Money_ A Suicide Note - Martin Amis [70]
'We loved Prehistoric,' I went on. 'You were terrific. I mean it. You were absolutely — you were terrific, Spunk.'
I felt Fielding nudge me in the gloom.
'Words fail me. I tell you, Spunk — I, it really got to me, your interpretation there. We want you. We want you for Good Money. Spunk, that's what we're here today to tell you... Fuck it, Fielding,' I said, 'let's go with Meadowbrook or Nub Forkner or whoever. I don't need this.'
'Good. Very good. Sit down, please,' said Spunk Davis.
We were on the fortieth floor of the UN Plaza. Fielding and I had been buzzed in, cased, X-rayed and heavy-petted by two security guards in plum blazers. 'Davis, Spunk,' the man had repeated ruminatively, among the potted plants and intercom banks and closed-circuit TV screens. 'It's in another name.' He cleared us and we rode the lift's rush of nausea, slurped up, up.
'I'm Mrs Davis,' said the little old lady who answered the door. Well, I suppose she wasn't that old, but her shrunk face was laboriously lined, with deep concentrations round the eyes and mouth. Lined, then lined again, and again. You get this effect when you gaze through a file of London trees in winter, and the naked branches criss and cross until only motes of light remain, in peeping triangles. A worked and working face. But the eyes were bright.
'Oh. Hi,' I said.
'Mrs Davis,' said Fielding gravely. Then he kissed her hand and held it close to his chest. This courtesy, tenderly performed, seemed right out of place to me, but it went down okay with Mrs Davis, who peered up at Fielding for quite a time before she said, 'Are you saved?'
While Fielding dealt with that one ('Oh ma'am, but yes,' he began) I turned to face a kitchen or parlour, plain in its shapes but full of manrnade coatings and colours. A dark, low-browed gent sat there in pampered profile, his once-powerful frame encased in a double-breasted needlestripe suit. Spunk Senior, presumably. He glanced at the TV on the chintzy sideboard (bobbing basketballers), he glanced at his watch (the movement limp and stoical), he glanced at me. We briefly exchanged brute stares. We recognized each other for what we were. With tongue and teeth he gave a tight rasp and turned away in boredom or vexation or distaste. Yeah, one look at him and even I had to say to myself — the ladies, the poor ladies. They get it every time. I was in no sort of nick for this encounter, I admit, full of fear and afternoon scotch and the homeward tug. Now I had Mrs Davis's hand on my arm and her pleading face saying, 'And are you saved, sir?'
'Pardon?'
'Yes he's saved also, dear,' intervened Fielding, and I said, 'Yeah. Me too.'
'I'm glad. Spunk's at the end of the hall.'
She led us past a series of dun-walled anterooms through whose windows the burnished leagues of the East River fired off all their flame. I saw a pool-table, a polythene-wrapped three-piece suite, various devotional ornaments and gewgaws with their special pale glow. That glow I didn't need. We entered a dining-room as dark as a cinema with a glistening figure at the head of the long table. Mrs Davis slipped back into the light. It was five o'clock.
'Two years ago,' the actor continued. 'You auditioned me.' He laughed disgustedly. 'For a commercial.'
'Yeah?' I said. 'I really don't remember.' His voice — he had a certain valve or muscle working on it. I recognized that strain. I talked the same way at his age, fighting my rogue aitches and glottal stops. Glottal itself I delivered in only one syllable, with a kind of gulp or gag half way through. Spunk here was trying to tame his bronco word-endings and his slippery vowels. I speak all right now, though. But I tell you, it's a tiring ten-year haul.
'I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough. For your commercial.'
'No kidding,' I said. 'You remember what commercial it was?'
'No, I don't remember. Put it out!'
He meant my cigarette. 'Where?'
Tut it out!'
'Jesus,' I said, and appealed to Fielding. This is just a dramatized Hangover, I thought. I dragged mightily and in the mauve gleam I could see