— Oh with! running her hand up his calf, over his rising knee as he reached out an arm — no don't, don't answer it let the tape run, you can break in if it's important can't you? and the grating echo of her own voice reciting the litany, the beep, and then a voice, a filtered imitation of a voice — Oh Teen? It's Irish. It's Trish Teen you've got to call me. I've tried and tried to reach Larry, your husband Larry? They pretended they didn't know him and then they blamed me because they said I had his name wrong Teen I may have to go to prison. Even when I got his secretary he was always in conference or in court Teen it's that wretched boy, these loathsome right to life people got hold of him and had a guardian appointed for the foetus and won a court order to stop the abortion and my lawyers don't know what they're doing, they won't talk to me they just talk to each other and send me the bills and then one of them even had the impudence to call me at the hospital where Mummy died last night and I was snatched away from that marvelous new Basque restaurant everyone's thronging to, a month in advance for a table unless you're a rock star and of course it's très cher with hordes of Japanese so it's clear at a glance there's not a soul you know all simply glaring at my diamonds, I should never have worn them, the ones that were literally torn off my throat that night in the elevator after that jubilee with Bunker? These clever insurance people had actually bought them back from the thieves if you can imagine, like these shady deals for these tiresome hostages you keep reading about in the papers, it was like seeing old friends and now they have the gall to ask for the money they gave me when they settled my perfectly legal claim, isn't that why we pay these frightful premiums year after year in the first place? It just shows the lengths they'll go to, it's all sheer greed you almost want to lose your faith in human nature, I don't know what this poor boy thinks he's up to but oh, I have to tell you. I went back and bought that sweet little Lhasa, the one we saw in the pet store window coming back from the clinic? I've got to run, Bunker's persuaded me to press charges against that pitiful creature who threw the catsup on my sables when we came out of the clinic thank God it wasn't the chinchilla Mummy would kill me so I'll miss the vernissage for what's his name I can't pronounce it, are you going? I hate to miss it but Bunker insists it's our duty to stand up to these hordes who are out to destroy civilization Teen call me, I may need you. I hate to bother Larry but he may be all that stands between me and that island, Rikers is it? remember their sign NO FOOD AT ANY PRICE and those vile hamburgers at four in the morning the night Bim stole the hearse and we all went out to Jones Beach God, those were the good times weren't they Teen, how could we know it would all turn into such a…
— Harry, could you…
— No.
— But you haven't even…
— I said no Christina. Don't get me into it. Better watch out yourself too when she says she may need you.
— She just means my moral sup…
— If she's going to court she needs a witness. You were with her?
— At the clinic? I had to go with her Harry, I mean you never know what's going to happen at a place like that and of course it did, this nicely dressed young man in rimless glasses suddenly stepping up and throwing catsup on her fur coat, something about spilling innocent blood God knows what he was, animal rights or rights to life it was quite unnerving.
— Probably both, and the gun lobby thrown in. You mean she had the abortion.
— That's why she's terrified of going to prison, you heard her. This frightful boy demanding his paternal rights as though she were some sort of brood sow, she'd literally found him on the street picking up cigarette butts and pulling newspapers out of trashcans so she invited him to dinner and the police called just as they were sitting down. He'd stolen a book in a bookstore to bring her as a gift, some science fiction nonsense about people living under water, he kept telling them it was his book, he meant he'd written it there was his name on the cover but the price of books is so appalling these days he obviously couldn't afford it but of course they couldn't see it that way till she went down there herself and ordered fifty copies to calm them down. Now he's ready to send her to prison for murdering his child. His child!
— Nobody's going to send her to prison, certainly make the world safer for democracy if they did but she'll probably just be cited for contempt and fined, a good healthy one if she shows up in those diamonds. What was she doing at a public clinic?
— She could hardly go to her own hospital, I mean not while she's suing them could she?
— You mean she's got one set of lawyers bringing this suit for foetal endangerment and another set to defend her abortion. No wonder they talk to each other.
— I suppose that's exactly why she has two sets, I mean this way she probably counts on winning one or the other after the lesson she learned losing that dreadful custody battle over T J, she's still livid about it.
— But she won didn't she? Doesn't the boy live with her?
— That was the problem Harry. Neither of them wanted him. Of course the father paid through the nose for support and a trust fund, one of these quart a day louts in ostrich skin boots who owned most of downtown Lubbock till somebody shot him and she had to take his estate to court against six other paternity suits for a settlement, I mean that's hardly the case this time. God knows what this miserable boy thought he was up to, he's really not quite bright if you take a look at his book.
— Maybe just bright enough to figure if he got her pregnant she'd marry him, the inevitable divorce comes along and he ends up with the child and collects a bundle for its support. Like T J in reverse.
— Well you see you could help if you wanted to Harry, think about it. I mean of course he was planning something like that, he…
— Probably the only way he could get it up, if you marry money you're going to earn every penny and some kid fishing newspapers out of trash-cans who…
— She said he explained that. He told her he was doing market research for some ad agency on what page people reached in the paper when they threw it away and how far down they smoked these different brands of cigarettes it all sounded rather bogus, she's been buying him the most lavish gifts like a twelve hundred dollar robe from Sulka's he tried to return for cash but they told him they'd be glad to credit it to her account so of course he kept it while apparently he's been going around complaining that whenever there's a ten dollar cab fare or she needs a lipstick she says all she's got are hundreds and he has to take care of it, if you call that gratitude, she no, don't answer it… motionless for the grating echo of her own voice, the beep and then, harsh and peremptory — Christina. I'd like you to call me.
— That was quick.
— I think he's terrified I'll pick it up and it will all go on his long distance bill instead of ours, he managed to steer that thing into the kitchen out there and saw that Ilse was throwing these five cent deposit soda bottles he has with his Pinot Grigio into the trash and made a dreadful scene, will you hand me those nail scissors? God knows what he expects to do about those hospital bills and how much he owes Mister Basic by this time, you'd think he'd already won the case from that grandiose interview in the paper and his, there's some cotton right there could you, no by your elbow, could you hand it to me? I mean with that headline JUSTICE'S GRANDSON SEEKS JUSTICE obviously that's what set Father off, pulling skeletons out of closets when they found they could manufacture a good story setting the father against the son my God, as though things hadn't been bad enough between them long before this revolting movie came along and all this nonsense about madness in the family, you can't blame him.
— Ever occur to you that he might be?
— Oscar? Mad?
— The Judge.