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By Root 652 0

— and that's about it. (Most of the serious books are the accumulations of Selina's predecessors, except for The Usurers, which I remember buying myself.) I stared at my space-age sound system. Many years ago I outgrew rock music, and I have failed to grow into any other kind since. I waited, I hung about, but it just didn't happen. Breakfast television is as yet only a dream, a whisper. I'm going to hang around for that too, maybe. Maybe not. Watching television is one of my main interests, one of my chief skills. Video films are another accomplishment of mine: diabolism, carnage, soft core. I realize, when I can bear to think about it, that all my hobbies are pornographic in tendency. The element of lone gratification is bluntly stressed. Fast food, sex shows, space games, slot machines, video nasties, nude mags, drink, pubs, fighting, television, handjobs. I've got a hunch about these handjobs, or about their exhausting frequency. I need that human touch. There's no human here so I do it myself. At least handjobs are free, complimentary, with no cash attaching.

On the quartz coffee-table serving the spudjacket sofa a deck of unopened mail is carelessly fanned. For how long now in my life has mail confined itself to one topic? When I look at the cards in this pack, when I eventually rip and snarl my way through these trap-faced offers and demands, these begging letters, I want to say, Look, can't we change the subject? Just once, after all these years? Isn't there anything else you can talk about?... When did I last get a love letter, for Christ's sake? When did I last write one?

It was half-past six. Time to repent. I called Doris Arthur at her hotel and did a lot of apologizing. How much apology can a person contain? I'm going to need a lot more of this stuff when I return to New York — for Martina ... Doris let me off pretty lightly. They always do, at first. Besides, she's getting a hundred thousand bucks to stay interested. Then I found a ballpoint, a pad, some envelopes, a sheet of stamps. I flexed my chequebook. As I worked, I whispered to myself and to money.

The last letter bore an ink-written address, referring to me as Mr John Self Esquire. When I'd flicked through this khaki stack on the dreadful morning of my return from New York (sitting there, at London noon, in the emptied flat with a drink in my fist: i.e., a gin and tonic at six a.m. — now this has to be good news for both body and soul), looking for a friendly, a helping hand, I had glanced at these gawky graphics and fingered the letter for a tactful forget-me-not from one of the spine-specialists, rug-gurus or ticker-experts I need to use ... They get foreign chicks to hand-address the mail: it lends a personal touch. But this letter suddenly seemed very personal indeed. I tore its throat open with my heart climbing. And I quote:

John Darling Take me back. I cant believe you mean't those terrible things you said. How could you think such things of me. Send for me please, I dont know what to do if your not there to look after me.

Love, Your Selina XXXXXX PS. I'm pennyless.

Dangerously excited, italicized with surefire lust, I poured myself a drink and scanned the letter for clues. The postmark said Stratford-upon-Avon. Its dateline was ten days old. Within, the letterhead proclaimed the Cymbeline, Hotel-Casino, with a seven-figure telephone number in two-five formation ... What was all this take-me-back stuff? What were these terrible things I was supposed to have said? Not for the first time I tugged myself back to the eve of my departure for New York. What happened? I took Selina out for an expensive dinner. We had a vicious row about money. Back home, there followed a detailed bout of valedictory lovemaking, with Selina game and longsuffering, and me as effusively carnal as ever. Then I had a few nightcaps, as I recall, and composed myself for sleep. In other words, a completely ordinary evening. I might have given her a bit of lip last thing, but that was pretty standard too. When I woke at noon the next day Selina had long taken her leave.