Money_ A Suicide Note - Martin Amis [69]
'Okay, look,' I said desperately. 'Help! Give me books to read. Point me out a book to read.' I gestured across the road at the blind shopfront. 'Something educational.'
She folded her arms and thought about this. I could tell she was pleased.
'All right?' I said.
Together we crossed the lumpy street. I was told to wait outside. The bookstore window features fanned stacks of the most recent scrotum-tightener from the feminist front: it was called Not On Our Lives and it was by Karen Krankwinkl. I scanned the xeroxed blurbs and reviews. A married woman with three children, Karen believed that all lovemaking was rape, even when it didn't seem that way to either of the participants. Her brave and beaming face was duplicated on the reversed covers. Well, Karen, I wouldn't rape you with a ten-foot pole. But then, perhaps all chicks get to look like that, when they've been raped a few thousand times.
Martina returned. She had bought me a hardback. Possibly it was secondhand, but it still looked like five bucks' worth of book, I reckoned.
'What's the damage?' I asked.
'Nothing. It's on me.'
'When can I call you?'
'When you've read it,' she said, and turned away.
——————
Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, bad locked the hen-houses for the night, I read, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. I stretched, and rubbed my eyes. Was the whole book going to be like this ? I mean, did I detect some satirical intent here? Well, that was all right. I can take a joke. I clasped my hands behind my neck, and considered. What the fuck are pop-holes?.,, You see? The bookish, the contemplative life. Martina, she's even cured my tinnitus. Not a squeak for over three hours. The big thing about reading and all that is—you have to be in a fit state for it. Calm. Not picked on. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts, without interference. On the way back from lunch (I walked it) already the streets felt a little lighter. I could make a little more sense of the watchers and the watched. This book from Martina — we split lunch, so it's a present, a proper present, God damn it. How long has it been since I got a present from a girl? I'll call her now and thank her for the book. What could be simpler.
Delicately I reached for the telephone. I paused with my fingers on the plunger. Fatal. And then the whole bomb went off in my face.
'Fat chance, man. No chance. Just you forget it right now. You and her? You? Her? What kind of book she give you, pal? Self-help?'
And he laughed, and went on laughing. His laughter made a terrible sound — nothing to be said about it, really. But my grip tightened and I quietly urged him, 'Get your laugh fixed, boy. Or fixed again. Everyone can tell it's false. Hey. Hey. Why don't you leave me alone? How about that?'
'And miss out on all this? Are you kidding? Answer me something. You tell her about Sunday night? You tell her you slept rough?'
'What?'
'Sunday night. Remember? That was the night that just walked right over you.'
'So,' I said, 'you did it.' This had occurred to me, but I'd hoped that the attack had been random. In my state, you're always hoping things are random. You don't want things assuming any shape on you.
'Uh-uh. I just watched.'
'You did it... you cruel son of a bitch.'
'No! I didn't do it. With her heels, with her high heels! A woman did it.'
The line went dead but oh how my head came alive. A door blew open and the pent sounds burst out fleeing. For a loathsome instant I felt her awkward quivering weight on my back as she found her feet, and her voice saying... What? Dah, no—let us abort this memory here and now. I made calls. The airline. Home, with no reply. And Martina, but just to say goodbye. These calls, they gave me no grief. Only Fielding made demands on me. Only Fielding had more penance to exact.
——————
'Spunk,' I said,'— it's an honour.'
I glanced sideways at Fielding Goodney,