‘This is only the fourth. With all its dramatic flaws it’s still my favourite opera. People die right and left in other operas but this one is all about death from beginning to end; it’s like a gorgeous poison flower. You simply have to move your mind out of the everyday reality frame to enjoy it.’
Debussy’s music, like the sea, delaying not, hurrying not, took us through the long-awaited kiss, the killing of Pelléas, and the later death of Mélisande. ‘C’était un pauvre petit ê tre mysterieux comme tout le monde,’ sang Arkel, the grandfather of Golaud and Pelléas. ‘She was a poor little mysterious being like all of us,’ said the surtitle. I was reminded that être, the infinitive to be, was also the noun, being. Everyone who was, was a being, a poor little mysterious being. Serafina and I, that’s what we were. And Mr Rinyo-Clacton, was he also a poor little mysterious being? I looked at his dark profile and saw him naked in his bedroom, felt him penetrate me. Stop that, I said to myself: think about Mélisande, how it was her destiny not to belong to the one she loved, how sad that was. But my mind persisted in going its own way, sorting through its pictures and wondering what was coming after the opera.
12
Now, Then
‘Now, then,’ said Mr Rinyo-Clacton in his study. The background music for this scene was the Debussy String Quartet in G Minor, coming out of a state-of-the-art Meridian sound system nestling among many shelves of CDs. To me that music always suggested beaded lampshades, oriental carpets, glass-fronted bookcases, and the word neurasthenia.
There was a very imposing desk of lustrous and highly-polished wood and many subtle curves, joinings, pigeonholes, drawers and compartments. I don’t know anything about furniture but this was the sort of thing one sees on the Antiques Roadshow and learns that it’s worth fifty thousand pounds. The desk was presided over by a double lamp of gleaming brass and green glass shades.
The other object that caught my eye was a large illuminated globe, the kind that sits in a wooden ring on handsomely turned legs. There were ranks of box-files and numerous guides to various countries but no other books.
The only picture on the walls was a framed reproduction of a Piero di Cosimo that’s in the National Gallery – a satyr bending over a dead or dying nymph with a wound in her throat. They are on the shore of a bay. A sad brown dog watches the two of them. Other dogs play on the beach; there are herons and a pelican. In the blue distance ships ride at anchor; beyond them are the buildings of a port. The scene is magical, dreamlike, desolate; the nymph, covered only by a bit of drapery over her hips, her girlish breasts pathetically exposed, is so luminously beautiful – her death seems a dream-death. She and the satyr seem to have strayed into a dream of the death of innocence.
‘Do you think they’ll wake up?’ I said.
Mr Rinyo-Clacton turned away from the desk to look, first at the picture, then at me. ‘They won’t and you won’t. This is it.’
The Debussy quartet had ended and the Ravel quartet that follows it on the CD (I have the same recording, with the Pro Arte Quartet) began. ‘Ravel after Debussy is quite nice, I think,’ said Mr Rinyo-Clacton. ‘There’s a good little edge to it. Do you like music? I never thought to ask.’
‘Yes, I like music’
‘This, as they say, is the beginning of the rest of your life. It will be a life of one year, so the music you hear and everything else will be heightened for you. “Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour,” eh?’
See Mr Rinyo-Clacton, his jacket off and his tie undone, bending over the desk, brilliantly caught in my vision like a scene in a film or a dream. A large half-full glass of brandy stood at the edge of the green blotter. There was another in my right hand. Mr Rinyo-Clacton opened a drawer and took out a crisp white document. ‘If you’ll read this,’ he said, and handed it to me. It was a proper piece of calligraphy, written in Chancery hand:
I, Jonathan Fitch, being of sound mind and with my faculties unimpaired, not under duress or the influence of any drug, hereby assign to T. Rinyo-Clacton, for the sum of one million pounds, to be paid on signature, the right to terminate my life at any time from midnight, the 24th October, 1995. This agreement is binding and I understand that it remains in effect even if I change my mind and return the money. The agreement cannot be cancelled except by T. Rinyo-Clacton’s exercise of the right assigned above.
‘What’s the T for?’ I said.
‘Thanatophile.’
‘Nobody’s called Thanatophile.’
‘You asked me what the T was for and I told you. Don’t sign this unless you’re serious about it because you may be quite sure that I am. You might think I’m crazy but don’t allow yourself to think we’re just fooling around here or it’s some kind of a joke. Once you sign that paper this thing is going to go all the way.’
‘I’m serious,’ I said, ‘and I know that you are.’
‘Desmond,’ he said without raising his voice, ‘signature for you to witness.’ Desmond appeared, watched me sign, signed his name after mine, and withdrew.
Mr Rinyo-Clacton put the document back in the drawer and closed the drawer. ‘Now,’ he said, turning to me, ‘for my part of the bargain.’ He swung the Piero de Cosimo reproduction out from the wall to disclose a safe. He dialled the combination, opened the safe, and said, ‘Desmond,’ whereupon Desmond reappeared. ‘Get him something to put the money in,’ said Mr Rinyo-Clacton, ‘but not any of my luggage.’
‘There’s only Carmen’s shopping trolley,’ said Desmond.
‘That’ll do. She can buy another one tomorrow.’
Desmond got the shopping trolley, a blue-and-red-and-yellow plaid number, brought it into the study, and was gone. Mr Rinyo-Clacton reached into the safe and brought out two thick stacks of fifty-pound notes, each sealed in clear plastic. ‘There’s twelve thousand, five hundred in each bundle,’ he said, ‘so you get eighty of them. Count.’ He handed me bundles of notes and I counted and loaded the trolley. I managed to get sixty bundles into it and Desmond fetched carrier bags from the kitchen for the rest of the money.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s it then. Off I go to live out my million-pound year.’
The Ravel quartet had ended. Now Mr Rinyo-Clacton put on the same trio Mr Perez had started earlier that day, the first-time-with-Serafina-music. He gripped my shoulder. ‘One for the road?’
‘No more brandy for me, thanks.’
‘I wasn’t talking about brandy, Jonathan.’
‘Give me a break! That wasn’t part of the deal.’
‘You’re absolutely right; this isn’t business, it’s personal. I need to feel that death in you again.’
‘And I need you not to.’
‘Tell you what – I’ll wrestle you for it. We’ll both enjoy it more if you put up a fight. If you’ll just step into my dojo…’
‘You’ve got a dojo?’
‘With mats on the floor, You’ll find it quite comfortable.’
He was about six inches taller than I and two stone heavier and I had reason to know that he was a whole lot fitter. As he turned to lead the way I grabbed the desk lamp and would have brained him with it – what a wonderful, wonderful feeling of rightness and release! – but it was taken away from me by the magically appearing Desmond, who then clamped my arms behind me with his left hand while applying a stranglehold with his right arm. Thus restrained I was taken to the dojo where I was stripped to my underpants while Mr Rinyo-Clacton also took off his clothes. Then I was released, put up the best fight I could, and lost.
The rest of it took place in the dojo as well, with Mr Rinyo-Clacton synchronising his movements to those of the Ravel trio and the violin and cello sonata that followed it. He continued with Ravel and me through the violin and piano sonata that came next on the CD, finishing triumphantly as the last movement, Perpetuum mobile, reached its climax.
‘Nice bit of fiddling, that, don’t you think?’ he said.
‘I think I don’t ever want to hear it again.’
‘Sure you do. Your problem is t
hat you don’t really know yourself, Jonny. You’ve got a lovely little death in you, a really charming little death – we’re going to be good friends, it and I. But now it’s time you were getting home. Thank you for the pleasure of your company; we’ll be in touch.’ Still naked, he turned his back on me and walked out of the dojo, leaving his clothes where he’d dropped them while the CD concluded with the Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré.
I got dressed and Desmond drove me and my million pounds home. I felt no resentment towards him; I recognised that although he clearly enjoyed his work he was only doing his job and I had no one but myself to blame for what had happened. As we slipped through the quiet streets I replayed that wonderful moment of rage when, if not prevented, I’d have killed Mr Rinyo-Clacton with no thought whatever for the consequences. If I’d been able to do it and get out of the flat I’d have happily left the million pounds behind and called it quits, which was of course not a viable fantasy because consequences would have followed thick and fast.
Here we were: my place. Desmond helped me out of the Daimler with the shopping trolley and carrier bags, said, ‘Good luck,’ and drove off with the engine purring like a well-fed big cat. I went up to my flat and turned on the lights. The whole place shrieked silently at me. ‘For Christ’s sake, it’s me!’ I said but the place kept shrieking. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see if I was who I said I was. In the mirror I saw Death wearing my face.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m not having that – you can’t wear my face.’
It’s not your face any more, sweetheart, said Death, it’s mine. And it made disgusting kissing noises.
For the second time I had a shower that did not cover me with cleanness. Then I got dressed, turned out the lights, put the shopping trolley and the carrier bags in the kitchen, and looked at my watch: quarter to three. I had the feeling that Katerina was someone I could ring up in the middle of the night; maybe she was even expecting my call. I picked up the telephone and dialled her number. She answered after one ring. ‘Hello,’ she said, sounding wide awake.
‘It’s Jonathan,’ I said. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘No, Jonathan – I was reading Schiller.’
‘Can I come over? I can be there in fifteen minutes.’
‘Yes, come. See you in fifteen minutes. Tschuss.’
I opened one of the bundles of banknotes, counted out fifty fifties, thought about muggers, put the notes in an envelope, lowered my trousers, taped the envelope to my leg, hitched my trousers up again, and took my poor little mysterious being out into the small hours of the night.
13
Sayings of Confucius
It was a chilly night and it began to rain as I left my flat; by the time I got to Earl’s Court Road the streets were shining and vivid with bright reflections. It was a Friday night/Saturday morning and the scene ought to have been a lively one but it wasn’t; everything had a low-spirited look: a few people in twos and threes with long intervals of no people; minimal signs of life at the Star Kebab House and Perry’s Bakery; a man in an apron sweeping out the Global Emporium; the Vegemania dark and silent, sending out waves of no-Serafina; modest traffic at the 24 Hour 7/Eleven; shelves being stacked at Gateway. At the closed tube station a man was leaning against the grille and vomiting. Two men were standing in the middle of the pavement and kissing. I closed my eyes and tried to see the oasis but it was Mr Rinyo-Clacton that I saw instead, his face blotchy and red and his breath bad while the Ravel played itself in my head. Then once more came the rage and the feeling of my hand closing on the heavy desk lamp.
What is the reality of me? I wondered, looking down at the wet pavement and my walking feet. I have moved out of my proper time and space into something else where anything at all can happen. Or maybe I’m not really me; maybe when I sat down in Piccadilly Circus tube station Death crawled up inside me and that’s why it was looking out of my eyeholes in the mirror.
Calm down, I said to myself. This just happens to be a part of reality and a part of you that you haven’t been to before, OK?
As I drew nearer to Katerina’s corner I was full of excitement and anticipation, the way I used to feel when I was going to see Serafina. What’s happening here? I asked myself but got no answer. The Waterstone’s window was devoted to Dr Ernst von Luker and copies of his book on the latest theory of consciousness: Mind – the Gap. Bald, bearded and bespectacled Dr von Luker, staring out of a giant photograph, looked into my poor little mysterious mind and his lips moved. ‘Arsehole,’ he said.
As I went up Katerina’s steps I saw her looking out of the window and she came to the front door to let me in. Her hair was down and she was wearing a blue kimono decorated with little birds on flowering branches. Her scent was light and fresh. Feeling crazed and utterly correct I held out my arms and she came into them and I kissed her. Gone, gone, gone. I closed my eyes and saw a full moon over the sea, white and lonely, felt the pull of the moon that couldn’t be seen this rainy night and the rising and falling of the sea.
‘Plum blossoms,’ she whispered, ‘on a dry tree.’
‘Plum blossoms?’
‘On my kimono. The bird is the uguisu, the Japanese bush-warbler. “Uguisu no, nakuya achimuki, kochira muki”:
An uguisu is singing,
Turning this way,
Turning that way.’
‘You’re not a dry tree,’ I said, ‘you’re some kind of sorceress – the ordinary rules don’t apply to you.’ We were still standing just inside the front door and I was afraid to move, afraid I might disappear at any moment.
She kissed me again and led me into her flat. There was faint music, Ravel of course, the first-time-with-Serafina-trio again. Well, Katerina was a psychic, wasn’t she. I was going to ask her to switch it off when I changed my mind and tried to listen past Mr Rinyo-Clacton for what else was in the music, the voices and the colours of it.
We went through a book-lined hallway into a bedroom full of books. ‘Apart from the front room there’s only this one,’ she said. Other than the shelves, the only pieces of furniture were an old brass bed and a bedside table with an Anglepoise lamp. As well as the books there were several shelves of LPs. The turntable stood on the floor with the amplifier and the speakers. Beyond the circle of lamplight the room was shadowy like the music.
Katerina’s recording was a Deutsche Grammophon LP; the artists weren’t the ones who’d performed on the CD that Mr Rinyo-Clacton and I both owned; this lot had had no part in his synchronised buggery. The strings and the piano seemed to be engaged in a meandering colloquy in which sometimes reason and sometimes emotion prevailed; the mood overall was one of melancholy.
In the second movement, designated Pantoum (I’d looked it up once: it was the name of a kind of Malayan verse quatrain) the musical protagonist seemed to be trying to break free of something. Pantoum, I said to myself, Pantoum, liking the strange sound and the mystery of the word.
Katerina kept her kimono on when she got into bed; her shapely feet looked younger than her years. I undressed, removed the envelope from my leg, slid in beside her, and took her in my arms. A woman of seventy-something, for God’s sake! I thought I’d do no more than hold her but our kissing had moved on to something more serious than before and the music now seemed especially of this strange moment in which the ordinary rules were suspended. I didn’t have a condom.
‘It’s all right without,’ she said softly. ‘I know you’ve been with him again but this is how I want you. I’m not going to catch anything from you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m psychic, remember?’
‘Strange woman, magic woman.’
‘Remember that when you wake up in the morning and find yourself lying beside a bundle of ancient papyrus.’ She switched off the Angle-poise and there were only the faint light from the hall and the little red beacon of the amplifier and the music.
Afterwards she said, “Nur die Fülle führt zur Klarheit / Und im Abgrund
wohnt die Wahrheit” Only fullness leads to clarity / And in the abyss dwells the truth.’
‘Is that Schiller?’
‘Yes, “Sayings of Confucius”.’
‘What makes you quote those lines now?’
‘I don’t know – you mustn’t expect me to be rational all the time. One does something and perhaps has no idea what it was that was done. Then much later there comes suddenly the understanding – Aha! So that’s what it was. This that just happened with us, maybe we think it was only with the two of us here and now but nothing is separate from anything else: not people, not places, not times. The present is the fin you see cutting the water, and under it swims the shark that is the past and the future.’ She gripped my hand. ‘Jonathan, I know that you are in some kind of a life-and-death thing. Will you tell me what it is?’
I told her and the pillow rustled as she shook her head. ‘Mr Rinyo-Clacton was right,’ she said. ‘That was Death looking out of your eyes when he saw you in the tube station. It’s very strong in you now. Don’t you want to live?’
‘Sometimes I think yes and sometimes I think no. Sometimes I feel as if Samarra is everywhere and Death is looking at his watch and waiting for me.’
‘For you Death is a man.’
‘Definitely.’
‘What if you were to tell Mr Rinyo-Clacton you’ve changed your mind and you give back the money?’
‘Surely a modern no-bullshit psychic and clairvoyant can guess the answer to that one, Katerina?’
‘I know – he’s full of death also. You must understand when we talk about this: I can feel some of the big things but I don’t always get details. And even with the big things I’m not always clear; there are often cross-currents and contradictions in what comes to me.’
‘Well, one of the details is that even if I return the money he’s still going to require my death in one year.’
‘Do you think he’ll honour the agreement and give you the full year?’
‘I’m not at all sure he can be trusted.’