Russell Hoban - Angelica's Grotto

Dr DeVere kept respectfully silent for a few moments. ‘It’s good that you could get that out,’ he said.

‘Is it? I almost don’t know who I am. I try to think of how I came to this and it’s hard to believe how it all began. I read this lousy piece in The Times and Boom! my world fell apart.’

‘Ronnie Laing said some good things in his time: one of them was, “The breakdown can be the breakthrough.”’

‘Depends on what you break through to, I should think.’

‘What do you think you’ve broken through to?’

‘Way back in our first session — it seems a hundred years ago — you brought up Georg Groddeck and his theory of the It. When I wasn’t too impressed by that idea you asked me to visualise a speaker in my head other than myself and I named Oannes. It looks to me now as if he’s the It that’s been living me and I’m not too happy with it.’

‘Why not?’

‘My involvement with Melissa Bottomley became an obsession; I got to a point where I wanted whatever I could have with her at any cost. Her Leeuwenhoek money is almost gone and she needs funding to continue this study she’s doing. I told her I’d help her with that.’

‘Can you afford to?’

‘I own an original Redon that’s going to be auctioned at Christie’s for quite a bit of money.’

‘Maybe you could fund the NHS — they’re always coming up short.’

‘Very funny, Leon.’

‘Sorry. You were saying?’

‘Well, I got carried away and told her I might give her some money for her study. I didn’t say how much.’

‘So if you’re going to be coming into some money, what’s the problem?’

‘I’m not sure I want to give her anything now. That painting was going to be converted to money for Hannelore and me to enjoy. Now Hannelore’s dead, and in exchange for sexual treats and a bit of conversation now and then I’ve promised money to this woman who has only contempt for me.’

‘When you spoke about your obsession with Melissa Bottomley you used the past tense. Are you no longer obsessed with her?’

‘No, I’m not. Long before this I could see her for the cold and calculating bitch she is but I was more or less under her spell. Now that spell is broken.’

‘So you’re not having anything to do with her from now on?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Why not?’

‘She gets to me in all kinds of ways: that first time she came to my house, we were standing outside on the pavement and she laid her head on my shoulder and said, “I’m not sure what I am; sometimes I’m not sure if I am.” When I expressed surprise she said, “Nobody is the same all the way through like a stick of seaside rock. Or from moment to moment.” Then she asked me to hug her and she said, “You’re older than my father.”’

Dr DeVere waited for more but Klein folded his arms and was silent, as if he had just presented an irrefutable argument. ‘She’s not the same all the way through,’ he whispered into his hand.

‘What did you just whisper?’ said Dr DeVere.

‘“She’s not the same all the way through.”’

‘I see. But you’re no longer obsessed with her.’

‘No.’

‘Could it be that you’re in love with her?’

‘That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it.’

‘“Ridiculous” is not a word I throw around very much. Are you in love with her?’

‘“I’m only happy when it’s complicated.”’

‘Are you happy?’

‘That’s a line from a song.’

‘Which you quoted because …?’

‘It is complicated and I’m confused. I know I’m nothing to her. At first I was just data for her study but I couldn’t leave it at that; I wasn’t satisfied with a voice on the phone or words on the screen, I wanted to meet her face-to-face, wanted to talk to her as real people do. Then when she set me up to be raped by Leslie I wanted to get back at her somehow so I hid in the van and kind of blackmailed her into coming to my house, but after that bit of intimacy …’

‘Are you talking about the intimacy on the pavement or the oral and anal intimacy in the house?’

‘All of it. I’m nothing to her and yet I am something; I think there must be some unfinished business with her father that she’s working out with me.’

‘And of course you’re working out various things with her, or just one big thing really.’

‘Which is,’

‘You tell me.’

‘How I feel about women?’

‘You said it.’

‘Are you familiar with the work of Bruno Schulz?’

‘Yes, and I’ve been wondering if gynocracy was going to come into this. Is that part of the action with her?’

‘Yes, but even when we get into that there’s something touching about her. She’s obviously got all kinds of personal hangups — maybe as many as I do — and she’s not very nice but with this study of hers she’s trying to find real answers to questions that don’t always get asked; there’s not enough of that in the world.’

‘So you’re going to give her the money you promised?’

‘I don’t see how I can welsh on that promise. Of course I still have to work out how much.’

‘What about Oannes? Are you still getting one-liners? The last thing I have is “Madness is the natural state.”’

Klein consulted his Oannes list. ‘In the taxi on the way to Christie’s with the painting he said, “It goes,” meaning of course everything — everything goes until everything’s gone and that’s all she wrote. The next thing from him was in the Peacock Theatre where I went to see Tango por Dos. In the bar before the show started I was whispering to myself about an item I’d seen in the Observer — people reporting sightings of the Grim Reaper; I was recalling a drawing by Alfred Rethel, entitled ‘Death as a friend’, and thinking about Hannelore. I started to cry and a woman asked me if I was all right and I made a verbal pass at her and when I got back to Oannes he said, “Death as a friend.”’

‘As a friend to whom?’

‘He probably meant me; he’s given to innuendo.’

‘Do you think about death much?’

‘Well, I’m seventy-two and not in good health; I’m surprised that I’ve lived this long — I never expected to. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in hospital and I don’t want to die with all kinds of tubes coming into and out of me. It’s the final landfall and I’d like to fetch a good one, maybe die in the middle of a really classy paragraph or a wholly improper act. But not in hospital.’

‘I can understand that. What else has Oannes said?’

‘“Wild thing.” We were talking about my Schulzian tendencies. He was taking the piss of course; he doesn’t let me get away with much.’

‘You and I haven’t talked about your Schulzian tendencies — today is the first time you’ve mentioned them.’

‘Oannes made that remark after I asked myself or him whether there was in all men a secret desire to abase themselves at the feet of a woman who has contempt for them. I was wondering whether I was naturally depraved and losing control of myself. That’s when he said, “Wild thing.”’

‘Had you abased yourself at Melissa’s feet?’

‘Here we go, spelling out every fucking thing. When did you first begin to do your living vicariously?’

‘What makes you think self-abasement is my idea of living?’

‘Sorry, Leon — I was forgetting my place. Yes, I abased myself at Melissa’s feet. Do you want her shoe size?’

‘No, my question is, do you think you’re naturally depraved?’

‘I was wondering about that at the time but not now. I don’t think I’m depraved and I do think there are all kinds of urges in everybody but