Angelica's Grotto

31 Unknown Tongues

‘Oannes, old thing,’ said Klein. ‘Why are you so sparing with your speech? What would it cost you to let me have a few more words now and then? On the other hand, forget that I said that; I live in fear of what you’ll make me do next.’ For a moment he saw Oannes hovering in the darkness, his long length undulating slowly, his dim face impassive. ‘Are your eyes closed? Oh God, what if they should suddenly open and look straight at me? Don’t tell me anything right now, OK? Why was I so aggressive with Dr DeVere? Hoka hey but I really must watch my mouth. Never mind. Be bold, Klein. Toujours audace. Let’s go find Melissa.’

Ordinarily he had a nap after lunch but today he stayed awake, sharp and alert as he stepped out into the world. The day was sunny and cold, a day for travel and adventure. At Fulham Broadway cars and motorcycles snarled as the lights changed from red to amber. An eastbound 14 Bus loomed, gigantically red. Another 14 followed closely behind as if intent on coupling with the first. ‘Even the buses!’ said Klein. Crossing to the Underground station he felt wild and free and crazy.

VIRGIN STATUE WEEPS, said the headline at the newsstand outside the station. ‘As well it might,’ said Klein. The entrance beckoned with its promise of darkness, its world of neither-here-nor-there. ‘Big Issue!’ shouted a vendor to those coming and going.

‘I know,’ said Klein. ‘It’s the biggest.’ He showed his pass and made his way down the stairs to the platform, holding on to the banister because of his vertigo. The sun stormed through the skylights like the eye of God. The board showed a Tower Hill train arriving in three minutes. Moving away from the others on the platform, Klein whispered into his hand.

‘Crazy Horse,’ he said, ‘I’m talking to you. In yesterday’s Times there was a photograph of the model for the Crazy Horse memorial they’re carving out of a mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The caption says they’re using supersonic torches, whatever they are. Probably pneumatic drills and dynamite as well. It’s going to be the world’s largest sculpture, bigger than Mount Rushmore. They’ve been working on it for fifty years and it might take another hundred to finish. The model looks like the kind of thing you’d see in brightly coloured china on the bric-à-brac shelf of a caravan.’

‘Wheats-yew!’ cried the rails as the train approached.

‘Over and out,’ said Klein as the doors opened and he found a seat. He looked at the faces opposite, put his hand over his mouth, and whispered, ‘Every one of them is thinking something. I don’t want to be surrounded by all those thoughts.’

The silence rumbled, shook, and rattled until the train arrived at Temple. He got out at the now-familiar station with its Temple Bar Restaurant, Economist newsstand, fruit and veg, flowers, and Big Issue vendor. The day was holding steady at sunny and cold, travel and adventure. He checked the river, found it auspicious.

He walked once more past the Howard Hotel, its top-hatted doorman stern and dashing with his white gloves on his left shoulder. ‘How’s it going?’ said Klein.

‘Slow,’ said the doorman.

Klein turned into Surrey Street, passed HAZCHEM and the Roman baths, and climbed slowly towards the Strand. After the Norfolk Hotel building he paused at the one that said PICCADILLY RLY, ENTRANCE and EXIT. ‘RLY,’ he said. ‘Royal London what? Yoghurt? Youth? Yearning? Yurts? If I don’t find out I might fall through the lattice.’

Outside the glass front of what was clearly King’s College Reception he paused and swiftly muttered two or three rehearsals under his breath, then walked in, went up to the counter, and said to the young woman who sat at a computer screen, ‘What room would Melissa Bottomley be in at this time of day?’

‘Is she staff or student? I’m new here.’

‘She’s a lecturer but I can’t remember the name of the course.’

‘I’ll have a look.’ She did some keyboard work, then said, ‘The Politics of Language, Room 231, second floor. I don’t know if she’s lecturing now or not.’

‘Thank you. I’ll go up and have a look.’ As he turned towards the lift he whispered into his hand, ‘So suave!’

On the second floor he found buff-coloured bricks, pigeonholes, a notice board, NO SMOKING, and a perspective of square illuminations in the ceiling. There was a smell of an unknown disinfectant or cleaning agent. Workmen came and went into and out of a taped-off area at one end of the hall. A pretty brown-haired girl in jeans was sitting in a chair and writing in a notebook. ‘Is it that all the plain ones have gone away?’ Klein whispered into his hand. The girl looked up with a dazzling smile. ‘Room 231?’ he said.

‘Just down there.’ She pointed.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and went as directed.

‘I think of Melissa’s voice,’ he whispered, ‘and I think of her nakedness in my hands.’

The door of Room 231 had two narrow vertical windows one above the other. He looked in, saw Melissa lecturing, and opened the door a tiny crack.

‘… on the tongue, to produce Mr Punch’s voice,’ she was saying, ‘is now called a swazzle but in Mayhew’s day the Punchmen referred to it as an “unknown tongue” which is interesting I think. Listen to this, from London Labour and the London Poor, published in 1861. Here a Punchman is telling Mayhew about the Punch and Judy show as performed by an earlier showman, Porsini:

‘“At first, the performance was quite different then to what it is now. It was all sentimental then, and very touching to the feelings, and full of good morals. The first part was only made up of the killing of his wife and babby, and the second with the execution of the hangman and killing of the devil — that was the original idea of Punch, handed down to prosperity for eight hundred years. The killing of the devil makes it one of the most moral plays as is, for it stops Satan’s career of life, and then we can all do as we likes afterwards.” Anyone have any thoughts on that?’ A hand was raised by a young woman with a baggy jumper and black hair in one long plait down her back. ‘Sarah?’

‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘that reminds me of Alesteir Crowley; he was a Satanist and said to be quite a wicked man, and his credo was “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” But the Punch showman says that the killing of Satan allows us all to do as we like, so his Satan seems to have been a more Calvinist sort.’

‘Satan was originally the guy who punished sinners,’ said a man with large ears and a prominent Adam’s apple, ‘which is why Punch was happy about getting rid of him.’

‘Very odd,’ said a woman with a black pullover and a nose ring. ‘The Punchman said that the killing of Satan made it a highly moral play! And it was highly moral for Punch to murder his wife and child, right?’

‘Punch has no morals,’ said the man who had just spoken. ‘Punch is the id.’

‘There’s a lot of id about these days,’ said the first woman.

‘I like it that Punch speaks in an unknown tongue,’ said Melissa, ‘an unknown tongue that’s at the same time a secret utterance but one easily understood by all.’ She looked towards the door, saw Klein, and gave him a look that turned him to stone. Recovering quickly he closed the door and waited for the class to end. ‘“Do what thou wilt,”’ he muttered.

The door opened and a freshet of good-looking women poured out with some males bobbing among them. ‘Gnnggh,’ whispered Klein into his hand as he pretended to cough politely. He looked inside and saw Melissa putting things into her shoulder bag. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans this time, with trainers. She gave him the Medusa look again as she slung the bag from her shoulder and came towards him.

Keeping her voice low she said, ‘You’re not welcome here, Prof, and I don’t like being stalked. You’ve had your treat, OK? Any further traffic between us will be onscreen or on the phone. Now please disappear or I’ll have you thrown out.’

‘Perfectly understandable,’ said Klein, ‘but as it happens the reason for my being here is that I want to talk to you about funding your project.’ He watched the words march out of his mouth in perfect order. ‘Life is full of surprises,’ he said to himself.

Her eyes widened, then became beady. ‘You want to give me money?’

Two professorial-looking men approached. ‘See you Wednesday,’ said one.

‘Right,’ said Melissa, recomposing her face.

‘Can we talk about this over coffee somewhere?’ said Klein.

‘You’re not fooling me, Harold — you just want to worm your way into my life any way you can. You think your money is going to buy you more treats.’

‘After all, what’s money for?’

‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? A respected art historian, and look at what you’ve sunk to!’

‘Melissa, don’t come the shocked academic with me — I’m sure that my moral decline is in complete accordance with your findings on male inadequacy. Let’s not piss about, all right? I heard you say you were almost out of money and didn’t know where the next lot was coming from. Did I hear wrong?’

‘Of course I need money; a study like the one I’m doing needs a whole lot more than the funding I’ve had. I just don’t like your approach to this situation.’

‘Would you believe me if I told you that all I had in mind was the good of humanity? Actually I do think that a study of sexual attitudes and emotional dysfunction in male/female transactions is a worthwhile thing. And if funding this study is a way of buying more time with you so much the better.’

‘Have you no pride, Harold?’

‘I’m long past such luxuries; have you never heard of obsession? Goethe fell in love with a seventeen-year-old girl when he was seventy-five or so.’

‘Probably all he did was write letters — I can’t imagine Goethe at seventy-five doing what you got down to the other night. Besides, you said he fell in love; you’re not seriously going to tell me you’re in love with me. That I refuse to believe.’

‘Why? Don’t you think you’re lovable?’

‘I know damn well I’m not and you certainly aren’t.’

‘“This can’t be love because I feel so well,”’ sang Klein, ‘“no sobs, no sorrow, no sighs…”’ Several passing students turned to look.

‘Please, go have your Alzheimer’s somewhere else,’ said Melissa. ‘I work here.’

‘I’ve already suggested somewhere else,’ said Klein — ‘any place where we can sit down and talk like civilised people. If you want to get rid of me that’s the quickest way.’

Melissa shrugged. ‘I’m sorry I ever started with you.’

‘I don’t think you are, really. I think you’re enjoying your power and the action resulting from it which is all grist for your mill, isn’t it?’

‘This kind of grist I can do without. Let’s go.’

They left King’s College and went into the winter-evening Strand all bright and lively, its buses gleaming juicily in the nightshine, the traffic hurrying to make way for the silence of the small hours. Left high and dry in the rush, St Mary le Strand tuned its steeple to transmissions from the Almighty and waited for the Day of Judgement.

‘Here we are walking together like friends,’ said Klein.

Melissa shook her head and walked faster to put some distance between them. They passed the Courtauld Institute, passed Indian, Thai, and Italian food. ‘Here,’ she said, indicating the Classic Crumb Cafeteria. ‘We can have coffee here.’

‘It sounds so nice when you say “we”,’ said Klein, turning aside to whisper into his hand, ‘I’ve held her nakedness in my hands, I’ve tasted her secret places.’

‘That is really creepy, that hand business.’

‘What can I say? Open a website and strange types with strange problems are bound to fall into it.’

Between the window and a glass display case were two tiny tables, one of them unoccupied. Melissa sat down while Klein went to the counter. She wanted nothing but coffee; he allowed himself a jelly doughnut as well, just to show his diabetes who was boss.

As they sat facing each other he looked out at the passersby, the cars and vans and buses. He’d never seen so many different doubledeckers as those now thronging the Strand. There were 15s, 76s, 23s, 13s, 9s, 71s, 26s, 68s, 77As, a 4, and a 1. He’d never known there was a 1! ‘The redness of them!’ he said. ‘The doubledeckerness of them! The white-on-black of their route displays! They’re some kind of metaphor, they mean something, they have significance. Ultra Nate! Is there a rock group composed of one buttock?’

‘What?’ said Melissa.

‘Ultra Nate — that’s what it said on the side of a 15 bus.’

‘It has an accent: Ultra Nate. That’s the name of the artist. She’s a singer. Are you going to tell me what’s on your mind or did we come here for busspotting?’

‘Right. As I’ve said, what’s on my mind is this study you’re doing. When you were at my place you got all worked up about the state of the world but you didn’t go into detail about your project. All I know at this point is that you run a pornographic website and maintain a phone line for further dialogue with the punters. You also seem to be in the hardcore video business with Leslie and the van. What’s the extent of your operation and what’s it going to result in — a dissertation, a book, what?’

‘And you want to know all this because you seriously intend to fund the study?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Can I trust you?’

‘Absolutely. You can always trust an infatuated old fool.’

‘But have you got the money for it?’

‘That I don’t know until you tell me what’s involved in your study and how much it costs to run it.’

Melissa took a deep breath and blew it out like a locomotive letting off steam. ‘OK, there’s the website and the monitoring of it to see how many hits it’s getting from anyone.’

‘How can you trace who’s hitting the site?’

‘Every time you visit a website your computer leaves an electronic calling-card, what’s known as a cookie.txt. So we can see who’s hitting the site and which pictures they’re going for — Anal, Oral, Facial, whatever. That goes into the database, and on the basis of their preferences I choose which hitters to do one-to-ones with.’

‘These are the ones who get to see “Monica’s Monday Night?”’

‘That or “House of Correction” or “Sisterly Love” or “Night Games” — I’m only running four picture-stories because I don’t want to get tangled up in too many parameters. The one-to-ones that follow go into the database in the appropriate category. I give selected one-to-ones a phone number so they can talk to me. The phone conversations get recorded and filed the same as the rest of the material.’

‘That sounds pretty time-consuming.’

‘Tell me about it! It’s also a good way to lose interest in sex.’

‘Have you?’

‘I don’t know. When I’m with someone I’m not always sure whether I’m having sex or statistics, orgasms or exponentials.’

‘“Every hour wounds; the last one kills.”’

‘Where’s that from?’

‘I saw it written on the face of a grandfather clock a long time ago and it just now popped into my head.’

‘Did you hear about George and the tinnitus drug trial?’ said a man at the table behind Klein to his companion as they stood up to go.

‘No,’ said the other man. ‘What happened?’

‘It made him deaf for three days and it gave him an erection that also lasted three days,’ said the first man as they put on their coats.

‘How did he deal with that?’

‘Well,’ said the first man as they went to the door, ‘just at that time his wife was called away because her mother was ill, so George …’ The door closed behind them and they were gone.

‘Did you hear that?’ said Klein.

‘He was probably making it up,’ said Melissa. ‘There are people who do that in lifts and tube trains, then they get out and leave you hanging.’

‘Speaking of unfinished stories, what about you and your father?’

‘The one I stabbed twelve times? Actually I never knew him.’

‘Is that the truth?’

‘It’s anything you like. Whatever deal you have in mind, my history isn’t part of it.’

‘Why is there so much anger in you?’

‘Give me a break, Harold. Do you want to hear about the study or not?’

‘Sorry, please go on.’

‘What I’ve told you so far has to do with gathering and sorting data. This being a study of emotional dysfunction in men in their transactions with women, the data …’

‘Hang on — isn’t that kind of one-sided?’

‘That’s the side I’m working; others can explore other sides — there’s enough dysfunction for everybody. You as a frequent visitor to Angelica’s Grotto must be well aware of how long overdue such a study is; male perception of the female is generally at an infantile level — masturbation comes naturally to men but relating to women is something that has to be learned and mostly isn’t. I’m aiming for a sample of five hundred and each one has to be evaluated in accordance with the criteria of the study.’

‘What about your video material?’

‘Yours would have been the first; it would have provided useful data but the video thing is too risky to be practical and I’m not planning any more at the moment. What I’ve outlined for you is quite labour-intensive. So far I’ve been doing it alone with occasional help from Leslie but I could use a part-time assistant on a regular basis.’

‘How long do you think it’ll take to get your sample of five hundred?’

‘I’ve been working on this for six months and I’ve only got seventy-three so far, sorted but incomplete and not yet ready for evaluation. To get the whole thing put together I reckon another five years or so.’

‘Right. Tell me what it would cost annually to keep the whole thing going the way you like.’

‘OK, there’s the monthly payment to the Dutch server and there’s the online time plus four telephone lines; there’s the cost of Leslie and the part-timer and the outlay for another computer, maybe two. Plus there are always unforeseen one-off expenses that you have to be prepared for.’ She took a pocket calculator out of her bag and was busy with it for a couple of minutes. ‘Say twenty thousand a year. How does that grab you?’

Klein was looking into her eyes. ‘Such a deep blue,’ he said, ‘and so serious.’

‘You’re not in a position to patronise me, Prof. You wanted to know what was involved and how much it costs and I’ve told you. Now what about this funding you were talking about?’

‘I’m going to start working on it right away.’

‘What does that mean exactly?’

‘It means that I’ll have more to tell you the next time I see you.’

‘Ah, we’re into control games now, are we, Harold?’

‘Could you blame me if I were?’

‘No, it’s just that my time-wasting time is limited. So if you want anything more from me you’d better not muck me about.’

‘I’d never do that, Lola. Trust me, I’m an infatuated old fool. Shall we go?’

On their way out they passed a young couple who were the new occupants of the other table by the window. As the door closed behind Klein and Melissa the woman said to her companion, ‘I wonder what the story is with those two?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know but my money’s on Lola.’