I ordered another drink. Glancing sideways I saw something strange, something anomalous: a girl, a plump little bobbysoxer, edging tremulously down the bar towards me. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, this poor lost child, in her brief pink skirt and jean bolero. Gay heads turned. She clambered on to the stool beside me and requested an orange juice from the unsmiling barkeep. I soon realized what I had to do. Why, I could see it all now. Back to her brownstone, an explanatory chat with her mum, a silent, grateful handclasp from her dad, a game of checkers with her little brother, and, as I took my leave, a royal knee-trembler in the rumpus-room.
‘Hi,’ I said.
She turned. ‘Ah fuck off,’ she said, and turned again.
Actually, I took her advice. I had a few tyre-sized pizzas in a Mongolian snack-bar, and cabbed back to the hotel. I then had dinner at the Barbarigo, my local Italian joint. Big day tomorrow. I’m seeing Martina, so I’ve got a lot of reading to get done.
——————
Martina’s present was called Animal Farm and was by George Orwell. Have you read it? Is it my kind of thing? I positioned the lamp and laid the cigarettes out in a row. I then drank so much coffee that by the time I cracked the book open on my lap I felt like a murderer getting his first squeeze of juice from the electric chair. George Orwell changed his name from Eric Blair. I don’t blame him. His book kicked off with the animals holding a meeting and voicing grievances about their lives. Their lives did sound tough — just work, no hanging out, no money — but then what did they expect? I don’t nurse realistic ambitions about Martina Twain. I nurse unrealistic ones. It’s amazing, you know, what big-earning berks can get these days. If you’re heterosexual, and you happen to have a couple of bob, you can score with the top chicks. The top prongs are all going gay, or opting for pornographic berk women. At the animals’ meeting, they sing a song. Beasts of England … I went and lay down on the sack. My head was full of interference. I need glasses. I need a handjob. But I must get on with my reading. The big thing about reading is, you have to be in condition for it. Physical condition, too.
This body of mine is a constant distraction. Here I am, trying to read, busy reading, yet persistently obliged to put my book aside in order to hit the can, clip my nails, shave, throw up, clean my teeth, brush my rug, have a handjob, take an aspirin, light a cigarette, order more coffee, scratch my ear and look out of the window. I started reading again. At the animals’ meeting, they sing a song. Beasts of England. It was oppressive, it was very oppressive, the heat up here in my room. I went and inspected my back in the mirror. All healed now, except for that wound that got inflamed, enraged. The wound is much angrier than I am. I’m prepared to laugh the whole thing off, but this wound in my back still looks really furious, really pissed. I started reading again. I went on reading for so long that I became obsessed by how long I had gone on reading. I called Selina. Six o’clock in the morning over there and no answer. She’ll just say she disconnected. Bitch. I started reading again. At twelve-forty-five I’m due across town to lunch with Caduta Massi at the Cicero. But it’s still only eleven-fifteen. I started reading again — I always was reading, or at least quite a few pages seem to have gone by. I must admit, I admire the way in which Orwell starts his book fairly late in, on page seven. This has to work in your favour. Reading takes a long time, though, don’t you find? It takes such a long time to get from, say, page twenty-one to page thirty. I mean, first you’ve got page twenty-three, then page twenty-five, then page twenty-seven, then page twenty-nine, not to mention the even numbers. Then page thirty. Then you’ve got page thirty-one and page thirty-three — there’s no end to it. Luckily Animal Farm isn’t that long a novel. But novels… they’re all long, aren’t they. I mean, they’re all so long. After a while I thought of ringing down and having Felix bring me up some beers. I resisted the temptation, but that took a long time too. Then I rang down and had Felix bring me up some beers. I went on reading.