At quarter past ten a white van came down from the Strand and stopped beside him. The rear doors opened and a male voice said, ‘Hey, Ruggiero.’
Klein couldn’t see the driver, saw only the black man standing in the open doors. He looked athletic, was wearing a Nike shell suit and trainers.
Klein took the microcassette recorder out of the shoulder bag, started it, and put it in an upper pocket of his jacket. ‘Where’s Angelica?’ he said.
‘She’s in a meeting but I’ll be looking after you. I’m Leslie.’ Klein recognised him as the male lead in ‘Monica’s Monday Night’. Leslie took his arm and helped him into the van. As he closed the doors the interior was suddenly brilliantly lit. Klein saw the mattress on which Monica had done her stint. The lights looked professional and there was a videocamera on a tripod.
‘Your mobile studio,’ he said as the van moved out.
‘That’s it,’ said Leslie. ‘There’s been some great footage shot in here.’
‘You take pride in your work, do you?’
‘Well, the Good Lord gave me something to be proud of and there’s no point in hiding it under a bushel.’
‘Especially when there are so many more interesting hiding places, right?’
‘Right, Grandad. Would you say that somewhere in you there’s an old lady trying to get out?’
Klein had a mental picture of what the Good Lord had given Leslie and Leslie had given Monica. His left arm was feeling somewhat leaden and his heart seemed to be clutched by a heavy fist. ‘I’d say that somewhere in me there’s a dead man trying to get out.’ He reached for the glyceryl trinitrate and gave himself a double spray under the tongue.
‘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.
19
The Quarry
‘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?’
20
Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool
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.
‘Hello, Ruggi. Are you there?’ said Angelica.
‘Yes, I’m here.’
‘I must say, Ruggi, that I feel more than a little disappointed in you tonight. I was looking forward to a really interesting videotape and now Leslie tells me that you weren’t up to it.’
‘It wasn’t very nice of you to say you’d meet me and then set me up to be Monicaed.’
‘I never said I was very nice. I’m not even sure you’d like me if I were very nice. You do like me, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know that liking comes into it. Was the other voice your regular partner?’
‘Lydia? No, she just dropped in for some popcorn and a video and one thing led to another. I haven’t got a regular partner. “Every day is a winding road …” yes? Ahhh, Lydia! I have to go, Ruggi – she’s at me again. I’m sorry this isn’t a videophone but you can listen to us until I can give you my undivided attention. Or better still, I’ll give you a running commentary on what we’re up to, and all for the price of a local call. Happy Hour for you, Ruggi.’
‘Why not?’ said Klein. He listened and enjoyed.
‘Now, then, Ruggi,’ said Angelica when she and Lydia had reached an interval. ‘What shall we talk about?’
‘Perhaps we could start with why you wanted to do that to me.’
‘Do what to you?’
‘Leslie and the van: Harold’s Monday Night.’
‘Aha! Your real name! Not all that heroic, is it.’
‘Are you going to answer my question?’
‘Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t have enjoyed it?’
‘Enjoy it! I don’t think I’d have survived it.’
‘It might have been a good way to go, though, mightn’t it?’
‘So you were hoping for a snuff movie, were you?’
‘Please, Ruggi – I’m not a monster! I just wanted to see how you’d like what you found so entertaining when it was done to a woman. And really, that’s what you were expecting, wasn’t it? You wimped out at the last minute but you knew it was on the cards, right?’
‘No, I didn’t; I was expecting to meet you as arranged.’
‘I don’t believe you, Harold. When we arranged this rendezvous I gave you plenty of clues: same place, same time of a Monday night – everything but the rain, which was forecast but didn’t happen.’
‘I don’t think the way you do; you said you’d be there and it was you I expected to see when the van pulled up.’
‘Poor you! Can you really be that simple?’
‘Yes, I really can. Are you always devious, never simple?’
‘I’m devious in a simple way, Ruggi: you just can’t count on me for anything but trouble. Got to say goodbye now. Bye-bye.’
21
Noah’s ark
‘This is not a good time in my life,’ said Klein. ‘When was a good time?’ He saw the Hungerford Bridge over the shining evening river, the lights of boats coming and going, the Royal Festival Hall brilliant with expectation across the water, and Hannelore at his side. ‘Die Schöpfung,’ he said, ‘that was a good time.’ He put on the Berlin Philharmonic recording with von Karajan conducting, and the first bars of the orchestral prelude opened The Representation of Chaos. ‘What a beautiful chaos,’ he said: ‘so warm and dark and full of good things. 1970 that was, or 1971. Was that the same chaos that Oannes arose from? A different part of it maybe, not so black.’
The music lifted him out of the present, cradled him in the safety of that good time long gone. When the chorus reached ‘Und es ward Licht’ he wept as always, then hummed along with Fritz Wunderlich on the first day. When Gundula Janovitz made her entrance as Gabriel on the second day he wept some more, marvelling at the perfection of Haydn’s world that never grew old, never filled up with rubbish and defeat. ‘How beautiful London was at night, with its illuminated domes and spires and clocks,’ he said, ‘how shining the river!’
Gone, said his inner voice.
‘You spoke!’ said Klein. ‘That was you, wasn’t it, Oannes? You said, “Gone.” I’m sure it wasn’t me. Or was it?’
No answer.
‘If it was you, why did you speak then? What does it mean that you chose this moment to break your silence? I know very well that the good time is gone, so why do you need to belabour the obvious with that one word like the voice of doom? Are you trying to tell me something, like my life is no longer worth bothering with and I should pack it in? What?’
There came to Klein, dim and shadowy, lit by one bare light bulb, the cellar of the house he had lived in as a child. In it were a coal furnace, a coalbin, and a large black boiler lying down against a wall. Elsewhere in it were sledges, rolls of tar paper, various lumber, rakes, shovels, and mouldering bits of carpet. ‘My Noah’s ark,’ he said. ‘It had a red roof and Mr and Mrs Noah and the animals were printed on glossy paper glued to plywood shapes. I used to think it was lost behind the boiler. Why would it have been down there? I can’t remember. I still think that’s where it ended up. I looked under the boiler with a torch and I poked behind it with a stick but I always imagined huge spiders there and I never felt around for it with my hand. Even now, in dark corners of this country where I was never a child, I think of looking for my lost Noah’s ark. Are you with me, Oannes?’
No answer.
22
Third Session
‘My inner voice,’ said Klein, ‘it spoke. Oannes said a word.’
‘What was the word?’ said Dr DeVere.
‘“Gone”. I’d been talking to myself about how this was a bad time and I was remembering a good time when Hannelore and I went to the Royal Festival Hall for Die Schöpfung. That’s when he said, “Gone,” which of course they are – Hannelore and the good time both.’
‘Try to remember as precisely as you can: where was this voice coming from?’
‘From me, the same as it used to. I could feel the word in my throat.’
‘From inside your head, not from outside?’
‘Look, Doc, I’m not crazy. When I say that Oannes spoke I mean that that part of me spoke, OK?’
‘What did you think when you heard that word?’
‘I was wondering if he, if I was telling myself that I had nothing good to look forward to.’
‘And after that thought?’
‘After that I saw in my mind the Noah’s ark I lost as a child.’
‘Can you remember h
ow you lost it?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever find it?’
‘No. All I can remember is the smell of the cellar and the darkness and that big black boiler I thought the Noah’s ark had fallen behind. I kept looking for it and it was never there.’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone. Life is full of gonenesses; I’m used to it. I keep on doing what I do; I’ll finish the book on Klimt and then if I’m still around I’ll do another one. The main action right now is with Angelica. Have a look at these.’ Klein had printed out ‘Monica’s Monday Night’ and he laid the pages on Dr DeVere’s desk.
DeVere scanned them quickly. ‘This is the picture-story we talked about in our last session?’
‘That’s right. The man in the photos is called Leslie; he’s an associate of Angelica’s. She and I had arranged to meet last night but it was Leslie who showed up, with a van. He was about to do a Monica job on me in front of a videocamera but I started to get angina and he let me go.’
‘You were surprised when it was Leslie instead of Angelica?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘What about the angina? What brought it on?’
‘I was afraid of what was going to happen.’
‘You mean anal rape?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t want that?’
‘You don’t take anything for granted, do you?’
‘I can’t afford to in my line of work. Did you or didn’t you want him to do to you what he did to Monica?’
‘I didn’t want him to do that, OK?’
DeVere was looking at the first page of ‘Monica’s Monday Night’. ‘Where and when had you arranged to meet Angelica?’
‘In Surrey Street at a quarter past ten.’
‘That’s where and when Monica was pulled into the van on her Monday night.’
‘I know.’
Angelica's Grotto Page 8
