Then she said, doesn’t it terrify you?
Not more than so many other things.
I’m serious. If you married him I’d never speak to you again.
And she was serious. That very quick grey shy look she puts on, like a little lance. I got up and kissed her on the way up and went to meet the boys. And she sat there, still looking down at the sand.
We’re both terrible lookers-through. We can’t help it. But she’s always said, I believe this, I shall act like this. It’s got to be someone you at least feel is your equal, who can look through as well as you. And the body thing’s always got to be second. And I’ve always secretly thought, Carmen will be another spinster. It’s too complicated for set ideas.
But now I think of G.P. and I compare him to Piers. And Piers has got nothing on his side. Just a golden body throwing stones aimlessly into the sea.
November 5th
I gave him hell tonight.
I started throwing things around upstairs. First cushions and then plates. I’ve been longing to break them.
But I was beastly, really. Spoilt. He suffered it all. He’s so weak. He ought to have slapped me across the face.
He did catch hold of me, to stop me breaking another of his wretched plates. We so rarely touch. I hated it. It was like icy water.
I lectured him. I told him all about himself and what he ought to do in life. But he doesn’t listen. He likes me to talk about him. It doesn’t matter what I say.
I won’t write any more. I’m reading Sense and Sensibility and I must find out what happens to Marianne. Marianne is me; Eleanor is me as I ought to be.
What happens if he has a crash? A stroke. Anything.
I die.
I couldn’t get out. All I did the day before yesterday was to prove it.
November 6th
It’s afternoon. No lunch.
Another escape. So nearly, it seemed at one point. But it never was. He’s a devil.
I tried the appendicitis trick. I thought of it weeks ago. I’ve always thought of it as a sort of last resort. Something I must not bungle through unpreparedness. I didn’t write about it here, in case he found this.
I rubbed talc into my face. Then when he knocked on the door this morning I swallowed a whole lot of saved-up salt and water and pressed my tongue and the timing was perfect, he came in and saw me being sick. I put on a tremendous act. Lying on the bed with my hair in a mess and holding my tummy. Still in my pyjamas and dressing-gown. Groaning a little, as if I was being terribly brave. All the time he stood and said, what’s wrong, what’s wrong? And we had a sort of desperate broken conversation, Caliban trying to get out of taking me to hospital, I insisting that he must. And then suddenly he seemed to give way. He muttered something about it being “the end” and rushed out.
I heard the iron door go (I was still staring at the wall) but no bolts. Then the outer door. And there was silence. It was weird. So sudden, so complete. It had worked. I pulled on some socks and shoes and ran to the iron door. It had sprung back an inch or two—was open. I thought it might be all a trap. So I kept up the act, I opened the door and said his name in a quiet voice and hobbled weakly across the cellar and up the steps. I could see the light, he hadn’t locked the outer door, either. It flashed across my mind that it was just what he would do, he wouldn’t go to the doctor. He’d run away. Crack up completely. But he’d take the van. So I would hear the engine. But I couldn’t. I must have waited several minutes, I should have known but I couldn’t bear the suspense. I pulled the door open and rushed out. And he was there. At once. In all the daylight.
Waiting.
I couldn’t pretend I was ill. I’d put shoes on. He had something (a hammer?) in his hand, peculiar wide eyes, I’m sure he was going to attack me. We sort of stood poised for a moment, neither of us knowing what to do. Then I turned and ran back. I don’t know why, I didn’t stop to think. He came after me, but he stopped when he saw me go inside (as I instinctively knew he would—the only safe place from him was down here). I heard him come and the bolts were shot to.
I know it was the right thing to do. It saved my life. If I had screamed or tried to escape he would have battered me to death. There are moments when he is possessed, quite out of his own control.
His trick.
(Midnight.) He brought me supper down here. He didn’t say a word. I’d spent the afternoon doing a strip cartoon of him. The Awful Tale of a Harmless Boy. Absurd. But I have to keep the reality and the horror at bay. He starts by being a nice little clerk ends up as a drooling horror-film monster.
When he was going I showed it to him. He didn’t laugh, he simply looked at it carefully.
It’s only natural, he said. He meant, that I should make such fun of him.
I am one in a row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead. I felt it terribly strong today. That my being alive and changing and having a separate mind and having moods and all that was becoming a nuisance.
He is solid; immovable, iron-willed. He showed me one day what he called his killing-bottle. I’m imprisoned in it. Fluttering against the glass. Because I can see through it I still think I can escape. I have hope. But it’s all an illusion.
A thick round wall of glass.
November 7th
How the days drag. Today. Intolerably long.
My one consolation is G.P.’s drawing. It grows on me. On one. It’s the only living, unique, created thing here. It’s the first thing I look at when I wake up, the last thing at night. I stand in front of it and stare at it. I know every line. He made a fudge of one of her feet. There’s something slightly unbalanced about the whole composition, as if there’s a tiny bit missing somewhere. But it lives.
After supper (we’re back to normal) Caliban handed me The Catcher in the Rye and said, I’ve read it. I knew at once by his tone that he meant—“and I don’t think much of it.”
I feel awake, I’ll do a dialogue.
M. Well?
C. I don’t see much point in it.
M. You realize this is one of the most brilliant studies of adolescence ever written?
C. He sounds a mess to me.
M. Of course he’s a mess. But he realizes he’s a mess, he tries to express what he feels, he’s a human being for all his faults. Don’t you even feel sorry for him?
C. I don’t like the way he talks.
M. I don’t like the way you talk. But I don’t treat you as below any serious notice or sympathy.
C. I suppose it’s very clever. To write like that and all.
M. I gave you that book to read because I thought you would feel identified with him. You’re a Holden Caulfield. He doesn’t fit anywhere and you don’t.
C. I don’t wonder, the way he goes on. He doesn’t try to fit.
M. He tries to construct some sort of reality in his life, some sort of decency.
C. It’s not realistic. Going to a posh school and his parents having money. He wouldn’t behave like that. In my opinion.
M. I know what you are. You’re the Old Man of the Sea.
C. Who’s he?
M. The horrid old man Sinbad had to carry on his back. That’s what you are. You get on the back of everything vital, everything trying to be honest and free, and you bear it down.