Early Amis fiction

"Remembering the lipstick, he doubles up laughing, “I was so bad at it. At duplicity.” But he wasn’t, he was very cunning. There was a dinner at a Greek place in Charlotte Street with Clive James and the critic Lorna Sage, when I thought that Martin and Lorna were doing more than just sitting side by side, and after picking up the fork I’d dropped, had my suspicions confirmed. Tears and recriminations later were a waste of energy, because Martin’s defence tactic was to turn the tables of blame, attacking me for making an issue out of something so unimportant. This was Martin at his worst—nasty, facetious and belittling—and I didn’t have the confidence then to know that his behaviour was unacceptable, not mine.... His notes to me from this period until the end of the year are almost all alibis. All-night poker sessions with Tony Hard-On [Anthony Holden] were the most convincing, provided his tracks were covered (eg,“Don’t tell Rob abt poker ’cos he’ll bitch abt not being asked”)."

— from Julie Kavenagh's piece in Intelligent Life about being romanced and deceived by Martin Amis. The current issue also contains my article on great writer drunks but they haven't posted it online, presumably because their sales would plummet unmercifully if they they did.