Money_ A Suicide Note - Martin Amis [72]
I said, to hell with it, I could do the budgeting and storyboarding just as well in London. If Doris Arthur came through with the script ahead of schedule, he could zip it over in a Poseidon wallet within twenty-four hours. Meanwhile, Fielding promised, he would hire the loft or the studio and line up the auditioning for the bit parts — the waiters, the dancers, the gangsters.
'We'll have some fun with that,' he said. 'The future looks bright, Slick.'
We embraced, a tight clasp with cheeks touching — but dead butch, naturally. Man, did I need that living squeeze. Now the Autocrat was nosing down the kerb. He had me doublesign some contracts on the hood (the usual: once under 'Co-signatory', once under 'Self'). Then he waved, and vanished behind the black glass.
I walked the line of midtown under the sun's red stare. In the Ashbery I was informed by reception that my tab 'was all taken care of by Mr Goodney, who had moreover reserved Room 101 until further notice. This was a concession of a kind. Fielding deeply disapproved of the Ashbery, I knew, and was always on at me to take a suite, or a floor, of the Bartleby or the Gustave on Central Park South. But the Ashbery was more my speed. And I was settled here now.
So then you pack and do all that. As I slipped Martina's book between the folds of my best suit, Felix knocked and entered bearing a white package the size of a small coffin, flamboyantly fastened with a blood-pink bow. Selina has a bra-and-pants set of just that colour. Selina. I have big plans for Selina. Well, another present, eh?
'Delivery,' he said, straightening. Even in the at-ease position Felix seemed to be jogging on the spot.
'Here, Felix. You've been a real pal.'
He took the note but his face stayed quizzical. 'This is a big bill, man. You drunk?' he asked pleasantly, and smiled.
There are few things better than the reluctant black smile: worth a hundred dollars. Worth more. The slopes of his eyelids were infinitely dark, making the stare louder and the smile more furtive. This would always give Felix a cheeky look, even when he stopped being a black kid and started being a black man. Perhaps I had the same look once, though I've lost it now. At school the masters kept telling me to wipe it off my face. But I never knew I had it, so how could I wipe it off?
'Go on,' I said. 'It's not my money really. Buy a present for your girlfriend. Or your mother.'
'Now you take it easy now,' said Felix.
The black case lay on the bed beside the white box. I tugged the ribbon and lifted the lid and heard myself give a harsh shout of anger and rejection and probably shame. I tore it to pieces with my bare hands. Then I stood in the centre of the room thinking, whoops, hold it, hold on. But there were a good few tears backed up my tracks and now was as bad a time as any. Out it all came. I'll tell you what my present was and I think you'll understand. There was no message inside, only a plastic lady, veal-pale, moist-looking, with open grin.
You know, I've been told that I don't like women. I do like women. I think chicks are cool. I've been told that men don't like women, period. Oh yeah? Who does then? Because women don't like women.
Sometimes life looks very familiar. Life often has that familiar look in its eyes. Life is all vendetta, conspiracy, strong feeling, roused pride, self-belief, belief in the justice of its tides and floods.
Here is a secret that nobody knows: God is a woman. Look around! Of course She is.
4
ABOVE THE entrance to the saloon bar there is a picture of Shakespeare on the swinging sign. It is the same picture of Shakespeare that I remember from schooldays, when I frowned over Timon of Athens and The Merchant of Venice. Haven't they got a better one? Did he really look like that all the time? You'd have thought that by now his publicity people would have come up with something a little more attractive. The beaked and bum-fluffed upper