‘I took the broad red-carpeted stairs two at a time, swung myself on the newel post, round the half landing, took the final flight in three strides and burst into the clerkly’. Joe having thought that it was Parry on the phone the night before, now continues it further by following up what he thought he saw in the library. This could end up being extremely detrimental to Clarissa and Joe’s relationship if he continues to follow up every little suspicion that Parry is there instead of ignoring it. But even Joe has suggested that he may be imagining everything, which is where we begin to wonder as the reader whether this man is as straightforward as he is made out to be.
We lose faith even more in this character when we see that it is not only us that feel Joe is imagining things, Clarissa does also, ‘perhaps Parry, or the Parry as described by Joe, does not exist’. It is almost conformation for the reader. It also shows more of the relationship beginning to breakdown – mistrust from Clarissa. She disbelieves that Parry is actually harassing Joe like he claims.
‘“Clarissa, it was him!”
“Don’t get angry with me Joe.”’
First signs of and actual verbal argument between Joe and Clarissa and it is all based upon Parry. This unsettles the reader, as we are unsure of who to believe, as although
we see the story from Joes point of view, when we break down and analyse what happens as the police do; ‘“has he made threats against your property?” “No” “or against third parties?” “No” “Is he trying to blackmail you?” “No”’. Why shouldn’t Clarissa doubt him?
Joe sacrifices his relationship so blatantly and carelessly the most, when Clarissa arrives home expecting love and comfort after a long and stressful day and is instead met with the ranting of a man possessed, ‘All Clarissa wants to say is, where’s my kiss? Hug me! Take care of me! But Joe is pressing on.’ Parry once again is the centre of conversation with Joe and is not met by Clarissa with interest as he expects but with frustration and worry – for herself, ‘it’s always been a fear that she’ll live with someone who goes crazy. That’s why she chose rational Joe.’ But also Joe is looking to be taken care of, he too has had a long day of stress with harassment from Jed Parry, so neither one of them are reacting the way the other expects and with Joe’s extra frustration that Clarissa doesn’t quite believe what is being said, this can end no other way than with an argument, ‘“well fuck off then,” Joe shouts at her departing back. He feels he wouldn’t mind picking up the dressing table stool and throwing it through the window.’
‘I thought of Clarissa with a sudden leap of cheerful love, and it seemed an easy matter to set right our row – not because I had behaved badly or was wrong, but because I was so incontrovertibly right, and she was simply mistaken.’
Joe’s big mistake is thinking he can just make up when he still doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. This can lead up to further bottled up frustration, and is very unhealthy within a relationship. This happens again when Joe has the chance to talk to Clarissa, ‘I didn’t need to say my piece’, this again was another mistake on Joe’s part.
As if Joes appalling behaviour already towards Clarissa wasn’t enough, Joe begins to stoop even lower. For his feelings of utter dislike for Parry not to have been reciprocated by Clarissa, he begins to suspect that something is not right, ‘if my suspicions’, by even having these suspicions he has broken the trust and bond that he and Clarissa have/had, and he continues further, to look through Clarissa’s desk drawer, ‘I pulled open the drawer in which she kept her recent correspondence.’
But the end of the relationship comes when Clarissa iterates what both she and Joe know have been coming for a while, ‘“Joe, it’s all over. It’s best to admit it now. I think we’re finished, don’t you”’, ‘the next day she mover her things into that room’.
The breakdown of this relationship is not particularly slow; it all starts through the appearance of Jed Parry. Whether this was meant to happen it is unknown, but the final quote mentioned above, is the real ending of the relationship for me. They may continue to live together even get beck remotely some of what they had, but it is never the same and shall never be the same for Joe and Clarissa.