Angelica Lost and Found

Chapter 45. Random Passes, Wide Receivers

Olivia Partridge, my partner at Eidolon, is more of a pragmatist than I am; her thinking always leads to action.

‘We promised Ossip Przewalski a new show,’ she said, ‘a while before our recent Volatore binge, remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘So let’s do it, OK?’

‘OK.’

Przewalski rides a Harley Davidson and he paints nudes on Harley Davidsons. His approach is somewhere between Kokoschka and Redon and his last show was a sell-out. We swung into action planning the layout of the show, composing the ad for the art magazines, making up the invitation list and organising the catering.

I did this automatically while my mind was on other things. Sometimes I ask myself whether being human in the usual way is enough. Whether something isn’t missing. Some animality in another dimension. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I have coupled with an imaginary beast and I can still see his strange eyes, his beaked face close to mine. Not a dream, not a hallucination. Part of my humanity. Maybe I’m not the only one. Maybe others have had imaginary-animal lovers.

Dr Long says not to bother with definitions but to deal with things in the simplest way practical. Occam’s razor and all that. But what is the simplest way? It seems that the original Volatore is transmitting something of himself to receivers who don’t necessarily have any connection with him. Joe Fontana had read Orlando Furioso and knew about the da Carpi painting but Alyosha Zhabotinsky, who might have read Gogol but not Ariosto was picking up scrambled Volatorisms such as ‘dim red taverns of sheep’. Are these the people he’s trying to reach? Not likely. He’s firing off random shots because he’s unable to aim his transmissions. I know he’s trying to reach me.

Dr Long asked me whether I was sure I wanted to be with Volatore again. Am I sure? Well, no. It’s a heavy trip, and scary because I sense in it the danger of losing my mind. R. D. Laing said, at the height of his vogue in the seventies, that the breakdown is often the breakthrough but that idea hasn’t had too many adherents lately and I don’t think it would work for me. I’m afraid of falling through a hole in reality if I keep messing with two kinds of it. So are my fears and doubts creating a barrier to communication from Volatore? I won’t think about that any more right now, I’ll think about other things.