Free Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis Page A

deliverance from New York. Far and wide did I roam. Ten o'clock and you're closed?' I heard myself yelling. This is fucking JFK, pal!' By that time I had a couple of navy-blue serge lapels in my fists. The guy reopened the duty-free counter and sold me a pint. I sat drinking it in the departure lounge. Boarding began, first class first. I stood up and entered the tube.
    And continued to travel deeper into the tubed night — to travel through the night as the night came the other way, making its violent sweep across the earth. I drank champagne in the wide red throne, friendless in the plane's eye, tastefully curtained off from the coughing, snoring, shrieking, weeping, birth-giving innards of Business, Trimmer and Economy. How I hate my life. I called for divining cards. I've got to stop being young. Why ? It's killing me, being young is fucking killing me. I ate my dinner. I watched the film — they gave me a choice and I caught Pookie: it was terrible, and old Lorne looked like shit. What happened out there, with Fielding and Butch? Ay, keep it away! Don't let it touch me. I can't give it headroom. I've got to grow up. It's time

2

    COME ON, JOHN, what's it feel like? You're one of the top commercial directors in the country, you're only thirty-five, you're about to make your first feature, you're working with people like Lorne Guyland and Butch Beausoleil. Come on, John — what's it feel like?'
    Actually it didn't feel like anything. It just felt like I was in London again, dumped out of the sky into nothing weather. It didn't feel like anything, but I sipped my beer, smiled at the microphone, and said, 'Well, fantastic, Bill, obviously. Making your first film, it's never easy, but I've got a really good feeling about this project. Things are looking really good.'
    'You're telling me. You must feel bloody marvellous.'
    'The future certainly looks bright.'
    Bill is the London stringer of Box Office, the Hollywood trade — hence his celebratory tone. I don't think Bill was feeling very celebratory this morning, though. Exulting in my success looked like pretty hard work. But that's what they paid him for.
    'Fill us in a little. Will you be writing the script?'
    'Me? Are you kidding? No, the idea is mine, but we'll be using a, the American writer Doris Arthur' — Bill nodded — 'to develop the screenplay. Originally the film was set in London. Now it's New York, so we need a writer who can speak American.'
    Tell me, how do you feel about the prospect of working with Lorne Guyland? Excited?'
    No doubt there was irony here, but I said, 'Very excited. Really thrilled. I'm looking to Lorne to help me over this hurdle — Lorne, with his years of experience and his—Hang on. You'd better not put that. Try this. Uh, Lorne is a true professional, one of the old school. Wait. You'd better not put that either. Just say he's a true professional, okay?'
    'What about Butch Beausoleil?'
    'The big thing about Butch is that she's not just a dumb blonde.
    She looks like a million dollars but she's also a very intelligent and sensitive young woman. I think she's got a great future in our industry.'
    'Last question. Money.'
    'Well, as I said, Fielding Goodney is the money genius. This is his first feature too, but he's had a lot of experience in, in money. We're going to bypass the big studios until the distribution stage. We've got this quorum of medium-sized investors. Some of the money will be coming from California, some from Germany and Japan. As you know, this is the new thing in funding.'
    'That's right. What's the budget? Six?'
    'Twelve.'
    'Christ. It's all right for some, isn't it.'
    'Yup.'
    Bill then buggered off, thank God, and I strolled back to the bar with my empty mug. Eleven-thirty, Sunday morning, the Shakespeare. In the booze-lined defile under the bendy mirror, Fat Vince and Fat Paul, two generations of handyman-and-bouncer talent, assembled beer crates with simian stoop. Fat Paul straightened up and I looked into his