Martin Amis - Dead Babies

"No, man, it's creative," Andy told Quentin as they stumbled together down the stairs, " — radical rape, for her own fuckin' good. Anyway, I paid her yesterday."

Before leaving, the pair looked in on the sitting room. Andy exposed himself to each of the girls in turn, asked a television producer if he would like his face beaten to pulp, burst into tears, exhorted the entire company to go eat shit, and blacked out.

Andy's pranking continued just as engagingly when term started at London that September, though his visits became rarer and much less virulent. Once a fortnight or so, he and his friends would club together for the necessary £20 (it was Andy who insisted on this token, not Lucy) and roll round to Pont Street for some laughs. Customarily Lucy would do an elaborate strip for them, masturbate some of them, go to bed with one or two perhaps, and ask for a few minutes with Andy. Lucy seemed to have entered into the spirit of things by this time; she cried every now and then when Andy made love to her personally, alone, but on the whole she was resigned to the status Andy kept insisting was her true one.

She didn't know why she had refused Andy's offer yet neither could she claim that she regretted her refusal. The exuberance of her character insulated Lucy for the role; as soon as Andy's vindictive hostility appeared to have dissipated, after his first few raids on her person, there was nothing abject in her displays and nothing cringing in her submissions, merely a kind of inevitability.

But next it was Giles's turn, and here Andy's scheme suffered its first major reverse.

The sickly waif was shoved into the flat one navy-blue November night and beamingly introduced by Andy: "Here she is — do anything for fifty quid." They sat smalltalking in the kitchen. giles: How long, in actual fact, have you lived here? lucy: Ooh, nearly a year. giles: Oh, really? Because it's really. very nice, actually. lucy: It ain't a lot, but it's home. giles: In fact, how long did you say you'd lived here for? andy: Look, man, you don't have to do all that. They're all whores here.

Giles and Lucy were duly cheered up the stairs. Once in her room, Lucy went confidently over to the bed, smiled, and began to undo her shirt. "Actually," said Giles, producing an enormous flask from his hip pocket, "do you mind if we don't do anything, actually? I'll still give as much money as you like. I've got money, but I'm a bit. nervous. I mean, please don't think I'm a pervert or anything." "How old are you, Giles?" "Twenty and a half." "Have you had girlfriends?" "Oh yes. Only I just don't feel like it these. Though I think you're jolly attractive: you've got awfully nice. " (Giles was going to say "teeth"; but this merely reminded him of why he didn't feel like it.) "Okay, love, you can just lie here for a bit — don't worry, I won't sneak on you — and then go." "Gosh, thanks." Which he did, writing her out a blank check as he left.

What Andy had so tragically forgotten was that in many respects Giles was the dream man for Lucy: kind, pleasant if rather vacuous in appearance, amusing in his way, gentle, affectionate, and quite extraordinarily rich. Having instructed his solicitors to pay off all her debts, Giles entrusted Lucy

with his billfold and gave her a free hand, happy to go to any restaurants, cinemas, or clubs she suggested, to take a pullman to Brighton or a Daimler to the Lakes, and vetoing only overtly teeth-imperiling enterprises. After their eleventh night together Giles awoke with (i) not too much of a hangover and (ii) an erection, with which he shyly confronted Lucy and subsided trembling in her arms. They were inseparable all that winter.

The affair ended, as did so much else for Giles, when he wobbled down the staircase of the Old Compton Street Wheeler's, lost — co-instantaneously — his footing and Lucy's hand, tripped, fell, and smacked out his front two caps on the Soho pavement.

During Giles's three-month convalescence in various rural sanatoria, Andy cautiously remade Lucy's acquaintance. They agreed to contact each other whenever they felt sad or lonely, to confide in each other, to help each other in times of need, to be friends.

Diana's face was beginning to darken when Andy came into the room.

"Amazing," he said. "You've cleaned up all my stuff. My harps, too." He went over to his desk. "That's a bad horse-brass," he said approvingly, nodding his head.

Diana did not look up. "When is she coming?"

"Yeah, she rang. This afternoon sometime, early this evening."

Andy knelt, stroked back a handful of Diana's expensive black hair and planted a kiss on her temple. "Thanks, man," he said.

Although Diana was aware that this was Andy's "way" of apologizing for his earlier shortness, and also that by his standards it was an act of almost obsequious gallantry, she still felt the need not to respond, and turned away.

"Well," suggested Andy, "fuck you."

Quentin pursued little Keith into the kitchen. Behind them came Andy, in some distress.

"C'mon, Keith," he said, "any action?"

Keith woggled out a chair from under the table and sat

down, the better to face the huge beauties who prowled round in front of him. He glanced at his watch. "How long—?”

"I know how long, you little spaz." Andy clapped his hands together. "An hour. If there's—"

A loud crash from the slammed back door was followed by the familiar fat-thighed shuffle of Mrs. Fry, the woman who charred three mornings a week for Appleseed Rectory, as she made her grunting way down the passage toward the kitchen.

Asway with frustration, Andy gripped the back of a chair and began to plead, "Look, if they're not fuckin' working now, they're—"

"Hey hey hey," interrupted Quentin, making compassionate, pacific nods with his head. "Not in front of the servants, Andrew."

Andy leaned back against the dresser. "Okay," he said in a strained voice. "Okay."

"Morning all!" A face that resembled that of a cruel pig wearing an onion-shaped blond toupee flashed with unsettling speed around the door.

"Good morning to you, Mrs. Fry," said Quentin. "How may we assist you?"

"Just want the mops, Mr. Villiers, thank you." There was a silence. Mrs. Fry stared at Quentin for a moment with what might have been appalled desire then barged past Keith's "outstretched" legs toward the broom closet. A smell of Domestos, baby powder, and aged sweat flew up into the air.

Whitehead looked at Mrs. Fry askance, largely due to the fact that he had made a highly unsuccessful pass at her the month before. Keith had been lying on his bunk, wondering what use to put to the early morning erection which he so painfully nursed, considering whether to reach down for a handful of the magazines that glistened beneath his bunk. Mrs. Fry had called from the garage that she wanted access to the brushes stored in his room. Whitehead bade her enter and, when she knelt down with her back to him, leaned forward in hot pajamas to cup the gauzy pink bosom of her apron. Mrs. Fry turned around and hit little Keith so hard on his right ear that he immediately burst out crying — not out of shock or frustration, merely from the pain.

"Got everything, Mrs. Fry?"

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Villiers." She smiled to reveal false teeth of perfect whiteness. " 'Scuse!" she hooted at Keith, who smartly wedged his legs under the chair.

: "Fuck," said Andy absentmindedly to himself, adjusting his heavy groin with both hands, "these jeans don't half get to your snake."

"Allow me," said Quentin, holding open the door past which Mrs. Fry disappeared. Quentin turned to Andy. "Well, I think you showed admirable restraint, Andy." There was perhaps the tiniest hint of real disapproval in his voice?