking I was clever.

“He hasn’t got a house in Suffolk,” she said, all cold.

You don’t know, I said. But it sounded feeble.

She was going to speak but I felt I had to stop her questions, I didn’t know she was so sharp. Not like normal people.

I came to ask you what you’d like for breakfast, there’s cereal, eggs, etcetera.

“I don’t want any breakfast,” she said. “This horrid little room. And that anaesthetic. What was it?”

I didn’t know it would make you sick. Really.

“Mr. Singleton should have told you.” You could see she didn’t believe it about him. She was being sarcastic.

I said in a hurry, would you like tea or coffee and she said coffee, if you drink some first, so with that I left her and went out to the outer cellar. Just before I shut the door she said, “You’ve forgotten your lighter.”

I’ve got another. (I hadn’t.)

“Thank you,” she said. It was funny, she almost smiled.

I made the Nescafe and I took it in and she watched me drink some and then she drank some. All the time she asked questions, no, all the time I felt she might ask a question, she’d come out quickly with a question to try and catch me. About how long she had to stay, why I was being so kind to her. I made up answers, but I knew they sounded feeble, it wasn’t easy to invent quickly with her. In the end I said I was going into the shops and she was to tell me what she wanted. I said I’d buy anything she wanted.

“Anything?” she said.

In reason, I said.

“Mr. Singleton told you to?”

No. This is from me.

“I just want to be set free,” she said. I couldn’t get her to say anything more. It was horrible, she suddenly wouldn’t speak, so I had to leave her.

She wouldn’t speak again at lunch. I cooked the lunch in the outer cellar and took it in. But hardly any of it was eaten. She tried to bluff her way out again, cold as ice she was, but I wasn’t having any.

That evening after her supper, which she likewise didn’t eat much, I went and sat by the door. For some time she sat smoking, with her eyes shut, as if the sight of me tired her eyes.

“I’ve been thinking. All you’ve told me about Mr. Singleton is a story. I don’t believe it. He’s just not that sort of man, for one thing. And if he was, he wouldn’t have you working for him. He wouldn’t have made all these fantastic preparations.”

I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t look at her.

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble. All those clothes in there, all these art books. I added up their cost this afternoon. Forty-three pounds.” It was like she was talking to herself. “I’m your prisoner, but you want me to be a happy prisoner. So there are two possibilities: you’re holding me to ransom, you’re in a gang or something.”

I’m not. I told you.

“You know who I am. You must know my father’s not rich or anything. So it can’t be ransom.”

It was uncanny, hearing her think it out.

“The only other thing is sex. You want to do something to me.” She was watching me.