Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer

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.

When I got home I slid the disc into the player and heard first the low hum of the darkness where the soul of the thing lived, then the bassoon slowly dragging itself all unwilling into the light. Oh, what a sad bassoon!

‘Kindred spirit?’ said Serafina, back from the shops.

‘He certainly knew what trouble was.’

‘Don’t we all.’

‘Yes, but not many of us are advised by a so-called “court of honour” to kill ourselves and then go ahead and do it.’

‘Look who’s talking.’

‘I wasn’t pressured into this thing I’m in.’

‘This thing we’re in,’ she said over her shoulder as she put things in the fridge. ‘Poor old Pyotr Ilyich lived in the wrong time and place for being queer. If he were alive in London now he’d be knighted and completely at home in the world of the arts and he wouldn’t need to compose a pathetic symphony.’

‘The word that Tchaikovsky used, according to my Oxford Dictionary of Music, was patetichesky, which means “emotional” or “passionate” rather than “pathetic”.’

‘Whatever. He was still a pathetic man.’

‘Fina, why do you sound so hostile?’

‘Because sometimes I think that when you met your new friend you connected with the real you. Maybe there are still bugs in this place, so I’ll say it loud and clear, CAN YOU HEAR ME, MR RINYO-CLACTON? SOMETIMES I THINK YOU AND JONATHAN ARE THE REAL ITEM AROUND HERE.’ Speaking to me again, she said, ‘If we both come out of this alive I might eventually get over your womanising but this other thing could really finish us.’

The music seemed to be begging forgiveness and looking for a way ahead. I put my arms around Serafina but she made herself rigid and turned her face away from me. ‘Maybe, Jonathan,’ she said, ‘you’ve got decisions to make.’

‘No, I don’t — the only future I want is one with you. What happened with me and him wasn’t primarily a sexual act for me.’

‘What was it then?’

‘You were gone and I didn’t think you’d ever come back and I felt so low and lonely …’

‘Go on.’

‘I wanted to be relieved of the burden of myself, of my manhood — I wanted someone else to take charge of me.’

‘And what now? Are you expecting me to take charge of you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, what have you got in mind? What are your plans for the future?’

Something made me hold back from talking about the future until after my meeting with Mr Rinyo-Clacton. ‘I haven’t done that much planning.’

‘Now might be a good time to begin. I’m off to the Vegemania.’ As always when she went out, she left an absence behind her.

Tchaikovsky had apparently pulled himself together and was marching along purposefully with a snappy allegro molto vivace as if he was going in to win. I knew how it ended so I stopped the music, made myself a cup of tea, sat down at my desk, and began to write this.