16

Once when he was seven years old Basil had taken a nail from an open counter in Woolworth’s. The nail was no good to him, he had no use for it, and afterwards he threw it away. But taking it, slipping his fingers up over the glass edge and snatching the nail into the palm of his hand, that had delighted him. It delighted him even more than he knew; and he didn’t guess then that taking the nail from Woolworth’s was the real beginning of his furtive life.

As he stood in the centre of his room, his stomach twitching with anxiety, he remembered the purloining of the nail. He was thinking that he should have told the woman about it. He should have tried to explain to her that bringing her little girl to see his birds was another action of the same kind; that his life had been constructed of actions like that; that he meant no harm at all. And the little girl hadn’t been frightened. She had done what he had asked her to do, and only afterwards – when he had led her back to the playground in the park, fearing that she might not know her way; when her mother had shouted at her and at him – only then had she said that she was afraid. But the mother said her clothes were torn, which was true because she had torn them herself, snatching the child from his hand. The mother had said that she would go with her husband to the police, and then in her fear the child was suddenly on the mother’s side; and he knew that she would lead them to where he lived.

He spoke to the birds, explaining what had happened, and what must happen now. He sobbed for a while, and when he ceased the room was silent except for the sound of movement in the cages. Then Mrs Jaraby’s telegram arrived.