Heavy Water_ And Other Stories - Martin Amis [52]
Rodney coughed and said, “Oh yeah. And she said, ‘He’ll write another one now.’ She’d been moonlighting for two years. As a waitress. To support him. And she could tell I hadn’t read it. By my voice.”
Rock looked on, frowning, as Rodney imitated her imitating him. It sounded something like: Ooh, ah say, wort simplay dezzling imagereh. Rodney said,
“She thought I was sneering at him. Him being bleck, do you see.”
“Yes, well, they can be quite chippy about that over here. Do you think his novel might have been good?”
“No one will ever know. But I do know this. She won’t have to support him while he writes the second one.”
“Why not?”
“Because she stole my money.”
“Oh you tit. How many times did I tell you? Jesus Christ, what a silly old tart you are.”
“I know. I know. Waitress? If you please? Two Amber Dreams. No. Four Amber Dreams.”
“Are you telling me you just left it lying around?”
“In the middle of the night I … Wait. When I first met her, in the bar, do you see, I offered her five hundred dollars. No, as a sitter’s fee. So I reckoned I owed her that. Went and got it out for her. Thought she was sleeping.”
“Oh you tit.”
“She did leave me the five hundred. Ah. Thank you most awfully.”
And on her way to the door she paused in front of the easel and whispered a single word (stressed as a menacing and devastating spondee): “Wanker.” And that was the end of that, he thought. That was the end of that.
Rock said, “Were they in it together, do you think?”
“No no. No. It was all pure … coincidence.”
“Why aren’t you angrier?”
“I don’t know.”
Pharsin he never saw again. But he did see Pharsin’s wife, once, nearly two years later, in London Town.
Rodney was consuming a tragic tea of crustless sandwiches in a dark cafe near Victoria Station. He had just left the Pimlico offices of the design magazine he worked part-time for, and was girding himself to catch a train for Sussex, where he would be met at the station by a childless divorcée in a Range Rover. He no longer wore a ponytail. And he no longer used his title. That sort of thing didn’t seem to play very well in England anymore. Besides, for a while Rodney had become very interested in his family tree; and this was his puny protest. The scars had deepened around his eyes. But not much else had changed.
Weatherless Victoria, and a cafe in the old style. Coffee served in leaky steel pots, and children eating Banana Splits and Knickerbocker Glories and other confections the color of traffic lights. In this place the waitresses were waitresses by caste, contemplating no artistic destiny. Outside, the city dedicated itself to the notion of mobility, fleets of buses and taxis, herds of cars, and then the trains.
She was several tables away, facing him, with her slender eyebrows raised and locked in inquiry. Rodney glanced, blinked, smiled. Then it was dumb show all over again. May I? Well if you. No I’ll just …
“Well well. It is a small world, isn’t it.”
“… So you’re not going to murder me? You’re not going to slag me off?”
“What? Oh no. No no. No.”
“… So you’re back here now.”
“Yes. And you, you’re …”
“Me mum died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. So you’re just here for the …”
“For the funeral and that, yeah …”
She said that her mother had been very old and had had a good life. Rodney’s mother was also very old and had had a good life, at least on paper. But she wasn’t dead. On the contrary she was, as the saying had it, “very much alive.” He was back with his mother. There was nothing he could do about that. He had to talk to her a lot but everything he said enraged her. Better to seal up your lips, he thought. Mum’s the word. Seal up your lips, and give no words but—mum. She said,
“I can’t believe you’re being so sweet about the money. Have you got loads more?”
“No. What? Sweet? No no. I was upset at first, of course. But I … What did you do with it in the end?”
“I told him I found it. In a cab. It’s New York, right?” She shrugged and said, “Went upstate and got a place in the Poconos. We were there twenty-two months. It was handsome. Look. A boy. Julius. Not