by Martin Amis
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary, without volition.
‘I started pleading with her through the door. I could hear the fire crackling. By the way it’s not what you think. This has a trick in its tail. She started reading bits out. Bad bits, in a terrible voice, my voice but . . . a mad voice. It lasted an hour. You know—“Now we come to Act II, Scene Two, when Billy says—”, and she’d read out some phrases in the terrible voice. Smoke was pouring out underneath the door, even ashes. It lasted an hour. Then she let me in. The play was gone and the grate was overflowing. It was hell in there. I could hardly see. She was pointing at me and giggling.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary. She delegated a part of her mind to concentrate on not saying sorry again.
‘There’s more. We had an incredible fistfight, with fists. The only time I’ve ever hit a woman. She gave pretty well as good as she got, by the way. That lasted about an hour too. When we were too bushed to hit each other any more and I was lying there sobbing and moaning, she said that she hadn’t burnt the play after all. The play was in the other room. She’d been burning the blank paper. I’d never felt happier in my life. We got drunk and went to bed, ran around the house naked. Oh, man. Wonderful girl, intense girl, I thought—this is living. But it’s not living. It’s the other thing. Very soon afterwards I realized something. She must have known that play by heart. She must have hated it by heart. Can you imagine? A week later I burnt it. We ended about then. I thought I was going queer for about a year afterwards. After her, women look transparent. They look transparent. They aren’t of course,’ he said, and looked at Mary.
‘So—so that was the worst thing Amy ever did?’
‘To me, yeah. Mind you, this was way back. This was before all her really heavy numbers. This was kid’s stuff. She was nineteen. Ah, Carol. Yes, no, bring him in.’
Mary stood up. She noted incuriously that something had happened to her legs; they were numb and tingly, especially in the calves, not legs at all, just a vanity of legs.
‘I wasn’t surprised by what happened to her,’ he added conversationally. ‘I don’t think she was either, not by then. Thank you,’ he said to Carol and got to his feet.
Mary turned. Carol came forward, tentatively offering a sheath of pink paper. Behind her in the doorway a tall young man bobbed about.
‘Ah, this is the dope on the Eritrean thing, right?’ said Michael. ‘You’ll never guess what these jokers are trying to do now. Hi, Jamie,’ he called as he started reading.
‘Hi,’Jamie called back. ‘Hey, Mike . . .’
‘Well goodbye, Mary,’ said Michael. He shook her hand. ‘It’s been nice talking to you.’ His eyes returned to the pink paper. He said, without looking up, ‘Carol, I’ll need you on this. Jamie. Why don’t you see Mary out?’
* * *
Before we go any further, let’s just clear up two rather crucial inaccuracies in Michael’s dramatic tale—two telling distortions that probably result from imperfect memory, amour propre or simple disbelief.
The first point is this. Michael says: ‘I thought I was going queer for about a year afterwards.’ Now that’s misleadingly put. Actually, Michael was right. He did go queer—and he stayed there too. He never went back to not being queer, not really. He sought shelter from the lunar tempest, and never went out to face the wind and the rain. From my own dealings with her, I’d say that this was what Amy was probing for in Michael Shane.
The second point concerns that play of his. Its title, incidentally, was The Man Who Had Everything—and it wasn’t that awful, just very conscientious and very mediocre. Michael says: ‘A week later I burnt it.’ This isn’t strictly true either. Doesn’t he remember? Is he still blinded by smoke and his own ball-broken tears? He burnt it, but she made him. He didn’t want to, but she made him. She did. Oh, she did.
* * *
Mary followed Jamie through the outer room. He closed the door after them and turned to face it with his hands on his hips. ‘Scumbag,’ he said with finality.
Mary watched. Jamie started talking to the door as if it were a person and he wanted a fight with it. She had seen this writhing, sidling style in public houses, just before trouble broke out.
‘Oh, Mike, you fucking cocksucker. Well I got news for you, man, cos I’m fucking fuckin out! Cos I don’t fuckin need it, man!’ He turned to Mary with a wriggle. She started moving down the deserted passage and he came after her. ‘You know what he makes me do?’ he said shakily. ‘Makes me go to fucking Sketchley’s to pick up his safari suits! The little scumbag’s safari suits! He treats me like shit. I don’t need this! I got stacks of dough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary, ‘I’ll go out by myself.’
‘Oh it’s nothing to do with you,’ he said, halting and turning to her with aghast kindness. He was long, thin and slightly twisted, like his hair. The skin on his narrow face was girlish pale. He had hot blue eyes, hot eyes, and lips that trembled with some imminent defeat or triumph. ‘I’ll see you out. I want to see you out.’ They walked on. ‘What do I care? What do I care? Oh that fuckpig,’ he said thickly, and Mary thought he was going to start crying at last. ‘I’m cracking up.’
He paused and ran a thin hand across his forehead. ‘Christ! I really am cracking up . . . I suppose it’s quite a relief in a way.’ He clasped his hands together and looked up at the light with his hot eyes. ‘Pray, oh pray, pal,’ he said.
‘Don’t crack up,’ said Mary.
‘What?’
‘Don’t break.’
‘Who are you anyway?’ They walked on. He was looking at her with great interest, his face clear now. ‘What were you doing with that little scumbag?’
‘I came to ask him about a friend of mine.’
‘And why do you wear these shitty clothes?’ he asked with concern. ‘I mean, you talk all right and everything.’
‘They’re all I’ve got and I haven’t enough money to buy new ones.’
‘I’ve got lots of money,’ he said with pleased surprise.
‘Well done,’ said Mary.
‘Do you want some?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Here.’ He took a damp matted wad from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘How much do you—here, take this lot.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mary.
‘Your eyes,’ he said. ‘Something’s happened to you, hasn’t it.’
‘I’d better go now,’ said Mary. They were in the empty hall.
‘No don’t. Okay then—fuck off! No don’t! Don’t you want to see me ever again?’
‘Well I would like to, yes.’
‘Here, give me your number then.’
He offered her a pen and paper, and Mary wrote down Norman’s number. ‘Bitch,’ he whispered as she did so.
‘Goodbye then,’ said Mary.
‘Goodbye. Hey look, this is a bit embarrassing—but could you lend me some money? For a cab?’
Mary took the money from her bag. He had given her a great deal, she now realized—two or three times what she earned in a week. ‘Are you sure you want to give me all this?’ she said.
‘Oh yeah. Just lend me—a couple of quid’ll do. I’ll pay you back. What’s money anyway? It’s only time, after all, as they keep telling me here.’
‘Goodbye then.’
‘Goodbye. Think of me,’ he said. ‘And don’t break.’
16 Second Chances
Mary never knew how poor she was. Poor Mary, she never knew.
She has grown used to cheap chafing skirts, their imposture exposed by all natural light. Her complexion, it pains me to say, shows signs of submission to the ravages of unvarying fried food, and her hair has to fight to hold its brilliance in the kitchen mists. She still has the quality, the expectancy, the light; but it’s getting to her, all this, of course it is. She has grown used to the poverty of Alan’s smell, and to the poverty of his mind. Poor Alan, poor thing; but then they are all poor things where Mary lives.
Now she knows. She thought th
at life itself was poor. Now she knows it needn’t be—not poor, not poor in that way. She thought that money only happened in books. Now all day she feels that sense of exclusion and tearing eagerness she felt as she sat at the poolside: she too wanted to swim and play, and knew she could if she only dared. Little Jeremy’s report-card said ‘very poor’. Already! thought Mary. Poor little Jeremy, poor little thing.
Life is interesting, life has a lot to be said for it, but life can be terribly poor. Mary knows that now. She has seen enough of the well-kept people, scowling in shops and cars. She doesn’t want their money; she only wants their time. And the changing light is telling her something about the poor and winter.
* * *
Mary waited for Alan in her bed. This was the only time she ever had to herself. That wasn’t much, was it? That wasn’t much time? She heard his steps on the stairs and shook her head. She had made up her mind.
Alan opened the door. As usual, he seemed to want to say something, but he didn’t or he didn’t dare. He moved sideways-on to the foot of the bed and began to slither from the clutches of his dressing-gown, not knowing quite where to look. The moon and the window framed him in their square of light: his churned porridgy hair, the unstable eyes darting downwards, the suddenly revealed defencelessness of his white shoulders.
‘Alan,’ said Mary from her bed. Alan dropped the dressing-gown to the floor, his arms at his side, his head bowed—he was ready.
‘I can’t have you up here at night any more. I can’t have you in my bed any more. I can’t. I hope you understand.’
He did two things at once. It didn’t at all help that he was naked. The first thing he did was to start to cry—or at least that was what Mary supposed he had started doing. With utmost desolation he clenched shut his mouth and his eyes, and his white chest began to rock or pulse, all in silence. The second thing he did was even stranger: slowly and with shame, but not in concealment so much as in a gesture of protection, to keep it warm or out of harm’s way, he cupped both hands over the creaturely pith of his body.
All this Mary watched from her lair.
At last he turned towards the window. He hadn’t looked at her yet. The moon did pale things to his face and to the queue of tears that lay like ice on his cheeks. He exhaled, then breathed in heavily. He looked very far away but proportionately the same, as if he were weakening into another medium of air and flesh. But when he spoke Mary was surprised by the steadiness, the relief, in his voice.
‘I never really thought it would go on anyway,’ he said, telling the window something that only the window needed to hear. ‘I hoped it would go on, but I never really thought it would. I know I’m not . . . I know, I know. Oh I don’t know. I’m glad it happened,’ he said, and his head gave a sudden nod. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t have had it not happen. I’ve never, you’re the only thing of . . . beauty . . . that’s ever happened to me in my life.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry.’
‘Will you promise me one thing?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘You won’t start—you know, with Russ.’
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘Do you swear on your mother’s life?’
‘. . . I can’t do that,’ said Mary.
Alan sniffed. He picked up his dressing-gown and started trying to get into it. He sniffed again, more wetly. When other people cry, it is always much worse if they are trying to do something else at the same time. He hugged the material to him and gave an absent-minded tug at his hair.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary.
He turned to her and spread his hands. He looked away again. ‘Goodbye, Mary,’ he said.
The next day was Sunday and the squat slept late. Competent Norman, swathed in floppy jeans, prepared his civilized breakfast of boiled egg and spinach-juice and took it out on a tray to the garden; he had a ladylike self-absorption at such moments, as if he lived alone and all these other people were the remains of friendly dreams that had come and gone in the night without bothering him. Perhaps some men turn into women too. Perhaps some men have to suffer the Change. Ray and Alfred sat about with newspapers on their laps, reading out football scores in murmurs cadenced to resignation or impressed surprise. From upstairs came the melancholy sound of Paris’s clarinet. With a wincing expression on his face, old Charlie cleaned the chrome entrails of his motorbike, pausing every now and then to watch the children play. ‘Good morning, my lovely,’ he said when Mary took a cup of tea out on to the steps. Mary smiled at him and he turned back to his bike, shaking his head and muttering to himself. No Alan.
Mary watched the children play, listening to them more alertly than she usually did. They played quite sleepily, without competition and its shape. What was it they were saying, what was it that they said more often than they said anything else? ‘Watch! . . . Look! Watch this! . . . Look at me!’ That’s what they said more often than they said anything else. It occurred to Mary that perhaps that was what some people went on saying throughout their lives on earth. Watch this! Look at me!
Amy had said that a lot, Mary guessed. Mary betted that Amy had said that a lot. Amy: what was Mary to do about it all? Amy had been bad, Amy had been mad. Did this matter, and, if so, how much? Well, one thing was clear: being mad didn’t matter. Being mad didn’t matter. If being mad mattered, then nearly everyone was obviously in terrible trouble. Most people were mad, and it was okay. (Was Prince mad? No, probably not. Prince was probably un-mad. He could probably call his thoughts his own.) And how about bad, how bad was that, how serious? Who minded? The law did, and other people. The law did, but the law was quite hard. You had to be pretty bad to break it, whatever Prince said that time. The law wasn’t as delicate as other people and their bits and pieces. The law wasn’t as delicate as Trev’s mouth or Trudy’s nose or Mr Botham’s back or Alan’s spirit or Michael’s heart, or the heart of Mrs Hide, all of which had got broken at some time. The law was hard to break. But God, I hate her, thought Mary.
‘Mary?’
She turned. It was Ray. ‘Some guy for you on the blower,’ he said.
Mary went into Norman’s room. She feared the worst.
‘Hello, it’s me, Jamie. Do you know the man I mean?’
‘Yes. Hello,’ said Mary.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Quite bad. How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible. I’ve got this incredible hangover. Still it’s better than nothing, I suppose. I rang to ask you if you’d like to come to lunch?’
Mary said yes. She was pleased, she had to admit. It would be nice to get out of the house and, besides, the change of air would do her good.
Mary went upstairs again. She hesitated in the noiselessness outside Alan’s room, but decided against it.
She sat on her bed. For the first time she thought seriously about clothes. Apart from warmth, protection and propriety, what was the idea of clothes exactly? Why had Jamie said that about hers? Patently the idea was to express something through the medium of shape and colour. But express what? Were clothes just saying ‘Look!’? Money and sex seemed to be the main commodities on offer here. Clothes could deny or affirm either of these. Mary speculated what her own clothes might have to say on the topics of money and sex. Could clothes express a lack of one and a simple bafflement about the other? Yes, but that wasn’t what clothes were in business to do; that wasn’t clothes’ line; that wasn’t what clothes were keen on expressing. Clothes were interested in the other things, in abundance and expertise. Obliquely and perhaps inadvertently, clothes also did a third thing: they told other people about the soul they encased by dramatizing your attempted lies about money and sex . . . Mary had a bath next door to Alan’s room, which was still in silence. Alan used to spend a lot of time in here, Mary reflected, especially before coming to her bed. What occult ablutions, what bleak rethinks, took place among all this lino and iron? Wrapped in a towel she returned to her room. She brushed her hair and heightened the colours of her face. She put o
n white pants, tugging them up into the tight nexus of her body; then she put on red shoes and a white sweater and a white skirt, all things she had bought with Jamie’s money . . . As Mary came down her stairs she saw Russ emerging from Alan’s room. He said nothing. He looked at her in a new way, with challenge but also with respect or fear. Mary’s eyes faced his; but she knew his look said he thought her clothes lied.
Mary walked. She had consulted Norman’s book of graphs about how the city lay and memorized her route, which took her through the great park. It was nice of whoever could stop you doing this to let you go on doing it. The day was clear and equipped with wind; there was a stretched, splintery brightness in the lines of the sky, and in the distance important clouds had gathered. The people were outside in numbers. Those who were alone seemed to stick together with a newspaper each, lolling by the park’s exits and entrances or walking briskly from one to the other. People with families or just with lovers of their own ventured further afield. Mary kept an eye on the couples and wondered what it would be like to be part of one. It looked pretty good to her. It was obviously a matter of the confidences they shared. The best couple was circling the water that was the park’s heart. They gave each other pleasure by four simple expedients: by being there and not being anywhere else, and by being themselves and not someone else instead. Mary had never felt part of a couple, a part of anything, when she was with Alan. They had just done the thing, in pain. They had never lightened each other’s load. God, she hoped he would be all right.
