In the Middle of the Wood by Iain Crichton Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

He removed his clothes and lay under the quilt. Before he did so he walked over to the window and stared down at the street again, so far below him. Lights were flickering and fluttering everywhere and tiny figures of people walked along the pavements. He was so high above … had she chosen that room for that very reason? The fifth floor, that was very high.
    I must not sleep, he told himself over and over again. I must not sleep whatever happens. Linda had removed her clothes as well. She looked so beautiful, her hair so compact and fine. What a pity it was, what a terrible pity!
    She snuggled into him and laid her head on his shoulders. He eased it away from him and lay flat on his back gazing at the ceiling. He put his hand under the pillow and withdrew his wallet, checking that his receipt was still there. In the middle of the night if he fell asleep she would take it away, he knew that. And then there would be no evidence that he had been to Glasgow at all.
    He sighed. He could try and hide the receipt but there didn’t seem to be any place where he could put it. She would watch him and know perfectly well where he had placed it.
    He said, “So that’s why you chose the fifth floor.”
    â€œWhat are you saying?”
    You would. … He couldn’t bring himself to say that she would with her two friends push him out of the window so that his body would splatter like a red star on the pavement below. Everyone of course would think that he had committed suicide. All his actions pointed to that, madness and suicide, he had been inveigled into participating in his own death. But he would have preferred any death to this one, a plunge like a wounded bird on to stone. Pills, a knife, poison, any of these he would have preferred, but she knew that he hated heights. That was why she had brought him to this last rendezvous. And furthermore he would never know that she had betrayed him.
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me the truth?” he said. “Have pity. Tell me the plot, tell me you hate me.” But she stared at him innocently. How clear and pure and loving her eyes seemed. So she wasn’t even going to give him that satisfaction before he died. Damn her, damn her, damn her.
    He felt his body plummeting down as he hit the stone. Curiously enough, he didn’t care. He waited for events to happen as if they were inevitable, predestined. He was like a rabbit before the stoat’s sinuous dance, and it didn’t bother him any longer, not in the slightest. He had come to the end of the road, he was tired of thinking, of losing himself in these mazes without solution. Let them kill him if they wanted to, he could no longer control the labyrinth of thoughts that tormented his mind.
    â€œShall I put the light off?” said Linda.
    â€œIf you like,” he said.
    She put the light out and he stared into the darkness and at the shadowy chair over which his trousers hung, at the shadowy wardrobe.
    Linda tried again to put her head on his shoulder but he pushed her away. He knew that the bug was inside her dress but he didn’t care: he was so tired. He felt very sleepy: he tried to keep his eyes open for he knew that he must. After all if those two men came in it would be in the early hours of the morning. He imagined the whole empty hotel with no one in it but himself and Linda: he saw again the huge abandoned foyer with the tartan carpet on the floor. He rubbed his eyes and felt dizzy.
    â€œI think you should go to sleep,” said Linda.
    â€œYes,” he said, screwing his eyes against the darkness which was as heavy as a fleece.
    â€œWell, let go,” she said softly. “Nothing will happen to you.”
    â€œSo you say,” he mumbled.
    No, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He must sleep. He couldn’t even hear the traffic on the road below.
    He slept.
    It didn’t seem long before he was awake again. Linda was shaking him by the shoulder and the light