by John Fowles
I paid as quick as possible and went back to the van and the Cremorne and my room. I was really upset. It was partly that she had to borrow cigarettes because she had no money and I had sixty thousand pounds (I gave Aunt Annie ten) ready to lay at her feet—because that is how I felt. I felt I would do anything to know her, to please her, to be her friend, to be able to watch her openly, not spy on her. To show how I was, I put five five-pound notes I had on me in an envelope and addressed it to Miss Miranda Grey, the Slade School of Art … only of course I didn’t post it. I would have if I could have seen her face when she opened it.
That was the day I first gave myself the dream that came true. It began where she was being attacked by a man and I ran up and rescued her. Then somehow I was the man that attacked her, only I didn’t hurt her; I captured her and drove her off in the van to a remote house and there I kept her captive in a nice way. Gradually she came to know me and like me and the dream grew into the one about our living in a nice modern house, married, with kids and everything.
It haunted me. It kept me awake at nights, it made me forget what I was doing during the day. I stayed on and on at the Cremorne. It stopped being a dream, it began to be what I pretended was really going to happen (of course, I thought it was only pretending) so I thought of ways and means—all the things I would have to arrange and think about and how I’d do it and all. I thought, I can’t ever get to know her in the ordinary way, but if she’s with me, she’ll see my good points, she’ll understand. There was always the idea she would understand.
Another thing I began to do was read the classy newspapers, for the same reason I went to the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. I didn’t enjoy them much, it was like the cabinets of foreign species in the Entomology Room at the Natural History Museum, you could see they were beautiful but you didn’t know them, I mean I didn’t know them like I knew the British. But I went so as I could talk to her, so I wouldn’t seem ignorant.
In one of the Sunday papers I saw an advert in capitals in a page of houses for sale. I wasn’t looking for them, this just seemed to catch my eye as I was turning the page. “FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD?” it said. Just like that. Then it went on:
Old cottage, charming secluded situation, large garden, 1 hr. by car London, two miles from nearest village …
— and so on. The next morning I was driving down to see it. I phoned the estate agent in Lewes and arranged to meet someone at the cottage. I bought a map of Sussex. That’s the thing about money. There are no obstacles.
I expected something broken-down. It looked old all right, black beams and white outside and old stone tiles. It stood right on its own. The estate agent came out when I drove up. I thought he would be older, he was my age, but the public schoolboy type, full of silly remarks that are meant to be funny, as if it was below him to sell anything and there was some difference between selling houses and something in a shop. He put me off straight away because he was inquisitive. Still, I thought I better look round, having come all that way. The rooms were not much, but it was well fitted out with all mod cons, electricity, telephone and all. Some retired navy admiral or somebody had had it and died, and then the next buyer died unexpectedly as well and so it was on the market.
I still say I didn’t go down there with the intention of seeing whether there was anywhere to have a secret guest. I can’t really say what intention I had.
I just don’t know. What you do blurs over what you did before.
The chap wanted to know if it was just for myself. I said it was for an aunt. I told the truth, I said I wanted it to be a surprise for her, when she came back from Australia and so on.
How about their figure, he wanted to know.
I’ve just come into a lot of money, I said, to squash him. We were just coming downstairs when he said that, having seen everything, I thought. I was even going on to say it wasn’t what I wanted, not big enough, to squash him more, when he said, well, that’s the lot, bar the cellars.
You had to go out through the back where there was a door beside the back door. He took the key from under a flowerpot. Of course the electricity was off, but he had a torch. It was cold out of the sun, damp, nasty. There were stone steps down. At the bottom he shone his torch round. Someone had whitewashed the walls, but it was a long time ago, and pieces had come off so that the walls looked mottled.
Runs the whole length, he said, and there’s this too. He shone the torch and I saw a doorway in the corner of the wall facing us as we came down the stairs. It was another large cellar, four big steps down from the first one, but this time with a lower roof and a bit arched, like the rooms you see underneath churches sometimes. The steps came down diagonally in one corner so the room ran away, so to speak.
Just the thing for orgies, he said.
What was it for? I asked, ignoring his silly facetiousness.
He said they thought it might be because the cottage was so on its own. They’d have to store a lot of food. Or it might have been a secret Roman Catholic chapel. One of the electricians later said it was a smugglers’ place when they used to be going to London from Newhaven.
Well, we went back upstairs and out. When he locked the door and put the key back under a flowerpot, it was like down there didn’t exist. It was two worlds. It’s always been like that. Some days I’ve woken up and it’s all been like a dream, till I went down again.
He looked at his watch.
I’m interested, I said. Very interested. I was so nervous he looked at me surprised and I said, I think I’ll have it. Just like that. I really surprised myself. Because before I always wanted something up to date, what they call contemporary. Not an old place stuck away.
He stood there looking all gormless, surprised that I was so interested, surprised I had money, I suppose, like most of them.
He went away back to Lewes then. He had to fetch someone else interested, so I said I would stay in the garden and think things over before a final decision.
It was a nice garden, it runs back to a field which had lucerne then, lovely stuff for butterflies. The field goes up to a hill (that is north). East there are woods on both sides of the road running up from the valley towards Lewes. West there are fields. There is a farmhouse about three-quarters of a mile away down the hill, the nearest house. South you have a fine view, except it was blocked by the front hedge and some trees. Also a good garage.
I went back to the house and got the key out and went down into the cellars again. The inner one must have been five or six feet under the earth. It was damp, the walls like wet wood in winter, I couldn’t see very well because I only had my lighter. It was a bit frightening, but I am not the superstitious type.
Some might say I was lucky to find the place first go, however I would have found somewhere else sooner or later. I had the money. I had the will. Funny, what Crutchley called “push.” I didn’t push at the Annexe, it didn’t suit me. But I would like to see Crutchley organize what I organized last summer and carry it through. I am not going to blow my own trumpet, but it was no small thing.
I read in the paper the other day (Saying of the Day) — “What Water is to the Body, Purpose is to the Mind.” That is very true, in my humble opinion. When Miranda became the purpose of my life I should say I was at least as good as the next man, as it turned out.
I had to give five hundred more than they asked in the advert, others were after it, everyone fleeced me. The surveyor, the builder, the decorators, the furniture people in Lewes I got to furnish it. I didn’t care, why should I, money was no object. I got long letters from Aunt Annie, which I wrote back to, giving her figures half what I really paid.
I got the electricians to run a power cable down to the cellar, and the plumbers water and a sink. I made out I wanted to do carpentry and photography and that would be my workroom. It wasn’t a lie, there was carpentry to do all right. And I was already taking some photographs I couldn’t have developed in a shop. Nothing nasty. Just
couples.
At the end of August, the men moved out and I moved in. To begin with, I felt like in a dream. But that soon wore off. I wasn’t left alone as much as I expected. A man came and wanted to do the garden, he’d always done it, and he got very nasty when I sent him away. Then the vicar from the village came and I had to be rude with him. I said I wanted to be left alone, I was Nonconformist, I wanted nothing to do with the village, and he went off la-di-da in a huff. Then there were several people with van-shops and I had to put them off. I said I bought all my goods in Lewes.
I had the telephone disconnected, too.
I soon got in the habit of locking the front gate, it was only a grille, but had a lock. Once or twice I saw tradesmen looking through, but people soon seemed to get the point. I was left alone, and could get on with my work.
I worked for a month or more getting my plans ready. I was alone all the time; not having any real friends was lucky. (You couldn’t call the Annexe people friends, I didn’t miss them, they didn’t miss me.)
I used to do odd jobs for Aunt Annie, Uncle Dick taught me. I wasn’t bad at carpentering and so on, and I fitted out the room very nicely, though I say it myself. After I got it dried out I put several layers of insulating felt and then a nice bright orange carpet (cheerful) fitting the walls (which were whitewashed.) I got in a bed and a chest of drawers. Table, armchair, etcetera. I fixed up a screen in one corner and behind it a wash-table and a camper’s lavatory and all the etceteras—it was like a separate little room almost. I got other things, cases and a lot of art books and some novels to make it look homely, which it finally did. I didn’t risk pictures, I knew she might have advanced taste.
One problem of course was doors and noise. There was a good old oak frame in the door through to her room but no door, so I had to make one to fit, and that was my hardest job. The first one I made didn’t work, but the second one was better. Even a man couldn’t have bust it down, let alone a little thing like her. It was two-inch seasoned wood with sheet metal on the inside so she couldn’t get at the wood. It weighed a ton and it was no joke getting it hung, but I did it. I fixed ten-inch bolts outside. Then I did something very clever. I made what looked like a bookcase, only for tools and things, out of some old wood and fitted it with wooden latches in the doorway, so that if you gave a casual look it just seemed that it was just an old recess fitted up with shelves. You lifted it out and there was the door through. It also stopped any noise getting out. I also fitted a bolt on the inner side of the door which had a lock too down to the cellar so I couldn’t be disturbed. Also a burglar alarm. Only a simple one, for the night.
What I did in the first cellar was I put in a small cooker and all the other facilities. I didn’t know there wouldn’t be snoopers and it would look funny if I was always carrying trays of food up and down. But being at the back of the house I didn’t worry much, seeing there was only fields and woods. Two sides of the garden there is a wall, anyhow, and the rest is hedge you can’t see through. It was nearly ideal. I did think of having a stair run down from inside, but the expense was high and I didn’t want risk of suspicions. You can’t trust workmen now, they want to know everything.
All this time I never thought it was serious. I know that must sound very strange, but it was so. I used to say, of course, I’ll never do it, this is only pretending. And I wouldn’t have pretended even like that if I hadn’t had all the time and money I wanted. In my opinion a lot of people who may seem happy now would do what I did or similar things if they had the money and the time. I mean, to give way to what they pretend now they shouldn’t. Power corrupts, a teacher I had always said. And Money is Power.
Another thing I did, I bought a lot of clothes for her at a store in London. What I did was, in one I saw an assistant just her size and I gave the colours I always saw Miranda wear and I got everything there they said a girl would need. I told a story about a girl-friend from the North who’d had all her juggage stolen and I wanted it to be a surprise, etcetera. I don’t think she believed me in the store, but it was a good sale—I paid out nearly ninety pounds that morning.
I could go on all night about the precautions. I used to go and sit in her room and work out what she could do to escape. I thought she might know about electricity, you never know with girls these days, so I always wore rubber heels, I never touched a switch without a good look first. I got a special incinerator to burn all her rubbish. I knew nothing of hers must ever leave the house. No laundry. There could always be something.
Well, at last I went back up to London to the Cremorne Hotel. For several days I watched for her but I didn’t see her. It was a very anxious time, but I kept on. I didn’t take the camera, I knew it was too risky, I was after bigger game than just a street shot. I went twice to the coffee-bar. One day I spent nearly two hours there pretending to read a book, but she didn’t come. I began to get wild ideas, perhaps she’d died, perhaps she wasn’t doing art there any more. Then one day (I didn’t want the van to get too familiar) as I was getting off the Underground at Warren Street, I saw her. She was getting off a train coming from the north on the other platform. It was easy. I followed her out of the station, and saw her go off towards the College. The next days I watched the tube station. Perhaps she didn’t always use the tube to go home, I didn’t see her for two days, but then the third day I saw her cross the road and go into the station. That’s how I found out where she came from. It was Hampstead. I did the same thing there. I waited for her to come out the next day and she did and I followed her about ten minutes through a lot of little streets to where she lived. I walked on past the house she went into and found out the number and then at the end of the road the name of it.
It was a good day’s work.
I booked out of the Cremorne three days before, and every night I moved into a new hotel and booked out the next morning so that I couldn’t be traced. In the van I had the bed ready and the straps and scarves. I was going to use chloroform, I used it once in the killing-bottle. A chap in Public Analysis let me have it. It doesn’t go weak but just to make sure I decided to mix in a bit of carbon tetrachloride, what they call CTC and you can buy anywhere.
I drove round the Hampstead district and learnt the A to Z for that part off and how to get quickly away down to Fosters. Everything was ready. So now I could watch and when I saw the chance, do it. I was really peculiar those days, I thought of everything, just like I’d been doing it all my life. Like I’d been a secret agent or a detective.
It finally ten days later happened as it sometimes does with butterflies. I mean you go to a place where you know you may see something rare and you don’t, but the next time not looking for it you see it on a flower right in front of you, handed to you on a plate, as they say.
This night I was outside the tube as usual with the van up a side street. It had been a fine day but close; and it came on to thunder and rain. I was standing in the doorway of a shop opposite the exit, and I saw her come up the steps just as it was teeming. I saw she had no raincoat, only a jumper. Soon she ran round the corner into the main part of the station. I crossed, there were a mass of people milling about. She was in a telephone box. Then she came out and instead of going up the hill like she usually did she went along another street. I followed her, I thought it was no good, I couldn’t understand what she was doing. Then she suddenly shot up a side road and there was a cinema and she went in. I saw what it was, she had rung up where she lived to say it was raining hard and she was going in the cinema to wait for it to clear up. I knew it was my chance, unless someone came to meet her. When she had gone in, I went and saw how long the programme lasted. It was two hours. I took a risk, perhaps I wanted to give fate a chance to stop me. I went into a cafe and had my supper. Then I went to my van and parked where I could see the cinema. I didn’t know what to expect, perhaps she was meeting a friend. I mean I felt I was swept on, like down rapids, I might hit something, I might get through.
She came out alone
, exactly two hours later, it had stopped raining more or less and it was almost dark, the sky overcast. I watched her go back the usual way up the hill. Then I drove off past her to a place I knew she must pass. It was where the road she lived in curved up away from another one. There was trees and bushes on one side, on the other a whopping big house in big grounds. I think it was empty. Higher up there were the other houses, all big. The first part of her walk was in bright-lit streets.
There was just this one place.
I had a special plastic bag sewn in my mac pocket, in which I put some of the chloroform and CTC and the pad so it was soaked and fresh. I kept the flap down, so the smell kept in, then in a second I could get it out when needed.
Two old women with umbrellas (it began to spot with rain again) appeared and came up the road towards me. It was just what I didn’t want, I knew she was due, and I nearly gave up then and there. But I bent right down, they passed talking nineteen to the dozen, I don’t think they even saw me or the van. There were cars parked everywhere in that district. A minute passed. I got out and opened the back. It was all planned. And then she was near. She’d come up and round without me seeing, only twenty yards away, walking quickly. If it had been a clear night I don’t know what I’d have done. But there was this wind in the trees. Gusty. I could see there was no one behind her. Then she was right beside me, coming up the pavement. Funny, singing to herself.
I said, excuse me, do you know anything about dogs?
She stopped, surprised. “Why?” she said.
It’s awful, I’ve just run one over, I said. It dashed out. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s not dead. I looked into the back, very worried.