Martin sat down opposite and quickly flattened a book out in front of him. This kid is going to ruin his eyes… Me, I had plenty on my mind, including a desperate hangover, and was in no mood for complications. Last night had been a new one. Cocktails: £17. Dinner: £68. Selina: £2,500. You heard me, two-and-a-half big ones. That handjob I scored at the Happy Isles — I tell you, She-She was giving it away. I’m losing my grip, I’m falling to pieces. A year ago, Selina’s two-hour session of candlelit fund-raising would have gained her nothing more than a clout round the ear (I’d have done it nice, mind you, not in the restaurant or anything like that but in the Fiasco or back at the sock). I really am cracking up, I really am deteriorating. I gave her the cheque in the bedroom. She folded it into the cleft of her black bra. Then, boy, did I get mine. An hour later the telephone rang. It was one o’clock. ‘Don’t answer it,’ whispered Selina. But I welcomed the interruption, to the precise degree that Selina deplored it. She and I separated (it was like trying to unpick a mangled shoelace) and I staggered through to take the call. Fielding Goodney, with all kinds of developments: a ‘dream script’ had come through from Doris Arthur, Caduta Massi and Butch Beausoleil had put their signatures on the line, Spunk wanted in, Lorne wanted out — Lorne Guyland was going crazy, or was staying that way. Money was falling from the sky quicker than Fielding could catch it. Refreshed, exhilarated, I went next door again, the brandy bottle swinging from my hand, and made Selina curse her mother for ever giving her birth. Two thousand five hundred pounds — now that’s a lot of money. But Fielding was talking millions. If everything went through okay, I’d be able to sleep with Selina every night for the rest of my life.
The wine arrived. I had the meal to get through anyway, so I leaned forward and said, ‘Fate.’
He looked up with a flash of panic — but then he calmed and smiled. He recognized me. People usually do. I haven’t got that problem, the problem of not being recognized. If s one of the kickbacks you get for looking like I look.
‘Oh, hi,’ he said. ‘We can’t go on meeting this way.’
‘What are you doing in this dump? Why aren’t you having lunch with your, with your publisher or something?’
‘Come on. I have lunch with my publisher every other year. What do you do?’
‘I’m in films,’ I said. ‘Right up to here.’
Then why aren’t you having lunch with Lorne Guyland? See what I mean? It just doesn’t happen that often.’
‘What made you say Lorne Guyland?’ Perhaps he’d recognized me — or recognized me. After all, I’m tolerably well known in some circles.
‘No reason,’ he said.
‘John Self.’ I held out my hand and he took it.
‘Martin Amis.’
‘Check.’
‘Hey,’he said, ‘was it—are you the guy who made those commercials, the ones they took off the air?’
That’s me.’
‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘I thought those commercials were bloody funny. We all did.’
‘Thanks, Martin,’ I said.
The waitress showed with my heaped and steaming plate. She took Martin’s order. He surprised me again by opting for a standard yob’s breakfast — egg, bacon and chips. No, I don’t think they can pay writers very much at all.
‘Toss?’ asked the girl, one of the Italian contingent, though her colouring had been exhaustively naturalized by the kitchen spores.
‘No, no toast, thanks.’
‘Drin?’
‘Tea, please,’ said Martin.
I gestured at my litre of fizzy red wine. ‘Want a drop of this?’ I asked him.
‘No thanks. I try not to drink at lunchtime.’
‘So do I. But I never quite make it.’
‘I feel like shit all day if I drink at lunchtime.’
‘Me too. But I feel like shit all lunchtime if I don’t.’
‘Yes, well it all comes down’to choices, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s the same in the evenings. Do you want to feel good at night or do you want to feel good in the morning? It’s the same with life. Do you want to feel good young or do you want to feel good old? One or the other, not both.’