ATDTDA (9): Later they glared at each other, 264-265

[Paul Nightingale]

Lake says she "won't believe any of this spiteful talk" about Deuce;
according to Mayva, she is "crazy". Hence the juxtaposition of a rational
agent to an irrational one. Earlier, "her loathing would come to be
inseparable from her passion" (262); and "[t]hey were both so easily ridden
in on by these unannounced passions" (263). Lake suggests this is what
happened to Mayva and Webb, "regrett[ing] it before it was even out of her
mouth, but this was a wagon headed down a grade they could neither of them
stop" (265). Going back, we see Mayva "dancing up on top of the bar of Pap
Wyman's Saloon" (88), carrying on "till she was sure Reef was on the way"
(89). Subsequently, "[w]hen Webb and the boys were on different shifts,
Mayva had nothing but round-the-clock work" (90). The emphasis is on
survival with just a glimpse ("Webb took them all to Denver ." etc, 89) of
family-based leisure.

In the Nonpareil Eating House we see, from Deuce's pov, "saloon girls"
evading "[d]rovers with imperfectly developed social skills" (261). Mayva
and Lake "[keep] up a level of determined bustling, as if allowing the
thousand details of the day to fill up what otherwise would've been some
insupportable vacuum". That "as if" signals Deuce's reading of the
situation; he thinks he understands "female restlessness": the phrase,
framed by quotation marks in the original, perhaps undermines his ability to
understand anything. The opening to the chapter has emphasised routine for
Deuce and Sloat ("This was an old routine between the partners ." etc, 260);
yet there is no indication that Deuce has met Lake before. Mayva warns her
daughter; she apparently knows of Deuce ("dangerous goods", 261) without
knowing of his connection to Webb. In particular, she is critical of the way
Lake ignores "regular celluloid-collar ads" in favour of "some shifty-eyed
little hardcase with trouble wrote all over him" (262). Mayva is thinking of
continuity, the future, her daughter's prospects, ignorant of both Deuce's
identity and also the fact that Webb had picked him out for Lake.
Subsequently, she says Lake is "making sorry fools out of all of us" (264),
meaning her brothers as well as her mother, the family, even Webb himself,
retrospectively. Here, Mayva makes claims designed to position Lake 'in the
wrong'; there is no way for Lake to defend herself.

The two women have made a new post-Webb start, signified by "the new-sawn
wood and paint smells of the room they shared" (264). Mayva threatens to
shoot Deuce, reminding us that Reef and Frank left Webb's Colt with her: ".
it was really Mayva's and would stay with her" (217). On that occasion the
narrative jumped ahead "a couple of months" to Lake observing Mayva
"striking fear into the hearts of rats". This is Mayva rehearsing a role
denied her by Reef and Frank ("the less you all know, the better", 216). She
is still (264) doing so. Preparing to leave, she packs her few possessions:
"Her whole life, and no more than this to show." (265) Her possessions
include a "briar pipe"; one wonders if this is the same "fancy briar pipe"
Webb bought her in Denver (89). Following Webb's burial, she "puffed on her
old pipe" (217) as Reef and Frank pass the Colt back and forth: there, and
in the current scene, the Colt and the pipe are linked together. At the end
of the section, the train taking Mayva away, we're told Lake "didn't ever
see her mother again" (265). Cf. Kit's departure (106): such moments are
liberating. Lake's rebellion, if such it be, sees her playing out the role
Webb imagined for her; Mayva, loyal to her husband's memory, is the one
attempting to break free. Nothing is simple and straightforward here.