Heavy Water_ And Other Stories - Martin Amis [46]
She never slept. She drank her tea, and rested, sighing sometimes and powerfully yawning, but she never slept. Her thoughtfulness seemed centralized and assiduous, as if she were following an argument taking place on the near side of her eyes. Rodney worried about interrupting this argument when he later returned to the bed, but her body always fully admitted him to its heat. He often imagined, as he squirmed and bounced above her, that the first word he would ever hear her say would be the forename of another man … All the same, what they did and made together had nothing to do with art. No play: sheer earnest. It felt like honest work.
“Hey. Hey! Ain’t no damn use you sneaking out like that. Have you read my novel yet?”
“Yes,” said Rodney.
Rodney said Yes, not because it was true or anything like that, but to make a change from saying No. It was an impulse thing. And Rodney was surprised it worked so well.
Pharsin stepped back. For several seconds he wore a plugged expression. Then with his brow softly working he bent and lowered his head. Rodney almost reached up a hand to stroke the black filings of Pharsin’s hair.
“So, man. What did you think?”
It was gently said. What a welcome change this makes, thought Rodney (putting all that unpleasantness behind him): these chaps are perfectly sweet and reasonable, when tactfully handled. He laughed, saying,
“Ho no, my friend. With a novel like that … with a writer like that, I’m not going to stand here in a doorway as if I’m talking about the weather. Oh no.”
“But you saying it measures up?”
“Oh no. Pharsin, don’t try and do this! You my friend are going to come up to my studio. One day very soon. We’re going to take the phone, uh, ‘off the hook,’ put a log on the fire, and open a bottle of good red wine. A claret, I rather think—a nice sharp Morgon. Then we ‘ll talk.”
“When?” said Pharsin, with familiar vigilance.
“Actually there’s a good reason why we can’t do it this weekend.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m rereading it.”
“… I applaud your rigor. Such works seldom render up their secrets on a first absorption.”
“Exactly so.”
“As I’ve said, Rod, a great deal hinges on your critique. It’s been suggested to me that I’m not cut out for fiction, and I’m impatient for a second response. I’m at a stage in my life where … You got a minute to hear this?”
Half an hour later Rodney said, “Of course. On second thoughts, perhaps we’d be better off with something thicker—like a Margaux. We’ll have some Stilton. And black olives …”
On parting, the two men performed an old ritual (now long disused): a series of street-guy handshakes. Rodney, as ever, looked like someone slowly and painfully learning how to play Paper, Scissors, Stone.
It was a gallery opening near Tompkins Square Park—an occasion sponsored by a new brand of vodka, and marked by a nostalgic deluge of Martinis. Rod and Rock had established themselves near the caterers’ table. Sexually at peace, and additionally numbed by cocaine, Rodney was temporarily under the impression that everybody loved him. Now he bantered with the barman, affecting interest in the lot of barmen everywhere. Though invariably polite to servants, Rodney never differentiated them. Failing to see, for example, that this waiter was definitely an actor who had waited way too long.
“I have reached a bold conclusion,” he said, swinging round on Rock. “All my troubles with women come from … from words. From speech.”
And there was something in this. Surprisingly, for such a fragile and ingratiating presence, Rodney, over the years, had had his face slapped practically out of alignment, so often had his patter gone awry. He was a flatterer—by profession. He believed in flattery and was always trying to deploy it. But