Russell Hoban - Angelica's Grotto

‘Freshening your breath for the love scenes?’ said Leslie.

‘What love scenes?’

Leslie took off the bottom of the shell suit to reveal his bulging Y-fronts. ‘One thing kind of leads to another, Grandad. We can do this in easy stages. Take out your dentures and let’s get started.’

‘You’re going to do to me what you did to Monica?’

‘You got it.’

‘I have to say that I’m curious: how can you find me attractive enough to get it up?’

‘It’s all in the mind. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Once you start talking about it you could lose it.’

‘Have you ever lost it?’

‘Nobody’s perfect.’ His Y-fronts looked eager.

‘Be still, my beating heart,’ said Klein, and did the glyceryl trinitrate again.

‘How many times you going to do that, Grandad?’

‘Leslie, this is not a breath-freshener — it’s glyceryl trinitrate.’

‘What are you going to do, open safes with your tongue?’

‘Very funny. It’s for heart trouble, and if you don’t want to end up with a snuff movie I think you’d better let me out.’

‘What’s the matter, don’t you fancy me?’

‘I’m telling you the truth; I’ve already had one myocardial infarction and a triple bypass and right now I’m getting heavy angina. What do you want, a note from my mother?’

‘OK, Grandad, I’m convinced. Actually, no offence but I wasn’t looking forward to it all that much.’ Leslie switched off the lights and put his talent back into the shell suit. ‘I told her that sex with OAPs was too kinky for me but no, she’s against ageism. You want me to call an ambulance?’

‘Thanks, but I think I’ll be all right if I just sit quietly for a few minutes.’

‘Al, pull over and park by the tube station,’ said Leslie. To Klein, ‘You mind if I smoke?’

‘Perhaps you could open the doors and let some air in while you do it.’

The cold air felt good to Klein, like a breath of sanity. Leslie lit up, took a deep drag, and blew smoke out into the night. ‘Now I’m curious,’ he said. ‘What did you think was going to happen when you turned up tonight?’

‘I thought I was going to meet this woman who calls herself Angelica and we’d go somewhere and talk.’

‘Maybe a little more than talk, right? Maybe get some geriatric jollies, eh?’

Klein shrugged.

‘You want to be careful surfing the Internet, Grandad — it’s a jungle out here in cyberspace. Best not believe everything you’re told.’

‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ said Klein. ‘You do this sort of thing often?’

‘Depends on what she’s into with her research.’

‘Research for what — a book?’

‘She doesn’t want me to talk about it.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘I’m not meant to give that out.’

‘How much is she paying you for tonight?’

‘Two hundred.’

‘I’ll pay you two hundred for her name.’

‘You must want it pretty bad.’

‘I’d like a level playing-field, that’s all. Will you tell me what her full name is?’

‘Have you got two hundred quid on you?’

‘All I’ve got is a tenner and some change. Will you take a cheque?’

‘If I take a cheque I want to know where you live. We can drop you off at your place and I want to see you unlock the door and go inside.’

‘I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to show you where I live.’

‘You think I’m going to come and rob you?’

‘No.’

‘Sneak in when you’re out and bug the place? What?’

‘It’s not you I’m worried about — it’s the one who calls herself Angelica; you’ll tell her where I live and I won’t feel easy about that until I know where she lives.’

‘So how are you going to pay me for her name?’

‘I’ll get out here and go home by tube and I’ll meet you here at the Temple Bar Restaurant tomorrow with two hundred cash. Afternoon all right for you, say four o’clock?’

‘Now I’m wondering how good an idea that is for me.’

‘What could be bad? All I want to do is give you two hundred quid for a name.’

‘Maybe you won’t show up alone. Maybe I could come out of this with grievous bodily harm.’

‘I give you my word that I’ll be alone.’

‘You might change your mind between now and tomorrow; you might think back to what I was going to do to you and get really pissed off. That kind of thing happens.’

‘Well, what do you suggest then?’

‘OK, I’ll take a chance on you. Tomorrow night at ten be standing in the same place where we picked you up tonight. You hand me the money, I’ll give you her name.’

‘Good. See you tomorrow then.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

They shook hands and Klein got out. As the van pulled away he noted the number and wrote it down, then he switched off the microcassette.

‘It’s a jungle out here in cyberspace,’ said Klein to himself. He was looking across the river at the building that said OXO. ‘I’m remembering the quarry in Wendell’s Woods. So deep and green and cold that water was.’ He saw it closing over his head as he went down, down into the chill and the darkness. ‘I can’t remember the name of the dog. I was with Bill Muller and Freddie Schulz. Freddie’s dog was with us. I must have been nine or so. We went to the old quarry — I don’t know what they’d quarried there but it was deep and full of water. The side where we were was a sort of clifftop twenty feet above the water but you could climb down if you were careful. There was no cliff on the other side, just flat rocks. The dog went down to a little ledge just above the water and he wouldn’t come back up when Freddie called him. ‘I’ll get him,’ I said. I don’t know why I didn’t leave it to Freddie. I climbed down but I slipped and fell into the water with all my clothes on.

‘I could dog-paddle a little, and I swam back to the steep side where I’d fallen in. I could have swum across to the flat side but I was too panicked to think of that. I clung to the cliffside while Bill and Freddie went for help. There were two tramps living in a shack made of corrugated iron and signs that said PURINA CHOWS and RED MAN CHEWING TOBACCO. They came with a tow chain and let it down to me and pulled me back up. Why didn’t I swim across to the flat place? The dog got back up by itself. The next day my father brought the two tramps a hamper of food. I wonder if Wendell’s Woods and the quarry are still there. Maybe the quarry’s been filled in, the woods cleared and developed. How strange it is that places where I was young still exist! Can this time really be a continuation of that time?’

OXO, said the building across the river, backwards and forwards the same. ‘E621VGD,’ he’d written in his notebook as the van pulled away. ‘Ford Transit.’ He stood looking at the lights on the river, the boats coming and going. ‘Why did I get off my horse?’

When Klein got home he phoned Angelica. After three rings she picked up the phone. ‘Hello,’ said Klein.

‘What?’

‘It’s me, Ruggiero.’

‘Hang on, Ruggi.’ There were sighs and moans of pleasure from Angelica. ‘Oh yes!’ she breathed to an unknown partner. ‘Like that, keep doing it like that! So good, so …!’ Her orgasm followed with appropriate crescendos and diminuendos, duly noted by the little red light on the telephone recorder, then there were murmurs of satisfaction and endearment from her voice and that of another female. Next he heard glasses being filled, heard the two of them drinking with pauses for kisses and fondling and laughter.