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borrowing kept the
    organization alive, but the interest rising fast through the decade ate
    up what little profit there was.
     
    Meanwhile, Derek Hamilton cultivated an ulcer.
     
    The rescue program had been inaugurated almost a year ago. Credit had
    been tightened in an attempt to reduce the overdraft; costs had been cut
    by every means possible from cancellation of advertising campaigns to
    utilization of print-roll off-cuts for stationery. Hamilton was running
    a tight ship now; but inflation and the economic slump ran faster. The
    six-month results had been expected to show the world that Hamilton
    Holdings had turned the corner. Instead they demonstrated further
    decline.
     
    He patted his face dry with a warm towel, splashed on cologne, and
    returned to the bedroom. Ellen was dressed, sitting in front of the
    mirror, making up her face. She always managed to dress and undress
    while her husband was out of the bedroom: it occurred to him that he had
    not seen her naked for years. He wondered why. Had she run to seed, the
    fifty-five year-old skin wrinkling and the once-firm flesh sagging?
    Would nakedness destroy the illusion of desirability? Perhaps, but he
    suspected something more complex. It was obscurely connected with the
    way his own body had aged, he thought, as he climbed into his cavernous
    underpants. She was always decently clad; therefore he never lusted
    after her; therefore she never had to reveal how undesirable she found
    him. Such a combination of deviousness and sensitivity would be
    characteristic.
     
    She said: "What are you going to do?"
     
    The question caught him off balance. He thought at first that she must
    know what he was thinking, and be referring to that; then he realized
    she was continuing the conversation about the business.
     
    He fastened his suspenders, wondering what to tell her. "I'm not sure,"
    he said eventually.
     
    She peered closely into the mirror, doing something to her eyelashes.
     
    "Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life."
     
    He stared at her. Her upbringing had taught her to be indirect and never
    to ask personal questions, for seriousness and emotion spoiled parties
    and caused ladies to faint. It would have cost her considerable effort
    to inquire about the purpose of someone's existence.
     
    He sat on the edge of his bed and spoke to her back. "I must cut out
    brandy, that's all."
     
    "I'm sure you know it has nothing to do with what you eat and drink."
     
    She applied lipstick contorting her mouth to spread it evenly. "It began
    nine years ago, and your father died ten years ago."
     
    "I've got printing ink in my blood." The response came formally, like a
    catechism. The conversation would have seemed dislocated to an
    eavesdropper, but they knew its logic. There was a code: the death of
    his father meant his assumption of control of the business; his ulcer
    meant his business problems.
     
    She said: "You haven't got ink in your veins.
     
    Your father had, but you can't stand the smell of the old works."
     
    "I inherited a strong business, and I want to bequeath to my sons an
    even stronger one Isn't that what people of our class are supposed to do
    with their lives?"
     
    "Our sons aren't interested in what we leave them. Michael is building
    his own business from scratch, and all Andrew wants to do is vaccinate
    the whole of the African continent against chicken pox.
     
    He could not tell how serious she was now. The things she was doing to
    her face made her expression unreadable. No doubt it was deliberate.
     
    Almost everything she did was deliberate.
     
    He said: "I have a duty. I employ more than two thousand people, and
    many more jobs are directly dependent upon the health of my companies."
     
    "I think you've done your duty. You kept the firm going during a time of
    crisis--not everyone managed that. You've sacrificed your health to it;
    and you've given it ten years of your life, and.
     
    God knows what else. Her voice dropped on