Martin Amis - Dead Babies

"Skip," said Skip.

"Check," said Andy.

"Why — how come you didn't want me to go kick that heifer?"

"What heifer?"

"The heifer yesterday."

"Oh, the cow. Cos… it was all fucked up — and it had attacked us, so you ought to treat it with respeck."

"I wanted to go fuck it up some more."

"Well, I didn't want you to, see?"

"I wanted to kill it."

Andy gave Skip a hard look. "Well, you'd expect that from someone whose dad killed his mum.”

: "Pardon me?"

In the same tone Andy said, "You'd expect that from someone whose father killed his mother."

The scene changed like a film cut. Andy was carpeted on his back and Skip straddled his chest, hands white on Andy's throat.

"Aw — get him —/"

Providentially Quentin was mulling over some Rousseau in the smaller sitting room when he heard the struggle. He raced through the dividing doors. With Marvell's aid he peeled Skip from Andy's thrashing figure and flattened him on the sofa.

"What'd he say! What'd he say!" bawled Skip as Marvell ran to the dining alcove. He returned, fumbling with a hypodermic.

"Jesus," said Marvell. He eased the needle into Skip's flapping arm. "The fuck, Andy."

"What'd he say," moaned Skip, tears welling from his closed eyes, "what'd he say."

"I'd better lay an amnesiac on him too," said Marvell through his teeth. Skip's consciousness died from the room.

"What on earth happened?" asked Quentin.

Marvell explained while Andy climbed to his feet. He saw with relief that no one else was present. Moodily he dusted himself down.

"Now all we fuckin' need," Marvell was saying, "is for him to find the letter."

"The letter?"

"The one from his fuckin' father. It's in our room. I told you about it. It'd wreck his head to see it now."

"Ah yes, I remember. Give it to me," said Quentin, "for safekeeping. I'll return it before you leave. How fascinating. Tell me—"

As they conferred Andy moved over to the sofa, his back to the others. He leaned a palm on Skip's forehead, in the manner of one feeling its temperature. "Hope he's okay," he muttered. Andy's voice shook slightly when he said this be-cause he was pinching Skip's damaged ear with all his might. "He'll pull through," said Andy, wiping a bloody thumbnail on Skip's khaki shirt. "I think he'll pull through okay.”

Meanwhile, little Keith was sobbing loudly in the joyful solitude of the back passage. Following this treat, his legs now shooting out in all directions, Whitehead regained his cubicle where, with tweezers, chisel, and light hammer, he prised and chipped the blazing shoes from his feet. He sat back against the wall and let out a quiet roar of suppressed pain. Black blood ran down his shins.

Next to Whitehead on the floor lay the sex letter, the billet-doux, that he had composed for the delight of Lucy Littlejohn. Keith picked it up and surveyed it without embarrassment. It had, after all, none of the flaws common to such missives; it was not heated, rarefied, florid, or imprecise. On the contrary, it was a pedestrian — indeed, in style almost bureaucratic — synopsis of his present plight, with the rider that he would kill himself if Lucy did not alleviate it by sleeping with him. It began Dear Lucy and it ended Yours sincerely.

"'. the sum of nineteen pounds and seventy pence. It is imperative,'" Keith read out loud, " 'that you notify me of your decision within the next twenty-four hours. Thank you. Yours sincerely, Keith (Whitehead).'

"That'll get her going," he said, hobbling to his knees. "Oh yes, those brackets will get her going." He knelt against the bed and joined his hands in an informal attitude of prayer. "It's confidence wins today's girls," he snuffled.

"Please, God," he said to himself, "don't let all of this happen to me. It won't do to let it all happen to one person— to anyone, not just me. I still can't believe that it all has, really. I suppose it's that that keeps me going. Oh, great— fabulous. Look, why doesn't someone just come off it, is what I want to know." Keith looked around him. "I can't cope with this." Keith looked at his feet; even he was shocked. "I'm falling apart here. I can't cope with this. And who's doing it all to me, eh? Who?"

Well, we're sorry about it, Keith, of course, but we're afraid

that you simply had to be that way. Nothing personal, please understand — merely in order to serve the designs of this par-: ticular fiction. In fact, things get much, much worse for you later on, so appallingly bad that you'll yearn to be back at the Institute, or even in Parky Street, Wimbledon, with that family you so loathe. It's all too far advanced for us to intercede on your behalf. Tolerate it. You'll turn out all right in the end. Now go and lie on your bunk.

Keith lay spread on his bunk — spread like soft butter on warm toast, his body trickling gratefully into the folds of blankets and counterpane. He oozed nearer the wall as he heard female voices from outside. Next to the tobacco tin on his bedside table was a creased manila envelope. It contained an agitated reminder from the Advanced Dietary Research Commission. Whitehead replaced this with the billet-doux. "Ah, fuck it," he said, crossing out Kenneth Whitehead and putting, instead, Lucy (Littlejohn).

Gazing about himself, Giles found that he was in his bedroom. This appeared to please him in a mild way. He strolled to the refrigerator. He started to hum. He removed from the frosted compartment a tall glass of gin and Southern Comfort, a drink he had not experimented with, nor indeed heard of, before. He even started to whistle. Shadows wandered in from the corners of the room.

He sipped, and held up the glass to examine it against the light. "Hey. This stuff. " He sipped, and held up the glass. "This stuff. isn't bad." He sipped.

Halfway across the room Giles remembered his daily letter to Mrs. Coldstream. He came to a halt and his knees wobbled. An expression of delirious puzzlement overtook his features.

What did she want him to write, what could have happened today, how could things change still, how could you make it new any more, what was there left to tell her now?

"Dear Mother," said Giles. "I nearly tripped down the stairs on the way out. Good job I didn't! Dear Mother, Luigi wasn't sure of the way back and we had to ask a man in the street. A bit of luck he did! Dear Mother, Everyone was up by the time I got back. High time, too! Dear Mother, I got drunk all day. Why? Dear Mother, I'm dying here fast. Dear Teeth, I'm gum the crown drill."

Giles sat down at his desk. Languidly he synchronized the jar of 15B pencils, the deck of A4 writing paper, the eager glass. Fifteen minutes later he had completed a letter full of such typically filial charms as sullenness, torpor, complete want of understanding or sympathy, plainly sarcastic affection, explosive false amusement, and clueless self-pity— spread like giant's graph readings over eleven airy sides. Giles forced the scroll into an envelope, well pleased with his work. Outside, the afternoon backed off across the hills, causing light to glow on the wan windows of some underwater warehouse or distant farm.

Gazing about himself, Giles found that he was in his bathroom. This appeared to displease him in a mild way. He felt intimidated by the white porcelain and hard steel. He stared sleepily into the mirror. He didn't notice that something had been written in shaving cream across the glass. "Heal me, heal me," he whispered. Then he noticed. It read Johnny. And then he saw the thing on his basin sidetable, the smashed mockup of his mouth, wet with someone's snot, saliva, and blood. Giles fainted half sideways into the deep carpet.