‘I’m lost,’ said Klein.
‘In what sense?’ said Dr DeVere.
‘In the sense of I don’t know where I am.’
‘Can you elaborate?’
‘I am of a people who have always been fearless navigators of the mind. The dead sail with us as we make our way from idea to idea, steering by the stars and sea-marks named by those before us. Such a wide, wide ocean! But you always know where you are by the waves, by the swells, by the loomings and the stars. Then one dark night the waves change, and the swells; the winds blow from not the usual quarters. Black squalls come, and heavy seas, the stars are blotted out, the wind moans in the rigging. You suddenly realise that you might never make your landfall, you might drown. A great wave hits the boat and takes you with it, you feel yourself going down, down, down and then you don’t know any more which way is up and you can’t hold your breath a moment longer and the wild wide ocean fills your lungs and then you’re gone: down among the dead men.’
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
‘But?’
‘It’s not as good as navigating by the stars without instruments. It’s not as good as being a real man.’
‘Where’s all this navigation coming from?’
Klein told him about The Last Navigator.
‘You have to remember,’ said Dr DeVere, ‘that Piailug’s life is simpler than yours. When was the film made?’
‘About ten years ago, I think.’
‘Who knows how things are with him now? Even back then the kids didn’t want his teaching any more and there was a steamer going round the islands like a bus. Maybe he doesn’t feel much of a man now either. Feeling like a man depends on quite a complex system of inner and outer psyche-shapers. A society like Piailug’s had reasonably foolproof systems for a long time but not any more. Our urban society puts the burden of psyche-shaping pretty much on the individual and everybody has to work out his own system which makes everything more difficult.’
‘You’re such a comfort to me, Leon.’
‘Once in a while at least. What’s your next Oannes quote?’
‘“I’m only happy when it’s complicated.” That’s the second line of the song. The first is, “I’m only happy when it rains.” Shirley Manson sings it; the name of the group and the album is Garbage.’
‘When did Oannes come up with that line?’
‘Melissa was spanking me at the time.’
‘I have to tell you, Harold, you’re really good value as a patient. With you there’s always something new to keep me on my toes.’
‘I do my best, Doc’
‘Was the spanking her idea or yours?’
‘She said on the phone that I was being very naughty and I said I couldn’t help it. Discipline was mentioned, one thing led to another and she came round to my house again. She was eager to please because I’d promised her money.’
‘And did she please?’
‘Yes.’
‘It wasn’t as good as navigating by the stars but you made the best of it?’
‘Yes, I guess it’s different strokes for different folks, isn’t it.’
‘Anything more from Oannes?’
‘He said, “RRRRAAAAARRGH!”’
DeVere, startled, said, ‘When was that?’
‘It was during that same visit when Melissa spanked me and did the other. I was talking to Hannelore but I forgot to whisper, so I said out loud, “You’ll never grow old,” and Melissa said, “Why not? Do you think I’ll die young?” That’s when Oannes made that noise and put a picture in my mind.’
‘What was the picture?’
‘Melissa dead.’
‘How’d she die?’
‘I killed her — bashed her head in with a large round beach stone from Paxos.’
‘Does Paxos have any significance for you?’
‘Hannelore and I went there one summer.’
‘Why’d you kill her?’
‘I suppose it fits into a natural-depravity sequence: first she spanks me, then she buggers me, then I kill her. Just a normal fantasy any naturally depraved person might have. Which I seem to be although I said I wasn’t.’
‘Everybody has fantasies, Harold. Lots of them are a lot worse than that. Did you have any difficulty in not acting that one out?’
‘No.’
‘What went on with you and Melissa that evening — was it you that made it happen or Oannes?’
‘Wondering whether it’s time to wheel out the Mental Health Act, Leon?’
‘Just give me a straight answer, OK?’
‘Oannes is how my mind dresses up in order for me to say and do what I want to say and do in the Oannes mode, I’ve told you that before. It’s always me, with a little help from Melissa that evening. Do you think I’m a danger to myself and society at large?’
‘I think everybody’s potentially a danger to himself and society; everybody is like a grenade that’s safe until you pull the pin but it isn’t always easy to know when the pin’s been pulled.’
‘You think my pin’s been pulled?’
‘I don’t know, Harold — I haven’t got all the answers, I don’t even have all the questions. Do you think you might have a self-destructive urge in you?’
‘Did you work that out all by yourself, Leon, or did you read it on the back of a cereal box?’
‘Right. I’m afraid that’s it for today. Try to stay out of major trouble and I’ll see you in a fortnight.’
‘Minor trouble isn’t really worth bothering with, Doc. See you.’
DeVere shook his head as the door closed behind Klein. At the bottom of the session notes he wrote: Locus of control?