Martin Amis. MONEY

‘You want to buy Dawn a drink?’

I levelled my head. The old dame behind the bar gestured perfunctorily towards the stool beside me, where Dawn indeed perched —

Dawn, my girl, now swaddled in a woolly dressing-gown. ‘Well what’s Dawn drinking?’ I asked.

‘Champagne!’ A squat glass of what looked like glucose on the rocks was smacked down in front of me. ‘Six dollars!’

‘Six dollars . . .’ I flattened another twenty on the damp wood.

‘Sorry,’ said Dawn with a wince. She used the long Boroughs vowel, the out-of-towner vowel. ‘I don’t like to do this part. It’s not nice to a girl.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘John,’ I said.

‘What do you do, John?’

Oh I see — a conversation. This is some deal. There’s a wriggling naked miracle five feet from my nose, but I pay good money to talk with Dawn here in her dressing-gown.

‘I’m in pornography,’ I said. ‘Right up to here.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘You want another scotch?’ The old boot, this headmistress in her therapeutic singlet, loomed over us with my change.

‘Why not,’ I said.

‘You want to buy Dawn another drink?’

‘Christ. Yeah, okay — do it.’

‘… Are you English, John?’ asked my girl, with deep understanding, as if this would answer a lot of questions.

‘Tell you the truth, Dawn, I’m half American and half asleep. I just climbed off the plane, you know?’

‘Me too. I mean the bus. Yesterday. I just climbed off the bus.’

‘Where from, Dawn?’

‘New Jersey.’

‘No kidding? Where in New Jersey? You know, I grew up —’

‘You want another scotch?’

I felt my shoulders give. I turned slowly. I said, ‘How much does it cost to keep you away from me for ten minutes? Tell me something,’ I asked her. But I said a good deal more. She stood her ground, this old dame. She was experienced. I gave her all my face, and it’s a face that can usually face them down, wide and grey, full of adolescent archaeology and cheap food and junk money, the face of a fat snake, bearing all the signs of its sins. For several seconds she just gave me her face too, full on, a stark presentation of the eyes, which were harder than mine, oh much harder. With her small fists on the bar she leaned towards me and said:

‘Leroy!’

Instantly the music gulped out. Various speckled profiles turned my way. Hands on hips, older in the silence, her breasts standing easy now, the dark dancer stared down at me with weathered contempt.

‘I’m looking for things.’ This was Dawn. ‘I’m really interested in pornography.’

‘No you’re not,’ I said. And pornography isn’t interested either. ‘It’s okay, Leroy! Relax, Leroy. Pal, there’s no problem. I’m going. Here’s money. Dawn, just you take care now.’

I slid to my feet and found no balance. The stool wobbled roundly on its base, like a coin. I waved to the watching women — get your staring done with — and made my diagonal for the door.

——————

Everything was on offer outside. Boylesk, assisted showers, live sex, a we-never-close porn emporium bristling in its static. They even had the real thing out there, in prostitute form. But I wasn’t buying, not tonight. I walked back to the hotel without incident. Nothing happened. It never does, but it will. The revolving door shoved me into the lobby, and the desk clerk bobbed about in his stockade.

‘Hi there,’ he said. ‘While you were out tonight, sir, Mr Lorne Guyland called.’

Daintily he offered me my key.

‘Would that be the real Lorne Guyland, sir?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said, or maybe I just thought it. The elevator sucked me skyward. My face was still hurting a lot all the time. In my room I picked up the bottle and sank back on the bed. While I waited for the noises to come I thought about travel through air and time, and about Selina… Yes, I can fill you in on that now. Perhaps I’ll even feel a little better, when I’ve told you, when it’s out.

Earlier today — today? Christ, it feels like childhood — Alec Llewellyn drove me to Heathrow Airport at the wheel of my powerful Fiasco. He’s borrowing the car while I’m away, that liar. I was smudged with drink and Serafim, for the plane. I’m scared of flying. I’m scared of landing too. We didn’t talk much. He owes me money … We joined the long queue for standby. Something in me hoped that the flight would be full. It wasn’t. The ticking computer gim-micked my seat. ‘But you’d better hurry,’ said the girl. Alec jogged at my side to passport control. He tousled my rug and shooed me through.