In the Middle of the Wood Read Free

feeling that the two of them, this man and Linda, knew each other. And he didn’t care whether she came to Glasgow with him or not. If that was what she wanted to do let her do it. How calm and peaceful this station was with its flowers glowing in the sunlight and the blue paint shining in the light. It was as if he was leaving a heaven that he would never see again.
    He didn’t answer his wife. If she wanted to come that was up to her. At least she intended staying with him, perhaps in the same hotel or the same boarding house, for she had hastily packed a case. He was determined not to speak to anyone: actually it was an effort for him to talk. It was as if he had to heave language from the bottom of a languid mysterious sea entangled with seaweed. He was too tired to use words. Words were what deceived people, not united them. She had deceived him: even now she was deceiving him, he couldn’t trust her. And all the time the big man with the boxer’s nose sat in silence and stared down at the gravel, his hands resting on his knees. Linda too remained silent. Perhaps she was astonished that he had not made a scene. Indeed, this was what this was, a scene, he felt, a piece of theatre. And he was sweating again. He hated when he sweated, he felt so unclean. And, again, to sweat was a weakness, it showed his vulnerability.
    He wouldn’t speak to her all the way down to Glasgow, he would show himself was the strong silent man. What was happening to him had gone beyond language, he no longer had anything to say to Linda. Women were a source of evil in the world, they were less straightforward, more complicated than men. Compared with women men were littleboys playing in the illusive sun. He had had enough of that, more than enough. From now on he would be on his own, dependent on no one, there would be no trickery in his life, he would start afresh, he would have a new gaunt trembling origin.
    When the train came and slowed down at the platform he carried his case into a compartment near the engine. He heaved it up to the rack and sat down in a corner seat. The big hefty man followed him into the same compartment and sat opposite him, and he was followed by Linda. There was also another man in the compartment, a thin man with a scar on his brow. The thin man smiled at the hefty man and then at Linda and suddenly took the case from her and placed it on the rack beside his own.
    Ralph felt trapped, especially when the hefty man shut the door of the compartment. He could see quite clearly that there was some understanding between Linda and the other two men who, he was certain, also knew each other. They all sat in silence, the hefty man staring across at Ralph and smiling now and again. The thin man had started talking to Linda and was telling her about going to visit his sick wife in Glasgow where apparently she was in hospital. Also they had had a baby quite recently. But Ralph knew that all this was a pose. The thin man didn’t have a baby or a wife in hospital, he was quite sure of that. The thin man with the scar on his brow—relic probably of a knife fight—was in fact a thug like the hefty man.
    He saw the thin man looking at him oddly and then heard Linda whispering to him rapidly. What was she telling him? That he was mad? That he had tried to kill her? Or was she giving him instructions? The thin man listened intently, his head bent down towards Linda; his attention was almost painful to watch. Ralph made as if to open the door to the corridor but the hefty man smiled and shook his head. So that was it then. There definitely was a plot against him.
    And then Ralph noticed a detail that he hadn’t seen before. The window to the corridor was covered with a black blind which had been drawn downwards, so that it looked like a black shroud. The four of them were in fact locked in this compartment and no one walking along the corridor could see in, no matter what happened.
    There was a deep