‘What are you doing here? You must go at once,’ the girl whispers, terrified Dog Head will spring out at them like a jack in the box.
‘It’s all right — I gave that girl of yours a present to tell me when the coast was clear.’
This reference to the forgotten messenger fills the hearer with admiration for the practical attitude it indicates, far better at coping with life than her own. But then fear seizes her again, she glances round nervously, murmuring: ‘But I’m not sure that he’s out of the house… he may be around somewhere…’
‘You simply must leave him.’ Suede Boots’ muted voice might be addressed to an accomplice; or he might be anxious to avoid waking a sleeper nearby. The fellow’s quite mad. He ought to be locked up. You’re not safe with him. Promise you’ll come to my place tomorrow.’
But it is his safety that’s uppermost in her mind, or else she doesn’t want to commit herself, for instead of answering she says urgently: ‘You mustn’t walk along the path any more — or he’ll do something awful…
‘Oh, so he’s threatened me, has he?’ Indignation raises the young man’s voice half a tone. But her urgent, ‘Hush!’ quietens him, and she can only just hear when he starts talking fast, as if against time: ‘Don’t forget, I’ll be waiting for you you’ve got to come. You can’t possibly stay on here. I tell you what — to remind you, I’ll fix a scarf or something on the snake’s tree. You’re bound to see it there whenever you look out. That ought to stop you sliding back into that nightmare of yours. Don’t worry. Lots of people want to help you. Only you must make the first move yourself. You must leave here soon!’ The last words are spoken more slowly and emphatically, like a teacher impressing an important lesson upon an inattentive pupil.
Their hands have met in the darkness. His touch is so comforting and reassuring to her that it absorbs the attention she ought to be giving to what he says. Now, however, her hand is relinquished. The blur of his white shirt, which she’s just able to make out while he’s standing in front of her, rapidly recedes, melting into the darkness without a trace.
She is left alone with the frogs, whose chorus is mounting to a crescendo. It’s quite impossible for her to see which way Suede Boots has gone, even though she leans far over the rail under the trailing orchids to peer into the hot black night.
20
Now it becomes almost too hot to live as the monsoon approaches. Each afternoon great menacing masses of cloud gather and roof over the world, which swelters beneath, in burning suspense and tension.
The girl is still not acclimatized, and can’t stand this terrific heat, which keeps her awake at night, so that she’s always tired. If only she could go to some cool place! But, in spite of her longing to get away, she does nothing about it, feeling vaguely that the time hasn’t come yet.
Suede Boots has hung a blue scarf on the tree to remind her that kind people exist who will help and accept her. She remembers him saying, ‘Don’t worry — all my family will love you.’ She has such a craving for love that she often dreams of staying with them, and even thinks she will really go sometime — at some dim future date. But, as the torrid days slowly pass, the idea grows more and more dreamlike, and the people seem less and less real. Every day she believes in them a little less, since he can’t come any more to talk to her and convince her of their reality.
Her husband doesn’t talk to her either. For days at a time she speaks to no one except the servants. She is always lonely, and always seems to be waiting, but isn’t sure whether she’s waiting for the monsoon, or to escape, or just for another day. All the days are the same to her now, and they are all empty of everything but discomfort. The heat is an abominable infliction that takes away all her vitality.
Tonight she’s entirely alone in the house. Dog Head is out in the car. The servants have gone, and won’t come back till the morning. It is late, but the night seems to get hotter, even hotter than the day. The air is so oppressive that she can hardly move. At last she drags herself up to her room, takes her clothes off, and, stunned into apathy, sits on the bed under the fan, doing nothing. The dim light flickers the whole time. Her head aches, her eyes burn, she can’t make the effort of reading a book. Lightning is flickering too on the backs of her silver brushes, lying there like relics of a lost life. She’s dead tired, but knows she won’t be able to sleep — in any case, it’s far too hot to lie down. She has the sensation of dropping into a great steamy tank of asphyxiating heat.
Suddenly she comes to with a violent start, just as her husband appears in the room without warning. His hostile overbearing face comes towards her, he is flourishing a sheet of paper, demanding, ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ as he waves it in front of her.
She recognizes the letter that came from the university some time ago how on earth can he have discovered it in its secret hiding place? she wonders, too dazed and disconcerted to answer. ‘So you’re planning to rat on me,’ she hears next. The word rat makes her shudder, uttered in that bullying voice. But, still half stupefied, she only shrinks away from him without speaking.
It’s not the letter he’s so angry about really. But she has no conception of the outrage she’s committed by making a fool of him — as he thinks — by her friendship with Suede Boots, and not even apologizing for it. It never occurs to her, in her innocence, that she owes him an apology. She’s quite unaware of how insulted he feels; and her oblivious attitude infuriates him still more.
‘Why don’t you answer?’ he shouts, grasping her arms so violently that, unprepared, she slides off the edge of the bed, falling against him. He has been drinking as usual. She smells the whisky on his breath and twists her head away, trying to push him back. But he won’t release her, roused by the contact with her nakedness. She feels lust rising in him, which is mainly the lust to conquer her, and starts struggling. His blue, blazing, lustful eyes are quite close to hers; now, for the first time, she sees in them something dangerous and demented, reminding her of a mad dog, and strains away from him with all her strength. But of course she has no chance against him. He is far too strong. Overpowering her easily, he throws her on to the bed. Then down comes his big, sweating body on top of her, crushing her flat. Thunder crashes at the same moment, and, in her confused state, it’s as if the thunder has hurled itself on her, rolling its immensity over her and holding her down, while lightning transfixes her with a piercing pain. She can’t breathe — the man’s mouth, fixed on hers, stops her breathing. She’s suffocating… dying… she’s being murdered…
Just when she can’t endure it another second, Dog Head removes his weight from her and stands up by the bed. Dimmed by the lightning, the flickering light gives him a frightening, unreal, unfamiliar aspect that’s hardly human. He stands over her with that rabid expression, showing his teeth in a mad dog’s grin. In the midst of the atrocious heat she shivers with sudden chill, seeing him, not as her husband at all, but as some nightmare horror — a dog-headed man. Suddenly she’s panic-stricken — she must escape immediately, and at all costs…
His appetite and his rage sated for the moment, the husband goes off for a drink, leaving her alone. She gets her clothes on somehow and rushes out, across the centre room, down the stairs, the slight sound of her steps drowned by the storm. In her panic, she has only one thought: to get out of the house, and away from the man who’s half nightmare. Thunder goes on all the time. The lightning keeps stabbing at the windows, as if trying to reach her. A blinding flash stops her as she gets to the door, ripping the sky apart, followed by a tremendous thunderclap, shaking the house.