by Martin Amis
Now came half term, and Richard's week of Sole Charge.
It was a time of great revelations. It was a time of ceaseless discovery. Who would have thought it? In a scant five days, while he went about his simple tasks in the company of those two young souls, more genuine illumination came his way than in as many years of cloistered endeavor, bent over his books and all their fust and dust. ..
By midmorning on Tuesday Richard knew why women never did anything and were no good at anything and never amounted to anything and never contributed anything to anything. To anything permanent, that is to say. It wasn't having children that did it, necessarily. It was hanging out with children that did it. Whatever you thought of this arrangement, it had something to be said in its favor: it demanded no further inquiry. And it wouldn't be getting any-not from him. Why waste valuable time when you could be untangling a shoelace or picking up crumbs or tripping over a squeaky toy or slapping some slice of trex onto a frying pan or going down on your hands and knees to search for a weapon component under the sofa or the bunk bed or the oven? Gina came home at six. Richard went into his study and began his review of a new Life of Warwick Deeping. After forty minutes he had something like-
This is a long book. This book has pictures. I like pictures. Pictures are good. There is a picture of a man. There is a picture of a house. There is a picture of a lady. You have to read pages but you don't have to read pictures. I like pictures because pictures are good.
On Wednesday morning, first thing, he escorted the twins to the video store and the three of them returned with a sack of cartoons. Mar-ius boycotted these, and pleaded for stronger fare. By Thursday the boys were watching anything they liked so long as the movie wasn't actually called Snuff. By Friday they would both have thick and fluent American accents, spurning strawberry jam at breakfast, for example, and inflexibly insisting on peanud budder. With the children parked in front of some ghoul or Nazi Richard made progress with his review, managing to add that the book contained a picture of a dog and that he liked pictures of dogs because pictures of dogs were good. He seriously considered typing this out and biking it in. Because he knew that even his book-reviewingdays were numbered. A slow contamination would be seeping out from the Tantalus Press. The appearance of his name on its letterhead, and in its ads (the Tantalus howled to the talentless: the talentless howled back), this would be seeping out. . . And Richard accepted it. Here there was no cognitive dissonance. He felt fully contaminated. He thought of clear liquids, of saline solutions. He wanted people in white to gather round him and wash his blood . .. On Thursday afternoon he came out of his study, drawn by a squall of salvos and screams. Eating jellybabies, the boys were engrossed in a billion-dollar bloodbath called Decimator.
"I could practically go to jail for this. Jesus. Don't tell Mummy. Why can't you watch something nice?"
"Like?" said Marius.
"I don't know. Bambi."
"Bambi's quap."
"How can you say that?"
"There's one good bit in Bambi."
"What bit's that?"
"When Bambi's mother gets killed."
"Let's go to Dogshit. Marco? Marco's asleep."
"No he's not. He's pretending. He's scared of violence but he won't admit it."
"Come on. Let's hide the videos."
"Marco! Dogshit!"
Dogshit-that verdant world, that ghost of Eden, so late our happy seat.. . From a distance the grass had a layer of silver or pewter in it: the promise or the memory of dew. Up close, its green was as municipal as paint. And then there were the formal flowers, the pudding blooms, the gladioli in their thin old-lady overcoats; the flower bed was Dogshit's flower hat. People, park wanderers, provided other colors, from other countries: spice and betel.
Suddenly he knew what London children looked like. London children, those of London raising-they looked like crisps. They looked like Wotsits. Which wasn't to say that they all looked the same. There were genres, even here. This one looked like cheese-and-onion. This one looked like beef-and-mustard. This one looked like salt-and-vinegar.
Three black women moved through them, across the playground. The two grown girls with their African height and verticality, and behind them the old lady, in a white smock and a dark sash, round, rolling, like a pool ball waddling to the end of its spin.
It seemed to him that all the time he used to spend writing he now spent dying. His mind was freer now. Alas. He no longer did his "mid-dies" for The Little Magazine-where he got his hands on the first-echelon talents, great men, great and childless women. He no longer solaced the childless Anstice by telephone for hour after hour. He no longer wrote. Boredom and sordor used to be asked to be seen as interesting and beautiful, and you could do it, with your energy. Transformation would occur. It seemed to him that all the time he used to spend writing he now spent dying. This was the truth. And it shocked him. It shocked him to see it, naked. Literature wasn't about living. Literature was about not dying.
Suddenly he knew that writing was about denial.
Suddenly he knew that denial was great. Denial was so great. Denial was the best thing. Denial was even better than smoking.
He came to think of denial as a fashionable resort, a playground for the rich, in a prose borrowed from Gina's brochures.
On Friday, she was home. So they had to be out. Colossally girding himself, Richard promised the children a trip to the zoo. On the bus he took his head out of his hands and said,
"Where shall we go first? The reptile house?"
Marius shrugged. He was working on this shrug, palms loosely out-thrust from tight elbows. Five years ago he was practicing his reflexes. Now he was practicing his gestures-his shrugs.
Richard said, "The aquarium?"
"The gift shop," said Marius.
"You're very quiet, Marco. What are you sitting there thinking about?"
And Marco came alive and said, "My secred idendidy!"
In the zoo there were many kinds of animals for the people to look at. But there were only two kinds of people for the animals to look at. Children. And divorcees.
He was not a divorcee, he knew. At night, in the arid fever and miserable magic of the dark, he would whimper up to his wife, and hold on. He wasn't seeking warmth. He was trying to stop her going away. Which she wouldn't do, so long as he held on. More than this: in the depleted menagerie of their bed he could sense certain rumors of beasthood, not the beast of old, which was a young beast, but a new beast, which was an old beast. Something patched together, something inexpensively revamped. In the mornings, too, especially at weekends: watching her as she showered and dressed, and then looking up through the skylight at the clouds, their paunches, their ashen love-handles … I will arise and go now, with a suitcase, to the callbox. He thought of the fame-ruined lines from "The Second Coming," about the rough beast, its hour comeround at last, slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. What would it look like, this beast of his? Yeah. Rough. Now he was impotent again but without his excuses. And what is a man, without his excuses? There was nothing for Gina to stick around with. There was nothing for Gina to leave. Richard no longer cried in the night. He thrashed, and gnashed-but he no longer wept. Because he did all that in the day. The day, and the dusk. He wasn't crying in front of anyone yet, as women do. Crying in front of people was part of their catharsis. He was determined never to cry in front of the boys, as he had that one time, in front of Marco, long ago.
At the zoo he felt the end of all childish promises.
I will stay with you for ninety-nine billion nine million nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million billion-
I will love you forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and-
She wouldn't leave him. She would never leave him. What she would do was ask him to go.
And I will go, with a suitcase, to the callbox.
The children will have to come to love us separately.
Saturday morning Richard
rose late. Around noon Gina said,
"Why don't you go out for a newspaper? Look in at the pub. Do the crossword."
"I might well."
"Pop in and get the Hoover on your way back. This afternoon if they're very good you can take them to choose a video. Something nice, mind. Disney. The Jungle Book or Beauty and the Beast. None of that Tom and Jerry."
Who are the girls in the backs of police cars? He stepped through the pigeons and their truckdriver tans.
London pubs always lag ten years behind the stretch of city they serve. If, ten years ago, Calchalk Street had made that upward lurch it was gearing itself for, then the Adam and Eve, starting today, would call itself the Tick and Maggot and would offer you quiche and cheesecake in a pavilion of striped parasols. But Calchalk Street had stayed where it was, and the Adam and Eve had stayed where it was-ten years behind. The same donkey-jacketed Irishmen drank the same black beer. The same black dog was still dying in the cardboard box beneath the pie-warmer. Richard found his usual seat. A pale girl moved past him, powdered and tinted like a bride of Dracula. As he started flinching and mumbling over his crossword Richard thought, quite unconstructively:always give the devil the best tits. Such thoughts, thoughts of unknown provenance, came often to him now.
"Charisma bypass," said a voice in his ear.
He looked up, wondering if this, or something like it, was the answer to 3 down, and said, ".. . My dear Darko. Or is it Ranko?"
"Darko," said Darko.
Or was it Ranko? One or other of them, at any rate, had lost all his hair, or given it away. What remained was gathered in little fungal patches here and there, above a face essentially and now irreducibly his own-the purple orbits, the purple lips. And Richard, who had had some bad haircuts in his time, found himself thinking: Samson and Delilah. Oh, what a haircut was that! Ah, what syrup work was there … The Adam and Eve was ten years behind. Darko, somehow, was ten years ahead. No, twenty. He asked him,
"How's the writing?"
"That's Ranko. I don't do that shit."
"How is Ranko? And how's Belladonna?"
"They're both fucked."
"Now this is kind of great, you know, because you're the very man I need to talk to. Let me ask you something."
In his Profile, Richard was arriving, with a show of regret, at the first of his paragraphs about Gwyn's sexual delinquencies; and he was doing all he could with Audra Christenberry. But there was another paragraph he wanted to write. Quite recently I. Doubtful privilege to introduce. Barely sixteen, this young student was keen to. Of their two-hour encounter, she. The child, whom I shall call Theresa, had this to …
"Did anything happen between Gwyn and Belladonna? I need to know because I'm doing a long piece about him. For the papers."
"Oh yeah."
Richard thought it might look good if he wrote this down. He produced his checkbook-all scrolled and furled.
"I get it," said Darko. "Checkbook journalism."
"… Do you want a drink? At last. We can have that 'jar.' "
"I'm out of here. And you're a piece of shit. She did his favorite, right? She's way out there. She wanted them to die together."
"What? In the poetic sense?"
"What? She ain't mega-well. She's positive, man."
It took a moment. But Richard's body was quicker than his mind. His body was walking past a dry cleaners' on a warm day: it breathed its false breath on him, and a hot damp gathered in every crevice of his clothes.
"Jesus. What about you? Are you all right??
"Ranko-he's got it. But I'm clean."
"Stay well, Darko. Stay well."
Left alone, he sat for half an hour with the crossword on his lap. He still had his pen out but he wasn't called upon to use it. The only clue he was sure about was 13 across (eight letters). There was only one possible answer: shithead. And that couldn't be right.
He thought: the lion will lie down with the lamb. The lion can and must lie down with the lamb. But he doesn't have to fuck it. Unless they both say it's cool.
Come to Denial.
Denial. For that "holiday of a lifetime." Or just to "get away from it all" and take a well earned "break."
Your room, ideally designed for comfort, offers a panoramic view of the ocean setting. In the restaurant you may sample typical local cuisine or delicacies from our international menu. Before your meal, why not enjoy a "cocktail" in the "Crow's Nest" bar?
In Denial, amenities abound. There is a wide variety of activities and the finest entertainment. Hunt for "bargains" in the bustling market town. Or simply recline by the pool and "relax."
Whilst we reserve the right to increase our prices at any time, once you pay your deposit the price of your holiday as shown on your invoice will not be increased unless you amend your booking. No refunds will be made for cancellations, exchange rate movements, or cost adjustments that would otherwise decrease the holiday price.
So book now for the sun and fun of Denial. Denial: the true "never never" land of all your dreams .. .
But the information comes at night. The communications technology it picks is not the phone or the fax or the E-mail. It is the telex-so its teeth can chatter in your head. The information makes sleep interdisciplinary, syllabus disciplines, and then disciplines unknown or not yet devised: eschatoscopy, synchrodesics, thermodonture.
The information is advertising a symposium of pain. Pains of all faiths and all denominations. These are your little ones, these are your pretty ones. Become accustomed to their voices. They will grow louder, and more persistent, and more persuasive, until they're all there is.
It is ordinary and everyday. On the beach the waves do it ceaselessly, gathering mass and body, climbing until they break and are then resum-moned into the generality with a sound like breath sucked in between the teeth.
Weakness will get you where you are weakest. Weakness will be strong and bold, and make for your weak spot. If in the head, then in the head. If in the heart, then in the heart. If in the loins, then in the loins. If in the eyes, then in the eyes. If in the mouth, then in the mouth.
The information is nothing. Nothing: the answer is so many of our questions. What will happen to me when I die? What is death anyway? Is there anything I can do about that? Of what does the universe primarily consist? What is the measure of our influence within it? What is our span, in cosmic time? What will our world eventually become? What mark will we leave-to remember us by?
"Door," said Richard. "The door. I-"
"What is it?"
"Just sad dreams. It isn't anything."
"Hush now," said Gina. "Hush . .."
It was seven o'clock and Gwyn Barry was driving westward into a low sun: into the bloodbath of sunset. The one-way street fled through the tunnel of his rearview mirror; and above his head a ragged and sclerotic cloud dangled from the sky, an outcast from a superior system: it looked like an unforgivable deepsea fish whose bad radar had taken it where it should not go-a disgrace to the bright-ringleted shallows. Thus the ambience was briefly painterly and Parisian: clarity on which a shadow is soon to fall. Had he been younger (say seventeen), or a different kind of person, he might have marked it, its queasy numinousness. But he was Gwyn Barry, and he was coming back from his hour with the pro at the Warlock, and he was having drinks and dinner with Mercedes Soroya, who had a proposal for him, and the Profundity thing would be announced that night at 2200 hours-and he was driving, in a city, which takes part of the mind and plugs it in somewhere else, into the city and the city's sticky streets.
Up ahead an orange van stood athwart the narrow entrance to Sutherland Avenue. Gwyn's car slowed and, at a respectful distance, rolled to a halt. He could see through the dusk-lit slot of the van's side windows: empty, like something brain-dead. He looked around, expecting to see the nearby berk who would shortly climb into it and drive it away or at least open its bonnet and stand there staring at it with his hands on his hips. There was hardly enough time for impatience to gather
(he wasn't Richard after all, who would have been impatient already, whatever was happening), hardly enough time to give his horn a coaxing toot . . . When Gwyn felt the car jolt he was less surprised by the impact, whichwas not severe, than by the affront to his spatial awareness: a second ago the rearview mirror had been clear, the street bare, the evening light still and heavy. He turned. An old wood-ribbed Morris Minor occupied the breadth of his tinted back window. At its wheel, an old lady in a rimless fruitbowl hat and a white shawl, and also wearing the pleading look that old ladies wear. Sumptuously reassured, Gwyn felt love for the old lady, for the white shawl, for the wooden ribs of the innocuous Morris. Yes- wait-she was climbing out. Gwyn undipped his seatbelt. He would be wonderful about it. He didn't know the old lady's name. The old lady was called Agnes Trounce.
He stepped into the rosy light, under the gut-colored cloud. He veered round affrontedly as the orange van gave a neigh out of nowhere and reeled off at speed down the open avenue. He turned again: the old lady, her figure bent, was walking away too fast between the parked cars, and the second door of the ribbed Morris was opening. They came out low, and then they straightened. One had hair of pale ginger and invisible eyebrows. The other was thin, with black hat pulled down and black scarf pulled up and black glasses looping the central strip of his face. Gwyn was entirely ready. He was without reflexes, without gestures. All he felt was apology and panic and relief.
"What you call my mum?"
"What?"
"Nobody," said Steve Cousins, coming forward and reaching under his coat for the car tool, "and I mean nobody, calls my mother a cunt."
The sun was looking down on this, but not quite sincerely. The sun is very old, but the sun has always lied about its age. The sun is older than it looks: eight minutes older. The sun, to us, is always as it was eight minutes ago, when its light began the journey across the eight light-minutes. As Steve Cousins and Paul Limb (backup) moved in on Gwyn Barry, the sun was really eight minutes older than it looked, eight minutes redder, eight minutes deeper in the sky. This opened up a gap in time.