The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark Page A

orange scarf. ‘This is mine,’ she says. A lovely colour by
daylight.’ She drapes the scarf round her neck.
    ‘I’m
getting out,’ he says, opening the door on his side. ‘Come on.
    ‘Wait a
minute,’ she says. ‘Just wait a minute.’
    ‘A lot
of women get killed,’ he says.
    ‘Yes, I
know, they look for it.’ She brings out the oblong package, tears off the
wrapping and opens the box that contains the curved paper-knife in its sheath. ‘Another
present for you,’ she says. ‘Your aunt bought it for you.’ She takes the knife
from the box which she throws out of the window.
    He
says, ‘No, they don’t want to be killed. They struggle. I know that. But I’ve
never killed a woman. Never.’
    Lise
opens the door and gets out with the paperknife in her hand. ‘Come on, it’s
getting late,’ she says. ‘I know the spot.’
    The
morning will dawn, and by the evening the police will place in front of him the
map marked with an X at the point where the famous Pavilion is located, the little
picture.
    ‘You
made this mark.’
    ‘No I
didn’t. She must have made it herself. She knew the way. She took me straight
there.’
    They
will reveal, bit by bit, that they know his record. They will bark, and
exchange places at the desk. They will come and go in the little office,
already beset by inquietude and fear, even before her identity is traced back
to where she came from. They will try soft speaking, they will reason with him
in their secret dismay that the evidence already coming in seems to confirm his
story.
    ‘The
last time you lost control of yourself didn’t you take the woman for a drive in
the country?’
    ‘But
this one took me. She made me go. She was driving. I didn’t want to go. It was
only by chance that I met her.’
    ‘You
never saw her before?’
    ‘The
first time was at the airport. She sat beside me on the plane. I moved my seat.
I was afraid.’
    ‘Afraid
of what? What frightened you?’
    Round
and round again will go the interrogators, moving slowly forward, always
bearing the same questions like the whorling shell of a snail.
    Lise
walks up to the great windows of the Pavilion and presses close to look inside,
while he follows her. Then she walks round the back and over to the hedge.
    She
says, ‘I’m going to lie down here. Then you tie my hands with my scarf; I’ll
put one wrist over the other, it’s the proper way. Then you’ll tie my ankles
together with your necktie. Then you strike.’ She points first to her throat. ‘First
here,’ she says. Then, pointing to a place beneath each breast, she says, ‘Then
here and here. Then anywhere you like.’
    ‘I don’t
want to do it,’ he says, staring at her. ‘I didn’t mean this to happen. I
planned everything to be different. Let me go.’
    She
takes the paper-knife from its sheath, feels the edge and the point, and says
that it isn’t very sharp but it will do. ‘Don’t forget,’ she says, ‘that it’s
curved.’ She looks at the engraved sheath in her hand and lets it fall
carelessly from her fingers. ‘After you’ve stabbed,’ she says, ‘be sure to
twist it upwards or it may not penetrate far enough.’ She demonstrates the
movement with her wrist. ‘You’ll get caught, but at least you’ll have the
illusion of a chance to get away in the car. So afterwards, don’t waste too
much time staring at what you have done, at what you have done.’ Then she lies
down on the gravel and he grabs at the knife.
    ‘Tie my
hands first,’ she says, crossing her wrists. ‘Tie them with the scarf.’
    He ties
her hands, and she tells him in a sharp, quick voice to take off his necktie
and bind her ankles.
    ‘No,’
he says, kneeling over her, ‘not your ankles.’
    ‘I don’t
want any sex,’ she shouts. ‘You can have it afterwards. Tie my feet and kill,
that’s all. They will come and sweep it up in the morning.’
    All the
same, he plunges into her, with the knife poised high.
    ‘Kill
me,’ she says,