Read Online London Fields by Martin Amis - Free Book Online
Authors: Martin Amis
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Contemporary, Mystery, London, Performing Arts, Screenplays, Unread, Modern, City and Town Life
Ads: Link
I'm a writer . . . Perhaps to offset the looming bulk of Mark Asprey's corpus, I have laid out my two previous publications on the desk here. Memoirs of a Listener. On the Grapevine. By Samson Young. Me. Yes, you. A valued stylist, in my native America. My memoirs, my journalism, praised for their honesty, their truthfulness. I'm not one of those excitable types who get caught making things up. Who get caught improving on reality. I can embellish, I can take certain liberties. Yet to invent the bald facts of a life (for example) would be quite beyond my powers.
Why? I think it might have something to do with me being such a nice guy, originally. Anyway at the moment reality is behaving unimprovably, and nobody will know.
I'm so coiled up about the first three chapters, it's all I can do not to Fed-Ex – or even Thrufax – them off to Missy Harter, at Hornig Ultrason. There are others I could approach. Publishers regularly inquire about my first novel. Publishers dream nights about my first novel. So do I. I'm getting old, and at a peculiar rate. Missy Harter, of course, has always been the most persistent. Maybe I'll call her. I need the encouragement. I need the stimulation. I need the money.
Keith came over this morning. I suppose he has to be teeing me up for a burglary, because the place is full of portable baubles.
He wanted to use the VCR. Naturally he has a VCR of his own; he probably has several dozen, somewhere. But this, he said, was a little bit special. Then he produced a tape in its plastic wallet. The front cover showed a man's naked torso, its lower third obscured by two discrete cataracts of thick blonde hair. The sticker said £189.99.
It was called When Scandinavian Bodies Go Mouth Crazy. The title proved to be accurate – even felicitous. I sat with Keith for a while and watched five middle-aged men seated around a table talking in Danish or Swedish or Norwegian without subtitles. You could make out a word now and then. Radiotherapy. Handikap-toilet. 'Where's the remote?' Keith asked grimly. He had need of the Fast Forward, the Picture Search. We found the remote but it didn't seem to be working. Keith had to sit through the whole thing: an educational short, I assume, about hospital administration. I slipped into the study. When I came back the five old guys were still talking. The thing ended, after a few credits. Keith looked at the floor and said, ' Bas tard.'
To cheer him up (among other motives) I applied to Keith for darts lessons. His rates are not low.
I too have need of the Fast Forward. But I must let things happen at the speed she picks. I can eke out Chapter 4 with Keith's sexual confessions (vicious, detailed and unstoppable), which, at this stage, are the purest gold.
Guy Clinch was no sweat to pull, to cultivate, to develop. It was a shame to take the money. Again, fatefully easy.
Knowing that Keith would be elsewhere (busy cheating: an elderly widow – also fine material), I staked out the Black Cross hoping Guy would show. For the first time I noticed a joke sign behind the bar: NO FUCKING SWEARING. And what's with this carpet? What do you want a carpet for in a place like this? I ordered an orange juice. One of the black guys – he called himself Shakespeare – was staring at me with either affection or contempt. Shakespeare is, by some distance, the least prosperous of the Black Cross brothers. The bum's overcoat, the plastic shoes, the never-washed dreadlocks. He's the local shaman: he has a religious mission. His hair looks like an onion bhaji. 'You trying to cut down, man?' he slowly asked me. Actually I had to make him say it about five times before I understood. His resined face showed no impatience. 'I don't drink,' I told him. He was nonplussed. Of course, non-drinking, while big in America, was never much more than a fad over here. 'Honest,' I said. 'I'm Jewish.'. . . Quite a kick, saying that to a barful of blacks. Imagine saying it in Chicago, or Pittsburgh.
Why? I think it might have something to do with me being such a nice guy, originally. Anyway at the moment reality is behaving unimprovably, and nobody will know.
I'm so coiled up about the first three chapters, it's all I can do not to Fed-Ex – or even Thrufax – them off to Missy Harter, at Hornig Ultrason. There are others I could approach. Publishers regularly inquire about my first novel. Publishers dream nights about my first novel. So do I. I'm getting old, and at a peculiar rate. Missy Harter, of course, has always been the most persistent. Maybe I'll call her. I need the encouragement. I need the stimulation. I need the money.
Keith came over this morning. I suppose he has to be teeing me up for a burglary, because the place is full of portable baubles.
He wanted to use the VCR. Naturally he has a VCR of his own; he probably has several dozen, somewhere. But this, he said, was a little bit special. Then he produced a tape in its plastic wallet. The front cover showed a man's naked torso, its lower third obscured by two discrete cataracts of thick blonde hair. The sticker said £189.99.
It was called When Scandinavian Bodies Go Mouth Crazy. The title proved to be accurate – even felicitous. I sat with Keith for a while and watched five middle-aged men seated around a table talking in Danish or Swedish or Norwegian without subtitles. You could make out a word now and then. Radiotherapy. Handikap-toilet. 'Where's the remote?' Keith asked grimly. He had need of the Fast Forward, the Picture Search. We found the remote but it didn't seem to be working. Keith had to sit through the whole thing: an educational short, I assume, about hospital administration. I slipped into the study. When I came back the five old guys were still talking. The thing ended, after a few credits. Keith looked at the floor and said, ' Bas tard.'
To cheer him up (among other motives) I applied to Keith for darts lessons. His rates are not low.
I too have need of the Fast Forward. But I must let things happen at the speed she picks. I can eke out Chapter 4 with Keith's sexual confessions (vicious, detailed and unstoppable), which, at this stage, are the purest gold.
Guy Clinch was no sweat to pull, to cultivate, to develop. It was a shame to take the money. Again, fatefully easy.
Knowing that Keith would be elsewhere (busy cheating: an elderly widow – also fine material), I staked out the Black Cross hoping Guy would show. For the first time I noticed a joke sign behind the bar: NO FUCKING SWEARING. And what's with this carpet? What do you want a carpet for in a place like this? I ordered an orange juice. One of the black guys – he called himself Shakespeare – was staring at me with either affection or contempt. Shakespeare is, by some distance, the least prosperous of the Black Cross brothers. The bum's overcoat, the plastic shoes, the never-washed dreadlocks. He's the local shaman: he has a religious mission. His hair looks like an onion bhaji. 'You trying to cut down, man?' he slowly asked me. Actually I had to make him say it about five times before I understood. His resined face showed no impatience. 'I don't drink,' I told him. He was nonplussed. Of course, non-drinking, while big in America, was never much more than a fad over here. 'Honest,' I said. 'I'm Jewish.'. . . Quite a kick, saying that to a barful of blacks. Imagine saying it in Chicago, or Pittsburgh.
Similar Books
