After the kitchen staff had cleaned and grilled the fish, the fishing members would eat them in the dining room with much boastfulness about their flavor and many foamy dark-beer toasts to each other's prowess.
They owed their fish to Hilliard. In 1975 when he was still a power broker in the House, one quiet afternoon in March he had idly fallen into reflecting about the previous Sunday afternoon and evening he had spent at Grey Hills, first at a quarrelsome meeting of the membership committee and then over dinner with Merrion. The night before he and Mercy had gone to a dinner party at Walter and Diane Fox's home on Pynchon Hill in Canterbury. Even though Merrion was also almost always there, at Walter's invitation, it was one of Mercy's favorite ways to spend an evening out.
"I don't know whether you noticed it," Hilliard said to Merrion, cutting his cold roast beef, 'but when you suggested last night to Walter that he should join here, he just about laughed in your face. I don't think it was because he doesn't like you, or thought you were making fun of him. I think when you said you'd propose him and I'd second, he didn't believe you think anyone we sponsored would get in."
"I guess I didn't get it," Merrion said, eating lobster salad. "I thought he just wasn't interested. Too rich for his blood, I assumed.
Walter's fairly cheap, you know. "Throws nickels around like manhole covers," as Dad used to say."
"That wasn't what he said," Hilliard said. "What he did was laugh and shake his head and say: "I dunno, Amby. I don't think those folks're used to you yet, never mind bringing in your friends." He especially mentioned Warren Corey's name, and Rob Lewis's. I think what he meant is that someone's said something makes him think we may be members, but we don't belong yet, and maybe never will. We didn't get in on our charm. Everyone knows we bought our way in the club was desperate for money; we happened to have some, or you did; they held their noses and let us in. But they still resent the fact that they had to do it, and have to live with us now. That was what Walter was saying to you. In doesn't mean we've been accepted."
Merrion shrugged. "Fuck 'em," he said, spearing claw meat, "I like it here. I think it's a very nice place. Excellent golf course, very well run; I don't have to wait to tee off. Decent food and they serve a big drink. Expensive but I got the money; so, what? Me being here bothers someone else, that's their problem."
"Yeah," Hilliard said, 'but I was very conscious of it today at the meeting. What people said, how they acted, whenever a name would come up: I watched them to see how they'd react. I decided I think Walter's got something there. These bastards may like our money all right, but they're not very keen about us."
"Ummm," Merrion said, nodding and chewing. When he'd swallowed he said: "You prolly oughta stop goin' to dinner at the Foxes' house, is what I think. They're a bad influence on you. First you think Diane's trynah break up your marriage, giving Mercy dangerous notions, and now you're tellin' me what Walter said got you so edgy you're lookin' for insults today. You're becomin' a little hoopy, looking for conspiracies. You and fuckin' Jim Garrison. Next thing I know, I'll be in the audience, you're the speaker; I'm prolly dozin', waiting for the finish when I jump up from my chair, kick off the standing ovation and all of a sudden I'll be hearing you tell the people it was Nixon who killed Kennedy.
"And anyway, if they are bigoted, whaddaya gonna do about it call in the IRA to blow up the swimming pool?"
"Oh no, much worsen that," Hilliard said. "I'm going to do is think of something I can do that'll make these bastards beholden. Something for them that they either never thought of doing or if they had, they couldn't've made it happen. But I'm not gonna tell 'em, right off, who did this wonderful thing. I'm gonna sit back and watch 'til they've gotten attached to it. Then I tell 'em they owe it to me, and if they want to keep it, they'd better kiss my ass.
"And I never said I think Diane Fox's a bad influence on Mercy or that she's trying to break up my marriage where the hell did you get that idea?"
"It's obvious," Merrion said, finishing his lobster and dabbing his lips with the napkin. "You're paranoid about Diane. Many times I've heard you say you think Mercy's spending too much time with Diane; she gets all her ideas from Diane. One of them's that you're fucking around, which you are, and that's why Diane worries you. Meaning you think Diane's got it in for you."
"Well," Hilliard said, "I'll admit I'd like it better if Mercy had other friends, too."
