‘You can say that but I don’t know what I know any more.’
‘Yes, you do. But let’s come back to my question — I’ve answered yours and now it’s your turn to answer mine.’
She was blushing furiously but she looked me in the eye with something like defiance. ‘The short answer is that he’s had me too.’
I shook my head as I tried not to see her and Mr Rinyo-Clacton naked on that bed. ‘When, for God’s sake?’
‘This afternoon.’
I ground my teeth. I’d been thinking of him as dangerous only at night and I’d forgotten that Serafina was off between three and five. ‘I don’t believe this. Have you ever seen him before today?’
‘No.’
‘Was it rape?’
‘No.’
‘My God, I’d no idea you were that easy, Serafina. How’d he manage it — “Come up to my place and look at my African sculptures”? What?’
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘Did he say anything about me?’
‘Only that you were a friend of his and he’d heard about the Vegemania and my potato pancakes from you.’
‘My friend Mr Rinyo-Clacton! O God, who would have thought you and I would ever be having this conversation! Did he use a condom?’
‘Goddam it, Jonathan, you’re not in a position to play the outraged husband.’
‘All right, but did he?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘O God, what if you get pregnant from him?’
‘Wrong time of the month.’
‘But the other possibility! Why couldn’t you have been more careful?’
‘Like you, right? Somehow there isn’t always the moment for careful; there wasn’t for you and there wasn’t for me. We’d been to a place in Sloane Square and I’d had a lot to drink and I was feeling low the same as you and I think I just wanted some consolation. He knew how to say the right things, he was very sweet and gentle and it just happened the way it happened.’
‘And how was it for you, Serafina?’
‘Oh God, I don’t think I’ve got the words for it. It was like an out-of-body experience where I was looking down at the two people on the bed and I knew that I was one of them but it was all so strange, so strange!’ She covered her face with her hands.
‘When I looked through the window and saw you serving him potato pancakes I didn’t know whether you fancied him or what.’
She took her hands away. ‘He wanted me to go out with him tonight. I said no. Is he HIV-positive? Are you sure about that?’
‘I can’t prove it but he told me he never takes precautions and he’s never been tested and I’m pretty sure he’s had a lot of partners. And if he’s HIV-positive he probably gets a thrill out of spreading it around. And there he sits eating your potato pancakes, that son of a bitch.’
Zoë came in with a tray of dirty dishes. ‘Table One wants to know what happened to his second order of potato pancakes,’ she said.
‘Potato pancakes are off,’ said Serafina.
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Zoë, and was gone.
‘I can’t get over it,’ I said. ‘Two days ago I’d never set eyes on him and today here we are like this.’
‘Both of us maybe HIV-positive,’ she said, looking at me sadly. I wanted to hug her; I stretched out my arms to her but she backed away. ‘Damn you, Jonathan, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t cheated on me.’ She was shaking her head despairingly. ‘I think maybe you’ve destroyed us, I think you’ve taken our lives away.’ She covered her face again, and again I tried to hug her but her arms were in the way. ‘You used to give me comfort when I needed it,’ she said, ‘but not any more — that’s all over, all gone with all the rest of what we had: all gone, all gone.’
What could I say? Zoë came in with more dirty dishes and a folded envelope which she stuck in the little wall-mounted box they used for notes and messages. ‘It was on the window sill between the rubber plant and the aspidistra by Table One.’
‘Is he still there?’ I said.
‘Gone.’ She picked up an order of tagliatelle and withdrew. Serafina grabbed the empty brown C5 envelope with a printed label addressed to T. Rinyo-Clacton, Esq; no indication of where it was from. It had been folded in half to make it pocket-size and the back was covered with Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s handwriting. At the top was what looked like a telehone number. Below it we read:
Space between — like moat to keep animals from getting out — jump over space between mind and brain
MR RINYO-CLACTON’S OFFER
Clay — infirm vessels all — leaky & easily broken — death in every one — return to earth. Millionaire Aquarius, bisexual, HIV-positive, afraid of dying, seeks companion in death. Offers to buy someone’s death. No control over his own except suicide but controls death of other — offers £1m + year to live. Will other take £1m, try to kill R-C? Other’s wife or girlfriend — will R-C sleep with her, spread his death around?
‘Oh God,’ said Serafina. ‘ “Millionaire Aquarius, bisexual, HIV-positive”.’
HIV-positive. There goes my life, was my first thought. I might as well say now that when I signed that document in Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s study I did it thinking I’d find some way for him to predecease me. It was a thought that came to me that first time he buggered me. I’d been hoping to enjoy a full life plus the million pounds but now I had no doubt that I’d been infected by him — this was the destiny I’d shaped for myself and Serafina. ‘Other’s wife or girlfriend — will R-C sleep with her, spread his death around?’ And he’d already done it!
‘What’s he playing at?’ said Serafina.
Ron looked into the kitchen. ‘Please forgive my rudeness in interrupting your conversation,’ he said, ‘but this place is actually a restaurant. That is, people come here to pay money for food which we prepare and serve to them. Crazy idea, I know, but there it is.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I was just going.’ I stuck Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s envelope in my pocket. ‘Can I come back for you when you’re ready to go home?’ I said to Serafina.
She nodded and I left.
20. At Zoë’s Place
The telephone number on the back of the envelope was a central London one that might possibly have some connection with Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s notes. I was used to his style by now: it was in his nature to flaunt rather than hide his intentions; his notes might even have been left for that very purpose. If the notes were for a book, then the number could be that of a publisher. A title page appeared in my mind: The Carnivore Cookbook, by Celestine Latour. I saw Mr Rinyo-Clacton grinning at me in Waterstone’s, felt his hand on my bottom, saw Serafina being devoured by him, saw him smacking his lips as he tasted her sweet flesh. The title page had had a publisher’s logo with a little angeclass="underline" Derek Engel. That same logo was on the title page of Mind — the Gap. Was Derek Engel going to publish Mr Rinyo-Clacton? Would the seduction of Serafina be in it?
All the way back to the hotel my mind regaled me with a continuous showing of Serafina and Mr Rinyo-Clacton in action, with many close-ups and amplified location sound. The slow-motion sequence of my Serafina with her legs wrapped around him had an awfulness that was fascinating. Other and worse images offered themselves. Stop it, I said to my mind, but it wouldn’t stop. Had Serafina had similar pictures in her mind when she discovered my infidelities? Nothing would ever be the same again.
Full of rage and regret I arrived at the Lord Jim and looked up Derek Engel Ltd in the telephone directory. The number was the one that Mr Rinyo-Clacton had written on the envelope. Too late to phone today — I’d have to wait until tomorrow. When I got to my room it no longer seemed a refuge but a place of dead air and inaction. The mirror on the door was full of darkness and foreboding. I began to pack my things and when I found Mind — the Gap in my hands I opened it at random and read: