Martin Amis - Yellow Dog

‘Were you part of all that, growing up?’

‘I was me mother’s boy, and she was crooked too, but dead against the violence. I was a scrapper, mind. Don’t ask me why but I loved a fight. I’d go into pubs outside the borough. The sort of places where the carpet sucked the shoes off your feet. You ordered a pint, drank it in one, and put the glass upside down on the bar. That meant: I’ll have it with any man here. Someone went and put me in hospital for three months, just before my dad went away for the nine. Mum went absolutely spare. What with my sister already running wild. I went direct from Princess Beatrice to this fucking barracks of a boarding-school in Littlehampton on the south coast. Basically a crammer for posh dropouts. A couple of years of that and then Lit and Drama at Sussex. I changed. I was a hippie. But I could still fight. And a hippie who could fight was something to be.’

‘At university you were quite a ladies’ man …’

‘Every bloke was quite a ladies’ man in them … in those days. In those days, for a while, girls went to bed with you even when they didn’t want to. Peer-group pressure, that is. If I was above average, it was because I could offer them … pacifism from a uh, from a position of strength. I was covered in beads and flower scarves, but when some fucking great rocker come stamping up I’d say, “I smell grease.” Or go over to a gang of skinheads and call them a load of little fascist cunts. If you can fight, you don’t have to fight. And you don’t have to cower. And girls like that, whatever they say. Uh, look, mate — I’m fading. Sorry. It’s, it’s my condition.’

‘If you like I can … Are you sure? Last question, then. Could you say something about your father and the attempted murder.’

‘Okay. My sister Leda, rest her soul, she got roughed up by her husband. And me dad’s done him. Give him a fucking good hiding. Said he’d gladly do ten years for him and that’s what he got. And I’ll tell you something else and all. The bloke who put me in hospital for the three months: it was him. Mick Meo. For why? I’ve gone into the yard, and there he is, having this fight to the death with some other mad prick. I dragged him off and he done me. Three months. One week later he’s done me brother-in-law, who never walked again, and gone away for his nine. Then he’s gone and done the Governor at Gartree and got hisself topped by the screws in the Strong Cell …

‘No. Wait, wait … See, I split from the villain world, but things stay with you. One is complete contempt for the police. In America the police, they’re working-class heroes. Here they’re working-class dogs. They’re scabs and traitors. They take the rich man’s shilling to guard his gear in the property war. There’s talk about honour among thieves. That’s all bollocks. But there’s rules. Now, whoever did me in October or had me done — I get the feeling they think I’ve been telling tales to the Old Bill. And that is something I would never do. When the police uh, questioned me about the attack I said I remembered nothing. And they can come round here again and I’ll tell them I remember nothing. It ain’t true, but that’s what I’ll tell them. They can stick red-hot pokers up me arse, and that’s what I’ll tell them. Understand? Me, I’m the nicest bloke in the world. You know, in the car. Come on, darling. No — after you. But if someone … Now I spit in the eyes of whoever did me or had me done. I tell him: you got business with me, then you fucking come down … you come down …’

Even in sleep his face held its distortion.

Then there was the kind of whispering behind half-shut doors that gets done around the sick and the unpredictable and the violent.

Pearl, when her ex-husband called, was dependably merciless.

‘Would you like to talk to a boy? I’ll find one in a minute. But first, Xan, I want to ask about your care-giver. I mean the — where is it? — “the non-head-injured party in your relationship”. She’ll be in mourning, Xan, for the person you once were. That’s quite natural. It says here you both have to “let go” of the “old” Xan Meo — the one who could get about the place and earn a living. He’s gone, Xan! And listen: don’t be afraid to cry. It says here you should talk about all the good old times and get the old photos out and have a good old blub.’

Xan wasn’t gone. He had to believe that he wasn’t gone. Reality was like a weak dream, in early morning. You sense the weakness of the dream-authority and in velvet revolution you rise up, you rise up; you try to take control of the nonsensical narrative — to guide it towards pleasure, or away from fear. The dream was weak, but so was the dreamer. And another wave would come and he would go under.

‘Mm,’ said Billie, ‘yummy water.’

Using both hands she placed the empty glass on the kitchen table and then drifted from the room.

‘Yummy water ?’ said Xan. ‘Well, a man condemned to die finds water delicious. Air delicious. Maybe it works the other way round.’

With the broadsheet on her lap Russia watched him. They both knew that talking made Xan manic, now. They had of course discussed it. And it made him manic.

‘I can’t believe you said all this. It was your intention, was it, to sound like an animal.’

‘It’s the dialect of the tribe. It will be understood.’

‘By whom?’

‘By the party concerned. Do I swear a lot?’

‘Generally, or in the interview? … No. “Little fascist bastards”. “Mad prick”. No.’

‘And how’s me … how’s my English?’

‘Your English?’ She shrugged and said, ‘It parses.’

‘Thought I could feel my English going. Bloke must have cleaned it up. Tea’, he added, ‘is bullshit. I want coffee. You’re on your second cup of Colombian and I’m still on the bullshit. What’s for dinner?’

‘Fish.’

‘Seafood is bullshit. I want meat.’

‘You can’t have meat. You can’t have coffee. Not yet.’

‘What have I got to look forward to? This evening, before my meal, I’ll drink a couple of glasses of near-beer. And if beer is bullshit, which it is, what’s near -beer? It’s not even bullshit. It’s bullshit bullshit. And then what? A plate of bullshit. And yummy water.’

Russia stood up. He followed her to the counter, saying,

‘I should keep my mouth shut, shouldn’t I. Because if a woman isn’t liking you, she isn’t going to like anything you say. It could be fit for Hamlet and she isn’t going to like it.’

‘You know what I’m thinking? It’s not that you’ve become a brute. I’m thinking you were a brute all along.’

‘Oh, nice, that is. I get smashed over the fucking head, and now nobody loves me any more. The girls don’t. You don’t.’

‘You’re doing it again. You’re standing too close to me.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘Jesus, you are really freaking me out. Get away. And guess what.’

‘What?’

‘Your zipper’s undone.’

Yes, that’s right, that’s right. The worst things of all were happening upstairs: in the master bedroom.

The first sentence almost made him roll over backwards:

dear clint: r u as other men r?

But he was lying down at the time: on his humid sack in the Foulness semi.

(i ask because u ask: about size m@tering.) well if u’re not as other men r: don’t worry. my current ‘other’, orl&o, wields a big 1, of which he is inordin8ely proud. but take my word 4 it, clint, u don’t want a bloody great 21.

A bloody great … twenty-one? he thought. Oh: the l’s an l.