Mr. Rinyo-Clacton's Offer

by Russell Hoban

  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:

  Human beings are not naturally lawful; one has only to watch children at play to confirm this. Adults acquire knowledge and understanding as they mature but essentially they remain children who have been trained (or not) to behave in socially acceptable ways. In films and novels passionate and violent men and women act out, for those of us so trained, what we dare not act out for ourselves. ‘The greatest pleasure’, said Genghis Khan, ‘is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.’

  Most of us are brought up to be rather less straightforward than Genghis Khan but the limbic system will always have seniority over the cerebral cortex. Try this simple test: here are some imaginary headlines; which story will you read first?

  PEACE TALKS STALLED

  FIVE NEW BODIES IN HOUSE OF HORROR

  NEW CURFEW IN KABUL

  NUDE ROYALS IN SEASIDE ROMP

  MORE CUTS IN NHS SERVICES

  GAY VICAR KILLED IN CLUB BRAWL

  FILM STAR RAPED ON YACHT

  Special interests apart, I doubt that the peace talks, the curfew, or the NHS cuts will be first choice. Sex is reliably interesting, as is death. The death of others is always life-affirming; who has not felt, on reading of a disaster in which hundreds have died, a little inner leap of ‘not me!’ Life is energy, constantly in motion. The plains Indians believed that the taking of a life gave power to the taker; the natural psychology of the hunter is one of balance maintained through energy transfer from prey to predator.

  Dr von Luker continued in this vein with the urgency of a would-be cult leader, his text heavily supported by quotations from Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Ouspensky, Gurdjiieff, Krishnamurti, Canetti, Lévi-Strauss, L. Ron Hubbard, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and thirty or forty others.

  I went back to the title page: Derek Engel, Bedford Square. ‘Tomorrow, Derek,’ I said. I looked at the author’s photograph on the back of the dust jacket: bald and bearded. Was there something familiar about him? How would he look with a wig and a military moustache? Yes? No? Difficult to be certain.

  It was time to leave this place of dead air; I packed my bag and made ready to climb back aboard my Patna. Without looking in the mirror I left the room, went down to Reception, and said to the beautiful black-haired girl, ‘This is goodbye.’

  ‘I still have to charge you for tonight,’ she said. I nodded, paid up, and left.

  ‘Be nice,’ I said to the plants when I got back to my flat, ‘this is a tough time for me.’ I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face – the moment seemed to require it.

  At half-past ten I turned up at the Vegemania and found Serafina waiting outside while Zoë and Rima finished up. ‘Do you mind if we go to Zoë’s place?’ she said. ‘I’ve been staying with her and I’ll feel more comfortable there than anywhere else right now. It’s near Fulham Broadway, in Moore Park Road.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. As we walked towards the tube station she took my arm, then realised what she was doing and removed it.

  ‘Those notes on the envelope –’ she said, ‘is he writing a factual account or is he plotting a novel and acting it out? What do you think he’s doing?’

  ‘The telephone number with the notes was for Derek Engel – he’s a publisher who does a lot of offbeat stuff. Knowing Mr Rinyo-Clacton I’d guess he’s planning a novel with real people and himself as the hero. Tomorrow I’ll ring up Derek Engel and ask if they know him. Rinyo-Clacton is obviously a pseudonym; maybe he’s got others. Maybe he hasn’t even talked to them yet.’

  ‘But buying someone’s death for a million pounds – do you think that’s real?’

  ‘I know it is,’ I said as we entered the station and went through the turnstiles.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know whose death he’s buying.’

  Her eyes were on my face and she grabbed my arm as we went down the stairs to the westbound platform. ‘Whose is it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a moment, but first I want to know if he told you his first name or did you call him Mr when he was humping you?’ She was still holding my arm; it felt like old times, almost, except that old times were never quite this weird. The station seemed bright and exciting, a good place to be, maybe there were other good places ahead. Maybe I could make the picture of the two of them in bed go away.

  ‘He said his name was Tod,’ she said. ‘And what did you call him when he was doing you?’

  ‘I didn’t call him anything. He told me his first name was Thanatophile.’

  ‘Death-lover!’

  ‘That’s his game and that’s the name he wants me to know him by.’

  ‘OK, now tell me whose death this weirdo is buying.’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Yours!’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘You’re the other in his notes?’

  ‘That’s right, Fina.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Are you telling me that he …’ She lowered her voice. ‘… took you back to his place, buggered you, then offered you a million pounds for the privilege of killing you in a year’s time, and you said yes? You agreed to that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was squeezing my arm so that it was pressed against her; it felt good. ‘In God’s name, why, Jonno?’ She hadn’t called me that since she moved out.

  ‘I don’t know, it seemed a good idea at the time.’

  ‘Tell me, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Fina, I’ve told you how I’ve been feeling since you left me. The night I met him I didn’t really care all that much whether I lived or died and when he made his proposition I thought I could at least leave you a million pounds and you could buy your own restaurant and have quite a nice life.’

  ‘Oh, you stupid Jonno, you stupid, stupid Jonno!’ She hugged me then. We stood there holding each other while Richmond and Ealing Broadway trains came and went; our side of the platform grew more crowded but the Wimbledon arrow on the board remained dark; Wimbledon trains are always in the minority at Earl’s Court.

  ‘Let me see that envelope again,’ she said, and I gave it to her. ‘“Other’s wife or girlfriend – will R-C sleep with her, spread his death around?” she read. ‘That bastard! That man is evil. Has he given you the million?

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s done his part.’

  ‘My God! A million pounds! Cheque or cash?’

  ‘Cash.’

  ‘You’ve held a million pounds in your hands?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then he really intends to kill you?’

  ‘It’s a jungle out there, Fina.’

  ‘How can you be so nonchalant?’

  ‘When you hug me I feel that nothing bad can happen to me, besides which I’m half out of my mind so it’s easy to be nonchalant.’

  ‘What about this: “Will other take £1m try to kill R-C?”’

  I put my finger to my lips. ‘Let’s not think about that
just now. Please hug me again.’

  She did, but she turned her face away when I tried to kiss her. ‘I still can’t,’ she said in a very small voice, ‘I don’t know where I am with you any more.’

  Earl’s Court station encloses many volumes of echoing space and many lights and shadows, all of which pressed in upon us now and intensified the distance between us even though our bodies were touching. ‘Strange,’ I said, ‘to be together and not together like this.’

  ‘Everything is strange now,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing familiar any more.’

  Eventually a Wimbledon train arrived and we took ourselves and the distance between to Fulham Broadway. We came out into a lot of noise and people outside the pub next to the station, then crossed and went down Harwood and turned right into Moore Park Road. Walking down that road to a house where Serafina now lived apart from me I felt that my life had flown away in all directions and left me behind.

  Zoë’s flat was in a house at the Eel Brook Common end of the road. On the far side of the common an eastbound District Line train rumbled past with golden windows. In the dim pinky-yellow of the street lamps I looked at Serafina and saw tears running down her face. We went up the steps, she unlocked the front door, we climbed the stairs past the smells and sounds of unseen – strangers and arrived at the top and Zoë’s place.

  Serafina didn’t switch on the lights immediately. I smelled cat and in the darkness of the sitting-room I saw on the mantelpiece the glow of a lava lamp in which ghastly red shapes like frozen damned souls huddled in their violet night. ‘The cat switches it on,’ said Serafina. ‘It must have done it just a little while ago – those are its warming-up shapes.’

  She turned on the other lamps to reveal a large black tomcat who was sitting on the floor contemplating the lava lamp; the flex trailed across the carpet and there was a cat-operable switch on it. There were a couple of wicker chairs and a low table, a brownish depressed-looking couch with some colourful cushions, a wall of well-stocked plank bookshelves supported by bricks, a poster of Leon Trotsky, and another, for In Your Face, featuring the rear end of a baboon. A beaded curtain separated the room from the kitchen.

  ‘What’s the cat’s name?’ I said.

  ‘Jim.’.

  ‘I was expecting something with a little more political resonance.’

  ‘Jim has no politics, he’s more into meditation.’

  ‘Neutered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’ll make anybody meditative.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Will Zoë be coming directly home from the Vegemania?’

  ‘I think she’ll be staying at Mtsoku’s place tonight.’ She wasn’t looking at me as she said it. We took off our coats as if we had nothing on under them. She lit the gas fire and it purred softly as it glowed into life. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ she said. ‘There’s a bottle of red or I can make some tea.’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Rose-hip, please.’

  She looked at me sadly and went through the beaded curtain into the kitchen.

  For a moment I stayed where I was, watching the lava lamp as the damned souls unfroze and sank into the primordial red. Zoë, though absent, was a presence in the room. She’s twenty-seven, a statuesque six feet tall, does her blonde hair in many little plaits interwoven with coloured yarn and (when she’s not waiting tables) headphones, wears kohl, patchouli, a silver nostril stud, and black garments with a lot of leg. The last time I asked her about the music in the headphones it was Mind the Rap, the latest album from In Your Face. Her current carrying book was a biography of Frida Kahlo. She has a degree in Politics and Modern History from Manchester University, is a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party, and frequently gets time off from the Vegemania to take part in protests and demonstrations. Her boyfriend, Mtsoku, is a black saxophonist from Kenya who performs with In Your Face. Zoë’s absent presence seemed to be watching me with a certain amount of cynicism.

  I went into the kitchen and leant against the cabinets watching Serafina while she filled the kettle. ‘Why don’t you put on some music?’ she said.

  Looking through the CD collection I was surprised to find the same Purcell disc we had at home. I put it on at Track 4, ‘Musick for a while’:

  Musick, musick for a while,

  Shall all your cares beguile;

  Shall all, all, all,

  Shall all, all, all,

  Shall all your cares beguile; …

  ‘Is this Zoë’s,’ I said, ‘or did you buy it?’

  ‘I bought it,’ she said from the kitchen.

  With Serafina there I could listen to that song that I hadn’t been able to bear alone: the haunted and haunting melancholy of Purcell’s music and Chance’s counter-tenor, a male voice not coming from the usual male place but from a soul-place beyond that, where in a flickering shadow-world of flame and darkness the guilty were whipped by a fury whose head was wreathed in snakes:

  Till Alecto free the dead

  From their eternal bands,

  Till the snakes drop … from her head

  And the whip from out her hands.

  The beaded curtain rattled as Serafina came into my arms and I kissed her and hugged her and we cried a little. The kettle whistled; she went back to prepare the tea, then she brought in the jug and two mugs on a tray and put it on the low table by the couch where I was sitting. She sat down not on the couch but in a wicker chair opposite and there we were then. Jim rubbed against Serafina’s legs, then jumped into her lap and purred loudly.

  There sat my Serafina in her old faded jeans and baggy grey jumper, my destiny-woman who wasn’t mine any more. I looked at her and looked and looked, wondering if I had ever really seen her and trying very hard to see her now – her face that was at the same time sharp and softly rounded, her ripe mouth a little open as if for another kiss, her blue-green eyes as she leant forward, her long fingers caressing the self-satisfied cat. You can’t step into the same river twice, I was thinking. Sometimes you can’t even find the river.

  ‘Fina,’ I said, ‘why are you sitting so far away?’

  ‘Jonathan, a hug and a kiss can’t take us back to where we were before.’

  ‘I’m not trying to get back to where we were, I’m trying to move forward to a new place.’ As I said the words I heard them coming out in soap-operaspeak.

  ‘That’s easy to say, but if you put in salt instead of sugar when you’re making a cake and then you put in sugar to cancel out the salt, it doesn’t – all you have is a ruined cake.’

  Purcell and Chance were now into ‘O Solitude’ and the lava lamp was doing swaying red cobras and phallic shapes whose heads came off and rose to the top of the cylinder. ‘I’m not trying to cancel out the salt,’ I said, ‘but is there no such thing as forgiveness?’

  ‘Forgiveness …’ She lapsed into silence, then began to laugh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just had a vision of Humpty-Dumpty lying on the ground all in pieces, and he says to whatever made him fall, “I forgive you.” But he’s still lying there all in pieces.’

  ‘But you’re not a broken egg.’

  ‘You don’t know what I am, Jonathan. And I don’t know what the act of forgiveness is. If I say, “I forgive you,” what does that do? What happened doesn’t go away. Maybe some of me goes away.’

  ‘Maybe what goes away can come back.’

  ‘Do you really think so? Zoë used to live with a man who cheated on her and she forgave him, whatever that is; but she said her anger didn’t go away, it got worse as time went on and she changed in little ways, like she found that she couldn’t stand the sight of the pubic hairs he left in the bath, and in bed if he touched her when she was asleep she’d give him the elbow without waking. She decided to end it before she started spitting in his tagliatelle.’

  ‘What can I say? For Zoë it’s the politics of sex that matter.’

  ‘OK, let’s come back
to us. When we were together I was really with you – all of me. But you were living a whole other life separate from me. How were you able to do that? I don’t think I really know who you are.’

  ‘Fina, I think most men want as much sex as they can get; some restrain the urge better than others and some are greedier than others. I never stopped loving you.’

  ‘Oh well, that makes everything all right then. Great. So what happened after I behaved so unreasonably and walked out? Then it seems you got greedy for men and you backed into our friend Rinyo-Clacton who got greedy for me and now maybe we’ll both end up dying of AIDS. Is that the new place you want to move forward to? Is that the new bond between us?’

  That stopped me for a while. The gas fire purred softly, the cat loudly; in the lava lamp red misshapen worlds rose and fell. Purcell and Chance carried on with:

  Lord, what is man, lost man,

  That thou shouldst be so mindful of him?

  ‘And yet,’ I said, ‘you were in my arms and you kissed me only a few minutes ago. I don’t think love can disappear just like that, I think you still love me.’

  ‘Maybe love doesn’t disappear, maybe it just turns to stone, heavy inside you for the rest of your life. Kissing doesn’t mean anything – it’s a reflex that you can still trigger if I forget for a moment how things are. You look the same but you’re so strange to me now! It’s as if I’d been reading a book in English but the next time I opened it the whole thing was written in Transylvanian. So maybe I was out of my mind when I thought I could read it because now the pages are full of strange words that have no meaning for me.’ Her long fingers still caressing the cat as she spoke.

  ‘That day when we got drunk in the Place des Vosges,’ she said, ‘all of me was with you and it felt so good. I’d never had that before, and you looked at me as if you were seeing the whole Serafina of me and I thought, yes! this is really, really it. Then back at the hotel when we made love it felt as if all of you was with me, no part of you was anywhere else. Then the dream: my God, Jonathan, how many people ever have anything like that – the oasis that showed itself to both of us while we slept, the place of good water where the palm trees grow, and the desert all around. Lots of people wander in the desert all their lives, lots of people die in the desert but we’d crossed that desert and found the oasis in each other.’ She paused.