The Paper Chase Read Online Free PDF

heroine in a British film.”
    She let go. “Did you enjoy your coffee? And the conversation? Was Janine as usual?”
    “I expect so.”
    “There’s bound to be something wrong with anybody who runs a place like this. Janine’s a soak. Sometimes she’s better, sometimes worse, but on the whole, it gets worse. She stays in her room most days when it’s bad, but occasionally she breaks out. A few weeks ago she walked down a corridor naked, shrieking out something about throwing off the trammels of civilisation. Another night she came down to the kitchens and said it was a scandal that we used salt in the cooking. She’s been into a classroom before now, and taken over the teaching. She’s nice, Janine, but she’d wreck any school.”
    “He’s devoted to her.”
    She detached a piece of leaf from her cigarette, and looked at it critically. “She’s got the money, you know. But I don’t know what the hell makes me say that, or put it that way. He is devoted to her. Or he’s devoted to his nutty school, and she makes it possible for him to carry on. Don’t you think it’s nutty?”
    “In some ways, yes.”
    “I’m nutty too. But I come by it honestly. My father, Jeremy’s brother Jacob, is in the bin. Has been since I was sixteen. And my mother ran away with another man when I was quite small. I ran away with a man, too. That was what sent my father finally round the bend.” Applegate said nothing. “He was a boxer, used me as a punching bag. I left him and went to live with his best friend, then left him for a commercial artist named Piggy Lines. Do you know him? He’s rather good. Used to give tea parties – marihuana. Everybody got very high and had a good time with everybody else. And so on, and so on. Living around. You don’t want to hear about it all. Why am I telling you?”
    “I wonder. Won’t you sit down?”
    Hedda sat on the bed and stared at the wall. Applegate took the deal chair again. “Jeremy and Janine took me out of all that, though it was against their principles really. I was living a free life, wasn’t I? They fished me here out of the police court. It was all… Oh, silly. A party, that kind of thing, you know. I’ve been a prize convert. There shall be more joy in one delinquent converted than in ninety and nine – have I got it right? I can’t remember. I’ve done a job here as teacher and as matron, really I have. And I’m grateful to them both. But there’s something about it all that’s wrong. Can’t you smell it, how phony it all is?”
    “Perhaps I can.”
    She lay back on the bed. It creaked under her.
    “Well. Here we are.”
    “Here we are.”
    “Aren’t you going to do something about it?”
    “Not tonight. Since you’re kind enough to ask me. I’m not in the mood.”
    She sat up. Her eyes, intensely blue, looked quite vacant. “I could make you be.”
    “Not at the moment. Or at least I doubt it. You see, I’m not sure there isn’t something phony about you too. Have you ever heard of Johnny?”
    “What do you mean, Johnny? Johnny who?”
    “Montague was in here a few minutes before you. He talked what sounded to me like gibberish. He said we ought to be frank with each other and that we were both here on Johnny’s business. He said I knew something he didn’t know or I wouldn’t be here. Do you know what he was talking about?”
    “No. Perhaps he’d been drinking.” Applegate shook his head. “I shouldn’t worry. Bramley air makes people say odd things. You can put me down in your good books as a woman scorned but not indignant. Good night.” She took Applegate’s hand. For a moment her nails, small and sharp, pressed his palm. Then she stepped out again on to the balcony and was gone.
    Applegate shut the balcony door, noting without surprise that there was no key to lock it, or to lock the door of his bedroom. He undressed and got into the bed, which creaked again in protest against his presence on it. There was something wrong about