The Bat Tattoo

30 Roswell Clark

With the entering of the competition one day behind me I felt much better. Sarah made dinner for us at her place and we became comfortable again. The house was full of bright colours, the bookshelves were well stocked, and there was a print of Caspar David Friedrichs’s Chalk Cliffs on Rugen with the sheer drop of its white cliffs to the blue sea. In the foreground, seen from behind, are a woman in a red dress pointing down and a man on his hands and knees looking over the edge.

‘He’s afraid of heights, afraid of falling,’ I said, ‘and she’s pointing down into the drop. What does she want him to do?’

‘She’s pointing at those little red flowers just on the edge,’ said Sarah.

‘Ah, yes,’ I said, ‘and he’ll get some for her, too, if the edge doesn’t give way.’

‘That’s what I call a real gentleman,’ she said, and we had a quick cuddle. We were in the kitchen, drinking a Minervois, while good smells came from the oven where the lamb was cooking. Boxes and bags of her merchandise stood on the floor, some ready to move out, others in reserve. There was an Egberto Gismonti guitar track going, a warm sound for a winter evening.

‘What do you think of this?’ said Sarah, holding up a tall narrow vase, in section an ellipse with squared-off ends. It was white porcelain with three Prussian-blue splotches descending from small to large down the front and back.

‘It’s quite nice; I like it.’

‘Sixties, Furstenberg. I paid fifteen for it, might get forty from someone who goes for this kind of thing.’

‘I guess it’s a matter of finding a punter whose taste is the same as yours.’

‘Not always; sometimes I buy things that don’t appeal to me but might to somebody else.’

We were sitting in kitchen chairs. She moved hers closer to me and rubbed her shoulder against mine. ‘Hi,’ I said, and kissed her.

‘Hi. How are you feeling about the competition today?’

‘As you said, it made sense to finish this thing before going on to the next thing. I have no expectations one way or the other.’

‘Any idea what the next thing will be?’

‘No. I’m at kind of a funny place in my life.’

‘That makes two of us.’

‘You’re at a funny place in your life?’

‘It’s the same one where you are. I think we’re in it together, yes?’

‘Yes. I feel better already.’ We hugged and kissed and drank more Minervois. By now the potatoes and beans were boiling, the lamb was almost ready, and the kitchen windows were all steamed up.

‘Now that we’re both in the same funny place,’ said Sarah, ‘what can you tell me about The One for the Many? I know you said that you don’t understand it but you must have some idea where it’s coming from.’

‘I’ve told you about my wife’s death and my father’s and how he became a crash-dummy. I’ve told you about my Crash Test toy. I haven’t told you about my private commissions, which were also of a crash-dummy nature.’ I seemed to have too much breath in me so I let some out, then I felt breathless so I breathed in deeply.

‘Are you all right?’ said Sarah.

‘Yes, whew. Actually I’ve never described them to anyone except the technician who did the motors and connections and the remote control.’

‘Take your time. Sounds fascinating.’

‘Now I wonder what you’ll think of me when I tell you about them.’

‘We’ll never know unless you do it.’

‘True. Well, these were toys of a special kind. First there were the two human figures, male and female crash-dummies, thirty centimetres high, articulated and anatomically complete.’

‘You mean, with genitalia?’

‘Yes. Working genitalia, and when you pressed a button, they had sexual intercourse. There was a car-crash soundtrack to go with it.’

‘Did they have working mouths too?’

‘No, just the regular blank dummy faces.’

‘So they couldn’t even kiss properly.’

‘I think that would have compromised their dummyhood. In any case, Delarue didn’t ask for working mouths and I didn’t suggest them.’

‘Delarue is the man who commissioned these figures?’

‘Yes, Adelbert Delarue. He lives in Paris.’

‘You said those two came first. What came next?’

‘A crash-dummy mastiff to the same scale and then a crash-dummy gorilla.’

‘Both with working genitalia?’

‘Yes.’

‘Soundtracks?’

‘From Traviata with the dog: Callas and “E strano!”; Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor with the gorilla, Schweitzer on the organ.’

‘Delarue specified those?’

‘No, the soundtracks were my idea but he was delighted with them.’

‘And the four dummies going at it in all possible permutations.’

‘I suppose so; he liked everything I did.’

‘What did he pay you for these figures? Forgive my asking but we market traders always ask these things.’

‘Seventy thousand pounds altogether.’

‘Crikey! That man must have money to throw around. How did he come to commission you?’

‘He got in touch with me after buying the Crash Test toy.’

‘What sort of man is he?’

‘All I know is that he lives in the Avenue Montaigne, has a girlfriend named Victoria Fawles and a very large chauffeur called Jean-Louis Galantière.’

‘How old is he?’

‘He hasn’t said, but I have a feeling he’s a little older than I am, maybe between fifty and sixty.’

‘Men!’ said Sarah, shaking her head. ‘There’s another bottle on top of the fridge.’ I opened the bottle, refilled our empty glasses, and we clinked. ‘Well,’ she said, with a smile that hinted at corruptibility, ‘this reveals a whole new side of you, not to mention a front and back. Should I be prepared for special requests as we get to know each other better?’

‘I’m not the kinky one, Sarah. Delarue told me what he wanted and I did it for the money.’

‘What came after the gorilla?’

‘I’ve had no more commissions but he wrote me a letter in which he hoped that his money would buy me time and he wondered what new themes my talent was dreaming of. Not that he wanted to put any pressure on me but of course he did, and so did you.’

‘How did I put pressure on you?’

‘You know — with your gnostics and your wooden hand and generally wanting me to be better than I am.’ I heard myself sounding like a petulant child.

She leaned against me and her lips brushed my face. ‘I’m sorry, Roswell,’ she murmured, ‘I really am. I’ll try to do better, I’ll work on improving myself.’ I couldn’t see if her tongue was in her cheek.

‘No need to go overboard with it,’ I said.

‘All right then, let’s get back to the matter at hand: what was there between the bonking toys and the crucifixion?’

‘Nothing special.’ As I said that, St John’s in the North End Road, Abraham Selby and the fibreglass Jesus came to me with the freshness of rain and the earth smell of yellow leaves. ‘I fainted,’ I said. ‘His eyes went blank in the rain.’

‘Whose eyes?’

‘The fibreglass Jesus at St John’s in the North End Road.’

‘His eyes went blank and you fainted?’

‘I’d been drinking that morning. Father John got me out of the rain and into the church.’

‘Are you religious, Roswell?’

‘No.’

‘But you were what — standing in the rain looking at Jesus on his cross?’

‘He was in the rain too; I don’t know why they bother with that little tiny roof over the INRI.’

‘Do you often stop to look at him?’

‘Now and then. Sometimes I get into a conversation with one of the guys from the low-budget drinking community.’

‘And it was after the fainting that you started your crucifixion?’

‘Yes.’

‘How soon?’

‘I ordered the wood the next day, started work on the figure two days after that. The adze bit me the first time I hit it with the mallet. That’s all I know about where that crucifixion’s coming from. Does that make it all clear to you?’

‘No. You’re a man of mystery.’

‘How about that. Did you ever think you’d meet one?’

‘Not really, but I kept hoping. Some day my prince will come, I thought.’

‘Well, here I am: you wished long enough and strong enough and wishing made it so.’

No answer. She was asleep with her head on my shoulder and the second bottle was empty.