— Because he loses his temper? My God Harry they're just a lot of, it's just nastiness they'll say anything just to…
— No look, look. How much of it is just plain sloppiness, you see it every day. Read something in the Times if you were there yourself you saw something entirely different, look at me quoted on Royal Crown, Roman Catholic, R C Cola and Classic Coke, New Coke, Coke II and Vatican II, these Episcopals and the Pepsi Generation they take a case like mine in the hundreds of millions and label it Pop and Glow, pop for the drink and glow for the church, turn it into a circus because that's what newspapers are now, entertainment. No malice just freedom of the press, take the Spot logo or your cleancut young man with the catsup bottle it's all freedom of speech, prying into your father's private life? But you don't feed the fire, you don't lose your temper and hand them a headline like this last one. DAMN THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW, SAYS JUDGE. Not the way to get seated on the higher court and if he's been telling Oscar what the…
— Well my God Harry he hasn't been telling Oscar anything, I mean they don't even speak. Oscar tries to dig things out of that doddering old law clerk of his down there who's numb with drink most of the time because Father insists on doing everything himself and now of course that picture of the house they had in the paper, a rundown country mansion in an exclusive Long Island enclave they captioned it sagging veranda and all, one look at that and Oscar's panicked that Father will get on us again to sell it.
— Why he did it in the first place, nobody ever won an interview Christina the minute you let them in the door they…
— He didn't let them in, he asked them in Harry that's the point. It was his own ridiculous idea, he saw his name mentioned in the paper and thought he'd better set the record straight as he put it, make sure the whole world knows he's only seeking justice and then of course he got carried away and probably wrecked the whole thing.
— A little late even if he wanted to, nothing to do now but sit tight waiting for the ruling on summary judgment and pray you get the right judge. I got a look at our man on the case, real red brick university product all English tailoring really full of himself, Swyne & Dour's token ethnic they came up with when they got a look at Mister Basic.
— Well I mean it's Mister Basic who's got Oscar so carried away, I hope to God he's as smart as you say.
— No he's smart Christina, the way I hear he handled that deposition he's smart, even imagine them bringing him into the firm to dress up its image with a few more minorities before some loose cannon conies up with an antidiscrimin…
— Well for God's sake don't tell that to Oscar or he'll, Harry please. I mean do you have to stare? abruptly drawing her knee up hugged against her breast, biting her lip with concentration on a cuticle — like that story I never understood about John Ruskin taking years to tell that poor girl why he'd never laid a hand on her because he was so disgusted by what he saw the first night they were married? bent closer without a look up, and an emphatic snap of the scissors — going for ten year old girls who were more like those pristine Greek statues he was besotted with, I mean my God didn't he have pubic hair too?
— Read Freud.
— I've read Freud Harry. I don't want to read Freud.
— His little essay about Medusa's head sprouting snakes instead of hairs?
— That's why I don't want to read Freud.
— Talking about your friend Ruskin, Christina. He was horrified when he saw her naked because she didn't have a penis.
— Well that's the most absurd, I mean you've got it backwards anyhow. It's the girl who collapses with penis envy when she sees that he has one.
— That's what his daughter Anna came up with because she didn't have one. What panicked Ruskin was castration anxiety, so his fertile imagination transformed her pubic hairs into a den of what he didn't see there in Freud's version of the terrifying aspects of female sex, left poor Ruskin getting old obsessed with visions of snakes right to the end.
— It sounds more like the DTs but I mean Oscar's terrified of them too, he saw one sunning itself on a flat rock out there by the shed when he was a little boy and he's still petrified every time he passes it.
— Why doesn't he just get rid of the rock.
— Well obviously he's terrified of what might be under it, I mean he says what frightened him was how fast the thing moved. He'd heard about them crawling around without legs and thought they'd go about as fast as an earthworm, it's that without legs that frightens him.
— Like a penis, better still the ornaments in those brothels in Pompeii where they had wings but I wouldn't worry about Oscar, I'm sure Lily's got a really flourishing…
— I'm sure she has Harry, and I'm sure you'd like, my God, you know I made the most awful gaffe out there talking about Japan? as she came down on the bed beside him — when we were in Hokkaido? her voice falling with the reminiscent search of her hand through the hair thick on his chest, — those two days we barely left our hotel room to eat and I told him you spent them in those endless conferences while I wandered around that museum with the…
— Where's the gaffe, he knew we had a trial run on that Japan trip before we…
— Not Oscar no! No I'm talking about Mister Basic, telling him about that museum and I suddenly found myself talking about the hairy Ainu and the more I tried to get away from it the worse it got. Stocky, dark, thick and hairy I mean can you imagine? as her hand descended, exploring deeper till it came to rest as on a failed promise — God knows what he was thinking, he said he'd heard about that conference in Japan but he didn't remember you ever talking about your hairy Ainu I don't know what I said, I'm sure I was blushing I almost burst out laughing but he was cool and so serious I couldn't even, I mean can you imagine? And where her voice broke off abruptly muffled against him her hand took up down there moving in silent reciprocation, gone unrewarded for its defeat to rise and surface again in her voice. — Did you sleep at all last night? coming up on an elbow and examining him that close, — your eyes are bloodshot and these terrible circles, the hours you put in they're just wringing you dry. Your tooth aches it's probably an abscess and you just put it off with these painkillers they're destroying you, can't you see? These absurd Coke II and Vatican II Pepsi Generation Episcopals this idiotic case is destroying you?
— It's almost over Christina, I'm…
— It's not almost over. Somebody will win, somebody will lose, somebody will appeal and it starts all over again doesn't it? isn't that what happens?
— And if it didn't? reared up on his own elbow sweeping the space around them with an arm, space magnified, reflected in the mirrored walls, expanded without bounds through sheets of glass to the floor all light and space where no shadow found refuge, all crystal geometry, — if it didn't, Christina? Could we live like this?
— Like this? when you don't sleep, you don't eat, you left the key in the front door when you came in last night you've never done that, all your obsessions with order and security you've never done that, and the night you forgot our address here? You actually forgot our address? Do they know what they're doing to you? even care? I mean I just hope they'll pay your bills at Payne Whitney when the time comes.
— Look, nobody's going to Payne Whitney. I went to the doctor didn't I? Heart fine, EKG fine, liver, cholesterol everything fine? Just tired, just a little overtired that's all, he…
— Well then find another doctor! Do you think the doctor they send you to is going to tell you they're destroying you? My God, will you look at you? her own eyes spilling down the length of him, resuming the gentle motion of her hand — I don't know what I'd do if you, if anything happened? her frown suddenly melting — to the hairy Ainu? throttling the surge that was filling her hand there, — wait. I'll be back. The mirrored door swung open on the bathroom, and from there — Don't you dare answer it!