'Takes a lot of guts,' I said.
'The party's breaking up,' Jerry said. 'They're all going home with their goddam wives.'
I didn't say any more after that. We sat there for a couple of minutes sipping our drinks while the guests began drifting towards the hall.
'Did he say it was fun, this friend of yours?' Jerry asked suddenly.
'He said it was a gas,' I answered. 'He said all the normal pleasures got intensified one hundred per cent because of the risk. He swore it was the greatest way of doing it in the world, impersonating the husband and the wife not knowing it.'
At that point, Mary came in through the french windows with Bob Swain. She had an empty glass in one hand and a flame-coloured azalea in the other. She had picked the azalea on the terrace.
'I've been watching you,' she said, pointing the flower at me like a pistol. 'You've hardly stopped talking for the last ten minutes. What's he been telling you, Jerry?'
'A dirty story,' Jerry said, grinning.
'He does that when he drinks,' Mary said.
'Good story,' Jerry said. 'But totally impossible. Get him to tell it to you sometime.'
'I don't like dirty stories,' Mary said. 'Come along, Vic. It's time we went.'
'Don't go yet,' Jerry said, fixing his eyes upon her splendid bosom. 'Have another drink.'
'No thanks,' she said. 'The children'll be screaming for their supper. I've had a lovely time.'
'Aren't you going to kiss me good night?' Jerry said, getting up from the sofa. He went for her mouth, but she turned her head quickly and he caught only the edge of her cheek.
'Go away, Jerry,' she said. 'You're drunk.'
'Not drunk,' Jerry said. 'Just lecherous.'
'Don't you get lecherous with me, my boy,' Mary said sharply. 'I hate that sort of talk.' She marched away across the room, carrying her bosom before her like a battering-ram.
'So long, Jerry,' I said. 'Fine party.'
Mary, full of dark looks, was waiting for me in the hall. Samantha was there, too, saying goodbye to the last guests - Samantha with her dexterous fingers and her smooth skin and her smooth, dangerous thighs. 'Cheer up, Vic,' she said to me, her white teeth showing. She looked like the creation, the beginning of the world, the first morning. 'Good night, Vic darling,' she said, stirring her fingers in my vitals.
I followed Mary out of the house. 'You feeling all right?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said. 'Why not?'
'The amount you drink is enough to make anyone feel ill,' she said.
There was a scrubby old hedge dividing our place from Jerry's and there was a gap in it we always used. Mary and I walked through the gap in silence. We went into the house and she cooked up a big pile of scrambled eggs and bacon, and we ate it with the children.
After the meal, I wandered outside. The summer evening was clear and cool and because I had nothing else to do I decided to mow the grass in the front garden. I got the mower out of the shed and started it up. Then I began the old routine of marching back and forth behind it. I like mowing grass. It is a soothing operation, and on our front lawn I could always look at Samantha's house going one way and think about her going the other.
I had been at it for about ten minutes when Jerry came strolling through the gap in the hedge. He was smoking a pipe and had his hands in his pockets and he stood on the edge of the grass, watching me. I pulled up in front of him, but left the motor ticking over.
'Hi, sport,' he said. 'How's everything?'
'I'm in the doghouse,' I said. 'So are you.'
'Your little wife,' he said, 'is just too goddamn prim and prissy to be true.'
'Oh, I know that.'
'She rebuked me in my own house,' Jerry said.