Money_ A Suicide Note - Martin Amis [76]
It works well. It is an excellent system. Selina and I get on like a house on fire. The thing about Selina is, she understands. She knows the twentieth century. She has hung out in cities ... When we go to bed together, sometimes the conversation turns to... While making love, we often talk about money. I like it. I like that dirty talk.
No sleep. No, no chance. I couldn't sleep but Selina could. She's good at that too, an accomplished sleeper, with childish face.
I went next door in my shorty dressing-gown. I poured myself a drink. I glanced round about myself, on the lookout for clues. When I got in from the airport—yesterday, give or take a week—the flat felt lightly dishevelled, hurriedly lived-in, as if the cleaning-lady's efforts had been briskly cancelled or mussed. There were flowers on the table but no pants in the laundry basket. There was fresh milk in the fridge but old tea in the jar—and Selina likes her tea. She is particular about her tea, and often carries a pack round with her in her handbag ... She was expecting me. I could tell by the quality of her alarm, which was actressy and overdone. Where have you been? I asked her. 'Here!' she insisted, with a chirpy wag of the head. How did you know I was coming back? 'I didn't! she maintained. And I had told nobody, not Ella Llewellyn, nobody. Oh who cares, I thought, and tried to bundle her into the bag right away. I had a strong desire to repossess. She lets me furl her around for a while, and makes those shammy gasps she knows I like, and gives detailed promise of all that cocked and candid talent — before she calls a halt, slithers off the bed, corrects her clothing, brushes her hair, changes her shoes, powders her nose, slides my Johnson out of her mouth and insists on lunch.
We go to Kreutzer's. I eat and drink like there's no tomorrow. We don't have much to say. Nobody asks sticky questions as they are led on all fours up the stairs. I'm not about to spook her, not me. I'm too worried about earthquakes or nuclear warfare or extraterrestrial invasion or Judgment Day coming between me and my reward. AH you'll get from John Self is Smalltalk, flattery and squealed demands for more drink. After toothache liqueurs I thunder home and abandon the Fiasco in the middle of the street. By now I am a crackling sorcerer of grub and booze, of philtres and sex-spells. Selina walks into the bedroom with her head held low. I give a great hot grunt as I untether my belt.
... I picked up the stack of mail from the coffee-table and dealt myself one off the bottom: the envelope that contains my monthly bank statement, with its familiar brown matt and the wax seal like a blob of blood. It's not my bank account any more, of course. It's a joint bank account. Selina has half of it now — to shore up her dignity and self-respect, remember? I broke the seal with my blunt thumb. And the statement, I swear, was three pages long. Among the usual laconic entries on the debit side — US Approach, Liquor Locker, Dr Martha McGilchrist, Gas Board, Kreutzer's, the Mahatma, Trans-American, Liquor Locker—there now thronged a host of Selina's new playmates from the days of yore. Christ, what is this crew? It seems that the chick hangs out in Troy or Carthage when she's got a bit of cash to burn: Chez Zeus, Goliath's, Amaryllis, Aphrodite, Romeo & Juliet, Romulus & Remus, Eloise & Abelard ... I always suspected that Selina spent all her money on massages, rug-rethinks and underwear — but that was when she hardly had any. The telltale entry was