‘I hope two are enough. Bottles seem smaller than they used to be.’
‘It’s because the universe is expanding — it’s a relative thing.’
‘Did anything come to you at Victor Noir’s tomb other than the reality of his death and mine?’
‘I don’t know yet, maybe I’ll know later. What about Au Tonneau?’
‘It’s empty.’ I refilled both glasses.
‘We knew that before. What else?’
‘It’s full of absence.’
‘Go on.’
‘Like me.’
‘What absence is that, Jonno?’
‘The absence of you and the absence in me that made you asbent. Absent.’
‘What absence is that, the absence in you that made me asbent? Absent, that made me absent, what?’
‘I don’t know if I have the worods for it. The woordos.’
She moved closer to me and put her hand on my arm. ‘Find the worods and the woordos, Jonno. You were always good with worms. Words.’
The sky was getting darker and there was a little chill in the air. Our glasses were empty and so was the second bottle. ‘What made you absent,’ I said, ‘was the absence in me of what would have made you stay.’
‘What was that? What was absent in you?’
‘A real understanding of what was between us, Fina, and what there was to lose. You’re my destiny-woman and I behaved as if you weren’t. I wouldn’t have wanted you to treat me the way I treated you.’
‘Took a lot of woordos to get there, Jonno.’ She squeezed my arm. The day was completely gone; the sky gave itself over to evening. The park attendant came out of his kiosk, blew his whistle several times and began his gate-closing round. ‘Fermeture du soir!’ he said as he passed us.
We packed up the glasses and the corkscrew and dropped the empty bottles into the litter bin. Serafina took my arm and we found our way to Ma Bourgogne by the corner of the square, where after a short wait we were given a table in a corner. The place was crowded and noisy and the conviviality and good cheer around us made me feel suddenly alone and lost. All through dinner we were mostly silent; I knew that Serafina was thinking, as I was, of the coming night and morning and the rest of our lives.
29. Yes and No
We were lying in our separate beds wide awake in the dark. After a while Serafina said, ‘Can I come in with you?’
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t want to do anything except just be with you, OK?’
‘OK, Fina.’
When she crept in under the covers I hugged her and she hugged me back. ‘Jonno,’ she said, ‘I’m so scared.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes and no. I’m worried about the HIV test but all we can do is wait. About the other — I’ll think of something.’
She evidently found that a workable answer, because she snuggled up to me and fell asleep.
30. Tombeau Les Regrets
We returned from Paris Wednesday morning, once more leaving the daylight behind us and speeding into the darkness of the tunnel. On yesterday’s train to Paris, Serafina, though beside me, had not been really with me. On the way back she was with me but the weather between us seemed always on the point of changing from moment to moment; nothing could be taken for granted. What did you expect? I said to myself. At least she called me Jonno most of the time now.
On Wednesday afternoon an envelope was slipped through my letterbox. Inside were a note and a ticket for the Purcell Room that evening at 7.30: a concert of pieces for two viols by Sainte Colombe performed by Jordi Savall and Wieland Kuijken. The note said:
No, sex, Please! Cultural bonding only.
Be there!
T.
Cultural bonding! That man certainly wanted value for money. And I felt that cultural bonding was actually what he meant: he was able to hold in his mind at the same time the idea of killing me and that of greater intimacy through music. It would be simple enough to stay away from the concert if I chose but I felt myself in some obscure way responding to the need that I sensed in his invitation, and of course there was the music. I’d first heard the compositions of Sainte Colombe and his pupil Marin Marais in the film Tous les Matins du Monde, and they had the sort of deep melancholy that I was very much in the mood for at present; I’d bought the soundtrack CD shortly after seeing the film and I was looking forward to hearing more of Sainte Colombe.
Serafina was at the Vegemania, due back at the flat tonight. I left a note for her and set out at six so as to have plenty of time for a leisurely coffee.
I came out of the underground at Embankment, made my way through the busy station, and mounted the stairs to the Hungerford Bridge. There are always homeless people at both ends, huddled in blankets or sleeping bags: gatekeepers between the glittering view and the hard realities of life. I gave money to the man at the near end, joined the many pedestrians coming and going, and paused at the viewing bay in the middle to take in the shining river and its boats, the distant dome of St Paul’s, and the luminous sweep of London from the Festival Hall on my right to Charing Cross Station on my left.
The evening was cold, the air crisp and clear; the panoramic view was needle-sharp and bright with promise: this is where it’s all happening, declared the domes and spires, the twinkling lights beyond, the boats showing green for starboard, red for port, and the trains behind me rumbling in and out. Charing Cross Station, all agleam with its swaggering arches, urged action. Live! it said. Go! Do!
I crossed the bridge, gave money to the woman at the far end and the recorder-player at the bottom of the stairs, and proceeded to Queen Elizabeth Hall where I found Mr Rinyo-Clacton sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and a chunky paperback. Early as it was, many of the tables were already in use by eaters, drinkers, readers and talkers. This was a far cry from the box at the Royal Opera House but Mr Rinyo-Clacton seemed comfortable enough among the common folk.
‘What,’ I said, ‘no Cristal ’71? No oysters, no Desmond? And they haven’t got boxes here. How are you coping?’
‘Every now and then I like to mix with the plebs, as you may have noticed.’
‘What are you reading?’
He held up the paperback: Orlando Furioso. ‘Noticed this in your bookshelves when we were bugging your flat,’ he said. ‘It’s something I’ve always been meaning to read so I got a copy for myself, bought the Italian edition as well so I could hear the sound of the original.’
I got myself a coffee, then sat down to hear what he had to say about Ariosto. ‘This part in Canto VIII,’ he said, ‘where naked Angelica’s chained to a rock waiting to be devoured by Orca and Ruggiero comes to her rescue, you had a marker stuck there in your copy.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you especially like that part?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you seen the Redon pastel, Rogen and Angelica?’
‘Only in reproduction — the original’s at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.’
‘I’ve seen it there. They never get the colour right in reproductions; reducing it from the original doesn’t help either. It’s mostly murk, that picture, which is why it’s so true to life: all those rich blues and purples and greens are full of paradises and delights you can’t have because the murk is impenetrable.’
‘Still, despite the murk, you can see Angelica well enough and Ruggiero did manage to rescue her.’