Success, page 1
MARTIN AMIS’S
Success
Martin Amis is the bestselling author of several books, including London Fields, Money, The Information, and Experience. He lives in London.
Also by Martin Amis
Fiction
The Rachel Papers
Dead Babies
Other People
Money
Einstein’s Monsters
London Fields
Time’s Arrow
The Information
Night Train
Heavy Water and Other Stories
Nonfiction
Invasion of the Space Invaders
The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America
Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and Other Excursions
Experience
The War Against Cliché
Koba the Dread
First Vintage International Edition, April 1991
Copyright © 1978 by Martin Amis
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Vintage Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Great Britain
in 1978 by Jonathan Cape Ltd.
First published in the United States by Harmony Books,
a division of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, in 1987.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Amis, Martin.
[1st Vintage International ed]
Success / Martin Amis
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-77780-5
I. Title.
PR6051.M5S8 1991
823′.914—dc20 90-50617
Author photograph copyright © Jerry Bauer
v3.1
To Philip
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1: January
2: February
3: March
4: April
5: May
6: June
7: July
8: August
9: September
10: October
11: November
12: December
1: January
(i) It seems that I’ve lost all
the things that used to be
nice about me — TERRY
‘Terry speaking,’ I said.
The receiver cleared its throat.
‘Oh hello, Miranda,’ I went on. ‘How are you? No, Gregory isn’t here at the moment. Ring a bit later. Okay. Bye.’
Gregory was in fact sitting next door at the kitchen table, his hands palm-upwards on its grained surface. ‘Success?’ he asked. I nodded and he sighed.
‘She’s started sending me obscene poems now,’ he said.
There seemed no point in not humouring him. ‘Really? What sort of obscene poems?’
‘Has a girl ever sent you an obscene poem?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I can’t cope with this. Things to do with my “proud beam”. And stuff about her “amber jewel”. Or perhaps it’s my amber jewel — I’m not sure.’
‘Sounds as though it’s her amber jewel. I mean, she wouldn’t have a proud beam, would she?’
‘She might. I wouldn’t put anything past her. She might have two.’
‘What has she got to say about your proud beam? In this obscene poem.’
‘She just goes on and on about it. I could hardly bear to read the thing. I can’t cope with it. I don’t need this.’
‘How disgusting,’ I said with enthusiasm. ‘Well, what are you going to do about it, Greg?’
‘That’s just it. What can I do? Say, “Look, let’s have no more obscene poems, okay? Cut out the obscene poems”? Scarcely. I could always call the police, I suppose … let the police clear up the matter. And the horrible things she makes me do in bed …’
‘Why don’t you just tell her to go away?’
Gregory looked up at me with puppyish awe. ‘Can one do that sort of thing? Is that — is that what you’d do?’
‘Christ, no. I’d make her make me do horrible things in bed. I’d even let her write me obscene poems. I’d even write her obscene poems back.’
‘Would you really?’
‘You bet. I’m desperate. I’m tortured by need. Hardly anybody seems to want to fuck me any more. I don’t know why. Gita won’t fuck me any more.’
‘The tiny one with huge ears? Why won’t she?’
‘How the hell should I know? She says she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t want to. But she knows she doesn’t want to.’
Gregory perked up at this. ‘Curious,’ he said, leaning back. ‘In my experience it’s the other way round. People always want to fuck me far more than I want to fuck them.’
‘Ah, but you’re queer, aren’t you. Practically, anyway. Anyone can get fucked if they’re queer. That’s the whole point of being queer, surely — no one minds what anyone does to anyone else.’
‘Nothing in that line at the moment, actually,’ he said, his shapely neck stiffening. ‘It’s this bloody Miranda.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Miranda and her demands.’ Gregory’s face disappeared into his hands. ‘I can’t cope with another night like the last. I just can’t.’ He looked up. ‘She’s absolutely voracious. Shall I tell you one of the things she does? Shall I? She goes down on you after you’ve fucked her. After. She does. Bitch. What about that?’
‘Sounds unimprovable to me.’
‘It’s total agony, let me assure you. And she fiddles with your prick all night when you’re pretending to sleep. And she sticks her … you know.’
‘What, up your bum?’
‘Precisely.’
‘What’s the problem there?’ I asked with some petulance. ‘You must be used to that by now.’
‘But she’s got these huge tart’s fingernails.’
‘Can’t you just — Christ, you know — just have a word with her about it all? Just tackle her on these points?’
‘Of course I can’t. What a revolting thought. And do you know how many people she’s slept with? Guess. Go on. Guess. Over a hundred in two years!’
‘Balls.’
‘She has. She admits it. It’s only one a week, after all, when you work it out. Everyone at Kane’s has fucked her. Everyone at Torka’s has fucked her. Everyone everywhere has fucked her. Everywhere we go people have fucked her. Just walking down the street — everyone has fucked her! I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t fucked her. The porter’s probably fucked her. The liftman’s definitely fucked her. The — ’
‘I haven’t fucked her,’ I stated, deciding to bring this harrowing exchange to a crux.
And so:
‘You could, Terry. Honestly. No problem at all. She’s said more than once she likes you. And she fucks people she loathes. I tell you, she’ll put you through your paces all right. Oh yes. Look, I’ll tell you the first thing she’ll do. The minute you go to kiss her she’ll put both hands on your …’
Will she? She doesn’t look as though she would. (No one else does.)
The girl I’m currently supposed to be peeling off Gregory’s back is called Miranda. She is nineteen. She has coarse blonde hair, a friendly figure, ever-moist blue eyes and a wide square mouth. She is pretty — some way out of my league, I should think. But she is quite posh and probably very neurotic (perhaps she does do all those things he said, for anyone who asks her right). Apart from the consideration that I happen to be very deeply in love with Miranda, I have three excellent reasons for agreeing to the transfer.
One. I quite like her. In contrast to Gregory’s standard female consorts (they’re all haughty sirens with convex faces, collar-stud bums and names like Anastasia and Tap. They’re sheeny, expensive and almost invariably twice my height. I practically call them sir), Miranda contrives to give the impression that she is a member of the human race — having met her, you could quite easily run away with the idea that you both belonged to the same planet. Instead of the torpid distaste — or, more often, trendy indifference — with which Greg’s girls habitually salute my comings and goings, I get from Miranda hellos, goodbyes, recognition, stuff like that. And I’ve only really run into her twice: once when the funny little thing was puffing up the stairs to the flat (she said she’d ‘forgotten about’ the lift), and once when the stupid little slag was getting dressed in the morning (after Gregory had fled to work. No, I didn’t see her tits). She chatted to me sympathetically on both occasions.
Two. I’m very keen indeed, as a matter of general principle, on picking up intimate details about Gregory. I want details, I want details, actual details, and I want them to be hurtful, damaging and grotesque. I nurse dreams of impotence, monorchism and premature ejaculation. I lust for his repressions and blocks; I ache for his traumata. (Why can’t he just kick the girls and be a proper queer? It would make things much simpler for me.) And above all, of course, I long for Gregory to be dismally endowed. I pine for it. All my life I’ve wanted his cock to be small. Even before I met him the meagreness of his member was paramount to my well-being.
Three. Not since eleven o’clock on the night of July 25th last year (and even then it wasn’t easy. She was an ex-girlfriend. I got us both drunk. I cried when she said she wouldn’t: she was so appalled by this that she said she would) have I managed to get anyone to go to bed wi
That was six months ago.
What is it with you fucking girls all of a sudden?
Or what is it with me?
I’ve never minded much about the way I look (Gregory, I know, is unprepared to think about anything else). I look ordinary. Apart from my rather gingery hair — I was in fact called ‘Ginge’ for a short time at school — I look ordinary, I look like educated lower-class middle-management, the sort of person you walk past in the street every day and never glance at or notice or recognize again. (You don’t gaze my way. But who cares?) I’ve always perfunctorily assumed that I looked, well, not bad — not actually bad. In my life I’ve had an average amount of girls with an average amount of anxiety, embarrassment and gratitude.
Now it’s changed. Why and how is that? They’ll talk to me, they’ll agree to go out with me, they’ll eat with me, they’ll drink with me, they’ll neck with me, they’ll even get into the same bed with me. But will they fuck me? Oh no, not them. Not them — oh no. (Who the fuck are they, anyway, that they won’t do that?) This would merely gall and confuse me if I’d ever thought of myself as attractive. But I’ve never thought of myself as that. What made them fuck me then? Charm I once had, kinder girls, cleverer ploys, good nature, luck. It seems that I’ve lost all the things that used to be nice about me.
I’m still trying to laugh it off, really (I think), which is probably why I sound this way … It’s got so bad now that I’ve more or less exhausted my stock of old girlfriends, taken them all out again — all the ones that weren’t married or pregnant or dead — and tried to make them fuck me. None of them wanted to. I’ve rung up girls I haven’t seen for three or four years. I take trains all over England to visit girls who can’t remember a single thing about me. I stop neurotic and disadvantaged girls in the street. I court especially plain secretaries at work. I proposition the old and the ailing. I try to get them to fuck me. They don’t want to.
Won’t someone tell me what’s going on? What’s the gimmick? What’s the angle? My breath’s okay, I think — or at any rate it hasn’t radically deteriorated (if my ceaseless reinhalation tests are anything to go by). Nothing recent has gone wrong with my face. My nasty hair falls out no faster than it did before. (Mark you, I’m going to have a problem with my ass in later life. But they’re not to know that, are they?) I take a bath every thirty-six hours, except in winter, and groom alertly for these horrific dates I sometimes have. I’m putting on a bit of weight, yes, but that’s only because I’m drinking a lot these days. Wouldn’t you be?
(I think I’m losing my bottle. I think I’m going tonto.)
Gregory must never find me out. He doesn’t suspect the truth, for all my plebeian banter. I’ve told him I’ve got someone in Islington. I sit in pubs and coffee-bars pretending I’m there. I stumble in late and tell him lies. Gregory must never know. He must never know that I sit up in bed at night in my room like a fiend, hating everything there is. (The daytime is different, of course. With its tramp-dread and street-sadness, the day has special terrors.)
What am I doing here? My job, I think, is to make you hate him also. It shouldn’t be difficult. All I’ve got to do is keep my eyes open. So long as you keep yours open too.
Will she?
‘Will she?’ I asked him. ‘How do we swing it? When’s she coming, for instance?’
‘Any minute. Are you ready?’
Gregory stood by the window; he twirled a silver-topped cane. I’m not sure I can bear to describe what he was wearing: that vampiric crimson-lined black opera cape, a waistcoat of his father’s, harem trousers — were they? — apparently clasped at the ankles by costly bicycle clips. His almost sickly good looks were, as always, very much in evidence; he looked clever, delicate and incredibly queer.
‘How are we going to do it?’
Gregory gestured wristlessly. He stood by the window; he twirled his cane.
‘You told me it was going to be easy,’ I said, quite startled by the note of crude complaint that had entered my voice. (Sometimes I say things which sound like insults from other people. They leave me wounded and speechless.)
‘Well it will be, Terry. Let’s just think what’s best to do.’
After a few minutes we had mounted a plan, and a fairly rudimentary one. Greg was to be appreciably crappier to Miranda than he was currently in the habit of being, reduce her to tears, then flounce out, at which point I was supposed to cruise on in — having alerted her to my gingery presence in the flat by answering the door when she arrived.
‘Are you sure you can manage that?’ I asked lightly, not wishing to spook him.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Nothing simpler. She cries almost all the time now anyway, as far as I can see.’
‘Why’s that?’ Sounds good, I thought. She really might do all those things if she’s fucked up too, like me. (I’d do them, to anyone.)
‘I don’t know,’ said Gregory, ‘I’m always too embarrassed to ask. She’s just mad, I expect. Most girls are these days.’
‘Where are you going? That queer’s place?’
‘It’s not a queer’s place. There are lots of girls there too.’
‘That bisexual’s place then.’
‘Yes. Now look here — how are you off for wine and so forth? You might as well get her drunk.’
‘I’ve got lots.’
He looked me up and down with plummy distaste. ‘She goes totally to pieces when she’s drunk. She’ll do anything.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly. There really isn’t anything she won’t do.’
‘Well, I’ll give it a go.’
‘Give it a go? Listen, I bet she’ll hardly have her foot through the door before she does something quite revolting to you. I bet she’ll get her — ’
The bell rang.
‘Let’s go,’ said Gregory.
Having opened the door to the girl — white jumper and jeans, shy eyes I didn’t dare meet, the taste of milk in my mouth — and directed her up the stairs, I swam back to my dark room. I took whisky until I heard Greg’s imperious footsteps.
‘Go on then,’ he whispered to me in the hall. ‘Go on then.’
I was hoping that Miranda would be in tears or hysterical or — best of all — unconscious by the time I ascended the stairs. But she stood small and calm by the high window. And a bit fat and very pretty, I thought. I saw with pain that her denim satchel still hung on her poor shoulders.
‘Has he gone?’ she asked, without turning round.
Turn round when you talk to me. ‘I’m afraid he has,’ I said.
She turned now.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling the air buzz. ‘I’m sorry if you’re upset.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said without emphasis.
‘He’s like that.’
‘Has he always been?’
‘No, he hasn’t. Come downstairs. He was nice once. Do you want to take a drink down? When he was young. Go on, I’m having one. He’s changed more than most people change. There you go, girl. I don’t know why. Come downstairs and talk. About things, about Gregory and me.’
(ii) Funnily enough, it gets quite
boring being chased and squabbled
over the entire time — GREGORY
‘Gregory speaking,’ I said with a voice that rustled.
‘Oh,’ said the telephone. ‘Gregory, it’s me. Miranda.’
‘Well?’
‘… How are you then?’
I examined my fingernails against the light — shiny almonds.
‘… Gregory?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Why are you being like this to me?’ she asked. ‘What’s gone wrong? Is it something I’ve done?’
‘Must I listen to sentences such as those?’
In expectation of hearing the usual wet sob or fat gulp, I pressed my ear so much the closer to the telephone. It came — a warm swallowing sound.
‘We’ve got to meet,’ she said.
‘Absolutely.’
‘You’ve got to see me.’
‘I certainly shall.’
‘… Can I come round then?’
‘Do,’ I said, replacing the receiver, my long fingers lingering on the dial.
And so I considered how to invest this cool deliverance of an evening, this sudden cargo of hours, standing at my penthouse window, gazing at a winter roofscape that seemed once more to be crowded with secrets and friends.
