The idea of the dark river, the night river, stayed with me all through the music, and it began to seem to me that everything that was between Mr Rinyo-Clacton and me was about this dark river. I felt that it must be in his mind as well, and I wanted to hear what he would say about it.
The concert ended; there was bowing and applause. The musicians were gone; the audience dispersed. Like a letter from a distant sender, the music of Saint Colombe had been delivered to each of us, to be read and re-read later when alone.
There were no buskers about and the night was cold when we went up the stairs to the bridge. The woman who sat there wrapped in a blanket was not the same one who’d been there earlier. Mr Rinyo-Clacton gave her a twenty-pound note. ‘They don’t live long, these people,’ he said.
‘Life is pretty short for some of the rest of us too.’
He shrugged. The footbridge was crowded with concert-leavers. We moved among their footsteps until we reached the viewing bay, where we stepped aside to look at the river. There was a little sickle moon in the sky.
‘Look at the river —’ he said, ‘the lights and the glitter and the shine of it. But underneath there’s only the blackness, only the blackness. Like that music: shining golden goblets but the wine is black water; that’s all there is now and for ever.’ He covered his face with his hands and his shoulders shook.
‘Are you all right?’ I said.
‘Do you care?’
I couldn’t find any words.
‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Jonathan.’
I shook my head and closed my eyes and saw a figure falling, falling to the dark waters below.
‘Come home with me, Jonny. Help me make it through the night.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘all you’ve bought is my death. Let’s go.’ When we came off the bridge he hailed a cab and was gone.
31. Camomile Tea
After the concert I was more confused than ever. ‘I know it sounds weird,’ I said to Serafina, ‘but it’s almost as if he wants to be my friend.’
‘With friends like that you don’t need enemies.’
‘No, really. Obviously he’s some kind of crazy but he could be entering a new phase of it, or even coming out of the current one.’
‘That’s as may be but I don’t think I’d buy a used car from him.’
‘Maybe he’s got no intention of killing me. Maybe he’s so rich he can amuse himself by seeing what happens when he picks up some loser and makes the offer he made me.’
‘Is that what you are, a loser?’
‘That’s how I felt and I expect that’s how I looked when he found me in Piccadilly Circus tube station.’
‘Which brings us back to the question: if losing me made you a loser, why did you let it happen?’
‘We’ve been through all that, Fina. It’s like dehydrated shit and you keep adding water and stirring.’
‘I don’t want to but it keeps not going away.’
The phone rang. It was Mr Rinyo-Clacton. ‘Jonathan,’ he said, ‘I need to talk to you. Please.’ He sounded humble; it was shocking.
‘What about?’ I said in a dead voice.
‘Everything. Can we meet?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘God! You sound so hostile!’
‘Well, as you said, Thanatophile, I’m chained to the rock of my inadequacy.’
‘Look, this is a strange thing we’ve got ourselves into but we can still talk, can’t we? You like talking to me sometimes, I can feel it.’
‘Which reminds me, you’re probably recording this very conversation from one of those bugs I haven’t found.’
‘Some people are voyeurs; I’m also an auditeur, I can’t help it, and I like the sound of your voice.’
‘Well, you can get your jollies playing this back but I need not to be bothered by you for a while.’
‘Jonathan…’
‘What?’
‘This could be the last time.’
‘You mean you intend to harvest me already? All the more reason to stay away from you.’
‘I have no intention of harming you. I humbly ask you as a friend — and in some mysterious way we are friends — please give me an hour of your time tomorrow.’
Somehow, the balance of power was changing; doomed as I was, I was becoming the stronger one. Perhaps I wasn’t doomed? ‘All right, meet me in Earl’s Court Road in front of the tube station tomorrow afternoon at half-past five. Come by underground, maybe you’ll make new friends on the way.’
‘Five-thirty — I’ll be there.’
‘What is it with you and him?’ said Serafina. ‘I’m beginning to think that the buggery established a real bond between the two of you.’
‘There’s certainly something between us and I can’t say I understand it.’
‘Let me know if you ever do.’
‘You’ll be the second to know.’
Serafina made tea for us, camomile, then we went to bed with a space between us. It took me a long time to fall asleep. I kept hearing him say, ‘This could be the last time.’
32. Tchaikovsky’s Sixth
I’d told Mr Rinyo-Clacton to come to Earl’s Court by underground because I wanted him to be down among non-millionaires in the rush hour, wanted him to be uninsulated by his wealth when he came to our meeting. He’d sounded so humble on the telephone! Until now, when I thought about him, it was mostly him in relation to me, not him in relation to himself and whatever made up that self. Now I found myself wondering what it was like to be Mr Rinyo-Clacton when he woke up in the morning and when he went to sleep at night. Katerina had said there was fear in him. Of what? Was it possible that he could be afraid of me? Had he ever actually killed anyone? I had no facts about him except those that were part of our brief history. He’d said he was serious about killing me but he’d also said, in his new humble mode, that people change, that he intended me no harm in this meeting that could be our last.
Serafina was out doing the shopping; the flat was full of dumbness and irresolution and I had a lot of time to get through before the meeting with Mr Rinyo-Clacton. I needed some music and I was cruising the CD shelves when I found myself humming the opening of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, the Pathétique, to which my mind was singing:
Earl’s Court at half-past five today —
what is it that he want to say?
‘Give me a break,’ I said, but I did want to hear that music and I didn’t have it on CD. There was a tape somewhere in the flat so I rummaged in boxes, behind books, through random stacks of this and that and ad hoc heaps of clutter for about an hour and a half while hot waves of aggravation flooded through me. Finally I gave up and went to the Music Discount Centre by South Ken tube station and bought the recording by Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra.
Funny, I thought as I left the shop and walked into the unblinking daylight, here I’ve got this poor bastard’s heart and soul, his life and death really, all digitalised on a little disc and I can play it straight through or start it in the middle or repeat each track several times or jump up and down on it and throw it in the dustbin. Destroy this one and there are hundreds of thousands more, recorded by every orchestra that’s internationally known and some that aren’t. The man himself is dead and gone but his misery is alive and well and available worldwide. T-shirts too, undoubtedly.