“Our arena,” says Margaret. “Sandy thought it up. See where the ceiling’s gone? That’s where the lights go. We’ll surround it with comfortable seating, pillows, throws. A stage for our debates, out little theatricals. We proportioned it after the Colosseum, actually.”
“Your guacamole’s skinned over,” Pinter says.
“Squeeze lemon juice on it.”
“I can’t find the chips.”
“You ate them in the night. Just use saltines.”
Margaret refastens the plastic in the doorway. I have questions, but don’t know where to start; the syrupy cocktail has turned my brain to sludge. The puzzle of the arena aside, what happened to Pinter’s dietary discipline? The spread he’s begun to assemble on the table—plastic tubs of pre-made onion dip, lunchmeat slices rolled and pinned with toothpicks, a dish of canned fried onions, a jar of olives—reminds me of sample day at a small-town supermarket or the grand opening of a Chevy dealer. I wonder if its wealth of additives holds the secret to Margaret’s pickled youthfulness.
Pinter refreshes our drinks and we sit down. The china and silver are real, the napkins linen. Pinter, since coming home, has gained in stature, and as we toast—“To the life force,” Margaret says—I see that both the table and the counters stand at wheelchair height. I tower beside them. I feel fatherly, monumental. Normal-sized Margaret’s the mother and Pinter’s our son.
“So,” she says, “did you select a topic?” She’s poised to start eating, but there are rules, apparently.
“An actual formal topic.”
They nod.
“I’m blank. Politics?”
“Anything,” Pinter snorts. He’s hungry. “Our last guest—”
“Don’t lead him,” says Margaret. “Let him associate.”
My gaze drifts to the bedroom painting. “Pursuit.”
They smile and dip their crackers. I’m a hit. I take a rolled slice of bologna as my prize.
“I think it’s important to start experientially. Now which of us at this table,” Pinter asks, “has actually been pursued?”
“I have,” Margaret says.
“Ryan?”
“Romantically? Professionally?”
“You chose the topic. What was on your mind?”
“Omaha.”
“Them,” he says. “No business talk.”
“You know them, though?”
“We’ve mingled. No business talk.”
Margaret dabs guacamole off her lips. “Sandy, you’ve heard this, so try not to jump in. It happened in London, England, in the sixties. Sandy was there as a guest of British Railways.”
“Rationalizing their timetables,” he says.
“I’d read about Carnaby Street in all the magazines and wanted to buy an outfit. I took a bus. I rode on the top deck, to see the sights. There were a couple of boys with Beatles haircuts—Sandy had one himself once—”
“Oh go to hell.”
“You
I reach for a black olive. My drink is empty. Why is Pinter staring at my crotch?
“Anyway, two moptops. Drinking beer. Out of those extra large cans the English favor. And I, in what I’d guess you’d call my innocence—”
Pinter’s eyebrows arch. His nostrils flare.
“—approach these two lads to ask about their fashions. You know, their ‘scene.’ Can they point me to a shop, say—some place that’s out of the way and not for tourists? They tell me of course, if I’ll buy them a beer. A deal. So off we go into the streets, those crooked streets, and before I know it, well, they’re groping me. Against a wall. Beside a garbage can. And they take all my money.”
“The money that you paid them.”
“You’re out of rotation, Sandy. You’ll have your chance.”
“She was shopping for new experiences, not clothes. You weren’t around then, Ryan. The LSD years. My Margaret was something of a cosmic voyager. Dragged me out to meet Huxley, Leary, all of them. Hot tubs under the redwoods. Puppet shows. I thought it might break my writer’s block. Astrology. And maybe it helped. The visions. The new perspectives. Maybe it helped me turn DuPont around. But what did not help, I solemnly assure you, were Margaret’s suspiciously picturesque assaults in all the European capitals.”
“I slept with Henry Miller once,” says Margaret.
My phone rings in my jacket, a muffled trill. Pinter sneers at me, says “Pff . . .” I reach in and turn off the ringer and apologize, blushing even deeper than I have been.
