London Fields

by Martin Amis

  The ninety-second biodoc on Keith Talent was watched by 27 1/2 million people — in the UK, in Scandinavia, in the Netherlands, in the rockabilly states of America, in Canada, in the Far East and in Australia. It was watched by dartslovers everywhere, and then shot out into space at the speed of light.

  It was watched by Nicola Six, perched on Keith's knee.

  Go-getting Keith Talent is an upcoming merchandizer operating out of London's West Kensington.

  To the hectic tumbles of a xylophone solo, Keith was seen nodding shrewdly into an intercom. Between his finger and thumb he rolled a biro shaped like a dart.

  In the elegant West London flat where Keith lives and works, the calls come winging in from Munich and LA. In business as in darts, no way does Keith play to come in second best. Winning is what it's all about is Keith's byword. Never far from Keith's side is his trusty girl Friday Nicky with a helping hand.

  Assistant Nicky, in T-shirt and jeans and dark glasses, appeared behind her boss with several sheets of paper, which Keith started nodding shrewdly at before they were in front of his face. One hand rested on his shoulder as she pointed with the other. Now an establishing shot of the Marquis of Edenderry, and then Keith's emotional face filling the screen.

  ''I'm basically the sort of guy who likes to relax with a few drinks with the guys. Here. With the bestf- with the bestf- with the best support of any pub in London.'

  Nicky was sitting beside him. He seemed to have her in a kind of headlock. The xylophone solo had given way to Hawaiian guitar. Keith drew near-tearfully on his cigarette.

  Dartwise, Keith is known for his clinical big finishes. The 170s, the 167s, the 164s, the 161s. 'The 160s.' (This was Keith, pitilessly offhand.) 'The 158s. The 157s. The 156s. That's correct. The 155s. Some question my power. But come Friday I intend to silence the critics.'

  Keith and Nicky strolled out into the carpark, hand in hand, their linked arms swinging.

  A bachelor, Keith and Nicky have as yet no plans to wed. But one thing is certain.

  There was a fish-eye rearview shot of the Cavalier, and the sound of heavy-metal, and then the car fired off into the distorted street.

  Keith Talent is going a long, long way.

  '. . . But Keith,' said Nicola in a stunned voice, during the commercial break. 'You were quite amazing. A true natural. The TV camera loves you, Keith.'

  Keith nodded, rather sternly.

  'I only wonder slightly what your wife will make of it.'

  He looked at her with qualified hostility, as if unsure whether or not he was being trifled with. Nicola was aware that Keith was in a state of near-psychotic confusion on this point. And she didn't know the half of it. In fact he was still clinging to the notion that the biodoc would be screened only at those locations where it had been filmed: her flat, and, of course, the Marquis of Edenderry. But even Keith found the notion tenuous; growing doubts about it had tempted him to tamper with the TV at Windsor House, in the only way he knew how, by switching it off and putting his boot through it. In the end he shrank from such sacrilege, and just went on telling Kath that — although reason declared that there wasn't much point in the TV biodoc unless it was on TV - the TV biodoc wasn't on TV.

  'Still,' she said, 'who stands behind you now? Who is it who really understands about your darts?'

  'Shut it,' said Keith, who in a sense was feeling more and more at home down the dead-end street. A commercial break had just ended and before another one had the chance to begin a voice was saying,

  . . . a little look at Keith's opponent for the big one, and Kim Twentlow will be saying why he thinks it's going to be a little bit special. After this.

  Now although Keith never asked about an opponent, he'd natur­ally been keeping up with events (by means of half-hourly tele­phone calls). The second semi-final of the Duoshare Sparrow Masters was to have been disputed by Keith's old enemy, Chick Purchase, and the young unknown from Totteridge, Marlon Frift. But there'd been a problem, and a postponement. Following a night out, Marlon had had a heart attack; and there were still doubts about his fitness.

  Nicola waited for the start of the organ solo and then said, 'Who is it, Keith?'

  'Never ask about an opponent. Immaterial as such. You play the board not the — jammy bitch's bastard.'

  . . . due to the very sad Marlon Frift tragedy. By a walkover.

  On screen, big Chick patrolled his coin-op store, appeared at the races in morning-suit and topper, was seen on horseback himself, then fishing at some blighted canal. Chick down the gym, with the chest-flexer, in the plunge pool, all chest gloss in the solarium — Chick, big Chick, with his ponies, his birds, his pitbull . . . And then Kim Twemlow, the ex-world number one, with his white shoes, his white belt, his shot face, saying, 'Look at the averages and it's got to be big Chick, by a mile. All credit to Keith for progressing as he has.

  Must have got his head beautiful for the big occasion and that. But on current form he's not fit to empty Chick's ashtrays . . .'

  After a while Keith said hoarsely, 'So be it.'

  'Who is this Chick person?'

  He gave a taciturn version of the dispute with his old business associate. Of the rape of Chick's sister, and Keith's subsequent hospitalization, the smaller man had this to say: 'We came to blows over this bird, the big fella coming out second best. And now tomorrow night him and I have a rendezvous. To sort out who's number one once and for all.'

  'Good, Keith. This could work for us. Now I expect you'd like to forget the pressures with a nice video. It's something a little bit special. On a Halloween theme. We're a few days late, but whatof that, Keith.'

  'Horror like?'

  'In the old calendar it used to be the last night of the year. When all the witches and warlocks were abroad.'

  As Keith trudged into the bedroom, Guy's limousine entered the grounds of the institution. The little TV screen within was now showing a colour-coded diagram of the uterus of the President's wife. The President's wife, so young, so blonde . . . Guy asked the driver if he wouldn't mind pulling over for a moment. The driver minded, but pulled over anyway. Guy bent his long body and out he climbed.

  He made to straighten up — and nothing happened. The driver watched in settled distaste as Guy grunted, first with surprise, then with effort, and remained in a jagged crouch on the verge. After a second attempt, and a second failure, he backed himself on to a wooden bench. Here he rested with his fingers folded over the handle of the cane in soft support of his chin. Now he saw the L-shaped Tudor-type mansion, the slated roof and leaded windows, the pond like a silver coin pitched on to the front lawn; and he saw too the size and nature of the task ahead of him. Before, it was just something to be got out of the way as he sped towards something else - towards inevitability. But now of course it filled the sky. And the sky was falling.

  The physics felt strange, the physics felt fierce. Gravity was pushing down on him, but if Guy pushed down, hard enough, on the cane, then, slowly, he went up, up.

  As Guy straightened, Keith reclined, and made himself comfortable on Nicola's bed: a lengthy procedure. She plumped his pillows and pulled off his boots; Keith also suffered her to bring him a fresh can of lager from the fridge. Now he looked about with an inconveni­enced expression for the box of paper tissues.

  'Wait, darling,' she said. 'These might be more fun.' She opened a drawer and started browsing through it. 'All the good stuff seems to be in the wash. From the videos, Keith. Wait.' She turned, and bent forward, and reached up into her dress with both thumbs. 'Use these. We'll put them on your head until you need them. You can watch through the legholes. Might look rather comic on anyone but you, Keith.'

  The black gusset puffed out for a moment as Keith said, 'Yeah cheers.'

  She left him there, sprawled on the covers in his frilly gasmask. Then re-entered, in electronic form. On screen, she came into the bedroom slowly in black cape and thigh-high boots and witch's pointy hat. And as she turned and the black cape swirled you
could see, within, the simple ways the simple shape (legs, hips, haunch, waist) can be made to shine on the reptile eye, and burn on the reptile brain. The glamour: charms, rhombs, wishbones, magic rings -gramarye, sortilege, demonifuge . . .

  Keith was doing handsome.

  Then she came into the bedroom slowly in black cape and thigh-high boots and witch's pointy hat.

  Keith was doing handsome. Then the real thing —the necromancer — came into the bedroom.

  It would go beautifully.

  Guy muffled his delight when the matron or health-operative or death-concessionaire informed him that Mrs Broadener's condition was far advanced. She wouldn't understand what he said to her. And she wouldn't respond. With any luck. It would go beautifully. Hope disliked her mother, of course, and her mother disliked Hope; Guy had not seen Mrs Broadener for seven or eight years. The only thing he knew about this place, her last refuge, was a detail that Lizzyboo had let slip. Although no old lady would ever walk out of here, each old lady had to be able to walk in: company policy. Mrs Broadener had walked in; she wouldn't walk out. Now Guy moved through proliferating parlours: waiting-rooms, in various degrees of disguise. There appeared to be no other visitors.

  Triscilla?' he said, when they were alone.

  He stared down. At what? Something caught up in the more or less disgraceful struggle at the end of existence: the process from which so little can be salvaged. He took this person's hand and sat beside her.

  'You remember me, don't you,' he began. 'Guy? Hope's husband? You're looking well. Thank you for seeing me. Uh — I bring ... I bring good news! Everyone is well. Hope's wonderfully well. Marmaduke, your little grandson, is in tremendous form. A handful, as always, but. . .'

  She watched him as he spoke, or she seemed to. Her face minutely bobbled on its spindle; the eyes swam in their huge new pools, but never blinked. Priscilla's hands were tightly clasped or fastened.

  'Lizzyboo is full of beans. She's put on some weight recently but that's not the end of the world, is it? No, everyone's well and they send their love. It's wonderful, isn't it, it's so absolutely marvellous, I do think, when a family is really close, and everyone loves one another,' he said, and hesitated as he realized how quickly his face had covered itself in tears, 'and they, no matter what, they protect each other. And it's for ever.'

  Suddenly she spoke. She just said: 'It's all —'

  Guy waited. Nothing followed. 'Well. I suppose I'd better be thinking about going. Goodbye. Thank you for seeing me.'

  'Shit,' she said.

  He waited. 'Goodbye, Priscilla.'

  Nicola and Keith were sitting up in bed together, smoking. They drew huskily on their cigarettes. Nicola raised her chin as she exhaled. She said,

  'You're not to reproach yourself, Keith. It happens to everyone.'

  '. . . Oh yeah? Well it ain't never happened to me before. No way.'

  'Really? Never?'

  'No danger. Me — I'm in there. Boof. Ain't never happened to me before.'

  In fact, of course, it had happened to Keith before. It happened to Keith, on average, about five times a week. But it also didn't happen to him pretty regularly too. And in this case he felt he was entitled to a certain amount of bafflement, and anger. What was it? Her skinny ankles, maybe. All the talking. Or the way that, despite her evident litheness, she had felt so heavy — as heavy as an automobile, as heavy as the heavy Cavalier. It was like parking a pantechnicon, just trying to turn her over.

  'I should imagine it even happens', she said, 'to Chick Purchase. Every now and then.'

  'Way he treats minge he ought to be locked up,' said Keith soberly. He further reflected that Chick Purchase was locked up, pretty often, on bird-related matters, as well as in the normal course of business.

  'You're a very sensitive man, Keith. As well as an incredible tyke and everything, with your rugged ways. You should give yourself credit for that.'

  Keith flexed his eyebrows. Come to think of it, he was wondering why he didn't feel more angry. But anger didn't come. Self-pity came. Not the usual kind, which looked and sounded just like anger. A different kind: self-pity of a far nobler strain. 'Pressures of darts,' he said.

  'Yes. And a little difficulty switching from one medium to another. That's what this whole thing is really about.'

  'Yeah. Well.'

  She saw that Keith's eyes were starting to pick out articles of his own clothing, flattened on the floor: the grovelling trousers, for instance, trampled, twisted-out-of.

  'Early night and that. Compose myself for the big one. See how Clive's doing.'

  'Oh Keith. Before you go.'

  She picked up her black dressing-gown and left the room, returning almost at once with a silver tray: an imposingly expensive-looking bottle and two glasses, and some sort of device like a foreign lantern with tubes.

  'This is as old as the century. Try some. This', she said, 'is practically newborn, and just in from Teheran. I went to some trouble to get it.'

  'Yeah I smoke a little keef,' said Keith. 'Now and again. Relax.'

  'It may interest you to know, Keith, that the word "assassin" comes from hashish. Assassins — killers by treachery and violence. They used to give the men a good blast of this before they went out to do their stuff. And if they died in action, they were promised an immediate heaven. Of wine, women and song, Keith, And hash, no doubt.' A little later she said, 'But that's enough etymology for now.

  I'm beginning to sound like a schoolteacher. Why don't you just lie back and let me find out what makes this cock tick?'

  Guy linked up again with his courier or expeditor at the airport in New London. Here he was told that, if he wished, he could get an air-taxi straight to Newark. With luck he might catch an earlier Concorde and shave perhaps half a day off his journey. The courier smiled and twinkled potently; everything was possible; his was the maximum-morale specialism of deeply expensive travel. At this point he paid off the chauffeur, whose disaffection remained secure against Guy's reckless tip. Outside in the warm dusk the light was the colour of a grinning pumpkin, Halloween light, promising trick or treat.

  Before he retired to the Celebrity Lounge (there would be a slight delay) Guy wandered the concourses, full of love's promiscuous interest, among pantssuit and stretchslack America. Even though there was said to be less of it now, the human variety on display, with its dramatic ratios of size and colouring, still impressed and affected him. It was true that you did see signs of uniformity (one nation), all the people wearing off-white smocks and pink, gymkhana-sized rosettes, like that family over there, four of them, in perfect-family formation, man and woman and boy and girl, each with the squeamish smile of the future . . . Guy threw away his painkillers -their tubes and sachets. Everywhere young women looked at him with kindness. But of course there was only one woman who could really kill his pain. The eyes of certain faces, children's faces, made him wonder whether this whole adventure of his, so agitated and inspired, and so climactic, wasn't just a way of evading the twentieth century or the planet or what the one had done to the other.

  Because love . . . But wasn't nature constantly asking you what all the fuss was about? It was hard to shirk this question when you saw them trouped together like that, the old ladies, walking down passages at five yards an hour, or humped on chairs in parlours, their heads trembling in anger and negation, insisting, saying never, never, never. All of them had been adored and wept over, presumably, at one point, prayed to, genuflected in front of, stroked, kissed, licked; and now the bald unanimity of disappointment, of compound grief and grievance. It was written on their mouths, on their lips, marked in notches like the years of a sentence. In their heads only the thoughts that just wouldn't go away, cold and stewed, in their little teapot heads, still brewing beneath frilled cozies of old-lady hair . . . Whatever it was women wanted, few of them ended up getting it.

  He advanced into the Celebrity Lounge, where there were compli­mentary coffee and free telephones, and where he hoped t
o finish Love.