Martin Amis - Yellow Dog

‘There was no mobile phones in them days. Leda’s left a message at the workshed. Mick’s out nicking high-voltage cables — dangerous work, skilled work — but he was a very good thief was Mick. He calls back: “He what? ” But Mick’s out in Stoke and it’s the fucking miners’ strike and he … Anyway. He’s gone in there at dawn.’

‘Floral Grove. Stoke Newington.’

‘He’s gone in there at dawn. Your mum and dad’s fast asleep. In the same bed. So, I don’t know: must have patched it up. For the time being. Your granddad’s gone and drawn the curtains back. You know: rise and shine. Now unfortunately Mick’s still in his work clothes. Heavy boots with the shallow spikes. And the reinforced gauntlets — for them cables. Oh and his helmet. So he’s on Damon now, straddling him like, and nutting him and that, and the roundarms with the big gloves. Then Leda’s on Mick : seems she’s had a change of heart if you please. So Mick’s gone and locked her in the bathroom, and he give her a tap and all, unfortunately — but she was his own daughter , Cora …

‘Damon’s lying there weltering in his own blood. “Ah fuck. Ah Jesus.” All this. Mick’s gone, “How’s your nose?” “How’s me nose? I’m blind, mate!” Then he ‘ve started trying to uh, you know, “reason” with him. You know: “Uh, Mick mate. Look uh, no complaints. Fair’s fair. I stepped out of line. You taught me a lesson. That’s it. End of.” And Mick’s gone, “It’s a crime of passion we got here, boy.” Course he’s been puzzling for a means of doing Damon for years. “This is nothing , son. This is nothing. ”

‘Mick’s dragged Damon on to the floor and got on the bed hisself. Then he’s broke both his legs. Jumping like. Then, when you could do what you liked with them, Damon’s pins is wedged sideways and your granddad’s taking running kicks at his cods and his chopper. With the workboots, more’s the pity. Damon’s not making much noise any more but now Leda’s come round and she’s yelling her head off next door. But Mick didn’t pay her no mind.

‘When he’s broke his arms and all his fingers, he picks him up by his hair and what’s left of his bollocks and slings him out the window, sad to say.’

‘And was the window open at the time?’

‘Unfortunately not.’

‘I’m trying to remember the house. They were on the second floor, weren’t they?’

‘Alas no. They was on the third.’

‘There was a lawn there. It was just lawn in the back.’

‘If only. That really was unfortunate. Just the previous week Damon’s had a rockery put in. So he come down on that. And it was that what done for him, landing on his bonce as he did. He was in Intensive Care for nearly a year. And of course Mick went away for his nine. Course, he could have pleaded uh, mitigating circumstances. “Your Honour, I did him because he’s give me daughter one up the khyber.” But he didn’t want to tar her with it, so he never. Then Old Ma Susan spirits you away to Vancouver. And you was lost to the Meos for ever.’

‘And Mum?’

‘You’re not touching your wine, dear. As for your mum, she done the rounds a bit and then settled down with Tony Odgers. Then he’s gone and got a seven for demanding with menaces. Teddy Ambrose come out at last and she’s took up with him. Then Teddy’s got cut to pieces in a ruck outside the World Upside Down. Your mum’s played the field a bit, then she’s pulled herself together and for a time she’s made a go of it with Ian Thorogood. Then he gets himself choked in a headlock whilst in police custody. Things was going not bad between your mum and Frank Purdom. Then Nick Odgers come out, for about a week, but long enough to do Frank Purdom, and your mum’s back to her old tricks. Keith Room was very good with her till he pulled a twelve, and then she’ve raised eyebrows by shacking up with Thelonius Curtly. And when he gets hisself topped she’s let herself down, many thought, by throwing in her lot with Lon Chang You. But she was on the drink and worse by then. To be perfectly frank with you, Cora, her reputation was beginning to suffer. They was calling her Khyber Kath by the end. Funny kind of name, that. I never did learn how she come by the “Kath” bit of it. How you feeling, dear?’

‘Oh, tolerably well.’

‘You’re a hard girl, Cora. You’ve had to be. You frighten even me sometimes — what I seen in you. Now okay, your dad weren’t the best of fathers, but he was your father. Your natural father, dear. Damon done what he done. Damon was Damon. He messed with you, and there ain’t no excuse for that. But you was still a family. And Mick Meo, by his overly hasty behaviour … Now if I know my Cora Susan she’s not going to bend over for that. She’s going to want to hurt somebody. And there’s only one of them left. Uncle Xan.’

‘Uncle Xan.’

‘I give him a smack meself the other day. About something nothing whatsoever to do with the Susans.’

‘Oh?’

‘He fucking grassed me up. Then he’s gone to the papers saying he never! And he called me a mad prick …’ Joseph Andrews shook his head and gave a smile of yokellish incredulity. On the table before them lay a green folder. He reached for it. ‘Here: “… whoever did me in October or had me done … they think I’ve been telling tales to the Old Bill. And that is something I would never do … They can stick red-hot pokers up my arse … whoever did me I tell him, you come down and …” Now that’s game , that is,’ he added with unqualified admiration. ‘No less than he should have said, of course. But these days that’s game. There’s Mick in him, Cora. And there’s Mick in you and all.’

‘And the money.’

‘And the money. Hebe’s money. Skinned you out of it. You’re going back for the funeral, of course? … Have a read of that. And the other matter?’

‘Beyond all expectation.’

‘Gaw, I got to pinch meself with the price we’re getting on this one. Talk about a thrust.’ He brought his clawed hands together. ‘The double play. I tell you, darling, if it all goes through all right you can have my end of it. I give it to you, dear. Jesus, the satisfaction. It’s beautiful. Cora? We done them sweet.’

The green file went in the straw bag and Cora Susan kissed Joseph Andrews and walked away across the coarse sward. Moving with an air of dreamy purpose — always one step behind, one step beyond.

About twenty miles to the north-east Clint Smoker was settling into his half of a cabana in the grounds of a Moorish mansion known locally as the Ponderosa. In Clint’s quarters, as in everybody else’s, there was a large and lavish reproduction of Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation’ on the wall facing the picture window. Clint typed:

Chief: Got here all right. The hotel’s gorgeous. My companion, Kate, is particularly taken with the oiled dwarves who line the driveway day and night. Shop. You’ve got your gagging order and I hope you’re happy.

Yeah, thought Clint. According to Jeff Strite, Heaf was summoned, not to Downing Street, but to a sweltering basement at the FPA — along with every other e-zine and nude-mag chancer in the British Isles. A man from the Palace with a double-barrelled name came on and told them that the material on the Princess was a fake and a fiction, and would they please shut up about it. Heaf returned to the Lark shedding tears of pride.

I think you’re experiencing an accounting problem in the marble department, but that’s me: cynical. Still, we can pursue related and parallel themes on little Vicky. I have an idea or two. Here as promised is the revisionist editorial on the Walthamstow Wanker: