9

Roy’s clothes were still in the suitcase. Every morning I took it out of the wardrobe and unlocked it and took out my shaving things. I always shaved at the sink in my room. It was a hateful task. Twice a week would have been enough, but I did it every day. When I had finished I put the shaving things back in the suitcase and locked the suitcase and put it back in the wardrobe. Then I went down in my dressing gown to get washed in the bathroom on the floor below.

I had to be careful because June had begun to examine my cosmetics and sort through my toilet things and handle my clothes. She even opened my handbag. It was not the bag I had bought on the first day but a large one that I had bought since.

‘You don’t have any letters in here,’ she said.

‘Should I have?’

‘Women always have letters in their handbags.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Then you’re an exception. I’m always finding my bag stuffed with letters. I have to sort them out and burn most of them.’

‘I’m a spy,’ I said. ‘I eat all my letters.’

‘Haven’t you got any family at all?’ she asked.

‘Not now.’

‘And you haven’t got a boy friend.’

‘No.’

‘You must have.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘No family, no boy friends, no job. Don’t you ever get sad?’

‘I’m very happy.’

‘I don’t see how you can be. Even Marguerite feels a bit sorry for you. You’re so strange. I think there’s something very odd about you, Wendy. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something.’

‘Am I a woman of mystery?’

‘Yes, you are. You ought to be fretting about not having anything to do, but you don’t seem to mind. If I were like you, I’d want to be a model—’ She stopped. ‘I know what’s strange,’ she said. ‘You’re always so well dressed and your hair is always so nice and you always look as though you’ve just come from a beautician’s, but you’re never going anywhere. It looks lovely, but it’s unnatural. You wear your clothes as though they were the most important things in the world. Everybody does that sometimes, but you’re doing it all the time. You’re too ladylike. Whenever I come in here you’re always as fresh as a daisy. You’re too perfect.’

I said that I liked to look nice.

‘But you seem to overdo it. You’re far too ladylike. And you’re so self-conscious.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

‘I’m not at all.’

‘You are. Look at the way you’re sitting in that chair.’

I crossed my legs.

‘It’s no use doing that,’ she said. ‘I think you’re rather strange—if you don’t mind my saying so. Did your mother’s death have an effect on you?’

‘It may have had.’ I saw an opportunity to explain my strangeness. ‘It made me very anxious about everything. You see, I feel that I have to be neat and tidy all the time or something dreadful will happen.’

‘You ought to see a psychiatrist.’

‘What for?’

‘He might be able to make you more relaxed. Don’t you think so?’

‘I’ve never thought of it.’

‘Don’t you ever think of your future?’

‘Not if I can help it.’