Deep Water

aunt's in New York for about ten days, he perhaps felt that his welcome at the Van Aliens' was not so threadbare as it had been just before he left. After dinner Ralph abandoned a discussion with Vic of H-bomb shelters, of which he had seen an exhibition in New York and evidently still knew nothing about, and Melinda put on a stack of records. Ralph looked in fine fettle, good for four in the morning at least, Vic thought, though this morning might be his last at the Van Allen house. Ralph was one of the worst offenders about staying late, because he could sleep the next morning if he cared to, but Vic usually matched him, staying up until four or five or even seven in the morning, simply because Ralph would have preferred him to retire and leave him alone with Melinda. Vic also could sleep late in the mornings if he wanted to, and he had the edge over Ralph in endurance, both because two or three in the morning was Vic's average hour of retiring and because Vic never drank enough to make him particularly sleepy.

       Vic sat in his favorite armchair in the living room, looking at the 'New Wesleyan', and now and then glancing over the top of the newspaper at Ralph and Melinda, who were dancing. Ralph was wearing a white dacron suit that he had bought in New York and was as pleased as a girl with the slim, trim figure it gave him. There was a new aggression in the way he clasped Melinda around the waist at the beginning of each dance, a foolhardy self-assurance that made Vic think of a male insect blithely dancing its way through its last moments of pleasure before sudden, horrible death. And the insane music Melinda had put on was so appropriate. The record was "The Teddybears," one of her recent purchases. For some reason, the words lilted maddeningly through Vic's head every time he stood under his shower:

       'Beneath' the 'trees' where nobody 'sees',

       They'll 'hide' and 'seek' as long as they 'please'!

       'Today's' the 'day' the teddybears have their 'pic-nic'!

       "Ha! Ha! Ha!" from Mr. Gosden, reaching for his drink on the cocktail table.

       Home on the range, Vic thought, where never is heard an intelligent word.

       "What's happened to my Cugat?" Melinda demanded. She was on her knees in front of the record shelves, making an unsystematic search. "I can't find him 'anywhere'."

       "I don't think it's in there," Vic said, because Melinda had pulled a record out of his section. She looked at it dazedly for a moment, made a face, and put it back. Vic had a little section of the bottom shelf where he kept his own records, a few Bachs, some Segovia, some Gregorian chants and motets, and Churchill's speeches, and he discouraged Melinda from playing them because the mortality rate was so high for records that she handled. Not that she liked any of his records. He remembered playing the Gregorian chants once when she was dressing to go out with Ralph, though he knew she didn't like them. "They don't put me in a mood for anything except 'dying'!" she had blatted at him that night.

       Ralph went into the kitchen to fix himself another drink, and Melinda said:

       "'Darling', do you intend to read the paper all night?"

       She wanted him to go to bed. Vic smiled at her. "I'm memorizing the editorial page poem for today. 'Employees serve the public 'and' They have to keep their 'place'. But being humble in this 'world' Is never a 'disgrace'. And many times I ask myself—' "

       "Oh, stop it!" Melinda said.

       "It's by your friend Reginald Dunlap. You said he wasn't a bad poet, remember?"

       "I'm not in the mood for poetry."

       "Reggie wasn't either when he wrote this."

       In retaliation for the slight to her friend, or perhaps just on a wild whim, Melinda turned the volume up so suddenly that Vic jumped. Then he deliberately relaxed and languidly turned the page of his newspaper as if oblivious of the din. Ralph started to turn the volume down, and Melinda stopped him, violently grabbing his wrist. Then she lifted his wrist and kissed it. They began to dance. Ralph had succumbed to Melinda's mood now and was dipping his steps with swishing movements of his hips, laughing his braying laugh that was lost in the booming chaos of sound. Vic did not look at Ralph, but he could feel Ralph's occasional glances, could feel his mingled amusement and belligerence—the belligerence slowly but surely, with each drink he took, replacing whatever decorum he might have had at the beginning of the evening. Melinda encouraged it, deliberately and systematically: Bait the old bear, hammer it in, kick him, she managed to convey to everyone by her own example, because he's not going to retaliate, he's not going to be dislodged from his armchair, and he's not going to react at all, so why not insult him?

       Vic crossed the room and lazily plucked Lawrence's 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' from the shelf and carried it back to his chair. Just then Trixie's pajama-clad form appeared in the doorway.

       "Mommie!" Trixie screamed, but Mommie neither heard nor saw her.

       Vic got up and went to her. "'S matter, Trix?" he asked, stooping by her.

       "It's too loud to 'sleep'!" she yelled indignantly.

       Melinda shouted something, then went to the phonograph and turned it down. "Now what is it?" she asked Trixie. "I can't sleep," Trixie said.

       "Tell her it's a most unjustifiable complaint," Vic said to Melinda.

       "Aw—right, well, turn it down," Melinda said.

       Trixie glared with sleep-swollen eyes at her mother, then at Ralph. Vic patted her firm, narrow hips.

       "Why don't you hop back in bed so you'll be wide awake for that picnic tomorrow?" Vic asked her.

       The anticipation of the picnic brought a smile. Trixie looked at Ralph. "Did you