Martin Amis. MONEY

—————— ‘Check,’ I said.

Selina looked up at me indignantly. Her lancing eyes returned to the board. She exhaled, and made an irrelevant move with her black-square bishop.

‘Check,’ I said.

‘So what?’

‘It means your king’s threatened. I can take your king.’

‘You can have it. It’s more bloody trouble than it’s worth.’

‘You don’t understand. The whole —’

‘I’m going to have a bath. I hate chess. Where are we going to go? I’m not having Indian or Chinese. Or Greek. Kreutzer’s.’

‘If you like.’ I reset the heavy pieces.

‘Your hair looks terrible. You should let me cut it.’

‘I know.’

I’d had a twenty-quid rug-rethink that very afternoon. The little faggot sorted through my locks for a while, curled his lip and said, ‘How old are you?’ Roger Frift asked me the same question. It’s the heart, the heart. My heart’s wrong, my ticker’s wrong. My clock’s not right.

I went into the bedroom and browsed through Selina’s knicker drawer, intending to spring a selection on her when she emerged from the tub. Hello, these are new. And so are these .. As I experimentally fingered a disused bodice I felt something solid in the tuck of the lining. What’s this? Whalebone? No: a roll of used tenners — two hundred pounds! Now Selina’s knicker drawer is a dumb place for Selina to hide things in, because I am always rootling about in there, as Selina well knows.

She came out of the bathroom with a handtowel belted round her waist. I pointed. She barely blinked when she saw the money — negligently scattered on her side of the sack.

‘Where d’you get it?’

‘I won it!’

‘How?’

‘At roulette!’

‘What’s all this about you being penniless?’

‘It was my last fiver! I put it on a number on my way out of the door!’

‘They only pay thirty to one — what about the other fifty?’

‘It was a tip!’

‘You said you were working there, right?’

‘Right!’

‘What as?’

‘A croupier!’

I scowled, and paused. Selina had worked as a croupier before. This is true. The Cymbeline hires little cockteasers to police the tables. This is true also. They doll them up in mini-skirts and see-through blouses. The chicks look as though they’d come across for a cigarette but they’re all strict business-heads and are forbidden to tangle with the punters — as I myself established, one night after my girl had gone to bed.

‘Look — how do I know you weren’t just shacked up there with some guy?’

‘Ring Tony Devonshire!’

‘Who’s Tony Devonshire?’

‘The manager!’

‘Yeah, well …’

‘Go on! Ring him up!’

‘By the way, I thought I asked you to take the rubbish bag down. Will you do it now please. Why can’t we have lunch in town tomorrow and then go to your bank and get it all sorted out. That money’s all got to go on rent and I still owe my gynaecologist sixty. It would be a lot more sensible if I moved in here. Come on, you’re rolling. Look at that. They’ve shrunk. I can hardly get them on. Whoops. Ooh. I don’t think they go with this garter belt anyway, do you?’

I sat down on the crushed money. ‘Dah,’ I said. ‘Come here.’

—————— The Fiasco needs a major overhaul. Selina Street wants a joint bank account. Alec Llewellyn owes me money. Barry Self owes me money. I’ve got to head back to America, pretty soon, and earn lots more.

I had lunch with Doris Arthur. She was very nice about me making a pass at her. In fact, she was so nice about me making a pass at her that I made a pass at her. It wasn’t the drink this time. It was the woman. After the meal we discussed the outline in her hotel room. Basically I have six big scenes in my head that I know how to shoot: Doris’s job is to get from one to the other as smoothly as possible. ‘You know something?’ she said, as she slid out from beneath me and wryly detached my hands from her thighs. ‘You’ve given me a lot of new heart for the struggle. I thought we were winning, but there’s clearly a long way to go.’ Thanks to Selina, the second pass wasn’t nearly as bad as the first pass. But it was still quite bad, thanks to Selina. Selina, she … Oh yeah, and I had a few drinks with my lighting man, Kevin Skuse, and Des Blackadder, my grip. Fielding says I should put these guys on retainer immediately, ready for shooting in the autumn. But there’s no work around. They seem hungry enough to me and I figure they can wait another month.

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