Cameron heaved himself up from the sofa and announced that he was going to take a look in the kitchen.
In a few minutes he came out again, grinning. "Say, Vic, how about me getting two or three dozen of your snails? I know a plain butter-and-garlic sauce that you can't beat anywhere! A child could make it and it tastes as good as New Orleans!" He slammed his palms together and rubbed them. "Do you want to get 'em or shall I? Melinda said I ought to ask you first."
"The snails are not for eating," Vic said.
Cameron's face fell a little. "Oh. Well—what the hell are they for?" he asked, laughing. "Melinda said—"
"I don't use them for anything. They are useless," Vic said, spitting the words out with a particular bitterness.
Melinda came out of the kitchen. "What's the matter with having a few snails? Brian wants some and Tony says he can fix them. Let's have a real gala dinner!" She made a sweep with the cooking spoon, turned around almost into Cameron's arms and patted his cheek.
Vic glanced at Brian, who had followed Melinda out of the kitchen. "I just told Tony the snails aren't for eating," Vic said.
"Go out and get some, Tony," Melinda said. She was on the way to being drunk.
Tony made a start and stopped, staring at Vic.
"The snails are not for eating," Vic said.
"Look—I didn't say I 'wanted' the snails," Brian began awkwardly, not quite addressing either Melinda or Vic. "I mean, 'I' didn't say that."
"They ought to taste good, they're so well fed. Steak and carrots and Boston lettuce. Go out and get some, Tony!" And then Melinda nearly fell in the swinging door as she pushed it to go back into the kitchen.
Tony was staring at him like a stupid animal, like a dog that wasn't quite sure of the signal, his thick body poised to move. "How about it, Vic? You won't even miss three dozen."
Vic had clenched his hands into fists and he knew that Brian had noticed his hands, and still he kept them clenched. "You can't eat snails right away, you know," he said in a suddenly light, almost smiling tone. "You have to starve them for two days so that they're clean. Mine have all been eating. I suppose you know that."
"Oh," Cameron said, shifting his weight back evenly on his big feet. "Well, that's too bad."
"Yes, it is," said Vic. He glanced at Brian.
Brian was watching him tensely, his hands behind him against the sideboard of the glass cabinet, his blue shirt pulled taut across his strong, rounded chest. He had a wary, surprised look in his eyes that Vic had not seen before.
Vic looked at Cameron, smiling. "I'm sorry. Maybe next time I can remember to take a few snails out for you and keep them a couple of days without food."
"Fine," Cameron said uncertainly. He rubbed his hands again, smiled, and flexed his shoulders. And then he fled into the kitchen.
Brian smiled. "I certainly didn't mean to start anything about the snails. It was Melinda's idea. I said it was all right with me if you were in the habit of eating them. I could tell they were pets of yours."
Vic paid him the compliment of saying nothing in reply, took his arm, and drew him toward the living room. But they had not even sat down when Melinda called "Brian!" from the kitchen.
They had never had such a meal, even at any Christmas. Melinda had apparently tried to cook everything in the kitchen— three kinds of vegetables, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, three kinds of dessert standing on the sideboard, two dozen rolls, besides the suckling-pig in the center of the table, precariously laid on two shallow cookie sheets and a big pie pan between so that there would be no dripping on the tablecloth, though there was some dripping at either end because the pie pan made the cookie sheets slant downward. Vic found the smiling pig very disturbing and the abundance of food rather disgusting, though their two guests and Trixie, who had come back from somewhere at seven-thirty, seemed to take it as a big indoor picnic and enjoyed themselves noisily. At the table Vic realized what it was about Brian that made him uncomfortable: Brian was displaying some of the forwardness of Cameron toward Melinda. Vic knew that Brian thought her attractive, but the way he smiled at her, the way he helped her take her apron off, suggested that, consciously or unconsciously, he had taken his 'cue' from Cameron that Melinda was fair game for anybody and so meant to enjoy a part of her himself Vic realized that Brian would also have had to take his cue from his own tolerance of Cameron, and Vic, very definitely, felt that he had lost face with Brian Ryder. He imagined, from the snail altercation onward that Sunday evening, that Brian treated him with less respect.
The evening petered out miserably. Melinda got too drunk to want to go out with Cameron, who invited her out, and she sat on the sofa more or less mumbling jokes, mumbling the inanities of a drunk, which Brian listened to—out of politeness or curiosity, Vic didn't know—forcing a laugh out of himself now and then. Cameron sat spraddle-kneed in Vic's armchair, leaning forward with a beer can in his hand, in some fog of simple-minded beatitude that evidently made him immune to boredom or to the sensations of plain fatigue that might have inspired him to say good night. There were long silences. For the first time in months, Vic had about five strong drinks. The sordidness of the scene affected him as much as any mental pain he had ever borne, yet he could not bring himself to call Brian away with
