Can I? Where has the weather gone, where? Where? You get April, blossom blizzards and sudden sunshafts and swift bruised clouds. You get May and its chilly light, the sky still writhing with change. Then June, summer, rain as thin and sour as motorway wheel-squirt, and no sky at all, just no sky at all. In summer, London is an old man with bad breath. If you listen, you can hear the sob of weariness catching in his lungs. Unlovely London. Even the name holds heavy stress.
Sometimes when I walk the streets — I fight the weather. I take on those weather gods. I beat them up. I kick and punch and snarl. People stare and occasionally they laugh, but I don’t mind. Tubbily I execute karate leaps, forearm smashes, aiming for the sky. I do a lot of shouting too. People think I’m mad, but I don’t care. I will not take it. Here is someone who will not take the weather lying down.
For some time now Selina Street has been on at me to open a joint bank account. She hasn’t got a bank account and she wants one. She hasn’t got any money and she wants some. She used to have a bank account: it broke my heart to see her dreaded statements and note the pitiable sums she dealt in—£2.43, £1.71, £5. But they took her bank account away. She never had any money in it. Selina maintains that a joint bank account is essential to her dignity and self-respect. I have been disputing this, arguing that her dignity and self-respect can get on perfectly well under the present system, with its merit awards and incentive schemes. Now, the way I see it, girls with no money have two ways of asserting themselves: they can either start fights all the time, or they can simply be unhappy at you until you surrender. (They can’t leave: they haven’t got the dough.) Selina is not a fighter, maybe because I’m a hitter — or used to be (she doesn’t know I’ve reformed, and I hope she never finds out). And she hasn’t the patience to be unhappy at me. That would be a long-term project. So Selina has found a third way … For a week she used no make-up, wore dumpling tights and porridgy knickers, and went to bed in face-cream, curlers and a dramatically drab nightdress. I didn’t find out whether sex was actually off the menu. I never felt like asking. The day before last, however, I decided to open a joint bank account. I filled out the forms, coldly supervised by the watchful, sharp-shouldered Selina. That morning she went to bed in black stockings, tasselled garter belt, satin thong, silk bolero, muslin gloves, belly necklace and gold choker. I made a real pig of myself, I have to admit. An hour and a half later she turned to me, with one leg still hooked over the headboard, and said, ‘Do it, anywhere, anything.’ Things had unquestionably improved, what with all this new dignity and self-respect about the place.
Last night, then, about twenty to eleven, I was sitting in the Blind Pig. America tomorrow. I was in thoughtful mood — expansive, self-questioning, philosophical, if not downright drunk. Selina was seeing Helle, her pal at the boutique. I had a present for Selina: a spanking new chequebook. I would hold it out towards her, and watch her shine. Selina had a present for me too: some new bag-gimmicks, a selection from Helle’s under-the-counter underwear. I was just sitting there, not stirring, not even breathing, like the pub’s pet reptile, when who should sit down opposite me but that guy Martin Amis, the writer. He had a glass of wine, and a cigarette — also a book, a paperback. It looked quite serious. So did he, in a way.
Small, compact, wears his rug fairly long ,.. The pub’s two doors were open to the hot night. That seems to be the deal in early summer, tepid days and hot nights. It’s a riot. Anything goes.
I was feeling friendly, as I say, so I yawned, sipped my drink, and whispered, ‘Sold a million yet?’