In the Middle of the Wood Read Free Page B

him, he couldn’t get it out of his head. The noise of the train was becoming louder and louder. He put his hands on his head and squeezed it, like a large soft fruit, between his hands, while the hefty man smiled at him and Linda and the thin man talked endlessly, chattering like water. The black tie of the hefty man reminded him of the black water of the river beside which they had often had a picnic, and that in turn reminded him of a phone, black and changing like liquid. The water itself was like an unintelligible conversation on a phone.
    He mustn’t stay where he was, that was certain. He must get out, or he would go mad. It seemed to him that one or other of the men had a small cassette in his pocket and was playing the tune that so much obsessed him. But how had they known that he liked it so much? It must have been Linda who had told them.
    Suddenly, before he could think, he had slid open the door and in one rapid movement was out in the corridor and walking hastily along it. He thought of locking himself in the lavatory but didn’t do so. No, they might have some method of getting into the lavatory with skeleton keys perhaps. Perhaps he would be better showing himself to other people so that they would remember him. As he stood in the corridor he heard the door of the compartment opening and turned to see that it was Linda. He stared at her in a hostile manner without speaking and walked further down the train. He took out a cigarette and lit it and looked out at the landscape in which cows grazed peacefully, while rivers tumbled headlong from the hills. He carefully shut the window of the door and kept well away from it, all the time looking about him in case the hefty man had crept up behind him without his noticing.
    Where was Linda? Had she gone back to her compartment? Was she at this very moment gnashing her teeth with rage because she hadn’t succeeded in her purpose, because he had seen through her plot? And then he saw her. She was standing beside one of the doors of the train. It might all be a trick. She might be enticing him towards the door so that the two men could come up behind him and throw him out. He gestured to her to come towards him, but she didn’t move, and didn’t seem to have noticed him. How cunning she was! She was obviously trying to show the other passengers that all this was his fault, that he was mad, that he was torturing her. But she wouldn’t get away with that, he would be as cunning as she was. He put his hand hypocritically on her shoulder, smiling at her at the same time, but she drew away from him, staring at him as if she had never seen him before. He had better be careful or she might pretend that he had attacked her. Her trickery was inventive and infinite.
    â€œWhat are you trying to do?” she whispered to him fiercely.
    â€œWhat are you trying to do to me?” he whispered back to her. “Who are these two men?”
    â€œWhat two men?”
    â€œThe two men in the compartment. Don’t tell me that you don’t know them.”
    â€œI have never seen them before in my life.”
    â€œYou can tell that to a child. I am not a child. What do you think I am? Stupid?”
    â€œI never thought you were stupid.”
    â€œWhat else do you think I am? What were you doing before you came to the train? Phoning?”
    â€œI wasn’t phoning. Strangely enough, I was packing. That was what I was doing.”
    â€œAnd before that?”
    â€œI phoned your doctor. But he was away.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNothing else.”
    He gazed at her with hatred. She had an answer for everything. God damn you, he muttered under his breath. How did I not notice before that you loathed me?
    â€œYou think being a writer is the most important thing on earth,” she used to say to him. “What about doctors, nurses? Many of them never have their names quoted in magazines. All you want is letters. If you don’t