‘Which is?’
‘Naked Mysteries: The Nudes of Gustav Klimt.’
‘Haven’t you had enough naked women on the Internet?’
‘Naked women by Klimt aren’t the same as naked women on pornographic websites.’
‘Why not?’
‘The women on the Internet have become product. That’s what the bad guys call drugs in the movies. “How much product can you move?” the suppliers say to the dealers. Pornography dehumanises women; Klimt explores their humanity.’
‘Very smooth, Harold. Maybe we’ll come back to that later. You’ve got some very deep thoughts in this Redon text.’ She read aloud, ‘“It is evident that Redon was not so much the master of his material as its servant; his images and ideas forced him to give them form and substance, compelled him to find the shapes and spaces they required. Always his forms are hypermorphic — the gesture configures the shape and the shape becomes itself to a greater degree than ordinary vision allows. In Roger and Angelica, the tiny distant Angelica is the pearly flaunt of her nudity; the hippogriff is the quivering thrust of its haunches; and these, like all of Redon’s figures, are celebrants of a mystery in which they themselves are the sacrifice. The colour, dream-haunted and strange, bursts from the seed-pods of his noirs. ‘Black,’ he said, ‘is the most essential of all colours.’ In the black is where his creatures live, the black from which Oannes, half-fish and half-human, emerges, saying, ‘I, the first consciousness of chaos, arose from the abyss to harden matter, to regulate forms.’ And in this same black, Venus, all rosy and golden, becomes visible in the nacreous genitalia of her birthing.” Does anybody buy your books?’ she said.
‘Academic libraries, mostly.’
‘And this is all you do?’
‘That’s it.’
‘What do you live on?’
‘I invested the money from my picture deals. Do you require a financial statement?’
‘Sorry, I always want to know the facts of people’s lives. So you live shut up in this room, devoting your life to the work of others.’
‘Art raises the worldwide level of perception, it takes the mind to places beyond ordinary experience. Do you think the study of it is a waste of time? It beats running a porno site, wouldn’t you say?’
‘No, I wouldn’t. I’m gathering information about sexual attitudes, studying emotional dysfunction in male/female transactions. Do you think that’s a waste of time? Look at the state of the world, look at the sorts of things our law-makers and heads of state get up to when they’re not creating gridlock, destroying the environment, and deciding the fates of nations: MPs dying in women’s underwear with an orange in the mouth while trying for a better orgasm; every level of politician celebrating the virtues of the family while his willie votes the other way. Look at advertising — to sell ice-cream they have to show naked people eating it, and coffee’s promoted as a sexual catalyst. Look at the fashions designed by queers for skeletons with tits. Look at the rape statistics. Look at you, a presumably intelligent man, spending hours on the Internet with your pleasure hand working overtime and your nose up the vaginas of women who’d call a cop if you got within sniffing distance of them. No wonder your inner voice packed up — it was embarrassed for you. There are millions of you out there and nobody’s asking the right questions.’ She picked up her drink. ‘Cheers.’
‘Here’s looking at you. This is the first time you’ve told me what Angelica’s Grotto is about. I heard you and Leslie talking about funding in the van. Where’s the money going to come from next?’
She looked at him warily. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I’m interested, and I have some connections. Maybe I can help.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘OK, Melissa. I’m still not sure whether you qualify as gamekeeper or poacher but we don’t have to go into that just now.’
‘How come you know my name?’
‘Your filofax with your name on it is in your shoulder bag. Your name comes from the Greek word for honey.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you mind if I put on some music?’
‘If that helps you get into the mood. You aren’t subject to lingual impotence, are you?’
‘Not so far. What would you like to hear?’
‘You choose, it’s your party.’
Klein put on Portishead’s first album.
‘Not too bad, Harold. I was expecting Bach or Haydn or Engelbert Humperdinck.’ She pulled off the black jersey top; her arms were pleasingly round and her unshaven armpits delighted him; she slid the strap of her little black bra off her left shoulder and exposed one small girlish breast with its rosy areole. She undid the red skirt, dropped it, and leaned back in the chair. ‘Would you like to remove my knickers, Professor?’
He sank to his knees and took hold of the black silk with shaking hands. She was wide-hipped, with shapely thighs and a belly like a Matisse odalisque. Her black pubic hair was as he had imagined it, coarse and springy to the touch of his lips. The heat of her body and the scent of her flesh made him giddy. He rubbed his cheek against her thigh, closed his eyes, breathed in the odour of her sex.
Yum yum, said Oannes.
‘I read in this morning’s Times,’ said Melissa, ‘about an eleven-year-old boy who’s eaten nothing but Marmite sandwiches ever since he was weaned.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Klein.
‘Wandering star,’ sang Beth Gibbons, ‘for whom it is reserved — the blackness, the darkness, the river.’
26 Last Tango In Fulham
‘You’re a tiger from the neck up, Professor,’ said Melissa, now fully dressed. ‘How was it for you?’
‘Terrific: there’s nothing like getting back to basics. And you — were those sound effects real or faked?’
‘Below the waist I never lie. You’re a very cunning linguist and as I’ve told you, when I’m into anything I go with it all the way.’
‘You’re a strange one, Melissa.’
‘Life is strange. Is there a table in this house with nothing piled up on it?’
‘Down in the kitchen. There’s nothing on it but this week’s papers and a bowl of fruit. Why?’
‘Let’s go there and I’ll tell you.’
In the kitchen Klein switched on the bead-fringed lamp over the table. ‘Plenty of room,’ said Melissa. ‘I’ll sit here and you sit opposite. We’re going to arm-wrestle.’
‘Do you always do that after sex?’
‘No, but I want to see which of us is the stronger.’
‘Why? By now everybody’s stronger than I am.’
‘Tell you later. First let’s do this. Best out of three.’
Looking at her serious face in the lamplight Klein said, ‘Every day is certainly a winding road, isn’t it.’
‘Definitely. Are you ready?’
They rested their elbows on the table, lined up their forearms vertically, and laced their fingers together. Her grip was like iron.
‘Ready,’ said Klein, and his arm was immediately pressed flat. They did it once more with the same result.
‘OK,’ said Klein. ‘You’re the stronger one. What next?’
‘Back upstairs for the next event.’
When they were once again in the workroom Melissa arranged some cushions on the floor, then opened her shoulder bag. ‘We might as well have some more music, Prof.’
Klein went to the CD player, put on the Diana Krall All for You album. When he turned back to Melissa he saw what she had taken from the bag. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said.