Russell Hoban - Angelica's Grotto

Klein obeyed, first putting on the Monteverdi track. Melissa sat in the TV chair, exposing her thighs and suspenders, took him across her knees, and smacked his bare bottom hard, again and again while the golden voice of Emma Kirkby rose and fell on behalf of all hard-done-by women.

‘What a miserable-looking bum you’ve got,’ she said as she spanked him.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Klein. ‘I wish it were nicer for you and I wish it were raining.’

‘Little pervert!’

I’m only happy when it’s complicated, said Oannes.

‘Get me a drink,’ she said when she’d finished: ‘whisky, and don’t get dressed — I’m not through with you yet.’

When Klein came back from the kitchen she had the Bruno Schulz book open on her lap. She accepted the drink without a thank-you and extended her booted left foot. ‘Put your neck under my foot,’ she said.

Klein obeyed and she rolled his neck back and forth for a few moments. ‘You can imagine me being mounted by a stallion,’ she said. ‘You can imagine my screams and the neighing of the horse.’

Klein imagined. ‘Who ever thought we’d get this far this fast?’

‘You obviously did. I notice the wall’s bare where the Redon used to hang. Tell me about that.’

‘I’m still not ready, Lola.’

‘I see. There’s no rest for Lola, is there. Face-down on the floor with you, Prof.’ She removed her pullover and her bra, took the necessary equipment from her shoulder bag.

‘Please be gentle,’ he said.

‘No way, Prof.’ She buckled it on and went to work.

‘Right,’ she said, fastening her bra and vanishing into the pullover, ‘you can pop your things on now.’

‘Have you ever trained as a nurse?’

‘No. Why?’

‘No reason, it just popped into my head.’

‘Pour me another drink and have one yourself, why don’t you.’

He poured. He drank. He admired her stockinged legs, her shiny black boots, her white thighs and black suspenders, l’origine du monde between her legs.

‘Poor little Prof! Would you like a kiss now that your punishment’s over?’

‘Yes, please.’

She took him in her arms. Her whisky-flavoured mouth was delicious, her tongue inventive. When she released him he said, ‘It’s just business for you, though, isn’t it?’

‘Everything’s business in one way or another, Harold. Now let’s talk about the Redon. Where is it?’

‘How can you be so cynical so young, Melissa?’

‘I’m not cynical, I’m educated, that’s all.’

‘Do you really think you can be impartial in your study of emotional dysfunction in male/female transactions?’

‘I don’t have to be — my questions will be there with the answers they elicit, so I’m not hiding anything and my conclusions are admittedly subjective. Now, where’s the Redon?’

‘At Christie’s.’

‘You’re going to auction it?’

‘That’s what they do.’

‘Aha! And what’s their estimate?’

‘Give me another business kiss.’

She gave it. ‘Now tell me,’ she said.

‘Five to seven hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Nice one, Harold!’ She kissed him again. ‘How soon will it happen?’

‘Ten weeks.’

‘I’m so excited!’ She hugged him.

‘I’m glad you’re pleased,’ he said, clasping her bottom.

‘Actually,’ Hannelore had said two or three centuries ago, ‘I don’t like that painting all that much. I don’t like pictures that are symbolic of something. If you’re going to paint a horse, study horse anatomy and do it the George Stubbs way. The best thing about this painting is the money it’ll be worth when we’re old. We can sell it and do some travelling on the proceeds.’

‘You’ll never be old,’ said Klein to Hannelore.

‘Why not?’ said Melissa. ‘Do you think I’ll die young?’

RRRRAAAAARRGH! said Oannes, and flashed a picture through Klein’s brain.

‘No!’ said Klein.

‘Or did you mean age cannot wither me, nor custom stale?’

‘What?’

‘Pull yourself together, Harold. We were talking about the Redon.’

‘Five to seven hundred thousand pounds.’

‘You said that already.’

‘What was the question?’

‘I haven’t asked the next one yet. Are you all right?’

‘Would you excuse me while I whisper into my hand a little?’

‘Private thoughts, eh? Carry on — I’ll do a little more drinking while you’re thinking.’

Klein went to his desk, whispered, ‘Stop it, Oannes,’ and hurried to put another picture in his mind. He loaded his National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue into the CD-ROM drive, put Ingres’s Ruggiero and Angelica up on the screen, then slid over to Oedipus and the Sphinx. ‘I’d forgotten how shadowy she is,’ he whispered. He went to the shelves, took down Meisterwerke der Erotischen Kunst, turned to Der Kuss der Sphinx by Franz von Stuck, contemplated the powerful beast-woman crushing the naked traveller to her breasts as he yielded to her kiss. ‘What happens next in this picture?’ he wondered without whispering, ‘Why am I thinking sphinx?’

‘Why don’t you give art history a rest, Harold?’ said Melissa as she freshened her drink. ‘There are practical matters for us to talk about.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘in a moment.’ There were various things leaning against a wall in the order of their last viewing; he moved a portfolio to reveal a framed black-and-white wet pastel: Sphinx by Quentin Blake. The artist had first brushed water on to the paper in the approximate shape of the figure which he then drew with black pastel; he pushed the drawing about with his finger, then further defined it with his fingernail.

The figure was that of a naked young woman, three-quarter front view, her knees on the floor and her hands on a bed. The drawing stopped at mid-thigh; the bed was only a darkness that she leant on. From the waist up she was in shadow, her head and shoulders and arms shaped of darkness, her face lost in obscurity. The curve of her back, the lithe roundness of hips and bottom drew the eye to the animality of her body; the darkness and thickening of the upper parts suggested a minotaur. The figure seemed as if it had been made to appear by the stripping away of its invisibility.

‘Looks as if she’s about to be buggered,’ said Melissa.

‘Thank you for that penetrating insight. Can you see anything else in it?’

‘Well, she looks as if she might be wearing half of a crop-top gorilla suit.’

‘Good job you’re not running an art-appreciation website.’

‘Why? What do you see that I don’t?’

‘Never mind — let’s get back to whatever you were saying before I took time out for thinking.’

‘Hey, listen, Prof — don’t do me any favours. You sound a little bored now that you’ve had your geriatric jollies. Maybe I should leave.’

‘I’m sorry, Melissa — my mind always jumps from one thing to another, sorting images and looking for connections. Don’t leave yet, please — I like having you around.’

‘OK, I’ll stay a bit longer. Have another drink and tell me about Christie’s. If the painting fetches five hundred thou, how much do you walk away with?’

He took a card out of his pocket. ‘Commission is on a sliding scale — the more money you bring in, the less commission they charge. If the hammer price is from £300,000 to £599,999 the commission would be six per cent.’

Melissa got her pocket calculator out. ‘Six per cent is £30,000. Leaves us with …’

‘Leaves me with …’

‘Four hundred and seventy thousand, which is not too bad.’

‘Don’t forget seventeen and a half per cent VAT on their commission …’