The Voices

by F. R. Tallis

  Simon and Amanda Ogilvy were sitting opposite each other at the breakfast table. They had risen late. The radio was on, but set at a very low volume. Strains of a Rachmaninoff piano prelude could be heard intermittently, the swell of luscious harmonies, sparkling technique. When the fortissimo passages subsided, only a barely detectable background jingling persisted. Amanda was wearing a gauzy orange negligee decorated with flounces and dangling ribbons. Her dark hair was in a wild state of disarray and her eyes were slightly bloodshot. Traces of yesterday’s mascara, now a granular black residue, still clung to her eyelashes. Her large, olive breasts were almost fully exposed by a capricious neckline. Simon, unlike his wife, had already had a shower. He had shaved with an electric razor and the astringency of his cologne had brought colour to his cheeks. His brown paisley dressing gown made him look rather foppish.

  ‘I believe in ghosts. Don’t you?’ Amanda’s husky voice was almost gruff. She had been to a student party the night before and had smoked excessively. This degree of overindulgence reliably extended her vocal range downwards and she rarely missed an opportunity to exploit it.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Simon replied, ‘in so far as I believe that people sometimes see things that can’t be explained. Places have atmospheres, certainly, and I suppose that powerful, emotionally charged events might leave some kind of impression – a kind of memory. But as for the dead coming back to meddle with the affairs of the living? I’m not sure I believe in that sort of thing.’

  ‘When I was at university we had a séance. A spirit came through with a message for me. He said that my Aunt Lucy, who had just died, was happy, and she wanted to know if I liked her necklace.’

  ‘Had she left you a necklace?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you still have it?

  ‘I don’t wear it so much these days. It doesn’t seem to go with anything.’ Amanda leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table. She raised the cup of coffee she was holding with both hands and took a sip. ‘I hadn’t told anyone in the room about Aunt Lucy dying, or the necklace. So nobody taking part in the séance could have faked that message.’

  ‘Perhaps you did. Not consciously, of course. But unconsciously.’

  Amanda shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

  Simon spread marmalade over his buttered toast. It was almost the same colour as Amanda’s negligee. ‘I’ll definitely get a copy of Raudive’s book. His work does sound interesting, although I’m really not sure that Chris knows what he’s doing. It’s a great idea, a piece of music incorporating spirit communications, the sort of idea that would certainly attract public interest. You can just imagine the newspapers: composer writes oratorio for the dead! Journalists would love it, like they loved Rosemary Brown. Remember? The medium who wrote music dictated by Bach and Beethoven.’ Simon cut the toast in half and balanced the knife across his plate. ‘The thing is . . . when I listened to Chris’s original recordings, I can’t say I was very impressed. The voices, if they were voices, weren’t terribly clear. I heard something, but I’m not sure what, just something tinny in the static. Chris said that the more you listen to the tapes, the better you get at interpreting what’s being said. But if you listen hard to anything long enough, you’ll start to hear things. I imagine it works like those inkblots that psychiatrists use.’

  ‘The Rorschach test.’

  ‘Yes. They’re just shapes – smudges – but people see all sorts of things in them, don’t they? Chris edits his recordings. And I think he does so in accordance with his expectations. In the end, he gets what he wants. I doubt that it’s conscious – same as your séance.’

  Amanda returned her coffee cup to its saucer. ‘Was the music any good?’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’ He sounded grudging, insincere. ‘It was very similar to his film scores. Although Chris seems to think that he’s writing something far superior. He wants me to help him get it broadcast on Radio 3. But it’s difficult enough getting my own work programmed.’ Simon picked up his toast and took a large bite. As he was chewing, he studied his wife. His expression changed, the wrinkling of his nose suggesting mild distaste. It was as though he had suddenly noticed her dishevelled appearance. ‘What time did you get back last night?’

  ‘Late. I don’t know.’

  ‘I hope you got a cab.’

  ‘Someone gave me a lift.’

  ‘Oh? Who was that?’

  ‘Penelope.’

  ‘Penelope?’

  ‘A new lecturer. Liberal Studies. Lives in Golders Green.’

  ‘I hope she didn’t drink too much.’

  ‘She doesn’t drink. And you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What time did you get back?’

  ‘Early,’ said Simon. ‘I came home after leaving Chris’s.’ He pushed the marmalade jar across the table. ‘Aren’t you going to eat anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Amanda. ‘I don’t feel like it. Can’t you help him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chris. Can’t you speak to someone at the BBC?’

  ‘He’s only written a few minutes of music. And besides, it’s all a bit passé now, that particular sound. Things have moved on.’

  Amanda nodded. ‘Shame.’ She rotated her shoulders and repositioned her breasts. An asymmetry in their prior arrangement had evidently been causing her some discomfort.

  ‘Yes,’ said Simon. ‘It is a shame. But what can I do?’

  Laura was lying on a sofa in the drawing room reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – another book recommended by the psychotherapist she’d met at the Islington bookshop. The writing struck a sympathetic chord, particularly the author’s description of being depressed, which, with poetic genius, Plath had likened to being trapped beneath a bell jar and starved of air.

  Faye was playing with some wooden blocks, quietly amusing herself on the other side of the room. The hollow sound of their collisions was accompanied by the occasional twitter of birds.

  Laura put the book down on her stomach with its pages spread out so as to keep her place. It was a powerful image, the bell jar, because it was so truthful. Emotion often weighed heavily on Laura’s chest, preventing her lungs from expanding, and depression was so very isolating. When she got depressed, everything in the world seemed to exist behind thick glass.

  She had only intended to stop reading for a few seconds to rest her eyes, but she found herself thinking about the past. It was happening more and more – memories would detach themselves from some deep, murky place of concealment and rise into her awareness. An image of the Italian couturier formed in her mind. She had thought about him a lot since being reminded of his existence by her old see-through blouse (which she had now given to Oxfam). Once again, it all came flooding back. The hotel, the black leather furniture and the floating forms in the lava lamp. She had absorbed enough pop psychology from magazine articles to know that the insistent return of these memories was symptomatic. It meant something.

  In fact, there had been many hotel rooms in which a similar transaction had taken place, in which the boundary between business and pleasure had been blurred. Some of these rooms she could only dimly recollect, because at the time she had been plied with obscene quantities of champagne and, occasionally, drugs. Another memory surfaced: a four-poster bed, a latex hood with a zipped mouth and handcuffs. She had always thought of them, these men, as former lovers, but that was no longer possible.

  The word ‘rape’ was similar to the word ‘cancer’. People instinctively lowered their voices when they said either. That is how it had always been, that is how Laura had always remembered it. But in the bookshop in Islington women used the word ‘rape’ freely, without shame or inhibition, some casually accusing all men of being rapists – or at least of having the potential. It was not an opinion that Laura shared, but hearing the word spoken so frequently had, without doubt, altered her perception of those youthful indiscretions, and of those men of influence, with their bouquets, champagne and promises. They had not forc
ed themselves upon her, but they had been devious and manipulative. What had happened in those plush hotel rooms had never been truly consensual, which was why, in the past perhaps, she had always shied away from those memories. They had always made her feel ashamed, soiled.

  Once, when she was trying to become an actress, she had been summoned to do a ‘screen test’ for a director in LA. She had been told by her agent that she was a very ‘lucky girl’ and that this might be her ‘big break’. ‘Make the most of it,’ her agent had counselled. Under pressure, Laura had agreed to perform a nude scene with an aging actor who she remembered as having been famous when she was still at school. The result was mildly pornographic. She wasn’t offered the role and the film was never made.

  Why had she been so easily persuaded? Why had she been so malleable, yielding and submissive? Why had she been so willing to please? Part of the explanation was ambition – she wanted everything back then – but there was a much deeper and more significant reason: she didn’t want to be alone. Going along with what other people wanted ensured acceptance and popularity – or so she thought at the time.

  When Laura had given up modelling, she had assumed that the mainstays of conventionality – a big house, a loving husband and a baby – would bring her contentment. But she had all of those things now and she was still unfulfilled and dissatisfied. She felt trapped by the necessities of her daily routine – preparing food, changing nappies, doing the washing-up – and even more so by the truly inescapable impositions of the body – eating, sleeping, expelling waste. Endlessly repeating cycles. The atmosphere became thinner just thinking about it. She seemed to have exchanged one bell jar for another. And more importantly, she still felt horribly alone.

  What, then, did she want? What would make her happy? She didn’t really know. Moreover, she had a fearful premonition that personal fulfilment was not compatible with her current situation. There might be difficult choices to make in the future – angry scenes, threats, hurt, probably lawyers – and if that ever happened, she suspected that she would still be riddled with doubts, seized by a profound dread that she was simply repeating her mistakes and that she was merely exchanging her second bell jar for her third.

  The flow of her thoughts was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass and a scream.

  Laura looked across the room. Faye was no longer there. All that she could see was a pile of wooden bricks.

  The scream continued.

  Laura threw the book aside and it fluttered across the rug like a wounded bird. Launching herself off the sofa, she ran into the hall, where she skidded on the polished floorboards and hit her shoulder against the banisters. Pain radiated through her body. She regained her balance and sprinted towards the open door ahead.

  ‘Faye!’

  When Laura entered the kitchen she saw her daughter standing by the oven. The child’s face was dark red, and getting darker – so much so that it was almost purple. Her mouth was stretched wide open to allow her shrill cry to escape. Faye was wearing a tiny cotton vest, the bottom of which stopped short of her bulky nappy. Her legs were bare and she was shifting her weight from one foot to the other as if dancing. The tiles were smeared with blood. Laura leapt to her aid, scooping her up and enfolding her in her arms. ‘There, there. It’s all right. Mummy’s here.’ The child was inconsolable. Laura stepped away from the oven, glass crunching unpleasantly beneath her sandals. ‘There, there . . .’

  The rumble of Christopher’s descent of the stairs heralded his appearance in the doorway. He glanced at the blood stains on the tiles.

  ‘Jesus. What happened?’

  ‘She knocked over a glass.’

  ‘Her feet are bleeding.’ He had to shout to be heard over Faye’s bawling.

  ‘She stepped on the pieces,’ Laura shouted back.

  ‘Weren’t you watching her?’

  ‘What?’ Laura couldn’t hear him.

  Christopher stepped into the kitchen. ‘I said, weren’t you watching her?’

  Laura looked at him angrily. ‘Instead of standing there criticizing, why don’t you make yourself useful?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Well, you could sweep up that glass for a start.’

  Laura hurried past Christopher and back into the drawing room, where she walked around the sofa, jiggling Faye up and down and stroking her hair. She cooed and made other soothing noises. Outside, the fevered garden was awash with colour – peonies, sweet William, dandelions. The light was so bright Laura had to turn away from the window. She looked at Faye’s blood-covered toes and felt remorseful. Chris was right. She should have been paying more attention. She should have been watching Faye more closely. Nevertheless, she still felt irritated by the tone he had chosen to adopt, his blunt questions, the ease with which he had accused her. When he finally appeared she felt like picking up a vase and hurling it at him. She struggled to control her anger.

  Christopher strode up to Laura and stood squarely in front of her.

  ‘Stop moving a second.’ He lifted Faye’s right foot, looked at it and then inspected the left. He pinched a splinter of glass from her heel and brushed it into an ashtray. ‘There’s another piece.’ After a few unsuccessful attempts he said, ‘No. It’s too small. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Here. Take her,’ said Laura, holding Faye out. ‘I’ll get some tweezers.’

  She went to the bathroom, and when she returned she found Chris sitting on the sofa, Faye on his knee, not screaming or sobbing, but whimpering like a puppy. Christopher gripped the child’s ankle. ‘See – there.’ The splinter was quite conspicuous and glinted in the sunlight. Laura removed it without any difficulty. She held the tweezers over the ashtray and the splinter fell soundlessly. It was practically invisible when not lit directly.

  ‘Can you see any more of them?’ Christopher asked.

  ‘No,’ Laura replied.

  ‘I can’t understand how she reached the glass.’

  ‘She probably used something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We must be more careful.’ He had used the word ‘we’ but it was obvious that he had meant ‘you’.

  Laura took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the blood off Faye’s feet. ‘I’ll give her a bath – make sure she’s clean.’

  ‘OK.’ Christopher kissed the child’s head and handed her back to Laura. ‘I’m going back upstairs. I was in the middle of something.’

  ‘OK.’ At the door, Christopher hesitated, and Laura saw that he was uncomfortable, troubled by the tension that had arisen between them. She sensed that he wanted to resolve it, to dispel the oppressive atmosphere, but she doubted his sincerity. She suspected an ulterior motive. He wanted them to part on good terms, Laura supposed, so that he could go back and concentrate on his work without being distracted by the prospect of a deferred confrontation. ‘What?’ asked Laura.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

  Laura waved him away. ‘It’s all right. Really. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Good.’ Christopher offered his wife a weak, apologetic smile and left the room. Laura stared at the empty doorway, listening to his nimble, eager ascent of the stairs.

  When Christopher returned to the studio, the first thing he noticed was that the tape machine he’d been using was still going. He had heard Faye’s scream and run onto the landing without pausing to turn it off. The spools were still revolving. He had been recording the sound of a coin being dragged along piano strings, which he knew would produce a particularly interesting effect, especially when played back at half-speed. The metal piano frame (salvaged from a defunct Weber he had once discovered, by chance, abandoned in a skip) was propped up near the window. Two microphones were attached to stands, their insulated diaphragms angled close to the longest and thickest strings. Christopher stopped the machine, rewound the tape and pressed ‘play’. A low, scraping sound came out of the speakers that suggested metal
under stress. There was something about it that augured catastrophic collapse, the imminence of a snapping wire or the buckling of a girder. He listened to himself dragging the coin along the strings at different rates, experimenting with various rhythms. Eventually, the tape reached the point where Faye’s scream intruded. It was high pitched, urgent and quite chilling. Even though the scream had had to travel all the way from the bottom to the top of the house, the recording was remarkably clear. Christopher tilted his head to one side. The effect was quite interesting.

  I could use it.

  This thought, which felt slightly unnatural, almost like an insertion, was accompanied by a fleeting impression of wrongdoing, the sense that he shouldn’t really be entertaining the idea of exploiting his daughter’s accident. But it wasn’t enough to stop him. A recording of a child in pain, a genuine recording, was hard to come by. Christopher was already considering how it might sound with reverb, or filtered, or played backwards.

  Over the speakers he heard himself reacting, the dropped coin bouncing on the floor, his speedy transit; the door opening, the scream suddenly louder. Then somebody spoke: ‘Turn the key gently. I shall have what is mine.’ Faye howled, shocked by the sting of the glass, a world – previously safe – suddenly made cruel and dangerous. Then like an afterthought, reflective, spoken with tenderness and carried on a sigh, ‘She is mine.’ It was the unmistakable voice of Edward Stokes Maybury. ‘She is mine.’

  Christopher pressed ‘stop’. The spools jerked to a halt and he looked around the studio. He did not expect to see anything, but an instinct, more animal than human, made him study his surroundings for some time.

  That night, Christopher was lying in bed beneath a clammy cotton sheet. He pushed it down to his waist, exposing his chest, but this made little difference – he was still hot and uncomfortable. Even though the windows had been left open, the air in the room was motionless and tainted with the noxious reek of the Vale of Health pond. He was thinking about his travel arrangements, going over the details, ticking off items on a mental checklist: passport, tickets, francs. A cab was collecting Christopher early. His plane was scheduled to land at Charles de Gaulle airport at nine a.m. and he hoped to be in Paris by eleven. Henry had recommended a quiet hotel in St-Germain-des-Prés, not far from the Luxembourg Gardens.