Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

When I got home there was a card saying that Royal Mail had tried to deliver a parcel. I went round to the sorting office to pick it up: a bat-shaped box from Louisville, Kentucky. I carried it back to the house as if it were a loaded gun. I took it out of the box and there it was, my GENUINE Barbara Strozzi LOUISVILLE SLUGGER. Blonde wood. Ash? Thirty-four inches long. I weighed it on the kitchen scale: one kilo. Long, heavy, dangerous. I got a good grip on it, took up my stance, looked towards the mound, knocked the dirt off my spikes. Pitcher looks in for the sign, nods, goes into his windup, and here comes Troy Wallis, right over the plate. No, no — only kidding. I leaned the Louisville Slugger in a corner and sat down at the word machine and thought about Job for a while, how one day Satan showed up with the sons of God and when the Lord asked him where he was coming from he said, ‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.’ That’s the heart of the matter right there — he’s always around ready to lead the unwary into mischief with the first available Constanze or whatever else offers. And of course idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, everybody knows that. ‘So let’s get cracking, Phil,’ I said. ‘OK,’ I answered, ‘just warming up in the bullpen.’ I put the Enigma Variations in the player, picked up the phone, ordered a pizza from Domino’s, opened a bottle of The Wine Society’s French Full Red and poured myself a glass. Put The Rainmaker in the video, and when the pizza arrived I ate it, drank about two thirds of the red, fell asleep in my chair halfway through the film, and dreamed that Constanze Webber was walking far ahead of me through a dim and narrow space. ‘Wait!’ I shouted, ‘I can explain!’ She looked back once, then turned and walked on. I woke up and dialled Barbara’s number. ‘Barbara?’ I said when the phone was picked up at the other end.

‘You have a wrong number,’ said a tight voice.

‘I meant to say Bertha,’ I said. ‘You must be Hilary.’

‘And who are you?’

‘Phil Ockerman, I’m a friend of Bertha’s.’

‘Odd that you couldn’t remember her name.’

‘Anyhow, is she available?’

‘No, she isn’t. Goodbye.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I said to the silence.

I was sitting in my TV chair then with my hand on the round part at the end of the bat handle. I moved the handle around as if it were the control stick of an aeroplane. Then I wrote down the telephone number of Jimmy Maloney’s, put on a jacket and went out to the Fulham Road.

I stationed myself near the bus stop diagonally opposite the club and looked at the big man standing in the doorway. Dark suit, dark polo neck. Did he have a plaster on his head? Couldn’t see one. Took my mobile out of my pocket and dialled the number. ‘Jimmy Maloney’s,’ said a growly voice over a lot of background noise.

‘Is Troy Wallis on the door tonight?’ I said.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Nobody he knows. Somebody gave me a message to give him. Is he there?’

The bartender or whoever it was hung up. I kept my eyes on the door and saw a man who looked like a bartender come to where the bouncer was and talk briefly with him. So that was Troy Wallis. About six four, fourteen or fifteen stone. Right, thanks very much.

I’d read in the paper that Mercury would be low in the west and Venus out of sight. Not too comfortable with that. The moon was in its first quarter, the vernal equinox only three days away. I looked up at the sky and made out Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, Polaris, Cassiopeia, and Draco. Draco looked aggressive. I was too ignorant to identify the other constellations. I felt uneasy with the forces affecting me and longed for some guidance from Catriona.

I thought of the Louisville Slugger leaning in its corner, saw the name Barbara Strozzi engraved on it. I hadn’t listened to her music for what seemed a long time and now I hungered for it. I walked home through the Friday-night noise in the Fulham Road, then through the quiet of the path between the common and the District Line. An Upminster train rumbled and clattered past, people printed on the windows as on a tin toy. Crowded but lonely, that train. Maybe all the passengers were headed for a pleasant evening or even a good time; but the train was a lonely tin toy.

At home I put on the Arie, Cantate & Lamenti disc. The voice of Mona Spagele came out of the silence with ‘L’Eraclito Amoroso’. Up and up it circled, obedient to Venus and the moon, to the planetary spring tides and neap tides of love and the death of love. The song was a lament but the beauty of it was Strozzi’s thank-offering for being alive. One doesn’t beg for constant guidance, I thought; one gives oneself and takes what comes.

Well, yes. That had a good sound to it but what did it mean exactly? Getting up from my chair to pour myself a drink I knocked the top book off the nearest stack: Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems . As it hit the floor it fell open to pages 462 and 463. I picked it up and read:

A Noiseless, Patient Spider

A noiseless, patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my soul where you stand,

In measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you need will be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my Soul.

‘You’re the man, Walt,’ I said, and as a change from Glenfiddich pour’d myself a large Laphroaig. While getting myself around the smoky peat-bog flavour I considered where next to fling my gossamer. Constanze had written a song about being true to your craziness. OK, I thought, and rang the Wimbledon number. A young South African male answered.

‘Hello,’ I said, ‘this is Phil Ockerman. Is Constanze available?’

‘Hang on,’ he said, and put the phone down to shout, ‘ ’Stanze! It’s for you.’

Constanze appeared presently. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Phil Ockerman.’

‘Oh, Hope of a Tree .’

‘Actually, it’s hope of seeing you before you leave for Cape Town. Is that possible?’

‘I’m kind of pressed for time. What did you want to see me about?’

‘I wanted to hear more about your music.’

‘Oh. What for?’

‘I’m a writer — I get interested in all kinds of things.’

‘Ah, professional interest.’

‘That, but mainly I just want to see more of you — I’m being true to my craziness.’

‘That’s all very well, Phil, but it takes two to tango.’

‘It also takes two to have a conversation and a coffee but never mind. I’ll see you around. Or not.’ I rang off.

‘I’m embarrassed for you,’ I said to myself.

‘Twenty-five-year olds!’ I replied. ‘What do you expect?’

The phone rang. ‘Hello,’ I said.

‘It’s me, Constanze. I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow until late afternoon. Can you meet me at Putney Bridge tube station at eleven?’

‘OK.’

‘See you then.’

I listened to Barbara Strozzi for a while before going to sleep and dreaming of a foreign city with very wide streets and cold northern sunlight.

The next morning was sunny and mild. Constanze was right on time. ‘I’ve brought some music with me,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit by the river while you listen.’ We went into Bishop’s Park, and from a bench near the bridge watched an eight stroking past towards Barnes, bright droplets falling from the oars on each return and the coxswain’s voice coming to us small and urgent over the water.