Martin Amis - Night Train

Complication? Complication fell away, and did not recur. But complication there certainly was. Its theme: Mental instability. Not hers. Not his. Other peoples. And I have to say that I was very, very surprised to see my own name featuring here...

I prepared myself for what they’re now calling a “segue.” But a lot of this stuff I already knew. The dumped boyfriend. The freaked-out flatmate. The trouble begins at the outset, when Trader starts getting serious. There’s this jock, name of Hume, who has to be eased out of the picture. Big Man on Campus can’t take the strain. So what he does is present Jennifer with the spectacle of his collapse. Et cetera. Then the other problem, unconnected to this or to anything else in the outside world: A roommate of Jennifer’s, a girl called Phyllida, wakes up one morning with black smoke coming out of her ears. Suddenly this nerdy little chick is either gaping at the bathroom wall or out there howling at the moon. Jennifer can’t cope with being around her, and bolts, back to the Rockwell home. And who does she find there, stinking up her brother’s bedroom and babbling at the pillows, but Detective Mike Hoolihan. “Jesus Christ,” Trader quotes her as saying, “I’m surrounded.”

Here’s a frustration with a one-way correspondence. The narrative doesn’t “unfold”: What you get is just a jumping status quo. Astonishing developments simply and smugly become How Things Are. Still, Trader spends a lot of ink on Jennifer around now, coaxing her out of the notion that nobody and nothing can be trusted. Sanity, or at least logic, returns. You can finish the stories:

The boyfriend, Hume, drops out for a time, and does some drugs. But he’s readmitted, and comes through civilized. He and Jennifer even manage an okay lunch.

Thickly sedated, Phyllida gets to graduate. Some collateral family member takes her in. References to her are frequent for a while. Then trail away.

And Mike Hoolihan recovers. It is approvingly noted that even someone with a background such as hers can eventually patch things together, with the right kind of understanding and support.

While Trader and Jennifer, of course, watch these heavy clouds pass over and cruise on up into their clear blue sky.

Now the bureaus and the filing cabinets and the endless, endless shite of citizenship, of existence. Bills and wills, deeds, leases, taxes—oh, man, the water torture of staying alive. That’s a good reason to end it. Confronted with all this, who wouldn’t want to rest and sleep?

Two hours on my knees brings me only two mild surprises. First: Trader, on top of everything else, is a man of independent means. I seem to remember that his daddy was big in the construction business during the Alaska boom. Here, anyway, is Trader’s modest portfolio—his bonds and shelters, his regular and generous donations to charity. Second: Jennifer never opened her bank statements. The fiercest-looking wallets of crap from the IRS lie wrenched open on her desk—but she never opened her bank statements. Here they all are, backed up from last November, and still sealed. Well, I soon rectify that. And find prudent outgoings plus a nice little sum on deposit. So why not read this good news? Then I get it. She never opened her statements because she never had to do anything about them. These were letters that needed no answer. That’s what you call a sufficiency. That’s putting dough in its proper place.

What to me feels the most intimate thing I have saved till last. Her worn leather handbag, left slung over the shoulder of a kitchen chair. This shoulder is like her shoulder, erect, wide-spanned, with the gentlest inward curve... Jesus, my bag, which I seem to spend half my life scrabbling around in, is like a town dump that’s gone through a car compactor. I’ve no idea what’s going on in there. Mice and mushrooms flourish among the fenders and spare tires. But Jennifer, naturally, traveled light, and fragrant. Boar’s bristle hairbrush, moisturizer, lip gloss, eyedrops, blush. Pen, purse, keys. Also, her datebook. And if what I’m looking for is a sense of an ending, then here I get it big-time.

I flick the pages. Jennifer wasn’t the kind of busybody who faced a thicket of commitments every waking hour. But for the first two months of the year there’s plenty happening—appointments, schedules, deadlines, reminders. And then on March second, the Friday, it all stops dead. There is nothing else for the whole year, except this, under March 23: “AD?” Which is tomorrow. Who or what is AD? Advertisement? Anno Domini? I don’t know—Alan Dershowitz?

Before I left, as I was closing the blue trunk, I took another look at Trader’s last letter. It was among the loose papers and photos yet to be gathered and organized, and it was dated February 17, this year. The postmark says Philadelphia, where Trader was attending a two-day conference on “The Mind and Physical Laws.” It’s almost embarrassing: I can hardly bring myself to quote from it. “Already the eastern side of every moment of mine is lit by you and the thought of tomorrow...”

I love you. I miss you. I love you. No. Jennifer Rockwell didn’t have a problem with this boyfriend. He’s perfect. He’s everything we all want. So what I’m thinking now is she must have had a problem with the other boyfriend.

Photograph on a bookcase. It’s graduation: Jennifer and three friends in gowns, all tall but bent with laughter. Laughing so hard they look fucked up on something. And the little crazy one, Phyllida, trapped in the frame, cowering in the corner of it.

Funny thing about the apartment. It took me a while to realize what.

No TV.

And a funny thought, on the way out. Suddenly I’m thinking: But she’s a cop’s daughter. This means something. This has to matter.

Like all police I guess I’m state-of-the-art cynical, on the one hand. And, on the other, I don’t judge. We never judge. We may make the roust and make the collar. We may bust you. But we won’t judge you.

Fresh from the latest slaughterhouse, that kraut brute Henrik Overmars will listen to a drunk’s hard-luck story with tears in his eyes. I’ve seen Oltan O’Boye give his last fin to some self-pitying asshole at Paddy’s—some guy whose entire acquaintance has drawn down the shade on him, years ago. Keith Booker can’t pass a bum on the street—no, every time he’ll slip him a buck and squeeze his hand. I’m the same way. We’re the softest touch.

Is it because we’re plain brutal/sentimental? I don’t think so. We don’t judge you, we can’t judge you because whatever you’ve done it isn’t even close to the worst. You’re great. You didn’t fuck a baby and throw it over the wall. You don’t chop up eighty-year-olds for laughs. You’re great. Whatever you’ve done, we know all the things you might have done, and haven’t done.

In other words, our standards, for human behavior, are desperately low.

Having said all that, I was due for a shock tonight. I felt what I so seldom feel: Scandalized. I felt shock all over my body. Forget about a hot flush. I practically had the menopause in one fell swoop.

I’m back at the apartment, cooking dinner for Tobe and myself. The phone goes and a male voice says, “Yeah, can I speak with Jennifer Rockwell please?”

I said, in receptionist singsong, “Who’s calling?”

“Arnold. It’s Am.”

“One moment!”

I’m standing there tensed in the kitchen heat. Tell myself to work on what I was doing already: Keep your voice pitched up. Sound like a woman.

“Actually—hello again—actually Jennifer’s out of town tonight and I’m handling her messages here. I have her datebook here. Hey, were you guys meant to get together tomorrow sometime?”