Martin Amis - Yellow Dog

First Officer Nick Chopko : Three nine nine. Thirty-six seven, and dumping.

SAM : Only differential power. You’re manoeuvring with the throttles … Slats are out?

Macmanaman : Slats? We don’t have any slats. If we can get ourselves down while we’re still horizontal, we’re going to ditch. We’re descending. Ah, now the nose is coming up. Easy. Easy.

Columbia [South Carolina] Approach : Copy your setting, one oh one heavy. The runway is ten thousand feet long.

Macmanaman : Can’t use it. And we’re not going to make Columbia. Find me a place to ditch on that setting. Nick, put the [landing] gear down.

Chopko : What?

Macmanaman : Throw it down.

Reynolds turned to the man in 2A, and she screamed. ‘What’s that ?’ she said. ‘What? … I can’t hear! Take it off!’

‘A smoke-hood. Cost me two-thirty.’

‘Ladies and gentleman,’ said the exalted voice of Robynne Davis. ‘As in all emergency landings we will be evacuating as soon as the aircraft is at rest. Passengers close to the exit doors, those in seats …’

A uniformed man came out of the cockpit. He leant over 2B and whispered something.

‘Ma’am,’ said Hal Ward, in the galley, ‘would you please go to the bathroom and then quietly return to 22D. Business. Captain’s orders.’

The inter-cabin curtains were open, and by straining his neck the man in 2A saw that Mrs Traynor’s new seat was unlike his own. It was slightly narrower, and it faced the other way.

Chopko : Look at our speed.

Flight Engineer Hal Ward : The heavies aren’t designed for this. We could just come apart up here.

SAM : Captain, on your present setting you’re going to be coming in right under it.

Macmanaman : What are they saying? Thirty-three, thirty-four?

SAM : Their latest and best is an NEO altitude of twenty-one point four. Repeat, at 17.43. If you’re not yet on the ground you’re going to feel it. Heat and blast.

Macmanaman : And another thing. Watch the nose, Nick. No no no. Pull back, pull back, pull back.

On screen, the bathroom of the Yellow House: the passageway, the circular concavity of the tub, the mirrors, the towels on their pegs. Brendan flinched as a subtitle gave date and place. He turned. On the sofa the King stared levelly.

The Princess entered, in her tennis whites. She approached, smiling with amusement or satisfaction, and then vanished to the right. The sound of a sigh, the brisk drilling of micturation, the soft percussion of the toilet paper as it ripped. She reappeared with her shirt half-up and her skirt half-down, and limping as she kicked off her shoes. She threw on the taps. She paused for a full minute, examining a blemish on her forearm. Then she undressed carelessly, and in she climbed.

It hadn’t wavered, the watching eye, stupidly imperturbable, like a security monitor. After a while you understood that it had now begun a painfully gradual zoom.

Here came the change of the Princess’s expression — a listening face. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the audible rumour of advent. Then the white shape, still halved by shadow.

The quality of the sound, throughout, had been ticklishly distinct. And now the sudden surge of a human voice.

‘I come from your father’s bed. He sent me here to help you bathe.’ It was He, it was He … He removed her robe, and held out a hand in such a way that the Princess must rise to receive it. He stepped in … The kissed neck and throat, the sponged breasts. The two bodies, one brown and full of gravity, one pale and light. And the two faces: one with its young astonishment and horror, the other with its ancient inclemency.

Brendan turned again. Henry had his arms up on the sofa’s shoulders and his head was bent to one side. Moisture had had time to sink in around his closed eyes.

Some minutes later Brendan said, ‘Sir? I think you …’

Henry sat up and stared. A different scene, now, gloom, luxury, a half-dressed He Zizhen attending to his own naked body, which looked utterly helpless, like a baby waiting to be changed.

‘If it’s any comfort to you, sir, I think we can say this of Miss Zizhen. She was our Enemy’s Enemy.’

‘It is some comfort, surprisingly enough, Bugger. This is over now. Oughtred at one end and the PM at the other. What remains is for us, or for me, to divine what the Princess wants. What do princesses want?’

His crutch was of the sort that went all the way up the arm. Joseph Andrews leant it against the side of his desk and, after some bitter tottering, crashed down into his swivel chair.

‘Sime,’ he said when he was able.

He addressed a small middle-aged man in a chalkstriped suit and with foul eyes, pale round the poster-blue pupil: Simon Finger.

‘Sime, mate. It’s all bollocks, that: me threat. I’m a monarchist, mate. Always have been. And what I got on that lot’d make the royal family disappear. And I couldn’t live with meself with that on me conscience. Knowing I’d done that, I couldn’t rest easy in me grave. They nick me tomorrow, then I’ll take me secret with me. Though Cora always have it, lest need be.’

In his ripe drawl — posher than the King — Simon Finger said, ‘I couldn’t agree more, Jo. It’s a fine institution.’

‘Where are we? Yeah, we’ll be obliging Tony Tobin, Yocker Fitzmaurice, Kev Had and Nolberto Drago. You can do what you want with them other slags, but I want to be there for Nobby Drago.’

For a while Joseph Andrews unsystematically sifted through the papers on his desk. He held up a clipping.

‘Calls me a mad prick. In print. Names me. Places me. As for what he said here the other night: no respect whatsoever. And he would’ve walked away if I’d’ve let him! Wouldn’t stand. He wouldn’t stand. Called me a … Me own son. Well I’m not having that. Her,’ he said.

‘Her? Isn’t that rather …?’

‘Yeah. See. Cora’ve made me promise I won’t hurt him. So I want you to hurt her, Simon. The wife. Because it’s not gone away. And I’m owed. I want you to mark her, Simon. I want you to cut her face.’

‘No. That’s uh, incommensurate. I think that would undoubtedly be un peu trop. ’

‘… I don’t understand you, Simon Finger. You got arsehole to spare. If a raging bull come at you, you’d stand. You’d stick your head in a fucking cement-mixer, you would. If you considered it the correct thing to do. I’ve just asked you to top four villains and you’ve barely shrugged. And you won’t even … Uh all right. All right. Will you knock her about — will you do that at least?’

‘What are we talking about here, Jo? A bloody nose and a black eye? … A handful of hair or two and a couple of teeth?’

He leant forward and spread his hands all-solvingly. ‘Exactly. Just like any normal husband’d give her.’

Then Simon Finger helped Joseph Andrews down the stairs to join their friends for the little going-away party, Manfred, Rodney and Dominic, Cora Susan and Burl Rhody, Tori Fate, Captain Mate, and He Zizhen.

They were all there for the midday meeting: Clint, Supermaniam, Strite, Mackelyne, Woyno, Donna Strange. Clint had just had a conversation with Donna Strange about Dork Bogarde. It was remarkably similar to the conversation he had had with Dork Bogarde about Donna Strange: she couldn’t remember him either. Chemistry not quite right, thought Clint. Nevertheless he took this sophisticated exchange as a good omen for his rendezvous with Kate, now only hours away. He could see himself parking the Avenger and strolling across the road. Having a quiet wander across the road …