ATDTDA (10): Coziness, 269

[Paul Nightingale]

The "three-party household of dubious coziness" is marked by a kind of
stalemate: "The sidekicks appeared unwilling to break up their partnership
just yet, and Lake was not about to let either of them ride off up the
plateau any further than rifle range."


In the previous section Lake is both oppressed/exploited and empowered:
"After she had given in to the notion of being doubled up on, she found
herself going out of her way looking for it ." (268). She is careful not to
"put them out of the mood" (269), which doesn't sound as though she finds
"being doubled up on" onerous. The tone of the passage changes. At the
outset, Deuce's offer to Sloat (. she's all yours. I could use a break about
now", 268) sounds threatening, a view corroborated by her admission of fear
further down the page. She is a passive recipient of their attentions; but
then, by the bottom of the page, she has started to take the initiative.
Hence her reluctance "to let either of them ride off" (269). We're told that
she "sweet-talk[s] him" into bathing, which confirms her influence and
manipulative skills. His "superstitious horror of the act" is justified, in
his eyes, by the "huge bang": he has to force a causal relationship between
unrelated phenomena, all in a desperate attempt to maintain some kind of
control. He needs to say: I told you so. Keith's explanation involving the
eagle sounds plausible; but on the page Lake's final, somewhat restrained,
comment is a non-sequitur, the point being that she refuses to respond to
him directly. Her 'explanation' makes no more (or indeed less) sense than
his.