The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis Read Free Book Online

wife. Norman wasn't, however, what's known as a 'right', or a 'real' bastard, for the simple reason that he made money; real bastards are penniless bastards. This was the first time I had seen them together, except for the wedding. They had seemed okay last night.
    Did it matter, for instance, that Jenny had had over five years of higher education and that Norman would probably be all thumbs with the Daily Mail? And there was no point in forgetting the class difference - or at least there was no point in forgetting it where married couples were concerned. Jenny couldn't really see much of her own friends; she must bitch about it. And, as in any class battle, the social inferior tends to feel a bit of a crusading visionary and thinks he can therefore be as shitty as he likes.
    'Look, I'll tell you,' began Norman, handing me my second pint and sipping on his fourth. 'Say she's you, right? And you're her. Say this tart was ringing you up. You'd got a lot of tarts on so you're not worried, so you play it easy. What would she say that would get you interested, make you drop all the others and pull her? Now if she wanted to get you going, she wouldn't say "Oh Charles, fuck me," she'd say "Oh Charles, fuck you, fuck off," wouldn't she? Wouldn't she, to get you going?'
    I thought for a moment. 'What, I ring Rachel up and tell her to fuck off?' I asked, genuinely wanting to know.
    Norman looked at me askance, as who should say 'Do you want your head kicked in?' What he actually said was, 'No. Just be flash. I see you —' he made up-and-down motions with his hand - 'wankers, tripping on your cocks, falling over backwards, makes me sick. They don't like it either. Be flash - act like you couldn't give a fuck and she'll ... be ... begging for it.'
    He finished his yawn, then leapt up, stretched, and, mouth sleepily ajar, consulted his saucer-sized, many-dialled watch (of the kind favoured by scuba divers, pot-holers, etc.).
    'I'm going up Chalk Farm.'
    'Shall I tell Jen?'
    'If you want.'
    'See you later. When'll you be back?'
    'Search me.'
    I had intended to ring Rachel the minute Norman was out of the way, but it didn't seem so easy now. I sighed. Could I be bothered to make some notes ? Perhaps some coffee to get me thinking straight. My eyes went slowly round the room. Like the rest of the house it was filled mostly with Norman's old furniture: monstrous gauzy sofa, selection of geriatric armchairs. I could see that Jenny was sifting these out in favour of more upper-class items, with the folky bare-wood sideboards, velvet dwarf thrones, with its something-I-picked-up here and its got-it-for-thirty-bob there: tastefully timeless. In the corner, to the right of the sliding door, the grandfather clock -which, naturally, had once belonged to my grandfather -struck one. (I say 'naturally' because this is how it always is with me. In my world, reserved Italians, heterosexual hairdressers, clouds without silver linings, ignoble savages, hardhearted whores, advantageous ill-winds, sober Irishmen, and so on, are not permitted to exist. Nothing I can do about it.)
    *
    The other time I saw Norman was at the wedding - my first, by the way. The celebration took the form of a champagne party at a hotel followed by an intimate dinner at Norm's house (in which Jenny had long been established); caterers laid on by my father handled it all. I got extremely drunk extremely early on, so I remember the evening none too well; but apparently the thing was that my father and elder brother had gone and 'insulted' Norman. According to his bride, what happened was this. Norman was approached by Gordon and Mark Highway. My father hailed him :
    'Ah, Norman, wonder if you'd mind settling something, wonder if you'd mind telling Mark here and myself your mother's maiden name.'
    'Levi,' he truthfully replied.
    My father had then said to my brother as they walked away, 'Looks like I owe you a fiver.'
    However it happened, Norman took it very deeply and studiedly. As