The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

coming with me,’ she says.
    ‘No,’
he says, trembling. His round face is pink and white, his eyes are wide open
with fear. He looks neat in his business suit and white shirt, as he did this
morning when Lise first followed and then sat next to him on the plane.
    ‘Leave
everything,’ says Lise. ‘Come on, it’s getting late. ‘She starts propelling him
to the door.
    ‘Sir!’
calls the porter. ‘Your aunt’s on her way —’
    Lise,
still holding her man, turns at the door and calls back, ‘You can keep his
luggage. You can have the book as well; it’s a whydunnit in q-sharp major and
it has a message: never talk to the sort of girls that you wouldn’t leave lying
about in your drawing-room for the servants to pick up.’ She leads her man
towards the door.
    There,
he puts up some resistance: ‘No, I don’t want to come. I want to stay. I came
here this morning, and when I saw you here I got away. I want to get away.’ He
pulls back from her.
    ‘I’ve
got a car outside,’ says Lise, and pushes open the narrow swing-door. He goes
with her as if he is under arrest. She takes him to the car, lets go of his
arm, gets into the driver’s seat and waits while he walks round the front of
the car and gets in beside her. Then she drives off with him at her side.
    He
says, ‘I don’t know who you are. I never saw you before in my life.’
    ‘That’s
not the point,’ she says. ‘I’ve been looking for you all day. You’ve wasted my
time. What a day! And I was right first time. As soon as I saw you this morning
I knew that you were the one. You’re my type.’
    He is
trembling. She says, ‘You were in a clinic. You’re Richard. I know your name
because your aunt told me.’
    He
says, ‘I’ve had six years’ treatment. I want to start afresh. My family’s
waiting to see me.
    ‘Were
the walls of the clinic pale green in all the rooms? Was there a great big
tough man in the dormitory at night, patrolling up and down every so often,
just in case?’
    ‘Yes,’
he says.
    ‘Stop
trembling,’ she says. ‘It’s the madhouse tremble. It will soon be over. Before
you went to the clinic how long did they keep you in prison?’
    ‘Two
years,’ he said.
    ‘Did
you strangle or stab?’
    ‘I
stabbed her, but she didn’t die. I never killed a woman.’
    ‘No,
but you’d like to. I knew it this morning.’
    ‘You
never saw me before in your life.’
    ‘That’s
not the point,’ Lise says. ‘That’s by the way. You’re a sex maniac.’
    ‘No,
no,’ he says. ‘That’s all over and past. Not any more.
    ‘Well
you won’t have sex with me,’ Lise says. She is driving through the park and
turns right towards the Pavilion. Nobody is in sight. The wandering groups are
null and void, the cars have gone away.
    ‘Sex is
normal,’ he says. ‘I’m cured. Sex is all right.’
    ‘It’s
all right at the time and it’s all right before,’ says Lise, ‘but the problem
is afterwards. That is, if you aren’t just an animal. Most of the time,
afterwards is pretty sad.’
    ‘You’re
afraid of sex,’ he says, almost joyfully, as if sensing an opportunity to gain
control.
    ‘Only
of afterwards,’ she says. ‘But that doesn’t matter any more.’
    She
pulls up at the Pavilion and looks at him. ‘Why are you shaking?’ she says. ‘It
will soon be over.’ She reaches for her zipper-bag and opens it. ‘Now,’ she
says, ‘let’s be lucid about this. Here’s a present from your aunt, a pair of
slippers. You can pick them up later.’ She throws them on the back seat and
pulls out a paper bag. She peers into it. ‘This is Olga’s scarf,’ she says, putting
it back in the bag.
    ‘A lot
of women get killed in the park,’ he says, leaning back; he is calmer now.
    ‘Yes,
of course. It’s because they want to be.‘ She is searching in the bag.
    ‘Don’t
go too far,’ he says quietly.
    ‘I’ll
leave that to you,’ she says and brings out another paper bag. She peers in and
takes out the