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Show 43 Twelve In another, distant city two middle-aged men are having lunch; they are the two men whose small, framed photographs stand, together with a picture of the third, dead child, on the desk in Annis' room. One is a tall, large, imperious man, with thick dark hair and piercing eyes; the other looks very much like him, but is small, softer, more gentle in manner. They meet erratically, whenever one of them happens to be in the city where the other one lives, and they continue the same conversation from one meeting to the next. But the waitress interrupts with the check; she is a plump middle-aged uninteresting woman, whose short flounced skirt reveals middle-aged legs, but whose breasts are pushed up into a taut imitation of an 18th-century wench. "My turn again, Evan," says Roderick, the larger, imperious one. It is he who has selected this restaurant, and it is he who will pay. He slides his wallet out of the breast-pocket of his coat, folds it open. It is the wallet of a banker, filled with bills that are stiff and new. He selects several, places them in the coin-tray on the table. "Makes you look more prosperous than ever," the younger one chides. "More prosperous than Evan, anyway," the older one jokes, but then they return to the conversation which has been continued over months, from one city to another. Roderick starts it: "What shall we do when the institute kicks him out?" "I didn't know they were going to." "I don't think they can keep those old ones around forever. Besides, last |
