Angelica's Grotto (15 page)

‘Yes. Is that allowed?’

‘You’d rather not talk about Leslie?’

‘I think we’ve pretty well covered all my Leslie material for the time being.
Do
you use the Internet?’

‘Sometimes, mainly for research – libraries and so on.’

‘Oh yes. Ever check out Angelica’s Grotto?’

‘I did after you told me about it.’

‘What do you think of it?’

‘It’s very time-consuming.’

‘I know; sometimes it takes for ever for those thumbnails to load. But did you enjoy it?’

‘Not really; I’ve never been much interested in pornography.’

‘You haven’t gone back for another look?’

‘No.’

‘I guess I believe you although it isn’t easy. Are you married, Dr DeVere?’

‘Yes. Could we get back to Leslie for a moment? Why had he planned a video session in the van with you?’

‘Because Melissa told him to. That’s the name I paid for; she’s the one who runs the Angelica’s Grotto website.’

‘And Melissa – what was her reason for wanting it done?’

‘Research, evidently. Have you heard of an organisation called Leeuwenhoek?’

‘Yes, the Leeuwenhoek Institute.’

‘What’s their field of interest?’

‘Their prospectus says they’re “dedicated to the ongoing exploration of the human microcosm”.’

‘And the examination of animalcules like me, I bet. “Subject K, seventy-two-year-old art historian, presented with loss of ‘inner voice’ …”.’

‘Let’s not lose the thread of your story, Mr Klein.’

‘By this time I should think you’d call me Harold.’

‘All right, Harold. We’ve got up to the matter of Melissa’s research. Is she on a grant from Leeuwenhoek?’

‘Yes. What’s your first name?’

‘Leon.’

‘OK, Leon, she’s on a Leeuwenhoek grant and I gather that she’s doing a study of emotional dysfunction in male/female transactions. But I want to get back to what Oannes has been saying.’

‘It’s just that you seem to be leaving out so much that I’m having difficulty in putting it all together.’

‘Fear not, I’ll fill you in later. I was guessing from the Monica story and the place where Leslie met me that Melissa was either a student or on the staff at King’s College, so I decided to go looking for her. That’s when Oannes said, “Hoka hey.”’

‘“Hoka hey?”’

‘“Hoka hey. It is a good day to die.” That’s what Crazy Horse used to say when riding into battle.’

‘Like, “Here we go, here we go, here we go.”’

‘Right. I went to King’s College and there was the van parked but not locked, so I got into the back and covered myself with a blanket. After a while Melissa and Leslie turned up and off we went. It didn’t take long for them to find me and they were going to dump me but I’d recorded our conversations and we did some negotiating and Leslie agreed to drop Melissa and me off at my place for some one-to-one.’

‘I assume you’ll go into that van trip in more detail in due course.’

‘Sure. I was wanting to kiss Melissa and she said OK and then Oannes said, “Madness is good.”’ So we went on from there and a little later he said, “Yum yum.” The next thing he said was, “Gee baby.”

‘Apropos of what?’

‘She was raping me.’

‘Melissa
was.’

‘With a dildo.’

‘And you said…’

‘Oannes
said…’

‘“Gee baby.”’ Dr DeVere was copying down all the quotes from Oannes. ‘Next?’

‘Next evening we were talking onscreen about what happened. Melissa was asking tough questions and I was having a hard time answering and Oannes said, “Go with it.” With what? I asked him, and he said, “Anything.” He was about to include the Oannes remarks at the beginning of the session but decided not to. ‘That’s it from Oannes so far.’

Madness is the natural state,
said Oannes.

‘He just said, “Madness is the natural state,”’ said Klein.

Dr DeVere wrote down the last quotes, massaged his face a little, and said, ‘I remember, in our first session, telling you to meet Oannes halfway. But now I’m wondering whether you haven’t gone more than halfway. The old inner voice functioned as a useful censor but with Oannes it seems that anything goes. Jekyll and Hyde come to mind just a teentsy bit.’

‘The Spencer Tracy one or the Frederic March?’

‘Does it matter? Actually I was thinking of the book.’

‘In the later film version Spencer Tracy had scarier teeth and Ingrid Bergman. Frederic March’s Hyde was more refined and the fiancee was very appealing although I can’t remember her name. Stevenson pre-dated Freud, didn’t he?’

‘I guess so, but can we stick to the point which was the growing influence of your Oannes aspect.’

‘Look, Leon – I’m not some kind of split personality; Oannes has the same relation to me that your opponent does if you play chess against yourself. The voice of Oannes comes from the part of me that assumes that persona in order to speak my Oannes thoughts. I’m trying not to sound crazy but on the other hand, madness
is
the natural state, wouldn’t you say? Sanity is a trick we learn somewhere along the way, like how to use knives
and forks. Although it hasn’t said very much so far I’m hearing an inner voice again and it’s telling me new things. Shouldn’t we be pleased about that?’

‘Mmmm.’

‘Mmmm what?’

‘It’s a question of what
kind
of new things it’s telling you. In our first session when I said that Oannes was the Babylonian god of wisdom you said that you saw him as something else – I think I have the exact words.’ He went through his notes. ‘“Deeper and darker than wisdom – he’s nothing safe, nothing explicable.”’

‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘And you’ve just said only a moment ago that you recognise your Oannes as coming from the part of you that speaks the Oannes thoughts. So what we’re talking about are new thoughts, a new outlook that’s
you.
Makes no difference whether you call this outlook Oannes or Popeye the Sailor – what we have here is a new you who’s dumped the old censor and is listening to the voice of “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”’

‘Alesteir Crowley – I’ve thought of that too. I’ve even written that thought down.’

‘So a little caution might be in order.’

‘Yes, Dad, I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘Do. Would you now like to fill in the bits you left out in your Oannes update?’

Klein filled him in. Dr DeVere nodded, shook his head, rubbed his face, made notes when necessary, and looked at
Roger and Angelica
from time to time. When Klein had joined up all the dots and coloured in the whole picture, DeVere sighed and said, ‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘I don’t know. Clearly I’m an old fool but maybe folly is the reward for having lived long enough to be old.’

‘Please, don’t dazzle me with footwork.’

‘I’m not. I can’t get her out my mind, can’t get the feel of her out of my hands, the taste of her out of my mouth. I want that canary to sing even if it can’t carry a tune.’

‘Down, Oannes!’

‘Up yours, Doc’

‘You intend to see her again? Foolish question, I suppose. I keep thinking I’m here to help you and wondering if I can.’

‘Do you remember the end of
Dr Strangelove,
with Slim Pickens whooping and hollering as he rides the bomb all the way down? Jumping off wouldn’t have done much good, would it?’

‘You and your movies!’ DeVere looked at his watch like a boxer listening for the bell. Finally, after trying several facial expressions, he found one that felt workable, cleared his throat, and said, ‘Oannes might well be right when he says that madness is the natural state but you must admit that the knife-and-forkery of daily life is a useful survival trick.’

‘The question is: survival for what?’

‘For the life you had before Angelica’s Grotto and Melissa. For the work you do.’

‘Really. I’ve shut myself up in a room and devoted my days and nights to other people’s work. Would you call that a good life?’

‘Time’s up. We can go into that in the next session.’

‘Saved by the bell, eh Doc? Righty-oh. I’ll send you a postcard.’

‘From where?’

‘I don’t know – maybe the Canary Islands.’

Dr DeVere shook his head, made a final note:
Madness – the natural state?

‘Oannes, old thing,’ said Klein. ‘Why are you so sparing with your speech? What would it cost you to let me have a few more words now and then? On the other hand, forget that I said that; I live in fear of what you’ll make me do next.’ For a moment he saw Oannes hovering in the darkness, his long length undulating slowly, his dim face impassive. ‘Are your eyes closed? Oh God, what if they should suddenly open and look straight at me? Don’t tell me anything right now, OK? Why was I so aggressive with Dr DeVere? Hoka hey but I really must watch my mouth. Never mind. Be bold, Klein.
Toujours audace.
Let’s go find Melissa.’

Ordinarily he had a nap after lunch but today he stayed awake, sharp and alert as he stepped out into the world. The day was sunny and cold, a day for travel and adventure. At Fulham Broadway cars and motorcycles snarled as the lights changed from red to amber. An eastbound 14 Bus loomed, gigantically red. Another 14 followed closely behind as if intent on coupling with the first. ‘Even the buses!’ said Klein. Crossing to the Underground station he felt wild and free and crazy.

VIRGIN STATUE WEEPS, said the headline at the newsstand outside the station. ‘As well it might,’ said Klein.
The entrance beckoned with its promise of darkness, its world of neither-here-nor-there.
‘Big Issue!’
shouted a vendor to those coming and going.

‘I know,’ said Klein. ‘It’s the biggest.’ He showed his pass and made his way down the stairs to the platform, holding on to the banister because of his vertigo. The sun stormed through the skylights like the eye of God. The board showed a Tower Hill train arriving in three minutes. Moving away from the others on the platform, Klein whispered into his hand.

‘Crazy Horse,’ he said, ‘I’m talking to you. In yesterday’s
Times
there was a photograph of the model for the Crazy Horse memorial they’re carving out of a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The caption says they’re using supersonic torches, whatever they are. Probably pneumatic drills and dynamite as well. It’s going to be the world’s largest sculpture, bigger than Mount Rushmore. They’ve been working on it for fifty years and it might take another hundred to finish. The model looks like the kind of thing you’d see in brightly coloured china on the bric-à-brac shelf of a caravan.’

‘Wheats-yew!’ cried the rails as the train approached.

‘Over and out,’ said Klein as the doors opened and he found a seat. He looked at the faces opposite, put his hand over his mouth, and whispered, ‘Every one of them is thinking something. I don’t want to be surrounded by all those thoughts.’

The silence rumbled, shook, and rattled until the train arrived at Temple. He got out at the now-familiar station with its Temple Bar Restaurant,
Economist
newsstand, fruit and veg, flowers, and
Big Issue
vendor. The day was holding steady at sunny and cold, travel and adventure. He checked the river, found it auspicious.

He walked once more past the Howard Hotel, its top-hatted doorman stern and dashing with his white gloves on his left shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’ said Klein.

‘Slow,’ said the doorman.

Klein turned into Surrey Street, passed HAZCHEM and the Roman baths, and climbed slowly towards the Strand. After the Norfolk Hotel building he paused at the one that said PICCADILLY RLY, ENTRANCE and EXIT. ‘RLY,’ he said. ‘Royal London what? Yoghurt? Youth? Yearning? Yurts? If I don’t find out I might fall through the lattice.’

Outside the glass front of what was clearly King’s College Reception he paused and swiftly muttered two or three rehearsals under his breath, then walked in, went up to the counter, and said to the young woman who sat at a computer screen, ‘What room would Melissa Bottomley be in at this time of day?’

‘Is she staff or student? I’m new here.’

‘She’s a lecturer but I can’t remember the name of the course.’

‘I’ll have a look.’ She did some keyboard work, then said, ‘The Politics of Language, Room 231, second floor. I don’t know if she’s lecturing now or not.’

‘Thank you. I’ll go up and have a look.’ As he turned towards the lift he whispered into his hand, ‘So suave!’

On the second floor he found buff-coloured bricks, pigeonholes, a notice board, NO SMOKING, and a perspective of square illuminations in the ceiling. There was a smell of an unknown disinfectant or cleaning agent. Workmen came and went into and out of a taped-off area at one end of the hall. A pretty brown-haired girl in jeans was sitting in a chair and writing in a notebook. ‘Is it that all the plain ones have gone away?’ Klein whispered into
his hand. The girl looked up with a dazzling smile. ‘Room 231?’ he said.

‘Just down there.’ She pointed.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and went as directed.

‘I think of Melissa’s voice,’ he whispered, ‘and I think of her nakedness in my hands.’

The door of Room 231 had two narrow vertical windows one above the other. He looked in, saw Melissa lecturing, and opened the door a tiny crack.

‘… on the tongue, to produce Mr Punch’s voice,’ she was saying, ‘is now called a swazzle but in Mayhew’s day the Punchmen referred to it as an “unknown tongue” which is interesting I think. Listen to this, from
London Labour and the London Poor,
published in 1861. Here a Punchman is telling Mayhew about the Punch and Judy show as performed by an earlier showman, Porsini:

‘“At first, the performance was quite different then to what it is now. It was all sentimental then, and very touching to the feelings, and full of good morals. The first part was only made up of the killing of his wife and babby, and the second with the execution of the hangman and killing of the devil – that was the original idea of Punch, handed down to prosperity for eight hundred years. The killing of the devil makes it one of the most moral plays as is, for it stops Satan’s career of life, and then we can all do as we likes afterwards.” Anyone have any thoughts on that?’ A hand was raised by a young woman with a baggy jumper and black hair in one long plait down her back. ‘Sarah?’