228
DAVID JACKSON
didn't eat much today.
." At once, Meredith became
guilty
and compassionate. Nicolas saying 'today' suggested hours of
being abroad in the world, while he himself had slovenly slept.
Next, he thought, 'My God! He's not eating regularly!' He leapt
to
his
feet, grabbed the telephone and asked the Grafin, "Please,
would you send a few bottles of beer and are there, is there some
cheese and cold meat, something for sandwiches? Thank you."
His lunch appointment had slipped his mind.
"Say, that's great, man," Nicolas said, laying his hand on
Meredith's arm as he passed. "How about it, when all that gets
here, will you read me a poem? And then I'll say one of mine.
You do that for Nicolas?"
"Why, sure ... certainly. That's a fine idea, Manas." Mere–
dith's first uneasiness occurred, now, when he found himself de–
ploring what he thought was a pompous note in his own voice,
and the wish for a more engaging manner, something more in–
volved with their experience. Putting one leg aslant across the
other, he leaned back. This left him at an odd angle, the Grafin's
library chairs were spacious, so to divert attention from himseH
he pointed towards Nicolas's pants pocket:
"Is that a book, there?"
Nicolas grinned, delighted. "Hey! How
a'bout
that? You
just like me! Nicolas always say, 'What's that book?' These just
some myths ..." and he held out the book and riffled its pages.
Meredith looked, noticed the title, saw many scribblings on
the margins. "Are you working on myths?" he asked, pleased
that he had an opening to introduce his new Orpheus poem, and
to discover that Manas did do research work.
"Look, I dream of going to Greece. That's Nicolas's dream,
Meredith ... Uh, that O.K. I call you by your first name?
Nobody calls me like Nick ... but
if
you wanna, fine! That'd
be
our
name. But usually not."
"Fine, Nicolas."
"O.K. Great. Now it's like Greece was right in the middle of
my dreams. Theseus! There's a myth, man.
This
Theseus is a
