Amis, Martin - Money (v1.0)

by Money(Lit)

  'Where d'you fancy, John? The Breadline? Assisi's? The Mahatma?'

  Terry Linex and the boys want to take me out to lunch. Keith Carburton has just walked in, razzing his hands. There has been quite a bit of this sort of thing recently. It feels to me like a new way of superannuating people. But I'm keen. After my morning, I need the , . fuel, I'm almost out of gas. I go, of course I go — as I will go when the time is right, when I get my big break. I hope it doesn't break me, my big break.. . So we come bobbing out of cabs in our high-shouldered cashmere overcoats. The girl in dike suit and streaming salmon tie (I think I could go to bed with her, if I liked, but it might be just her professional style to put this idea about) shows us fondly to our table. But it is the wrong table! Before Terry Linex can sue the restaurant, Keith Carburton takes the girl aside. I can hear him dully reminding her how much money we all spend here. The chick is impressed. So am I. Very soon we have another table (an old man is backing away with a napkin still frilling his throat), a better table, circular, nearer the door, and bearing a bottle of free champagne.

  'We're sorry about that, sir,' said the girl, and Keith slipped her his pained nod.

  'Now this is a bit more bloody like it," said Terry to himself.

  'Right,' said Keith. 'Right:

  We drink the champagne. We call for another. One by one the girls finish in the bog or the powder parlour and are redirected to the improved table. Mitzi, Keith's assistant. Little Bella, the telephonist. And the predatory Trudi, an all-purpose vamp and PR strategist. (As for the hiring of girls, we have a looks-alone policy over at C. L. & S.) They will have to do a lot of laughing and listening. They can talk a bit, but only so long as we are the heroes of the tales they tell. The quenched light of this joke June, in the shape of a sail or a breast, swells its camber across the room. For a moment we all look terribly overlit in here: we look like monsters. For a moment, the whole restaurant is a pickle-jar of rug glue and dental work. But now the real fun starts. Terry is throwing bread at me, and Nigel is on the floor doing his dog imitation and snuffling at Trudi's stockings. I notice that the middle-aged pair at the next table retract slightly and lower their heads over their food. As they huddle up, I give Terry a squirt from the shaken champagne bottle and join Keith Carburton in a few choruses of 'We are the Champions'. No, the rest of the meal isn't going to be much fun for those two, I'm afraid. I suppose it must have been cool for people like them in places like this before people like us started coming here also. But we're here to stay. You try getting us out. . . Now the menus come, dispensed like examination scripts, and we hesitate and fall silent for a little while, frowning and murmuring over the strange print.

  Four o'clock. In heavy, motionless, back-breaking light, Linex and Self stood swaying in front of the basement urinal. I heard the slow rasp of Terry's three-foot zip, then the drilling of his leak against the ivory stall. There goes the day again, like so many others, just pissed away.

  'Whoar,' said Terry with a wince.

  'How's your dick?'

  He glanced downwards. 'Still green,' he said in his piping, disembodied, fatman's voice.

  'Still that thing you caught in Bali? What was it? Clap?'

  'Clap?' he said. 'Clap? No, mate. I caught the bloody plague.'

  Then his shot face grew serious. 'John. Have you fucked anyone's wife recently? Run over anyone's kids?'

  'Uh?' I said, and pushed out a hand to steady myself against the cold wall.

  'I mean — is there anyone out to do you a bit of harm?'

  'Well yeah.' I shifted my weight. Some days it seemed that everyone was out to do me harm.

  ''Real harm?' he specified. 'Something a little bit serious?'

  'No. What is this?'

  'I was down the Fancy Rat the other night,' said Terry Linex. 'We think we drink. They're nutters down there. It's a scotch contest. I was with this crew of villains, one of them says, "Oy. You've got a business associate, John Self, right?" I says, "What of it?" He says, "There's some work out on him. Not sure what. But there's some work out on him." Now it's true, as you know, that an awful lot of ballocks gets talked down the Fancy Rat. But there's usually something in it... Want me to ask around?'

  I looked into Terry's fiery face — cheap churned hair, half an ear bitten off, penny-farthing nostrils. His teeth are as randomly angled as shards of glass on a Backstreet wall. Terry is one of the new princes, an improviser of fierce genius. His current dream is to hire a handicapped chauffeur: the Disabled sticker would give Linex unlimited parking anywhere he pleased.

  'Yeah, do that.'

  'Glad to,' he said. 'Better safe than sorry. Know what I mean?'

  So now as I plod home through the crumpled afternoon, veering this way and that among my brothers and sisters, with eyes meeting and not meeting, it's sort of nice to know that it's all official.

  —————— 'Check,' I said.

  Selina looked up at me indignantly. Her lancing eyes returned to the board. She exhaled, and made an irrelevant move with her black-square bishop.

  'Check,' I said.

  'So what?'

  'It means your king's threatened. I can take your king.'

  'You can have it. It's more bloody trouble than it's worth.'

  'You don't understand. The whole —'

  'I'm going to have a bath. I hate chess. Where are we going to go? I'm not having Indian or Chinese. Or Greek. Kreutzer's.'

  'If you like.' I reset the heavy pieces.

  'Your hair looks terrible. You should let me cut it.'

  'I know.'

  I'd had a twenty-quid rug-rethink that very afternoon. The little faggot sorted through my locks for a while, curled his lip and said, 'How old are you?' Roger Frift asked me the same question. It's the heart, the heart. My heart's wrong, my ticker's wrong. My clock's not right.

  I went into the bedroom and browsed through Selina's knicker drawer, intending to spring a selection on her when she emerged from the tub. Hello, these are new. And so are these .. As I experimentally fingered a disused bodice I felt something solid in the tuck of the lining. What's this? Whalebone? No: a roll of used tenners — two hundred pounds! Now Selina's knicker drawer is a dumb place for Selina to hide things in, because I am always rootling about in there, as Selina well knows.

  She came out of the bathroom with a handtowel belted round her waist. I pointed. She barely blinked when she saw the money — negligently scattered on her side of the sack.

  'Where d'you get it?'

  'I won it!'

  'How?'

  'At roulette!'

  'What's all this about you being penniless?'

  'It was my last fiver! I put it on a number on my way out of the door!'

  'They only pay thirty to one — what about the other fifty?'

  'It was a tip!'

  'You said you were working there, right?'

  'Right!'

  'What as?'

  'A croupier!'

  I scowled, and paused. Selina had worked as a croupier before. This is true. The Cymbeline hires little cockteasers to police the tables. This is true also. They doll them up in mini-skirts and see-through blouses. The chicks look as though they'd come across for a cigarette but they're all strict business-heads and are forbidden to tangle with the punters — as I myself established, one night after my girl had gone to bed.

  'Look — how do I know you weren't just shacked up there with some guy?'

  'Ring Tony Devonshire!'

  'Who's Tony Devonshire?'

  'The manager!'

  'Yeah, well ...'

  'Go on! Ring him up!'

  'By the way, I thought I asked you to take the rubbish bag down. Will you do it now please. Why can't we have lunch in town tomorrow and then go to your bank and get it all sorted out. That money's all got to go on rent and I still owe my gynaecologist sixty. It would be a lot more sensible if I moved in here. Come on, you're rolling. Look at that. They've shrunk. I can hardly get them on. Whoops. Ooh. I don't think they
go with this garter belt anyway, do you?'

  I sat down on the crushed money. 'Dah,' I said. 'Come here.'

  —————— The Fiasco needs a major overhaul. Selina Street wants a joint bank account. Alec Llewellyn owes me money. Barry Self owes me money. I've got to head back to America, pretty soon, and earn lots more.

  I had lunch with Doris Arthur. She was very nice about me making a pass at her. In fact, she was so nice about me making a pass at her that I made a pass at her. It wasn't the drink this time. It was the woman. After the meal we discussed the outline in her hotel room. Basically I have six big scenes in my head that I know how to shoot: Doris's job is to get from one to the other as smoothly as possible. 'You know something?' she said, as she slid out from beneath me and wryly detached my hands from her thighs. 'You've given me a lot of new heart for the struggle. I thought we were winning, but there's clearly a long way to go.' Thanks to Selina, the second pass wasn't nearly as bad as the first pass. But it was still quite bad, thanks to Selina. Selina, she ... Oh yeah, and I had a few drinks with my lighting man, Kevin Skuse, and Des Blackadder, my grip. Fielding says I should put these guys on retainer immediately, ready for shooting in the autumn. But there's no work around. They seem hungry enough to me and I figure they can wait another month.

  Can I? Where has the weather gone, where? Where? You get April, blossom blizzards and sudden sunshafts and swift bruised clouds. You get May and its chilly light, the sky still writhing with change. Then June, summer, rain as thin and sour as motorway wheel-squirt, and no sky at all, just no sky at all. In summer, London is an old man with bad breath. If you listen, you can hear the sob of weariness catching in his lungs. Unlovely London. Even the name holds heavy stress.

  Sometimes when I walk the streets — I fight the weather. I take on those weather gods. I beat them up. I kick and punch and snarl. People stare and occasionally they laugh, but I don't mind. Tubbily I execute karate leaps, forearm smashes, aiming for the sky. I do a lot of shouting too. People think I'm mad, but I don't care. I will not take it. Here is someone who will not take the weather lying down.

  For some time now Selina Street has been on at me to open a joint bank account. She hasn't got a bank account and she wants one. She hasn't got any money and she wants some. She used to have a bank account: it broke my heart to see her dreaded statements and note the pitiable sums she dealt in—£2.43, £1.71, £5. But they took her bank account away. She never had any money in it. Selina maintains that a joint bank account is essential to her dignity and self-respect. I have been disputing this, arguing that her dignity and self-respect can get on perfectly well under the present system, with its merit awards and incentive schemes. Now, the way I see it, girls with no money have two ways of asserting themselves: they can either start fights all the time, or they can simply be unhappy at you until you surrender. (They can't leave: they haven't got the dough.) Selina is not a fighter, maybe because I'm a hitter — or used to be (she doesn't know I've reformed, and I hope she never finds out). And she hasn't the patience to be unhappy at me. That would be a long-term project. So Selina has found a third way ... For a week she used no make-up, wore dumpling tights and porridgy knickers, and went to bed in face-cream, curlers and a dramatically drab nightdress. I didn't find out whether sex was actually off the menu. I never felt like asking. The day before last, however, I decided to open a joint bank account. I filled out the forms, coldly supervised by the watchful, sharp-shouldered Selina. That morning she went to bed in black stockings, tasselled garter belt, satin thong, silk bolero, muslin gloves, belly necklace and gold choker. I made a real pig of myself, I have to admit. An hour and a half later she turned to me, with one leg still hooked over the headboard, and said, 'Do it, anywhere, anything.' Things had unquestionably improved, what with all this new dignity and self-respect about the place.

  Last night, then, about twenty to eleven, I was sitting in the Blind Pig. America tomorrow. I was in thoughtful mood — expansive, self-questioning, philosophical, if not downright drunk. Selina was seeing Helle, her pal at the boutique. I had a present for Selina: a spanking new chequebook. I would hold it out towards her, and watch her shine. Selina had a present for me too: some new bag-gimmicks, a selection from Helle's under-the-counter underwear. I was just sitting there, not stirring, not even breathing, like the pub's pet reptile, when who should sit down opposite me but that guy Martin Amis, the writer. He had a glass of wine, and a cigarette — also a book, a paperback. It looked quite serious. So did he, in a way.

  Small, compact, wears his rug fairly long ,.. The pub's two doors were open to the hot night. That seems to be the deal in early summer, tepid days and hot nights. It's a riot. Anything goes.

  I was feeling friendly, as I say, so I yawned, sipped my drink, and whispered, 'Sold a million yet?'

  He looked up at me with a flash of paranoia, unusual in its candour, its bluntness. I don't blame him really, in this pub. It's full of turks, nutters, martians. The foreigners around here. I know they don't speak English—okay, but do they even speak Earthling? They speak stereo, radio crackle, interference. They speak sonar, bat-chirrup, pterodactylese, fish-purr.

  'Sorry?' he said.

  'Sold a million yet?'

  He relaxed. His off-centre smile refused to own up to something. 'Be serious,' he said.

  'What you sell then?'

  'Oh, a reasonable amount.'

  I burped and shrugged. I burped again. 'Fuck,' I said. 'Pardon me.' 1 yawned. I stared round the pub. He returned to his book.

  'Hey,' 1 said. 'Every day, do you... Do you sort of do it every day, writing? Do you set yourself a time and stuff?'

  'No.'

  'I wish I could stop fucking burping,' I said. He started reading again.

  'Hey,' I said. 'When you, do you sort of make it up, or is it just, you know, like what happens?'

  'Neither.'

  'Autobiographical,' I said. 'I haven't read any of your books. There's, I don't really get that much time for reading.'

  'Fancy,' he said. He started reading again.

  'Hey,' I said. 'Your dad, he's a writer too, isn't he? Bet that made it easier.'

  'Oh, sure. It's just like taking over the family pub.'

  'Uh?'

  'Time,' said the man behind the bar. 'Time. Time.'

  'Here, you want another?' I asked him. 'Have a scotch.'

  'No, I'm fine.'

  'Yeah well I'm pretty well pissed myself. My girl'll be back soon. She's having one of her business dinners. She got this, a boutique. They're, she's trying to get people to invest in it.'

  He made no reply. I yawned and stretched. I burped. As I got to my feet, I caught the table with my kneecap. His drink wobbled, like a coin, but he caught it. It didn't splash much.

  'Fuck,' I said. 'Well, see you around, Martin.'

  'No doubt.'

  '... What's that mean?' I didn't much like his superior tone, come to think of it, or his tan, or his book. Or the way he stares at me in the street.

  'Mean?' he said. 'What do you think it means?'

  'You calling me a cunt?' I said loudly.

  'What?'

  'You called me a cunt!'

  'You're mistaken.'

  'Ah. So you're calling me a liar now. You're calling me a liar!'

  'Hey, take it easy, pal. Christ. You're fine. You're great. I'll see you around,'

  '... Yeah.'

  'Take care now.'

  'Yeah. All right then, Martin,' I said, and swayed out through the open door.

  Eleven o'clock: the rioting hour. Policemen in shirtsleeves (we are all so relaxed, so informal, about crime these days), standing in six-packs round the white vans, the money-ambulances with their single smart red stripes, waited in the turnings off the trench of the main road. Somewhere the kids, the why-bovver boys, were massing to launch their show. Apparently there was a full-scale revolution on this strip last Saturday night. I was dining alone at a window seat in the Burger Bower, and I didn't notice a thing. If
you ask me, there's a riot here every night. There always has been and there always will be. At eleven o'clock, London is a storm, a rave, a knees-up, a free-for-all. ... Here they come again. Yes, I say, go on, go on. I'm shattered, you're shattered — it's a gas. Go on.

  Rip it up.

  'Right, Selina,' I explained, when my own riot was done, 'I want you to listen to this and I want you to listen good. While I'm away you young lady are going to behave. Do you read me, Selina? No more shit! You're on the payroll now and you damn well do as I say, God damn it. No one fucks my race! NO ONE fucks with John Self! You hear me? NO ONE!'

  'Hark at him. I can't hear a word you're saying. Get your great face out of the pillow.'

  'Anyone cheats on me, they're soon sorry. They find they've taken on a little more than they —'

  'What? Get your — oof. Right. You were saying.'

  I rolled over with a grunt. Selina said sharply, 'Did you see Martina Twain in New York?'

  'Sort of. I was going to, but there was — I had this schedule problem.'

  'You think she's the cat's miaow, don't you, with her degrees and her big arse.'

  'Yeah, well ...'

  'Fat chance. Forget it, mate. She's all married up. There's only one way to keep the woman you want. You marry them.'

  'Yeah yeah.'

  1 got out of bed and went next door for a nightcap. An hour or two later I thought I heard Selina's voice, a murmur, a moan. I heaved myself off the couch and walked quietly into the bedroom. She was naked now, on the warm sack, stripped of her props and fetishes. I tell you, Helle's boutique really came up with the goods tonight... I moved closer. Selina was asleep, contentedly so, uncunning, unperplexed. The child in her was still visible in the resting eyelids and the ghost of her smile—yes, still visible. She is travelling through time, and to where? At that moment Selina stirred, tenderly, oozily, seeking a more perfect horizontal, just as water desires the flattest level.