I had met Mr Rinyo-Clacton on a Monday. On Thursday of the following week he was dead. Eleven days. That whole thing with him from beginning to end, that’s all it was: eleven days. Well, no, actually. Because things don’t end; they just accumulate. It was only three months ago that he died; it seems longer.
That Thursday evening after identifying the body Katerina and I bought a bottle of Glenfiddich, went to her flat and drank more than half of it. ‘What about the funeral?’ I said. ‘The phone’s ex-directory but maybe if I go round to the flat Desmond will tell me.’
‘Wait,’ she said.
On Friday the papers reported the death and said that the name was thought to be an alias but there was no mention of a funeral.
Saturday morning a motorbike messenger brought me a parcel wrapped in brown paper. For a weird moment I wondered if it might be Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s head. When I’d undone the paper and the bubble-wrap I found the Rinyo-Clacton pot I’d seen in his bedroom. ‘What are we all but infirm vessels?’ I said.
‘Did you say something?’ said Serafina from the kitchen.
‘Not really.’ The pot had no lid but was covered with brown paper secured by masking tape. Taped to the paper was an envelope on which was written, in neat block letters, NO FUNERAL. In the envelope were the torn pieces of the document that began:
I, Jonathan Fitch, being of sound mind and with my faculties unimpaired, not under duress or the influence of any drugs, hereby assign to T. Rinyo-Clacton …
I took the pot in both hands and shook it gently. The contents shifted with a soft and whispery sound. I removed the brown paper and saw, as I had expected, greyish-white ashes. Serafina came over to have a look. ‘Is that who I think it is?’ she said.
‘Probably.’
‘Give it to Katerina – she’s his mother after all.’
I rang up Katerina, and that evening while Serafina was at the Vegemania we went to the Hungerford Bridge. The weather was wet and blowy; we were both wearing anoraks, and the rain pattering on my hood made me feel roofed and indoors. To the man huddled in a blanket at the near end I gave a twenty-pound note. ‘Compliments of Mr Rinyo-Clacton,’ I said. He gave me a suspicious look but thanked me.
Traffic was heavy on the bridge: people full of Saturday night heading for their culture fix on the South Bank. Katerina and I walked through and around puddles to the bay where Mr Rinyo-Clacton and I had stood looking down at the dark river. ‘Shining golden goblets,’ he had said, ‘but the wine is black water; that’s all there is, now and for ever.’
The wind had died down; the air was calm and still; the view sparkled through the rain. To our right the Festival Hall beckoned, Come! To our left Charing Cross Station signalled, Go!
I looked at Katerina. ‘Do you want to say anything?’
I held the pot out over the water. ‘That’s all there is,’ I said, and turned it upside-down. Just then there was a sudden gust that blew some of the ashes back on to Katerina and me. I let go of the pot, watched it fall, had almost the sensation of falling with it, saw and heard the splash as it filled and sank. ‘Now and for ever,’ I said as I wiped the ashes off my face and anorak.