ATDTDA (13): Road baby, 358-361 #1

[Paul Nightingale]

A change of direction in Ch27 as the narrative returns to Reef and Stray,
the latter introduced to Mayva "by pure accident". The opening passage ends
with the women "jabbering away like a couple of birds on a rooftop" (not a
marmot, then), Reef temporarily excluded: we have already been told in the
opening line that this is "[t]he one time" the two women meet, preparation
for the announcement that Reef and Stray are leaving for Arizona. When Jesse
was born, Reef had to ask himself how much he could afford to tell Stray:
"Reef might not be able to pull off successfully the guise of a respectable
wife-and-kids working stiff the way Webb had. Meant he'd either have to
level with Stray or pretend to be up to his old rounder ways ." etc (218).
In this first section of Ch27 Jesse only appears at the conclusion, quite at
home in a "dynamite crate-perfect for a baby because there were no nails to
be sticking him, nails being known to attract electricity ." etc (360); if
not a disruptive presence, he does at least allow the text to draw attention
to his parents' "miles-apart personal thoughts" (361). There is no reference
to Jesse when Stray meets Mayva (358), although it must be (is likely?)
about the time, before or after, of the birth; so the life-changing moment
indicated by pretty much everyone on 218 is ignored entirely for most of
this section (notwithstanding Mayva's oblique reference to their marital
state, perhaps).

The sections deals retrospectively with the relationship between Reef and
Stray (an account missing from Stray's earlier appearance when, for the most
part, the text followed Frank) and doesn't address, directly, any deceit on
Reef's part. He begins by effectively following her, attaching himself to
Archie Dipple's "plan . to go out and round up the camel herd ." etc (358).
By now Reef is well aware of one difference between them, the kind of
friends (the word surrounded by scare-quotes) that she has, all of whom
"kept getting Reef into way more trouble than any of his 'friends' had so
far got her" (359). There are different kinds of trouble, and Reef prefers
the law-&-order kind: ".these strange faces bobbing up out of her past were
determined to bring him in as a partner on various schemes of enterprise,
few of them hopeful", the use of the plural here indicating a pattern to
events over time. There is no clear indication how far this refers to their
time together before Jesse's birth, although he is still an infant at the
end of the section; consequently the infant's (textual) presence helps
emphasise the extent of the shared history between Reef and Stray.