The Collector

 It's odd (and I feel a little guilty) but I have been feeling happier today than at any time since I came here. A feeling -- all will turn out for the best. Partly because I did something this morning. I tried to escape. Then, Caliban has accepted it. I mean if he was going to attack me, he'd surely do it at some time when he had a reason to be angry. As he was this morning. He has tremendous self-control, in some ways.

 I know I also feel happy because I've been not here for most of the day. I've been mainly thinking about G.P. In his world, not this one here. I remembered so much. I would have liked to write it all down. I gorged myself on memories. This world makes that world seem so real, so living, so beautiful. Even the sordid parts of it.

 And partly, too, it's been a sort of indulging in wicked vanity about myself. Remembering things G.P. has said to me, and other people. Knowing I am rather a special person. Knowing I am intelligent, knowing that I am beginning to understand life much better than most people of my age. Even knowing that I shall never be so stupid as to be vain about it, but be grateful, be terribly glad (especially after this) to be alive, to be who I am -- Miranda, and unique.

 I shall never let anyone see this. Even if it is the truth, it must _sound_ vain.

 Just as I never let other girls see that I know I am pretty; nobody knows how I've fallen over myself not to take that unfair advantage. Wandering male eyes, even the nicest, I've snubbed.

 Minny: one day when I'd been gushing about her dress when she was going out to a dance. She said, shut up. You're so pretty you don't even have to try.

 G.P. saying, you've every kind of face.

 Wicked.

    _October 21st_

 I'm making him cook better. Absolute ban on frozen food. I must have fruit, green vegetables. I have steak. Salmon. I ordered him to get caviare yesterday. It irritates me that I can't think of enough rare foods I haven't had and have wanted to have.

 Pig.

 Caviare is wonderful.

 I've had another bath. He daren't refuse, I think he thinks "ladies" fall down dead if they don't have a bath when they want one.

 I've put a message down the place. In a little plastic bottle with a yard of red ribbon round it. I hope it will become unrolled and someone may see it. Somewhere. Sometime. They ought to find the house easily enough. He was silly to tell me about the date over the door. I had to end by saying THIS IS NOT A HOAX. Terribly difficult not to make it sound like a silly joke. And I said anyone ringing up D and telling him would get Ј25. I'm going to launch a bottle on the sea (hmm) every time I have a bath.

 He's taken down all the brass gewgaws on the landing and stairs. And the horrible viridian-orange-magenta paintings of Majorcan fishing-villages. The poor place sighs with relief.

 I like being upstairs. It's nearer freedom. Everything's locked. All the windows in the front of the house have indoor shutters. The others are padlocked. (Two cars passed tonight, but it must be a very unimportant road.)

 I've also started to educate him. Tonight in the lounge (my hands tied, of course) we went through a book of paintings. No mind of his own. I don't think he listens half the time.

 He's thinking about sitting near me and straining to be near without touching. I don't know if it's sex, or fear that I'm up to some trick.

 If he does think about the pictures, he accepts everything I say. If I said Michelangelo's _David_ was a frying-pan he'd say -- "I see."

 Such people. I must have stood next to them in the Tube, passed them in the street, of course I've overheard them and I knew they existed. But never really believed they exist. So totally blind. It never seemed possible.

 Dialogue. He was sitting still looking at the book with an Art-Is-Wonderful air about him (for my benefit, not because he believes it, of course).

 M. Do you know what's really odd about this house? There aren't any books. Except what you've bought for me.

 C. Some upstairs.

 M. About butterflies.

 C. Others.

 M. A few measly detective novels. Don't you ever read proper books -- real books? (_Silence_.) Books about important things by people who really feel about life. Not just paperbacks to kill time on a train journey. You know, books?

 C. Light novels are more my line. (_He's like one of those boxers. You wish he'd lie down and be knocked out_.)

 M. You can jolly well read _The Catcher in the Rye_. I've almost finished it. Do you know I've read it twice and I'm five years younger than you are?

 C. I'll read it.

 M. It's not a punishment.

 C. I looked at it before I brought it down.

 M. And you didn't like it.

 C. I'll try it.

 M. You make me sick.

 Silence then. I felt unreal, as if it _was_ a play and I couldn't remember who I was in it.

 And I asked him earlier today why he collected butterflies.

 C. You get a nicer class of people.

 M. You can't collect them just because of that.