‘Oh God, what a thing you have got yourself into, Jonathan.’
‘Maybe in some way I needed to make this happen.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know – I can’t always join up the dots but I feel that if I’d been more of a man, if I’d liked myself better and liked women better, I wouldn’t have needed to get so many of them into bed; I’d have been too full of Serafina and what she was to me and things wouldn’t be as they are now.’
‘You’ve just been unfaithful to her again with this old woman lying next to you.’
‘This is different – she’s left me and she’s probably sleeping with someone else this very moment.’ I said that but I didn’t believe it.
‘Have you got anything he’s touched, this Rinyo-Clacton?’
‘Here I am – I’m something he’s touched.’
‘You’re too full of you; I need something with no output of its own.’
I took the envelope from the bedside table and put the banknotes in her hand. ‘This money,’ I said, ‘although it was sealed in plastic when he touched it.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ She held it in both hands, pressed it to her chest, and shut her eyes. Then her face changed – her lips drew back from her teeth in a long shuddering breath; she looked suddenly ancient and sibylline and altogether frightening. For the first time it came to me that I might be involved in something beyond my understanding.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
Still with her eyes closed, she shook her head and put her finger to her lips for silence. After a time she opened her eyes and said, ‘It’s not good, too many words – the energy of the mind goes like water down the plughole. Some things I see again and again, years apart, and each time it means something else and I must think about it.’ With the index finger and thumb of her left hand she massaged her temples as if she had a headache. I listened to the ticking of her little bedside clock and waited for her to speak. After a few minutes she said, ‘One thing I tell you, though: there’s fear in him.’
‘Fear in him!’
‘Yes, in him.’
‘Fear of what?’
‘I don’t know. Could he be afraid of you?’
‘Of me!’
‘Sometimes you know what someone is to you but you don’t know what you are to them. The fear is definitely there.’
She gave me back the money. ‘Anyhow, he probably doesn’t come after you already tonight so maybe we can get a little sleep.’
‘It just occurred to me – would a photograph of him give you anything?’ As I said that I thought, what, is she your minder now? What a hero.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it only gets in the way. When the time is right, maybe his face comes to me.’
The lovemaking and the talk had drained some of the disquiet out of me; I kissed Katerina and fell asleep and dreamed that I was approaching the oasis with Mr Rinyo-Clacton.
I woke up when I felt Katerina’s absence. Hearing watery noises from the bathroom and expecting a few more minutes alone I found a scrap of paper in my pocket and wrote a note which I slipped under the pillow with fifty fifty-pound notes:
Dear Katerina,
This money is for a digital piano. You can play it late at night with headphones so no one can hear it and they won’t bang on the door. Don’t give me an argument about this.
Love,
Jonathan
When Katerina made her next appearance she still looked troubled. We kissed and hugged and said nothing more than ‘Good morning.’
I smelled bacon and eggs and coffee when I came out of the shower. Grapefruit juice, too, I saw when I went into the kitchen. ‘Do you ordinarily have bacon and eggs for breakfast?’ I said.
‘No, but I’m a no-bullshit modern psychic and clairvoyant, remember? I think this is what you like when you have time for it, yes?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and thought of Serafina.
On the way out I went into the front room for another look at Melencolia. It was really very hard to tell whether she was smiling or scowling. Had some winged male abandoned her and the sulking child and left all his tools behind? Or had she thrown him out?
When I left, Katerina hadn’t yet made the bed so I didn’t think she’d seen the money and the note. I imagined her lifting the pillow and smiled to myself.
The morning was bright and cold. Considering that I had only a year to live I felt pretty lively. Crazy but lively. I noticed that I was singing to myself, to the tune of a Haydn symphony the number of which had slipped my mind:
Nur die FülleführtzurKlarheit,
Und im Abgrund wohnt die Wahrheit.
About the money I gave Katerina – to be honest I have to say that it wasn’t only that I wanted her to have a piano; I needed to break the lump of that million pounds to convince myself that there was no turning back. Weird, yes? I’ve already said I was feeling crazy.
14
What If?
‘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.’ Katerina had put it very well. I recognised that my night with her had been only incidentally a sexual matter; obviously she represented to me some kind of female power that I wanted on my side; I didn’t know what I was to her and could only hope that her needs had in some way coincided with mine.
Trying not to think too much about my deficiencies I headed for the Vegemania, hoping for a sighting of Serafina. The shop opened at ten, the restaurant not till twelve; it was quarter to eleven now and she’d be getting ready for the lunchtime rush.
As I walked through the faces coming towards me and past me I noted again how many of them seemed eager to get to wherever they were going. This morning I too was eager to get to where I was going but not only because I expected to see Serafina; no, I was just eager to get to the next part of the first day of the rest of my life. Odd, how exciting and vivid and valuable my contractually short life seemed now. All of my senses were sharpened and crossing over from one to another – I tasted the Octoberness of the day in my mouth, saw the colours of passing footsteps and the other sounds around me, heard in my vision the approach of November, smelled possibilities that swarmed like golden bees, held in my hands … what? Ah! I said to myself, be patient and you’ll see.
Yes! She was there. Through the window I saw Rima, one of the waitresses, setting tables. Beyond her I had brief and partial glimpses of Serafina passing and repassing the kitchen doorway. She was in jeans and a mauve jumper with the sleeves pushed up, her black hair held back by a leopard-spotted scarf worn as a headband, her whole throwaway manner wildly erotic as always. The scarf was one we’d bought in the Boulevard Saint-Michel on the day we drank the sauvignon in the Place des Vosges.
With my heart pounding I went through the hallway with its bulletin board of mental, physical and spiritual opportunities, through the empty stripped-pine tables and chairs of the restaurant, and into the kitchen where the luncheon menu in various stages of readiness was deployed in pots and bowls and dishes and on boards and trays. Zoë, the other waitress, was chopping tofu. Patsy Cline was coming over the sound system with ‘Crazy’:
Crazy – I’m crazy for feelin’ so lonely,
I’m crazy, crazy for feelin’ so blue.
I knew you’d love me as long as you wanted,
and then someday you’d leave me for somebody new.
Serafina, with her look of howling into the wind on a bleak northern strand, was peeling onions with tears running down her cheeks. I would have liked to kiss them away but knew better than to try. When she saw me she fired off a black-browed glance that warned me to keep my distance. ‘What?’ she said.
‘What a warm and friendly greeting!’
‘You’ve had all the warm and friendly you’re getting from me, mate. This is a small kitchen and we need your space.’
‘I don’t know where you’re living now.’ When I said that, Zoé glanced u
p from her tofu and I remembered that she’d been looking for a flatmate a few weeks ago.
‘You don’t need to know,’ said Serafina. ‘You can forward mail and messages to me here.’
‘Are you going to stay angry for ever?’
‘When you say “you” you’re talking to the woman you used to live with. She’s not around any more. This woman you’re talking to now is somebody else who hasn’t got time for your whingeing.’
She was a proud person and I could feel how humiliating it must have been for her to find those letters. How would I have felt if she’d had such letters from another man? Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I’d be full of the same rage and disgust that was coming from her in waves. Still, she was the woman I’d had the oasis dream with and we both knew nothing could change that. ‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘how you’d feel tomorrow if you were to hear that I was dead.’
She’d done with the onions for the moment; she wiped her eyes, took a knife and slit open a plastic bag of peeled potatoes. Her hands were strong and shapely, with long nimble fingers; whatever she took hold of she held in a good-looking way and her cooking was pleasing to the eye at every stage: the peeled onions, the bag of flour, the pot of salt, the box of eggs, the chopping board, tablespoon and little black-handled knife were a choreographed still-life that changed from moment to moment. ‘I’d probably feel about the same as I do now –’ she said, ‘cheated because I’d been giving all of me while you were giving only part of you and now my honest time would be gone with your lying time. If you were going to be a shit you should have let me know in advance.’
‘I didn’t know I was going to be a shit.’
‘Then when you felt it coming on, you should have told me so I could leave while I still had good things to remember. That would have been simple enough; if you’d found out that you’d got AIDS from someone you knew before me you’d have had the decency to tell me. I’m the woman you dreamed the oasis dream with, the woman you said was your destiny woman, but that wasn’t enough for you. Can you tell me why it wasn’t enough? I really would like to know because that’s a great big gap in my understanding. Tell me, Jonathan – speak.’
I tried to think of something useful to say but I couldn’t.
‘Nothing to say, Jonathan? In one of those letters in your pocket one of your bits on the side said, “What we have between us is something special, Jonny.” Well, now you can have a special thing with as many as you like without having to lie about it.’
She started putting potatoes into the electric grater. Through her alchemy these humble things out of the earth, compounded with onions, eggs, flour and salt, would sizzle as golden-brown pancakes on the griddle of their transformation. They would smell of their ingredients but beyond that they would smell of fidelity, of being steadfast and true to what really mattered. I couldn’t help salivating a little. And all the while her movements had been revealing the subtle roundnesses of her that one didn’t notice at first glance. ‘Serafina,’ I said. ‘I never stopped loving you.’
‘I’m thrilled to hear that – it’s very flattering to know that you had a little room in your heart for me. You must be a very big-hearted man.’
Again I had no words. I wanted so much to take her in my arms!
‘What?’ she said. ‘The Excelsior star salesman speechless?’
‘What if, I said, ‘you found that I had only a year to live?’
She tilted her head a little to one side and looked at me narrowly. ‘Are you going to tell me you have got AIDS?’
‘No, Serafina, I haven’t got AIDS.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘Never mind. You’re busy now, I’ll go.’ I left the kitchen, went through the restaurant and out into the hall. The shop was at one end of it, the street at the other. I was halfway out into Earl’s Court Road when I had an impulse to buy some rose-hip tea. I spun around and was almost in the shop when I heard Mr Rinyo-Clacton talking to Ron, the owner.
‘Is it true,’ he was asking, ‘what they say about ginseng?’
15
The Lord Jim Hotel
Was it actually Mr Rinyo-Clacton? At first I didn’t want to know, I just wanted to shut him out of my consciousness. Then I had to know; I turned around and went out into Earl’s Court Road and stood looking into the Vegemania. In a few minutes I saw him stick his head into the restaurant from the hallway. Rima pointed to the clock and said they weren’t open yet and he withdrew. I turned away quickly and walked down Earl’s Court Road without looking back.
Why was he here? Was he going to turn up wherever I happened to be from now on? What did he want at the Vegemania? Serafina? Was he going to suck up my whole life like a vampire before he killed me? Serafina! I could see him having lunch at the Vegemania, complimenting her on her cooking, being charming, chatting her up and inviting her to the opera, the ballet, whatever. There’s nothing you can do about it, I told myself – the shop and the restaurant are open to the public and you can’t prevent Serafina from talking to him. Don’t think about it now, put it out of your mind and get on with whatever you were going to do today.
Around me a sketchy surreality put itself together with sounds and colours, buildings, cars, faces, footsteps, and the smell of exhaust fumes and roasting chestnuts. Contracting to be dead in one year definitely made everything look different; gigantic soft watches draped over trees and a downpour of bowler-hatted men with umbrellas would not have surprised me.
Steady on, I said to myself. Right now we’ve got to decide what to do with the money. You’ve got nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand, five hundred pounds and a whole year to live, less one day. Right, I said. A tall rucksacked girl with her blonde hair in two plaits strode past me swinging her mineral water. What if I were to live more than a year? Nobody could be dead sure of anything in this life: Mr Rinyo-Clacton might choke on a pearl in one of his oysters and never get around to harvesting me at all.
I bought a copy of the Financial Times and ran my eye over the front page. Nash & Weapman saw the recession receding; Morgenstern was expecting a downturn in the upturn. Morgenstern seemed to me the brighter of the two so I went back to the flat, averted my eyes from the plants, and rang them up. I told the telephonist I needed some investment advice and she turned me over to a Mr Reilly.
‘Jim Reilly here,’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’ He had an Excelsior kind of voice.
‘I’ve come into some money,’ I said, ‘and I need investment advice.’
‘Yes. And how did you hear of us, Mr Fitch?’
‘I saw your firm quoted in the Financial Times.’
‘Right. I’m sure we can work something out for you, Jonathan. Just so I can begin to put a frame around this, may I ask what sort of amount you’re thinking of investing?’
‘Close to a million, give or take a few bundles.’
‘I see. That kind of money has considerable potential, Jonathan, and our job is not simply to realise that potential – what we’re here for is to maximise it.’
‘That’s what I want, Jim: maximisation of my potential.’
‘We’re going to give it our best shot, Jonathan, and we’ve got a pretty good track record. This is going to require careful planning, and the best way to begin is for you and I to meet … ’
‘You and me to meet,’ I said. ‘Sorry to be pedantic.’
‘No problem. As I was saying, the best way to begin is for the two of us to meet here at our offices so we can look at your whole financial picture and assess your needs as fully as possible. Would that be convenient for you?’
‘Fine. When can you see me?’
‘I’ve got a cancellation at three o’clock this afternoon. How’s that for you?’
‘That’s good. You’re in Gray’s Inn Road, nearest tube station Chancery Lane?’
‘That’s it. Coming up Gray’s Inn Road from the tube station you’ll see a modern building on the right. We’re on the third floor.’
There was still the
matter of the shopping trolley and three carrier bags full of banknotes. I trundled the lot over to Lloyds, made out a deposit slip, and queued up at a window. An alert-looking young member of the staff approached and became interested in the trolley. I opened the flap and showed him the contents. ‘You think they’re real?’ I said.
‘Not my problem. Do you want to deposit that in your account?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’ll have to be counted. Come with me, please.’ He recruited a teller named Brenda and we went to a room where my seventy-nine sealed packets and the one opened one were unpacked and laid out on a desk.
‘Aren’t there a lot of fake fifties about now?’ I said to Brenda. ‘Won’t you have to put them under ultra-violet light or something?’
‘Not unless they feel funny.’ She sighed, tore open the sealed packets, and began to count the nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty fifty-pound notes. She was wearing a navy-blue woollen dress and a little string of pearls; her dark hair was cut in a Lulu-style bob. Her hands were graceful and articulate, her long fingers themselves seeming to count as she murmured hundreds into thousands and replaced the elastic band around each stack as she finished. While pondering the paperness of money, I thought of Serafina peeling onions and the way her hand took hold of a potato.
The silence around Brenda’s quiet voice purred softly; my breathing seemed very loud. The young man – his name was Steve – stood by with canvas bags into which he put the banded stacks as she finished with them. It was a scene that was part of the surreality that was by now the usual thing for me – just another sequence of moments in the new life and death of Jonathan Fitch.
After a while the counting and bagging stopped, the three of us went back to the teller’s window, the bags were sealed, and Brenda stamped my deposit slip. ‘That’s the biggest I’ve had so far today,’ she said.
‘How was it for you?’ I said.
‘Just numbers. In this job you’ve got to stop thinking of money as money or you’ll go crazy.’
As I was about to leave the bank with my empty trolley a man I took to be the manager came out of his office. ‘Mr Fitch,’ he said, taking me in with a practised smile. I was in non-business mode: Mr Scruffy. ‘I’m Henry Dargent, Branch Manager here. I don’t believe we’ve actually met before.’