Angelica's Grotto

2 Escher, For Christ’s Sake

The George III Mental Health Centre was a squarish brick building in World’s End. Automatic doors opened when they saw Klein coming. ‘I don’t like to be taken for granted,’ he said, but went in.

The waiting room had five chairs, two small round tables, six magazines, and a receptionist behind glass who was busy on the telephone but indicated by gestures that Klein should take a seat. All of the magazines had beautiful half-naked women on their covers and their titles were GUILT, SHAME, DREAD, HORROR, DESPAIR, and SUICIDE FOR SINGLES. ‘Don’t try it on with me,’ said Klein, and looked away. When he looked back the magazines were DIY WORLD, CAR BOOT JOURNAL, GAY CUISINE, SWINGING SENILES, BIPOLAR GARDENING, and THE PRACTICAL DEPRESSIVE. ‘Still not quite right,’ he said, and didn’t look again.

A pear-shaped deflated-looking man tending towards the lachrymose slumped into the room and sat down heavily.

‘I hope you’re not going to start a conversation,’ Klein whispered into his hand.

‘Why are you so withdrawn?’ said Pear-Shape.

‘Strangers always start conversations with me when I don’t feel like talking.’

‘My name is Arbuth,’ said Pear-Shape.

‘Not?’

‘Arbuthnot is what it used to be. I had it changed by deed-poll. Nothing helps. What’s yours?’

‘Klein.’

‘Means little.’

‘Nothing means much these days. When you changed your name you should have covered your tracks and changed it to Cholmondely or Featherstonhaugh.’

‘Oh yes, it’s all right for some.’ Arbuth sniffed and pretended to read THE PRACTICAL DEPRESSIVE as Professor Slope appeared and said, ‘Mr Klein?’

‘Here,’ said Klein, and stood up.

‘How do you do,’ said Professor Slope.

‘Badly, thank you.’ They shook hands, during which Slope seemed to be looking over Klein’s shoulder.

‘My office is just down the corridor,’ he said, and led the way. In the office he motioned Klein to a chair and sat down behind his desk. Slope was sixtyish, had a neat little beard, rimless spectacles, French cuffs. Before him on the desk was Klein’s file. On the wall to his left was an Escher print, Three Worlds, with a carp lurking dimly in a leaf-strewn pond in which black and leafless trees were reflected. The other walls were bare.

‘Escher, for Christ’s sake,’ said Klein.

‘You don’t like Escher?’

‘Escher in a psychiatrist’s office is like a Pirelli calendar in a garage.’

‘Why is your arm in a sling? Have you been discussing art with anyone else?’

‘Very funny. Haven’t you got my notes?’

‘Yes,’ said Professor Slope, without referring to the file, ‘and I know about the cholecystectomy and appendectomy, the prostate resection, the hydrocele operation, the triple bypass, the cataract surgery, and the right-lung lobectomy; I know about about the diabetes, atheroma, ischaemia, both myocardial infarcts, the hiatus hernia, and the vertigo. I know about the broken ribs and nose but there’s nothing in your notes about an arm.’

‘How did you do that without looking at my notes?’

‘I do memory exercises. How’s yours?’

‘Terrible.’

‘Let me just get a couple of details down. Date of birth?’

‘Four, two, twenty-five.’

‘Are you married?’

‘I was, twice. My second wife died in 1977.’ He whispered her name into his hand, ‘Hannelore.’ He tried to see her face but saw instead that of the Meissen figure on his mantelpiece at home. ‘You never look at me,’ he whispered.

Whispers into hand, Slope wrote. ‘Are you retired?’ he said.

‘No. I’m an art historian. I write books, did the Innocent Eye series on BBC2.’

‘Oh, yes — Sister Wendy sort of thing, eh?’

‘No.’ Klein whispered something into his hand again.

‘Right. Let’s get back to your arm. What happened?’

‘Woman ahead of me at the checkout counter in Safeway: she bent over and I said something I wouldn’t ordinarily say aloud. She hit me in the shoulder with a jar of pickles and I broke the arm when I fell. She didn’t hit me that hard — it was my vertigo that made me fall.’

‘You haven’t had that sort of encounter with women before this?’

‘Do I look as if I’ve got a Union Jack tattoo?’

Slope directed his eyes to Klein’s forehead which for him was transparent. He considered Klein’s frontal lobes and wondered if they might be breathing a trifle hard. ‘Try to remember, Mr Klein, that I’m only gathering information. A straight answer would speed the process.’

‘The straight answer is that I’m not always in charge of my answers; that’s why I’m here. Haven’t you read Dr Mzumi’s letter?’

Professor Slope stroked his beard. ‘Give me a moment, Mr Klein, while I have another look at your notes.’ He opened Klein’s file, a very thick one, and went through some of the loose sheets at the top of the stack. ‘They don’t always put things in the right order. Hmm, hmmm — here we are. You read something in a newspaper, you had an MI, and you lost what you call your “inner voice”.’

‘I really don’t know what else you’d call it.’

‘Can you clarify this inner-voice thing a little for me?’

Klein clarified it a little, citing the Times article and describing what followed the reading of it.

‘This voice —’ said Professor Slope, ‘where did it seem to be coming from?’

‘From me. I could feel it in my vocal cords. At the post office while I waited in the queue I’d rehearse in my head what I was going to say, like “Fifty first-class stamps, please” and I’d feel it in my throat. Isn’t that how it is for everybody?’

‘People vary. Did you hear this voice as your voice or was it somebody else’s?’

‘It was my voice but I didn’t actually seem to be hearing it — it was just there.’

‘And how have you been feeling in yourself since it stopped being there?’

‘Lost, cast adrift. Frightened.’

‘Frightened of what?’

‘What I might say, what I might do.’

‘Like your remark to the woman in Safeway with the result that we see.’

‘Yes.’

‘Looking back on that, how do you feel about it?’

‘Embarrassed.’

‘What were you feeling at the moment when the words came out of your mouth?’

‘Embarrassment.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Like what?’

Professor Slope looked again at Klein’s frontal lobes. Coloured lights twinkled here and there, as on a model railway. ‘Elation?’ he said.

‘No, she was a total stranger.’

Professor Slope raised his voice. ‘“Elation,” I said.’

‘What about it?’

‘Did you perhaps enjoy getting this woman’s attention with what you said?’

Klein smiled. ‘Well, she certainly got my attention when she bent over.’

‘Did you feel any sort of relief or release when you said what you said?’

‘I was shocked, and I was even more shocked when she hit me with the pickles. The queue behind me were very impatient and they were making angry crowd noises. I had to put back half my groceries because I only had the one usable arm, then I slunk home like some sort of pariah, unloaded the shopping, and headed for Casualty again.’

Professor Slope took off his spectacles, wiped them with his handkerchief, and imagined the scene in Safeway. ‘Couldn’t have been very pleasant for you,’ he said.

‘She had curlers in her hair,’ said Klein, shaking his head.

‘Apart from that, how’ve you been feeling lately? Any big ups or downs?’

‘No big ones. I had a medium up a while back when I made potato pancakes and they didn’t fall apart.’

‘Downs?’

‘Well, I always feel a little low when I haven’t got a book going and right now I’m between books.’

‘Any plans for the next one?’

‘I’ve been thinking about Klimt, just the nudes. Do you know his work?’

‘No.’ Professor Slope contemplated the Escher. ‘Can you remember, perhaps when you were young, any sort of incapacity — not an injury but a loss of function?’

‘Loss of function! Catriona Moriarty, when I was fourteen — O God! she was like an Irish Aphrodite, and I …’

‘Not that kind of function — that’s autonomic nervous system. I’m looking for something ordinarily under your control.’

‘That’s a laugh. How much in life is under our control?’

‘Let’s not stray from the matter at hand. Try to remember some loss of function other than sexual.’

‘When I was nine I had to take piano lessons. My teacher, Mr Schulz, always smelled of bananas. I never practised but his pupils were giving a recital and I was to play Für Elise, which I’d never once got through successfully. On the afternoon of the recital all the strength went out of my wrists — they just went all floppy and my mother had to take me to the doctor.’

‘And what did the doctor say?’

‘He said it was nervousness and he gave me a tranquilliser.’

‘What then?’

‘I became tranquil.’

‘And your wrists?’

‘Stayed floppy till evening; when the recital was over they were all right again.’

‘That sounds to me like what we call a dissociative disorder.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s when there’s nothing physically wrong but the body isn’t taking orders from the brain.’

‘What’s that got to do with the loss of my inner voice? That is the brain talking, isn’t it?’

‘The boundaries in this sort of thing aren’t as clear-cut as one might like. Before we can help you with your problem we need to have a better idea of what it is. I’m going to arrange for you to have some tests, then we’ll proceed from there.’

‘What kind of tests?’

‘Psychological ones.’

‘Just what I need,’ Klein whispered into his hand — ‘something I can fail at.’ To Professor Slope he said, ‘Who’s going to do the tests?’

‘One of our psychologists — I don’t yet know which one.’

‘And after that I come back to you?’

‘No, my job is to make the first assessment, then I pass you along to whomever is the best person to get you sorted.’

‘Whoever.’

‘Whatever,’ said Professor Slope. ‘I’ll put the wheels in motion and you’ll be hearing from us shortly.’

‘From whomever?’

‘I’m sure your grammar is impeccable, Mr Klein, but more importantly we need to address deeper issues. Good luck.’ He picked up a microcorder and began to murmur into it, meanwhile extending his hand which Klein shook.

‘Why do ungrammatical people love to say “more importantly”?’ said Klein. ‘Thank you.’