Yes, I opened the drawer and found it.” “What bottle?” “The Dragon Exterminator. Selective weed killer. That’s what it was labelled.
Stuff in a dark green bottle and you were supposed to spray it on things. And it had labels with Caution and Poison, too.” “Did you buy it? Or did you just find it?” “I don’t know where I got it, but it was there, in my drawer, and it was half empty.” “And then you — you — remembered — ” “Yes,” said Norma. “Yes…” Her voice was vague, almost dreamy. “Yes… I think it was then it all came back to me. You think so too, don’t you, David?” “I don’t know what to make of you, Norma. I really don’t. I think in a way, you’re making it all up, you’re telling it to yourself.” “But she went to hospital, for observation, they said, they were puzzled. Then they said they couldn’t find anything wrong so she came home — and then she got ill again, and I began to be frightened.
My father began looking at me in a queer sort of way, and then the doctor came and they talked together, shut up in father’s study. I went round outside, and crept up to the window and I tried to listen. I wanted to hear what they were saying.
They were planning together—to send me away to a place where I’d be shut up!
A place where I’d have a ‘course of treatment’ — or something. They thought, you see, that I was crazy, and I was frightened… Because—because I wasn’t sure what I’d done or what I hadn’t done.” “Is that when you ran away?” “No — that was later — ” “Tell me.” “I don’t want to talk about it any more.” “You’ll have to let them know sooner or later where you are — ” “I won’t! I hate them. I hate my father as much as I hate Mary. I wish they were dead. I wish they were both dead. Then — then I think I’d be happy again.” “Don’t get all het up! Look here, Norma — ” He paused in an embarrassed manner — “I’m not very set on marriage and all that rubbish… I mean I didn’t think I’d ever do anything of that kind — oh well, not for years. One doesn’t want to tie oneself up — but I think it’s the best thing we could do, you know. Get married.
At a registry office or something. You’ll have to say you’re over twenty-one. Roll up your hair, put on some spectacles or something. Make you look a bit older.
Once we’re married, your father can’t do a thing! He can’t send you away to what you call a ‘place’. He’ll be powerless.” “I hate him.” “You seem to hate everybody.” “Only my father and Mary.” “Well, after all, it’s quite natural for a man to marry again.” “Look what he did to my mother.” “All that must have been a long time ago?” “Yes. I was only a child, but I remember.
He went away and left us. He sent me presents at Christmas — but he never came himself. I wouldn’t even have known him if I’d met him in the street by the time he did come back. He didn’t mean anything to me by then. I think he got my mother shut up, too. She used to go away when she was ill. I don’t know where.
I don’t know what was the matter with her.
Sometimes I wonder… I wonder, David.
I think, you know, there’s something wrong in my head, and some day it will make me do something really bad. Like the knife.” “What knife?” “It doesn’t matter. Just a knife.” “Well, can’t you tell me what you’re talking about?” “I think it had bloodstains on it — it was hidden there… under my stockings.” “Do you remember hiding a knife there?” “I think so. But I can’t remember what I’d done with it before that. I can’t remember where I’d been… There is a whole hour gone out of that evening. A whole hour I didn’t know where I’d been.