I returned to the central atrium, ducking in and out of rooms, glimpsing wonderful things. I would have returned to the front steps and waited there, had I not seen a sign for something called the Black Paintings, which sounded intriguing in a rather Hammer-horror kind of way.
The canvases in question were in a gloomy room in the basement of the gallery, as if they were some dark family secret, and one glimpse at them revealed why. They weren’t even canvases, but murals painted directly on to the walls of a house by Goya and clearly the work of a deeply disturbed man. In one, a grinning woman raised a knife ready to hack off someone’s head, in another a circle of grotesque women sat around Satan, manifested in the form of a monstrous goat. Up to their knees in some filthy bog, two men stood smashing at each other’s bloodied heads with cudgels. A drowning dog’s sad-eyed head peeked out of quicksand. Even the innocent scenarios — women laughing, two old men eating soup — seemed crammed with fear and spite, but the worst was still to come. In some sort of cave a mad giant tore at the flesh of a corpse with his teeth. The picture was called Saturn Devouring His Son, though this god was nothing like the handsome figures I’d seen in France and Italy. He seemed deranged, his body old, sagging and grey, with a look of such terrible self-loathing in his horrible black eyes …
I heard a ringing in my ears, felt a tightening in my chest and a sensation of such dread and anxiety that I was forced to hurry from the room, wishing that I had never seen the painting, that it had remained on the walls of some remote, derelict house. I am not a superstitious man, but there was something of the occult about the pictures. With only ten minutes to go before my rendezvous, I felt I needed some sort of antidote and I hurried back upstairs, along the gallery’s main corridor, looking left and right for a calm spot in which to rest and gather my thoughts. On my right was the Velázquez room and I thought that I might sit for a moment in front of the small girl in Las Meninas, to clear my head.
But the gallery had become a great deal busier since I’d first arrived, and the picture was now concealed behind a party of tourists. Nevertheless I sat and attempted to regain my composure, pressing my fingers against my eyes so that it took me a moment to sense a presence, look up and see my son standing right in front of me, saying those words that every father longs to hear.
‘Jesus Christ, Dad, why can’t you just leave me alone?’
‘Hello, Albie. It’s me!’
‘I can see that, Dad.’
‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. It’s good to see you. I—’
‘Where’s Kat?’
‘Kat’s not coming, Albie.’
‘She’s not coming? She sent me a text.’
‘Yes, I was there.’
‘Why isn’t she coming?’
‘Well, Albie, to be honest, she was never coming.’
‘I don’t understand. She tricked me?’
‘No, she didn’t trick you—’
‘What, you tricked me?’
‘Not tricked, she helped, Kat helped. Me find you.’
‘But I didn’t want you to find me.’
‘No, I realise that. But your mother was worried and I wanted to—’
‘If I’d wanted you to find me, I’d have told you where I was.’
‘Nevertheless, we’ve been worried about you, your mother and I—’
‘But the text message, I thought … I thought that Kat was pregnant!’
‘Yes, you might have got that impression …’
‘I thought I was going to be a dad!’
‘Yes, that was sort of implied. Sorry about that.’
‘Do you know what that feels like?’
‘I do, as a matter of fact.’
‘I’m seventeen! I’ve been going nuts!’
‘Yes, I can see how that might have come as a bit of a shock.’
‘Was that your idea?’
‘No!’
‘Whose fucking idea was it, then, Dad?’
‘Hey, Albie, that’s enough!’ People were staring now, the museum guard poised to approach. ‘Maybe we should go somewhere else …’
It seemed Albie had already thought of this because he was loping off at quite some speed, head down against the tide of tourists who were suddenly flooding the atrium. I did my best to follow, throwing out ‘scusi’s and ‘por favor’s until we were outside, the light unnaturally bright now, the heat quite shocking as we tumbled down the steps and headed for the tree-lined avenue that skirts the museum.
‘It would really be a lot easier to explain if we could sit down.’
‘What’s to explain? I wanted to be alone to think and you wouldn’t allow it.’
‘We were worried!’
‘You were worried because you don’t trust me. You’ve never trusted me—’
‘We simply wanted to know where you were and that you were safe, that’s not unusual. Would you prefer we didn’t care?’
‘You always say that, Dad! Right after you’ve been screaming and shouting at me and jabbing your finger, it’s always because we care! “We care!” you say while you’re pressing the pillow down on my face!’
‘There’s no need to be melodramatic, Albie! When have I ever …? Albie …’ He was pretty nimble on his feet, and I was having difficulty speaking now. ‘Please, can we … this would be a whole lot easier if we could …’ I stopped, hands on my knees, hoping that he would not disappear. I glanced up, and he was there, kicking at the path with his heel.
‘I wanted … to apologise … for what I said in Amsterdam …’
‘What did you say in Amsterdam, Dad?’ he asked, and I realised my son had no intention of making it easy for me.
‘I’m sure you can remember, Albie.’
‘But just to make sure …’
Perspiration was dripping from my forehead onto the footpath. I saw the drops hit the ground, counted them, one, two, three. ‘I said I was … embarrassed by you. And I wanted to say that I’m not. I think your behaviour was over the top, I think there was no need to start a fight, but I didn’t express myself very well and I wanted to apologise. In person. For that. And for other times when I may have overreacted. I’ve been under a lot of strain recently … at work and, well, at home too and … Anyway. No excuses. I’m sorry.’ I straightened up. ‘Do you accept my apology?’
‘No.’
‘I see. May I ask why?’
‘Because I don’t think you should apologise for what you really think.’