Martin Amis - Dead Babies

As the first pole of water hit him in the face, Keith's ragged, wobbling figure found its contours and, as Andy played the hose up and down his body, the slumped form seemed actually to dance free of its bonds. Six minutes later Andy's right arm chopped through the air once more. "Right!" he said. "That oughta handle it."

In a loose semicircle, Andy, Quentin, Skip, and Marvell warily approached the tree.

Quentin and Marvell looked at each other in candid horror.

"Mm. On second thought maybe I should have backed off some with the hose," said Andy, himself noticing the new orange blood that had started to well from Keith's mouth, nose, and eyes.

Marvell felt for Whitehead's still-vibrating wrist. "He's still there! It's faint, but he's still there!"

"Onna other hand," said Andy, "it was probably just what he needed. A good jolt. Just the job."

"Cut him down, Skip," said Marvell.

When Skip had severed the last of the ropes, Keith fell forward like a thick plank into the mud created by the broad wash of the hose. Except for the thin leather belt he was virtually naked, his dressing gown torn away by the force of the water; the remains of his clothes stuck to his white body in thin damp strings.

"Wotcher reckon, Marv?" asked Andy.

Marvell took out his hypodermic wallet and knelt on the grass. "I'll plug some meth up his ass. Then we'd better walk him around some."

"Check. I'll just give him one more go with the hose. Now we've got the bloody thing out. Just to clean him up. Don't want all that mud on our hands."

"Mud? Oh, yeah, right."

"Is he okay?" called Lucy from the french windows.

"Keith?" said Andy. "He's laughing."

When Lucy came back into the sitting room, Giles was standing by the door, looking tense.

"They say Keith's okay."

". Oh. Good."

"What is it, Giles?"

"Lucy, a friend of mine wants me to ask you something."

"Which friend?"

"Just a friend."

"I see."

"A friend," said Giles.

"Yes, I'm with you. What does he want to know?"

"My friend wants to know if you could ever — if you could

marry someone who didn't have any… if he had. " "If he had what?”

: "No, that's the point — if he didn't have… if he had. if he didn't have. "

"If he didn't have what, then?"

'If he didn't have… if he had. "

"Say it, Giles. Christ."

"Well, you see, what my cousin wants to know, actually, is could you marry someone who had. who didn't have. "

"Jesus. WHAT?"

"Who didn't have teeth. Who had false ones. Could you?"

"If I loved him, of course I could!"

Giles sank against the door. "Gosh. I never thought I should marry," he said to steady himself.

Giles poured out a glass of Hock and said to Roxeanne, "They say Keith is well again."

Roxeanne said that she thought he probably would be. "You can get away with most things these days."

Celia stood up and, with Diana's assistance, began to load the dishwasher. "Well," she said, "if he is he's going to have to find somewhere else to live."

"Right," said Diana. "I've got no time for suicides. It's just too boring. A schoolfriend of mine was in a crash once and I went to see her every day for three months. A year later the bitch stuck her head in the oven because her guy couldn't kick being queer. Did I go to the hospital once? No way. I told her why not, too."

"I agree," said Celia. "It's selfish, stupid, and utterly boring."

"Well," said Giles. "I don't know, I just feel. That drug and everything… I just feel terribly relieved."

And then Giles Coldstream did something he had not done for five years. He turned full face to Roxeanne and he smiled — not his habitual tragicomic-mask, thin-lipped stripe, but a bright, frank, boyish, ripple-eyed grin.

Roxeanne leaned forward sharply and frowned up at him. "Hey, man, what's with your teeth? They're all, you got wires and shit in there—"

Upending his glass and knocking his chair over, Giles backed away from the table, his face stunned with a look of guilty dismay.

"Here, let's. " said Roxeanne, bearing down on Giles, who retreated gesturing with his hands like an entertainer quelling applause. "The fuck, how old are you? And your teeth are all dead."

Containing his tears, a frightened child, Giles bolted from the room.

"Round and round the garden," sang Quentin and Andy, two prop forwards to Keith's dangling hooker, "ran the teddy bear. One step, two steps, tickly under there. Round and round the garden ran the—"

"Hey," broke off Andy, "it's pretty knackering, this. The fuck are those Yanks? Why can't they have a go for a bit?"

Keith began to groan. It was a reedy, cat-like sound.

"At least he's alive," observed Quentin. "We're not completely wasting our time."

"No," said Keith, pronouncing it "Mo" through pulped lips.

"Mo who, you little wreck?" Andy asked.

"Mo," said Keith. "Mot in the well. Doan frow me in the well. Dome drowm me."

"Don't throw you in the well? Quentin, he talks as if we throw him inna well every night. We've a bloody good mind to, Keith. There's gratitude for you."

" 'Don't drown me,'" repeated Quentin. "That reminds me— Keith never got the antidote, did he?"

Keith started crying, crying in painfully snatched falsetto, crying like a baby.

Quentin and Andy turned to each other with bulging eyes.

Giles was crying too. He was doing so at his desk while he assembled his writing paper and pencils. Fat tears smudged the sheet as he wrote:

Dear All. God knows I have had a hard enough life since my accident. It has not been easy but I have tried to muck along as best I could. But now, with these remarks of Rocks-Ann's, I really do not know what I shall

He sniffed wetly. He stood up. There was something else in his gait when he walked toward the drinks cupboard.

: "Round and round the. Jesus. My arm's fuckin' dropping off. Look — Quent — there they are. Hey! The fuck over here, you lazy shits!"

Skip and Marvell merged into the garage light, buckling their belts. They ambled toward the rocking trio.

"What kinda shape's he in?"

Andy unhitched Keith's arm from his shoulder and swung the naked body forcefully at Marvell and Skip. "Where you been? Crapping or screwing or what?"

"What difference does it make?" asked Marvell urbanely.

"Fuck-all to you guys, that's for sure," said Andy, pacing back toward the house with Quentin at his side.

They settled on the steps outside the french windows. Fifteen yards away Skip, Marvell, and Keith marched round in the halflight like jagged clockwork figures in a silent film. Andy produced his hash kit and within half a minute had rolled two one-paper joints. "Hey, man," he said reflectively, handing one to Quentin and lighting them both. "That guy Keats. How old was he when he checked out?" "He was twenty-six," said Quentin. ("Walk right, walk right'." they heard Skip holler at the crippled Keith.) "Oh, really?" said Andy rather snootily. "I mean, that's not bad. What was all the. gimmick?" "I expect people thought he had yet to realize his full potential." Unimpressed, Andy protruded his lower lip and nodded a few times. "Fuck potential," he said.

"Quentin?" asked a new voice.

Quentin turned to the french windows, whence Giles falter-ingly emerged. "My good friend Giles," he said.

"How's Keith? Is he well again now?"

"He's as well as can be expected. Rather better, as it happens."

"Oh. I see. So you won't be taking him to the hospital."

"We do hope we may be spared that embarrassment, yes."

"Oh, actually. I see." Giles turned to go.