"Well?" she said, slurring her eyes up at him.
Useless to point out that because of Brian she might behave better. Useless. It was all useless.
"I told you, I'll ask him to leave if you bring him. He'll leave all right."
"If you do, I'll divorce you." Vic smiled a little. "You don't think I mean it, do you? I will, though. I think I'm ready to take you up on your alimony offer. Remember?"
"I remember."
"Well—anytime." She was standing up now, her hands on her hips, her long body relaxed and her head lowered as it always was when she fought, like the head of an animal in combat.
"And what brought this on?" Vic asked, knowing very well what had brought it on. He felt the cool terror again along his spine. Melinda was not answering him. "Mr. Cameron?"
"I think he's a lot nicer than you are. We get along fine."
"There's more to life than getting along," Vic said quickly.
"It helps!"
They stared at each other.
"You believe me, don't you?" Melinda said. "All right, Vic, I want the divorce. You asked me if I wanted it a couple of months ago. Remember?"
"I remember."
"Well, does the offer still hold?"
"I never go back on my word."
"Shall I start the proceedings?"
"That's customary. You can accuse me of adultery."
She took a cigarette from the cocktail table and lighted it with an air of nonchalance. Then she turned and walked into her own room. A moment later she was back again. "How much alimony?"
"I said a generous allowance. It'll be generous."
"How much?"
He forced himself to think. "Fifteen thousand a year? You won't have to support Trix on it." He could see her calculating. Fifteen thousand a year would mean he couldn't print so many books a year, that he'd have to let Stephen go, or dock his salary, which Stephen would probably agree to. For a whim of hers, Stephen and his family would have to go on short rations.
"That sounds all right," she said finally.
"And Cameron isn't exactly a pauper."
"He's a wonderful, 'real' man," she replied, as if he had called him something derogatory. "Well, I suppose we're settled. I'll start whatever I have to do on Monday." With a nod of conclusion, she went back into her room.
Brian came in a few minutes later, and he and Vic went into Vic's room to continue their selection of sixty poems from the hundred and twenty of Brian's manuscript. Brian had categorized them into three piles, his favorites, second favorites, and the remainder. They were mostly on nature, with metaphysical and ethical overtones, or themes, which gave them a flavor like that of Horace's odes and epodes—though Brian had said, rather apologetically, that he had never cared for Horace and couldn't remember a single poem of his. Brian preferred Catullus. There were some passionate love poems, more or less ecstatic and unphysical love poems but as exquisite as Donne's. His poems about the city, New York, were not so sure as the others, but Vic persuaded him to include one or two in the book for variety's sake. Brian was very persuasive that morning, in a kind of ecstatic good spirits himself, and Vic more than once had the feeling Brian wasn't listening to what he said. But when Vic suggested a jacket color of red-brown, Brian woke up and disagreed. He wanted pale blue, a specific pale blue. He had a small piece of a bird's eggshell he had found that morning that was precisely the color he wanted. Colors were very important to him, he said. Vic put the shell fragment carefully away in his desk drawer. Then Vic described the ornamental colophons that he had thought of for the end of certain of the poems—a feather, grass blades, a spider's web, a basket worm's cocoon, and this Brian enthusiastically approved of. Vic had experimented in offset printing of all these objects and had got splendid results.
Brian stood up restlessly and asked, "Is Melinda here?" "I think she's in her room," Vic said.
"I told her we'd go for a row this afternoon."
They weren't quite finished choosing the poems, but Vic saw that Brian's mind was no longer on it. There would be time after the row and before dinner, he supposed. "Go ahead," Vic said, feeling weak suddenly.
Brian went.
Cameron arrived at seven o'clock that evening and installed himself in the living room with the smiling joviality of a man who expects a good dinner. Brian was helping Melinda in the kitchen. She was preparing a small suckling-pig, which Vic vaguely remembered that she had said Brian had insisted on buying when he saw it in a butcher's shop in Wesley that afternoon. The whole afternoon had been vague to Vic. He did not know how the hours had passed, could not remember what he had done, except that at some point he had used a hammer for something and had struck his left thumb, which throbbed now when he pressed it against his forefinger. He found himself talking to Cameron, who never shut up, without thinking about anything he was saying. He forced himself to concentrate for a moment on what Cameron was saying and heard "—never was much in the kitchen myself. You know, you've either got a knack for it or you haven't!" Vic shut it off again like a radio program he did not want to listen to. Something about Brian's being in the kitchen disturbed him. Why wasn't Brian in the living room, talking to him about things that they were interested in? Cameron would have had to shut up. Then he remembered that he had laid down an ultimatum this morning in regard to Cameron's coming tonight, and that Melinda had promised to start divorce proceedings on Monday morning, tomorrow, and that Cameron was here tonight, anyway, looking especially complacent.
