Free The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt Page B

until I said I would get the police the moment he let go of me, and then he came to his senses and said that in the
goodold days
painters and models felt a bit of
human warmth and sensuality
towards each other in the studio, and I said, not in my studio, and he said, clearly not, and went off, saying it seemed to him
quite likely
that I should fail both parts of my Degree.
    Gerda Himmelblau folds the photocopy again and puts it back into her handbag. She then reads the personal letter which came with it.
    Dear Dr Himmelblau,
    I am sending you a complaint about a horible experience I have had. Please take it seriously and please help me. I am so unhapy, I have so little confidence in myself, I spend days and days just lying in bed wondering what is the point of geting up. I try to live for my work but I am very easily discouraged and sometimes everything seems so black and pointless it is almost hystericaly funny to think of twisting up bits of wire or modeling plasticine. Why bother I say to myself and realy there isn’t any answer. I realy think I might be better off dead and after such an experience as I have just had I do slip back towards that way of thinking of thinking
of
puting an end to it all. The doctor at the Health Centre said just try to snap out of it what does
he
know? He ought to listen to people he can’t realy know what individual people might do if they did
snap
as he puts it out of it, anyway out of what does he mean, snapout of what? The dead are snaped
into
black plastic sacks I have seen it on television body bags they are called. I realy think a lot about being a body in a black bag that is what I am good for. Please help me Dr Himmelblau. I frighten myself and the contempt of others is the last straw snap snap snap snap.
    Yours sort of hopefully,
Peggi Nollett.
    Dr Himmelblau sees Peregrine Diss walk past the window with the cheese-plants. He is very tall and very erect—columnar, thinks Gerda Himmelblau—and has a great deal of well-brushed white hair remaining. He is wearing an olive-green cashmere coat with a black velvet collar. He carries a black lacquered walking-stick, with a silver knob, which he does not lean on, but swings. Once inside the door, observed by but not observing Dr Himmelblau, he studies the little god in his green shade, and then stands and looks gravely down on the lobster, the crabs, and the scallops. When he has taken them in he nods to them, in a kind of respectful acknowledgement, and proceeds into the body of the restaurant, where the younger Chinese woman takes his coat and stick and bears them away. He looks round andsees his host. They are the only people in the restaurant; it is early.
    ‘Dr Himmelblau.’
    ‘Professor Diss. Please sit down. I should have asked whether you like Chinese food—I just thought this place might be convenient for both of us—’
    ‘Chinese food—well-cooked, of course—is one of the great triumphs
of
the human species. Such delicacy, such intricacy, such simplicity, and
so peaceful in
the ageing stomach.’
    ‘I like the food here. It has certain subtleties one discovers as one goes on. I have noticed that the restaurant is frequented by large numbers of real Chinese people—families—which is always a good sign. And the fish and vegetables are always fresh, which is another.’
    ‘I shall ask you to be my guide through the plethora of the menu. I do not think I can face Fried Crispy Bowels, however much, in principle, I believe in venturing into the unknown. Are you partial to steamed oysters with ginger and spring onions? So intense, so
light
a flavour—’
    ‘I have never had them—’
    ‘Please try. They bear no relation to cold oysters,whatever you think of those. Which of the duck dishes do you think is the most succulent… ?’
    They chat agreeably, composing a meal with elegant variations, a little hot flame of chilli here, a ghostly fragrant sweetness of lychee there, the slaty tang of black beans, the elemental