‘What? When?’
‘I thought he was just messing about. Then my eyelashes got caught in his zip. Then he —’
‘Christ, enough! Come here.’
She hummed.
‘Why not?’
She jounced her black dress. ‘You know why not.’
Actually I was by no means sure. We’ve been fighting about money of late, but then again it might be my face. Never my best feature, my face is still swollen, up there on the left-hand side. That tooth caught fire again. I took my poor mouth to Martha McGilchrist, who exasperatedly drained it for me. Any chick who fancies herself as a feminist ought to go and see Martha McGilchrist. Boy is she butch. She makes me feel like a starlet. Martha McGilchrist—she’s a bloke. She also said that when my tooth catches fire again, which it will, I won’t be able to save it for love or money. That tooth will just have to wait for California, along with everything else.
I shouted at Selina for a while and returned to the sofa and my drink. The television was on. The television is always on. This afternoon, as I passed the square, I saw two dogs skewered together, back to back. Their owners stood around, waiting. The dogs were waiting too: they looked embarrassed, foolish, but stoical. They had been through all this before, or at least their genes had. It is dangerous if you try to separate them … On television I watched a nature short about two-headed snakes. Two-headed snakes are rare and don’t last very long. They’re forever quarrelling about food and which way to go. They keep trying to kill and eat each other all the time. Soon, one head becomes dominant. The smaller head is obliged to tag along but has no say in things any more. This arrangement keeps them going for a little while. But they both die quite quickly.
If there’s one thing I think I’m sure of, it’s the fact that I must marry Selina. I’m pretty sure about this, I think, Yes, it is time I settled down, grew up. There’s no choice really: not settling down and not growing up are killing me. I’ve got to quit it, being young, before it’s too late.
I must marry Selina and settle down and raise a family. I must be safe. Christ, safe sounds frightening. Settling down — that seems a bit adventurous, a bit precipitate, to me. Having kids! That’s what takes real balls. To become a husband and a father: no you can’t get much butcher than that. Yet nearly everyone shapes up to it in the end. I bet you have or will soon. I want it too, I think, in a way.
Of course, something is missing. Ah, you noticed. You are not blind. But it is missing in me, in her, it is missing, it will never be there. Selina and I are very well suited. We get along like nobody’s business. I must marry Selina. If I don’t, I’ll just die. If I don’t, no one else will, and I’ll have ruined another life. If I don’t, I think she might sue me for every penny I have.
——————
Today I made a break with habit and tradition, and took my lunch at the New Born Restaurant. The New Born is a hot little grotto of plastic panels and formica tabletops, half a cheap-bistro, half yobs’-beanery, run by an elite squad of Italians together with some straggly irregulars — local charwomen, reformed bagladies, London sweepers. You get all sorts in here, from dustmen to middle-management. The menu is chip-orientated, but the place is licensed. How else could it seriously expect my custom? Today I called for the gravy dinner plus two vedge and a carafe of red — which for me, rotting veteran of Pizza Pit and Burger Shack, of Doner Den and Furter Hut, is the equivalent of a handful of brown rice and a glass of effervescent Vitamin C. (There are health-food joints around here, run by aged hippies or unsmiling Danes. But I won’t eat that shit. I just won’t eat it.) I was sitting there waiting for the grub to show when Martin Amis came through the open door — you know, the writer I was chatting to in the pub the other night. The place was pretty full, and he hesitated until he saw the empty bench at my table. I don’t think he saw me.