by Amis, Martin
So they die at exactly the moment I die.
In actuality, needless to say, I die and they live, and are bereaved of me. But I am bereaved of them – all of them, all my loved ones, all my pretty ones.
The only consolation I can see in this is that there won’t be any time to miss them and wish they were here.
* * *
∗
The end of a sentence is a weighty occasion. The end of a paragraph is even weightier (as a general guide, aim to put its best sentence last). The end of a chapter is seismic but also more pliant (either put its best paragraph last, or follow your inclination to adjourn with a light touch of the gavel). The end of a novel, you’ll be relieved to learn, is usually straightforward, because by then everything has been decided, and with any luck your closing words will feel preordained.
Don’t let your sentences peter out with an apologetic mumble, a trickle of dross like ‘in the circumstances’ or ‘at least for the time being’ or ‘in its own way’. Most sentences have a burden, something to impart or get across: put that bit last. The end of a sentence is weighty, and that means that it should tend to round itself off with a stress. So don’t end a sentence with an –ly adverb. The –ly adverb, like the apologetic mumble, can be tucked in earlier on. ‘This she could effortlessly achieve’ is smoother and more self-contained than ‘This she could achieve effortlessly’.
Literary English seems to want to be end-stressed. Maybe it’s the iamb. With the exception of Housman and not many others, the meter of serious poetry is ti-tum.
* * *
∗
A longlasting sonic charge is packed into any word that directly precedes a punctuation mark – most especially a full stop. Look at this quote from Updike’s final collection of stories, My Father’s Tears (published posthumously in 2009):
…Craig Martin took an interest in the traces left by prior owners of his land. In the prime of his life, when he worked every weekday and socialised all weekend, he had pretty much ignored his land.
So we have ‘…his land’ full stop, and then ‘…his land’ full stop. The word preceding a full stop is invested with treacherous stamina: as a result, ‘land’ and a fortiori ‘his land’ are effectively unusable for at least half a page – until the sonic charge wears off, and the ear forgets.*2
For a whole other order of inadvertency, contemplate this: ‘The grapes make a mess of the bricks in the fall; nobody ever thinks to pick them up when they fall.’ (The most ridiculous thing about that sentence, somehow, is its stately semicolon.) And what follows here is not a sample quatrain of Updikean light verse:
ants make mounds like coffee grounds…
except for her bust, abruptly out-thrust…
my bride became allied in my mind…
polished bright by sliding anthracite…
No, not poetry, not doggerel. Those are just four separate snippets of deaf prose.
* * *
∗
Ian became friends with John; they corresponded, and Mr and Mrs McEwan went to stay with Mr and Mrs Updike in Massachusetts in the late-middle 2000s – anyway not long before the death. And what was Updike’s destined mood? You can tell from My Father’s Tears, which contains a fair amount of life-writing, that the ‘uncanny equanimity’ Updike once laid claim to was in the end replaced by mild but unalleviated depression. And did Updike know he was losing his inner ear? Clearly not, I would say. How else could the clangers quoted above survive the two or three rereadings he must unavoidably have given them?
In 1987 I spent most of a summer day with Updike. We started off in the enormous cafeteria at Massachusetts General Hospital (where he faced a minor procedure that was belatedly postponed). At one point I asked if he would mind a brief interlude in the smoking section, and he said, ‘Not at all. I envy you. I quit.’ He quit in his early thirties. But oncologists call lung cancer ‘the long-distance runner’, and it came for him in his mid-seventies.
Literary talent has perhaps four or five ways of dying. Most writers simply become watery and slightly stale. In others the subtraction is more localised and more conspicuous. Nabokov lost his sense of moral delicacy and reserve (the last four novels are heedlessly infested with twelve-year-old girls). Philip Roth lost the ability to imbue his characters with a convincingly independent life. Updike lost his ear – his mind’s ear; he forgot how to use it in the formation of his prose…
The body, on the other hand, confronts a multiplicity of exit routes. And Updike’s lungs remembered, and neither did the cancer forget.
*1 I know an American teenager who holds up the thumbs and index fingers of either hand – forming the shape of a W – to spare herself the effort of saying Whatever. This in its way is self-parody of considerable wit.
*2 The sonic charge is strangely uneven when it comes to common prepositions and other nuts and bolts. ‘With’, ‘to’, and ‘of’ – these are almost instantly forgotten by the inner ear. But ‘up’ (perhaps flexing its status as an adverb) has real staying power. It takes two or three hundred words before the mind forgets an ‘up’.
Chapter 3
Philip: The Love of His Life
The bod from Realisations
‘What d’you think I should wear?’ said Phoebe on the phone (it was late morning). ‘I’m not asking for your advice. I just want to hear your opinion.’
‘One of your summer dresses.’
‘That’s no good. I want to sex him up.’
‘Oh.’ Phoebe meant Larkin. ‘That might be a tall order…Wait, I know. Just keep your business suit on. You won’t have to change after work, if you’re rushed. It starts early, remember. Or just put on a different business suit.’
‘Why would that sex him up?’
‘Lots of reasons.’ Martin didn’t go on about the work ethic and men of a certain era and fear of the poorhouse and the blacking factory and all that. ‘In his case it comes down to cold cash. The idea of a woman who might go Dutch – that’d sex him up.’
Phoebe said, ‘Well I think that’s too, what d’you call it, that’s too generic. I want something more – more customised. Now. Larkin likes…Oh sorry Mart, but the bod from Acquisitions wants a word. Shall I ring back or can you wait for two minutes?’
He said he’d wait. When he called her at Transworld Financial Services there was always some bod wanting a word – the bod from Deacquisitions, plus the bods from Revendications, Encashments, Subreptions, Transmittals, and (his favourite) the bod from Realisations. He, Martin, was at present a bod from Realisations. He realised something was wrong, something was missing, something was not as it should be. He went on thinking about it, but he had no idea what it was.
‘Are you still there?’ she said. ‘Now. Larkin likes schoolgirls.’
‘Well he likes daydreaming about schoolgirls.’
‘What was the bit in the letter to your dad? You know, about schoolgirls plating each other.’
‘Mm.’ The quote Phoebe was after went WATCHING SCHOOLGIRLS SUCK EACH OTHER OFF WHILE YOU WHIP THEM. ‘So, Phoebe? How’re you going to manage that?’
‘It’s a challenge, I admit. But I’ll see what I can do…Hang on. Acquisitions wants yet another word. When’re you picking me up? Sixish?’
It was September 1980. The Night of Shame (July 1978), then the period of costly debauchery, then the biennium of perfect love. It can now be revealed that the time of perfect love (it in fact lasted twenty-five months and twenty-five days) had about ten hours to go.
Apollo 1
‘They’re not dreads and dreams, Hitch, they’re more like…more like strange dissatisfactions. I can’t describe them, I can’t even identify them. Maybe it’s just to do with not going to an office any more. Phoebe gets up early, so I do too. I’m at my desk by nine, and I write till one or one-thirty. And then what?’
‘M
m, it’s meant to be why writers are such pissers, isn’t it. You do your four or five hours, then you’re no good any more, so you slope off down the drinker.’
It was two o’clock on a Monday afternoon and we were in the Apollo, a West Indian bar and onetime music hall near Christopher’s flat on Golborne Road. The West Indians, all of them tall and muscular young men, were sipping Sprites and Lucozades; they glanced with perfunctory pity at my pint of lager and the double Scotch of the Hitch, and at our steadily filling ashtray. I said,
‘I’m in a drinker, true, but this is an exception. Boozing in the afternoon…it fucks up boozing in the evening. We’re not all like you. We can’t take it – pissed all day.’
‘Pissed all week. It’s my new unit. Fresh as a daisy till Tuesday afternoon when I do my column. Not too clever by Thursday. And completely tonto by Friday…Oh, this is going to be a heavy sacrifice when I cross the Atlantic.’
‘Heavier than being ruled by Reagan?’
‘Personally much heavier. Alcohol’s suddenly uncool over there – even in New York. No more nine-Martini lunches. They’re all on iced tea. Or fucking Sanka.’
I got more drinks and he said,
‘How does it hit you, the dissatisfaction? Tell.’
‘It comes on me when I stop work and feel alone. A restless vacancy, a sense of – what’s the next thing? Where is it?’ I arched my back. ‘When is it?’
‘Maybe it’s because around now everyone seems to be settling down. Ian’s settling down with Penny. Julian’s settling down with Pat.’
‘And you’re settling down with Eleni.’
‘As I said, she loves the Hitch, she wants to marry the Hitch…It’s a pity about the timing. Because I finally got the hang of promiscuity – thanks to America.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, first off, you know my besetting weakness, don’t you. It’s a sort of timidity, or a fear of giving offence – or a fear of rejection. And in America it’s the chicks who make all the moves.’
‘Oi. What about Lady Mab and the others? They made all the moves and you still didn’t come across. Because you’d have to string them up the next morning.’
‘That’s the other half of it. There are no chicks worth stringing up in America. None of them sound like Lady Mab. Even the heiresses’ dads were at some point poor. I know there are dynasties, but very few US chicks are born entitled, which is what I can’t stand. They have a different class system over there.’
‘And it’s just race and money. But you say it’s also very weird.’
‘One example. The poor whites, the hookworm-and-incest crowd, have made an unspoken deal with the rich whites. You can sneer at us so long as we can both sneer at the blacks. And then there are little fripperies like the Boston Brahmins.’
‘…Julia’s dad’s a Boston Brahmin. Not at all rich but very Mayflower.’
‘Any developments there?’
‘With Julia? Don’t talk stupid. It’s at least a year too soon.’
‘When was it again?’
‘Just over a month ago. Cancer. At his age…So Hitch. Who am I going to settle down with? Phoebe’s finite. She loves Little Keith, I think, but she doesn’t want to marry Little Keith. Or anybody else. She’s completely reconciled to it. And I always sort of knew I shouldn’t marry Phoebe. She isn’t the love of my life.’
‘You just want to get to the end of her sexually.’
‘Yes – while I’m at it. And I keep thinking I’m nearly there. But on the phone with her this morning I had a sick bonk throughout – the whole half an hour.’
‘Still. In the nature of things Phoebe will end. So then who?’
‘Remember Miri, Miriam Gould? I find myself mooning a lot about Miri. Our little thing should’ve been a big thing – that’s another form of the missed chance. And I wouldn’t mind settling down for a while with Janet Hobhouse.’
‘Ah. A surprising omission of yours I always thought. Wait.’
He got more drinks and I said,
‘Not a total omission. We’ve had a night or two together. Oh yeah. During the act, Hitch, Janet does something quite rare. Don’t look so intent – it’s nothing dirty. Real feminists aren’t dirty. Logically enough. No. She’s a smiler. She smiles. During.’
‘How incredibly sweet.’
‘Now I come to think of it, just like Germaine…With Miri there was some other fucking bloke in the background. Same with Janet.’
‘You mean her husband. Janet’s great, I agree. But the one you’re really interested in, Mart – and yes I know the complications – is Julia. I can tell.’
‘Mm. I ought to go. Oh, and don’t you be late tonight,’ I said. ‘Dad told me that Larkin’s not bringing his bird, he’s not bringing Monica. So Phoebe’s planning some kind of sex tease on him – and it should be good.’
‘I’ll be there. Janet’s a major chick.’
‘Miri’s a major chick. And as for Julia…I had a drink with her the other night and she made me feel like a teenager. Or a child. She’s so evolved.’
‘It’s death does that.’
* * *
∗
And looking back, now, from here, I see how busy death always is, and what great plans it always has.
Julia’s first husband – incandescently vigorous, it seemed, in body and mind – died in August 1980 at the age of thirty-four. Miri, Miriam Gould, killed herself in Barcelona in 1986 at the age of thirty-seven. And Janet, Janet Hobhouse, the novelist (and life-writer), died in 1991 at the age of forty-two.
What lesson, what moral, can be drawn from this?
One had better be quick.
Bobby socks
Phoebe buzzed him in and Martin climbed the stairs. He had his own set of keys, but (as instructed) he still used the intercom to give a polite warning. The bedroom door was open and he went straight through…She was semi-naked in the chair before the dressing table with her legs at a familiar elevation and with her crossed feet reflected in the three mirrors. Her hands held an eyeliner pencil and a slim volume.
She said, ‘That’s what he’ll think the moment we walk in. When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise // Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives. That’s exactly what he’ll think when he sees us walk in.’
‘Yeah, and he’ll envy me. With good reason. I think he’s a powerful envier anyway.’
Martin went and kissed her and each of them said a few things about their day.
‘I’ll fetch a beer while you get dressed.’
‘No I’m ready.’ She bounced to her feet. ‘Let’s go.’
Phoebe was back in her mansion flat and was once again prosperous and broadhanded. TFS let her do more trading now, and so her need for gaming was confined to the turf (a recreational fiver once or twice a week). And purdah never lasted more than a single night. Their erotic life was emotional, carnal, innovational, and – most signally – habitual. When acknowledging that this was indeed the case, Phoebe always said, You realise it’ll be the end of us. And Martin always thought, Yes, and so do you – and why isn’t it already?…The cause of his disquiet, he would’ve said and would’ve meant, was not to be found in the bedroom. As far as he knew he had never felt more thoroughly slaked. He now said,
‘You’re not going out dressed like that, young lady. You’ve to stop home.’
‘What’re you talking about?’
He looked at her from top to toe and then from toe to top. The feet (as yet unshod), the long coppertone legs, the pink tutu or ra-ra skirt sticking out practically at right angles to the cinched waist, the shortsleeved pale-pink singlet with its bra-less orbs and staring nipples, the pigtails, and the black beret with a sprawling gold crest on it saying, RICHMOND ACADEMY FOR GIRLS.
‘Have a heart, Phoeb
e. Come on, think. He’s never written a word about schoolgirls. Not in public. Dad’s going to be there too, and he’ll know at once I squealed.’
She said, ‘And did Kingsley swear you to secrecy? Of course he didn’t. So it’s just a bit of insider dealing, and very much to be expected. Stop fussing. Bloody hell.’
‘…Are you going to wear sandals? Or just gyms.’
‘Bobby socks and spike-heeled red booties. No gyms. And no navy-blue knickers either.’ She turned a half circle. ‘Can you just about see the undersides of my arse?’
‘Yeah, just about. And I can just about see the undersides of your pants.’
‘That’s because you’re a shrimp. He’s tall. If it comes to it I may have to…’
He said, ‘Phoebe, you’ve finally put my mind at rest. May have to what?’
The drinks party was being thrown by Robert Conquest, who lived on Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea (an area that estate agents had started calling Lower Chelsea). As they drove over the sunshot, the sheet-metal River Thames, Phoebe, her mouth stiffened to receive lipstick, said in a distorted voice,
‘Do you like schoolgirls at all?’
‘In that sense? No, not a bit. I mean I liked schoolgirls when I was a schoolboy. But even then the girls I really fancied were grownup women. Teachers, movie stars, Aunt Miggy. Mum’s friends. Especially the one called Rhona.’
‘Remember Polanski?’ Phoebe squished her lips together and straightened her mouth. That off-centredness, that loutish asymmetry – it was gone, long gone (together with her aversion to Anglosaxonisms); love, or quasi-love, had wiped it from her face. This gratified his ego and his honour (even though he missed it). ‘According to him,’ she said, ‘all men want to fuck young girls.’