The girl was waiting outside. He stood stupidly at the top of the jailhouse steps while she spoke to the lawyer. Then the lawyer was gone and she touched his elbow. ‘ Come on, Hip.’
He followed like a wound-up toy, walking whither his feet had been pointed. They turned two corners and walked five blocks and then up the stone steps of a clean, dried spinster of a house with a bay window and coloured glass set into the main door. The girl opened the main door with one key and a door in the hallway with another. He found himself in the room with the bay window. It was high ceilinged, airy, clean.
For the first time he moved of his own volition. He turned around, slowly, looking at one wall after another. He put out his hand and lifted the corner of a dresser scarf, and let it fall. ‘Your room?’
‘Yours,’ she said. She came to him and put two keys on the dresser. ‘Your keys.’ She opened the top drawer. ‘Your socks and handkerchiefs.’ With her knuckles she rapped on each drawer in turn. ‘Shirts. Underclothes.’ She pointed to a door. ‘Two suits in there; I think they’ll fit. A robe. Slippers, shoes.’ She pointed to another door. ‘Bathroom. Lots of towels, lots of soap. A razor.’
‘Razor?’
‘Anyone who can have keys can have a razor,’ she said gently. ‘Get presentable, will you? I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Do you know how long it is since you’ve eaten anything?’
He shook his head.
‘Four days. ‘Bye now.’
She slipped through the door and was gone, even as he fumbled for something to say to her. He looked at the door for a long time. Then he swore and fell limply back on the bed.
He scratched his nose and his hand slid down to his jaw. It was ragged, itchy. He half rose, muttered, ‘Damn if I will,’ and lay back. And then, somehow, he was in the bathroom, peering at himself in the mirror. He wet his hands, splashed water on his face, wiped the dirt off on to a towel and peered again. He grunted and reached for the soap.