Probably there is no word in contemporary usage delicate enough, nice enough, to describe Gwyn's feeling-tone as he crossed the few feet of carpeted floor and slipped into Pamela's bed. "Condescension," in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sense, would perhaps come closest. When the Rev. Mr. Collins dines with Lady Catherine de Bourgh and, the next day, his voice weak with gratitude, praises her extraordinary"condescension"-that comes close. The willing, the indulgent dilution of one's own superlative being, for the delight and enrichment of simpler lives. Considering how wonderful he was, it seemed wonderful of him to behave so wonderfully when he could justifiably behave so badly, if he felt like it. Lady Catherine was a snob and a toady. Mr. Collins was a snob and a toady. And Gwyn Barry, like Jane Austen, was a writer.
"Good morning," he said indulgently.
"Mm," said Pamela. Or was it "Hmm"?
Women do adore to be cuddled and babied in the morning. It really was universal. There weren't any that didn't like it. All the more reason not to say so, in writing: an offensive commonplace is what you'd end up with. Gwyn had a great deal to attempt and achieve that day (What is this life of the mind? what asketh men to have?), so he came as quickly as he could.
Where was his simple dressing gown? There.
He got out of bed and crossed the room and opened the door and crossed the landing and, most symmetrically, opened the door and crossed the room and got into bed. Demi was awake. He reached for her hand and gave it a benevolent squeeze.
"Time to get the tea, love," he told her.
It was all laid out on a tray, of course-laid out by Sherilee or Paquita. All Demi had to do was go and get it. Yes, and his mail.
"Come on, love. Tick tock goes the clock."
Demi moved very lazily sometimes. Gwyn's green eyes leniently twinkled.
"Pam's having a little lie-in. A little snooze," he whispered, remembering-as he quite often remembered-that Demi disliked running into Pam first thing in the morning. Or any time at all. But especially first thing. He occasionally found it depressing, the spiritlessness with which Demi rolled from the bed. Now he could establish himself in her vacated warmth, unfastidiously, loving all that lived.
"As I think I've gone to the trouble of pointing out before, you are at liberty, you know, to adjust the present arrangement any time you like. As I think I've gone to the trouble of pointing out before. Listen to this: 'The attractive simplicity of Mr. Barry's fable may sometimes tend towards the simplistic.' This, anyway, is the belief of Mr. Aaron E. Wurlitzer of the Milwaukee Herald. Don't they know how hard it is to make the complicated look simple? At your say-so, Demi, the present arrangement could also be submitted for review. Or modification. I am a man, in his manlynoon. I am a man. Take me for all in all. As a man, I have certain needs. To satisfy these needs, Demi, I have to stray less far and less perilously than most men would. I see by your pinched expression and throbbing port-wine stain that you would wish me to stray farther than across the landing to the visitors' room. But would you, Demi? Would you really? Ah. This is good. This is excellent. Marion Treadwell, of the Midland Examiner: 'It would seem that Barry has somehow tapped a deep collective yearning. This explains the book's success. Nothing on the page explains it.' " Gwyn paused stoically. "Why are women fractionally less keen on my work than men? You might ponder that, Demi. I would be grateful for your 'feminine intuition.' "
Demi watched her husband, who was now contemplating his halved grapefruit, and with suspicion: not with rapt and childlike curiosity, the way he used to, as if he'd never seen one before. He had stopped doing that to grapefruits after a certain grapefruit, responding to Gwyn's rapt and childlike prod with the tined spoon, had squirted him in the eye. Then he'd had her running around for half an hour with moistened washclothes and bottles of Optrex.
"Again. Let's see if you've got it right at last. I have a duty to follow my impulses. To catch after my impulses, wherever they may lead. Because what am I really doing?"
"Research."
"Research. When I'm playing snooker with Richard, or tennis, or chess, when I'm-"
"I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Play games with Richard. You always lose and it puts you in a vile mood."
Gwyn paused stoically. "When I'm out playing snooker, I'm doing research. When I'm asleep, I'm doing research. When I go out hunting or gambling with Sebby, I'm doing research. When I'm having sex next door with Pamela, I'm doing research."
"She's your research assistant."
"Demi, that's rather good. We research in the missionary position. We research in the doggy style. We research with her on top: the cowgirl."
"But there isn't any sex in your novels."
"You may or may not have noticed," said Gwyn, letting his head drop (so might Richard let his head drop when, for the thirtieth time in fifteen minutes, Marco mistook a d for a b, or a q for a g) but also realizing, in that instant, that he could never leave Demeter, because only with herdid he wield this thrilling and frightening eloquence, this drolly rolling periodicity, "that there isn't any snooker in my novels either. It doesn't work like that. It works like this. The prose is given tautness and burnish precisely by what it deliberately excludes. Picasso's abstracts gain their force from the . . . from the representational mastery he holds in check. Something held back. Or held in harness. Just as the coachman, with the reins in one hand and the-"
"Or the carpenter."
"What about the carpenter?"
"There aren't any children in your novels either. Half the men have had vasectomies. Shouldn't that mean that we ought to have children? So you can deliberately exclude them?"
"Don't try to be clever, love. It doesn't suit you. Well. I see we have returned to base. And I say unto you: Go on the pill, Demi. Get a coil fixed, Demi. Get a cap. This is 'against your religion,' you will say. Unlike taking cocaine and fucking black pushers. Or is all that for your religion? God moves in mysterious ways. Thou shalt take cocaine. To get more cocaine, thou shalt…"
Demi got out of bed and went toward the bathroom, saying, "There was only one black pusher."
"Congratulations. Were there pushers of other creeds and hues? White, say, and Church of England?" He raised his voice, to make himself heard; but his tone did not change. "Richard rang. He's preparing his major piece about yours truly. Something tells me it's going to be very hostile. I wouldn't be surprised if he puts all that in."
She came back to the doorway. Her arms were folded. "All what in?"
"About you fucking black pushers."
"… He can't. What can I do about it?"
"I don't know. Perhaps you'd better go round and fuck him."
At ten-thirty or thereabouts Gwyn stepped into his study: the three tall windows, the inlaid bookcases, the heavy wealth. His great work station-mahogany dining tables, French desks-formed a broad arc in the center of the room, slabbed with the thick shapes of processor, printer, copier. Here the two cultures, Gwyn believed, were attractively reconciled: the bright flame of human inquiry, plus lots of gadgets. Give Gwyn a palatinate smoking jacket, as opposed to a pair of tailored jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and he could be Captain Nemo, taking his seat at the futuristic bridge of the sumptuous Nautilus.