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By Root 583 0

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.

Selina Street has no money, no money at all. Imagine. Many times in her life she has lacked the price of a busfare, a teabag. She has stolen. She has pawned clothes. She has fucked for money. No money hurts, it stings. Right, dead right, to give her some. She has always said that men use money to dominate women. I have always agreed. That's why I've never wanted to give her any. But right, dead right, to give her money. Here. Have some money ... I crept to the bedroom window and put a hand between the black curtains. This spring was the coldest of the century. Now June sleet slapped at the bendy glass. Cold out there. When it's cold. That's when you really feel your money.

3

I STOOD AT the bar with the Morning Line. WITCH WHO LIED FOR DR SEX. IT'S ONLY . . PUPPY LOVE. I BACK IRA — RED KEITH. MY SECRET LOVE BY TV'S MIDGE: SEE CENTRE PAGES. Now is this any Way to interpret the world? Seems there's a major rumble brewing in Poland. Solidarity is giving Moscow the V-signs and fight-intros. Russia will beat Poland up, I'm sure, if things go on this way. That's what I'd do. I mean, give them an inch ... The speculation about Lady Diana's trousseau continues. I have no strong views on the trousseau, but I wish they'd show that famous snap again, the one where she's holding the kid in her arms and you can see right through her dress. A barmaid who cudgelled her landlord boyfriend to death with a beer flagon has been sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment (suspended). How come? Because she pleaded Pre-Menstrual Tension. I'd have thought that PMT was enough of a male hazard anyway, without that kind of mollycoddling. Another granny