"My name is Roger and I'm speaking," he repeated as he drove home. Figures were silhouetted against the illuminated windows of shops, or rendered monochrome by streetlights, or spotlighted by headlamps. On the two miles of dual carriageway between the office block and the tower block where he lived he couldn't distinguish a single face, even when he peered in the rearview mirror. Large fierce bare bulbs guarded the car park around the tower block, and the glare of them pulled a bunch of shadows out of him as he left the Mini and walked to the entrance. For a moment numbers other than the combination for the doors suggested themselves to him. He keyed the correct sequence and shouldered his way in.
Although the tower blocks had been gentrified it seemed that a child had been playing in the lift, which stopped at every floor. Someone with long hair was waiting on the seventh, but turned towards the other lift as the door of Speke's opened, so that Speke didn't see his or her face. Until the person moved Speke had the impression that it was a dummy which had been placed near the lifts to lend some contrast to the parade of otherwise identical floors, fifteen of them before he was able to step out of the shaky box and hurry to his door.
Stef was home. The kitchen and the bedroom lights were on, and the narrow hall, which was papered with posters for English-language films which had been dubbed into other languages, smelled of imminent dinner. Speke eased the door shut and tiptoed past the bedroom and the bathroom to the main room, but he had only just switched on the light above the bar when Stef emerged from the bedroom. "Shall I make us drinks, Roger?"
"Rum," Speke said before he managed to say "Right."
"We haven't any rum unless you've bought some. It looks as if we've just about everything else."
"Whatever's quickest," Speke said, sitting down so as not to seem too eager; then he jumped up and kissed her forehead, giving her bare waist a brief squeeze. "Tell you what, I'll make them if you want to see to dinner."
"I'll get dressed first, shall I?"
"I should."
He had a last sight of her glossy black underwear half-concealed by her long blonde hair as she stepped into the hall while he uncorked the vodka. One swig felt sufficient to take the edge off his thoughts. He made two Bloody Marys, with rather more vodka in his, and carried them into the kitchen, where Stef in a kimono was arranging plates on the trolley. "Busy day?" he said.
"We've a class of students all week at the studio. I've been showing them what you can do with sound and vision."
"What can I?"
"Don't start that. What they can. Tomorrow I'll be on the sidelines while they improvise."
"I know how you feel."
Before she responded she ladled coq au vin onto the plates, wheeled the trolley into the main room, switched on the light over the dining-table and set out the plates, and then she said "What's wrong?"
"I'm..."
"Go on, Roger. Whatever it is, it's better out than in."
"I'm sure I spoke to Lesley and Vanessa."
"What makes you say that?"
"You just did."
"Don't tell me if you don't want me to know."
"I dum," Speke said, draining the cocktail and wrenching the cork out of a litre of Argentinean red. "Someone answered the phone and I thought it was Lesley, but it turned out to be the daughter."
"Why are they on your mind again after all this time?"
Speke topped up her wineglass and refilled his own. "Because I spoke to the husband as well. I can't believe Lesley could have got involved with someone like that, let alone married him."
"Well, all of us—" Stef silenced herself with a mouthful of dinner. After more chewing than Speke thought necessary she said "Someone like what?"
"By the sound of him, an ego with a mouth."
"Some partners cope with worse."
"But if she can handle him, why couldn't shum— Besides, what about Vanessa? She must still be at school, she shouldn't be expected turn—"
"Roger, we agreed you'd try and put them out of your head."
"Wum," Speke said, not so much a stutter as a deliberate attempt to shut himself up, and drained his wine in order to refill the glass.
Once he'd opened a bottle of dessert wine to accompany the ice cream it seemed a pity to cork it after only one glass. Stef allowed him to replenish hers when it was half-empty, but placed her hand over it when he tried again. "I have to get up early," she said.
He was washing up the dinner things when it occurred to him that he'd heard a plea in her voice because she wanted them to make love. When he found his way into the bedroom, however, she was asleep. He switched off all the lights and considered watching television, but the prospect of consuming images on a screen—images which were lifelike and yet no longer alive—had lost its appeal. He sat at the dining-table and finished the bottle while gazing out of the window at the neighbouring tower blocks. The window resembled a screen too—perhaps a computer display on which enigmatic patterns of luminous rectangles occasionally shifted at random—but at least he could see no faces on it, not even his own. When he'd emptied the bottle he sat for a time and then took himself to bed.
He awoke with a sense that someone had just spoken to him. If Stef had, it must have been more than an hour ago, when she would have left for work. Sunlight streamed into the room, catching dust in the air. Speke sat up and waited for his equilibrium to align itself with him; then he performed several tasks gingerly—showered, shaved, drank a large glass of orange juice, ate cereal heaped with sugar and swimming in milk, downed several mugfuls of black coffee that shrank the image of his face—before he set about tidying up. He dusted everything except the bottles behind the bar, since they hardly called for dusting. He went once through the rooms with the large vacuum cleaner and then again with its baby. He loaded the washing machine and, when it had finished, the dryer. He rearranged the plates in the kitchen cupboard and the cutlery in the drawers, and lined up tins of food and packets of ingredients in alphabetical order. He found himself hoping that all this activity would keep him there until Stef came home, but the only company he had was the persistent sense of having just heard a voice. Before Stef returned it was time for him to leave for work.
The late afternoon sky, and presumably the sun, was the same colour as the extinguished bulbs above the car park. All the colours around him, such as they were—of cars, of leafless saplings, of curtains in the windows of the chalky tower blocks—appeared to be about to fade to monochrome. If he walked fast he would be at work on time, but if he drove he might feel less exposed. Though he drove slowly he was able to glimpse only a handful of faces, all of which seemed unusually remote from him.
Several of his colleagues were already in the long room, draping their jackets over the backs of their chairs or tipping the contents of polystyrene cups into their faces. As Speke aligned the forms and the directory with the lower edge of the screen on his desk the supervisor beckoned to him, hooking a finger before pointing it first at her mouth and then at her ear. "Yes, Mrs Shillingsworth," he said when he felt close enough to speak.
"Pore."
"Pum."
"Mr Pore. Mr Roger Pore. Does the name convey anything to you?"
"Yes, he booked a month's free trial last night."
"You're standing by that, are you?"
"Yes, I should say sum. He was my only catch."
"And you felt you had to give me one."
"Shouldn't I hum?"
"Only if it stands up. His wife says he never spoke to anyone."
"She must have got it wrong, or the engineers did. They're only engineers, num—"
"It was I who had a word with her, Mr Speke, because there were things on your form I didn't understand. Was it a Scotsman you spoke to?"
"A Scum? No, he sounded more like me."
"Mr Pore is a Scotsman."
"How do you know if you spoke to his wife?"
"They both are. I heard them."
"What, his wife sounds like a Scotsmum? I mean, I'm sorry, I
must have, maybe I—"
"I should try harder tonight if I were you, but not that hard," Mrs Shillingsworth said, gazing at him over the form which she had lifted from the desk and crumpling it above her wastebasket before letting it drop.
"You aren't me," Speke mumbled as he headed for his desk. He was sitting down when he realised he had walked too far. About to push back the chair, he grabbed the directory instead and turned quickly to the page corresponding to his assignment. Pontin, Ponting, Pool, Poole ... He made himself run his gaze down the column more slowly, but there was no entry for Pook.
"Old directory," he told himself, and moved to the desk on his left, where he checked that the directory was up-to-date before heaving it open at the same page. Ponting, Pool. He lowered his face to peer at the names as though the one he was seeking might have fallen through the space between them, then he dodged to the next desk, and the next. Ponting, Pool, Ponting, Pool... He didn't know how long Mrs Shillingsworth had been watching him. "There you are," she said briskly, indicating the blank screen on his desk.
He ran at his chair and flung the directory open. "Mrs Pook," he repeated over and over under his breath until he heard himself saying "Mrs Spook." Between Ponting and Pool was an etched line of black ink wide enough, he was almost sure, to conceal a directory entry. He was holding the page close to his face and tilting the book at various angles in an attempt to glimpse what lay beneath the ink when he realised that the supervisor was still watching him. "Jum, jum—" he explained, and fumbling the handset out of its stand, hastily keyed the first unmarked number.
When the screen flickered he thought he'd called a videphone at last, but the flicker subsided. "Poridge?" a voice said.
"Just cornflakes for me."
"Begp?"
"Um sum, I'm speaking on behalf on behalf of Face to Face Communications and I wonder if, fum. If you can spare me a few minutes."
"Sugar?"
"What?"
"Lots of it for your cereal, sugar."
"How did you know? What are you making out?"
"I think that's enough sweetness," Mr Poridge seemed to respond, and terminated the call.
Speke was grateful to be rid of the voice, whose feminine sound he hadn't cared for. He memorised the next number and turned the directory in an attempt to shed some light on whatever the line of ink concealed as he placed the call. "Pork," a woman told him.
"Ypig."
"What's that? Who's this?"
The screen was flickering so much Speke thought it was about to answer her last question, unless it was his vision that had begun to flicker. When the screen remained blank he said "Miss Pork, my name is Roger and I wonder—"
"Same here."
"You are? You're what?"
"Wondering what I'm being made to listen to."
"I'm not making you. I was jum, just wondering. That is, I'm speaking on behalf of Face to Face Communications."
"That's what you call this, is it?"
"No, that's what I'm saying. I wish we could see each other face to face."
"Do you now?"
Speke's gaze darted from the line of ink to the screen, where the flickering had intensified. "Why?" said the voice.
"Because then I'd see if you lum, if you look, if you don't just sound like—" Speke gabbled before he managed to slam the handset into place.
He kept his head down until he couldn't resist glancing up. Though Mrs Shillingsworth wasn't watching him he was convinced that she had been. He repeated the next number out loud and moved the directory another half an inch, another quarter, another eighth. Something was close to making itself clear: the digits beneath the ink or the restlessness on the screen? He keyed the numbers he was muttering and glanced up, down, up, down... "Porne," a voice said in his ear.
"My name is Roger and I wonder—"
"Porne."
"I wonder what number I've called."
"Ours. Porne."
That was the name in the directory, but Speke suspected that he had inadvertently keyed the numbers which perhaps, for an instant too brief for him to have been conscious of it, had been visible through the line of ink. "Don't I know you?" he said.
"Where from?"
"From in here," Speke said, tapping his forehead and baring his teeth at the screen, where his grin appeared as a whitish line like an exposed bone in the midst of a pale blur. "I expect you wish you could see my face."
"Why, what are you doing with it?"
Speke stuffed the topmost form into the edges of the screen, because each flicker seemed to render his reflection less like his. "Don't you think that your name says a lot?" he said.
"What do you mean by that, young man?"
"You're a woman, aren't you? But not as old as you want me to think."
"How dare you! Let me speak to your supervisor!"
"How did you know I've got one? You gave yourself away there, didn't you? And since when has it been an insult to tell a woman she isn't as old as she seems? Sounds to me as if you've got something to hide, Mrs or Miss."
"Why, you young—"
"Not so young. Not so old either. Same age as you, as a matter of fact, as if you didn't know."
"Who do you imagine you're talking to? Charles, come here and speak to this, this—"
"It's Charles now, is it? Too posh for that ape," Speke said, and fitted the handset into its niche while he read the next number. He fastened his gaze on the digits and touch-typed them on the handset, and lifted the form with which he had covered the screen. His grin was still there amid the restless flickering; the sight made him feel as though a mask had been clipped to his face. He let the page fall, and a voice which felt closer than his ear to him said "Posing."
"Who is?"
"This is Miss Posing speaking."
"Why do you keep answering the phone with just a name? Do you really expect me to believe anyone has names like those?"
"Who is this?"
"You already asked me that two calls ago. Or are you asking if I know who you are? Belum—"
Mrs Shillingsworth was staring at him. He hadn't realised he was speaking loud enough for her to overhear, even if his was the only voice he could hear in the crowded room. The panic which overwhelmed him seemed to flood into his past, so that he was immediately convinced that every voice he'd spoken to on the phone was the same voice, not just tonight but earlier— how much earlier, he would rather not think. "Thanks anyway," he said at the top of his voice, both to assure Mrs Shillingsworth that nothing was wrong and to blot out the chorus around him, which had apparently begun to chant "I'm speaking" in unison. The only voice he wanted to hear, was desperate to hear, was Stef's. He couldn't remember the number. He stared at the flickering line of black ink while he thumbed through the wad of corners. As soon as he'd glimpsed the number, which now he saw was in the same position as the line of ink, he let the directory fall back to the page from which he was meant to be working. He pulled a form towards him and poised his pen above it as he typed the digits, resisting the urge to grin at Mrs Shillingsworth to persuade her this wasn't a private call. He had barely entered the number when the closest voice so far said "S & V Studios."
"Stef?"
"Hang on." As the voice receded from the earpiece it seemed to retreat into Speke's skull. "Vanessa, is Stefanie still here?"
"Just gone."
"Just gone, apparently. Is there a message?"
"I've already got it," Speke said through his fixed grin.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're forgetting to disguise your voice," Speke said and, dropping the handset into its niche, leaned on it until he felt it was secure. "I'm speaking," said a voice, then another. All the screens around him appeared to be flickering in unison, taking their time from the pulse of the line of black ink on the page in front of him. He shoved himself backwards, his chair colliding with the desk behind him, and was on his feet before Mrs. Shillingsworth looked up. He didn't trust himself to speak; he waggled his fingers at hi
s crotch to indicate that he was heading for the toilet. As soon as the door of the long room closed behind him he dashed out of the building to his car.
He drove home so fast that the figures on the pavements seemed to merge like the frames of a film. He parked as close to the entrance as he could and sprinted the few yards, his shadows sprouting out of him. He wasn't conscious of the number he keyed, but it opened the door. The lift displayed each floor to him, and he wished he'd thought to count them, because when he lurched out of the box it seemed to him that the room numbers in the corridors were too high. He threw himself between the closing doors and jabbed the button for his floor, and the doors shook open; he was on the right level after all. He floundered into the corridor, unlocked his door, and stumbled into the dark which it closed in with him. He was rushing blindly to the bar when the doorbell rang behind him. He raced back and bumped into the door, yelling "Yes?"
"Me."
Speke shoved his eye against the spyhole. Outside was a doll with Stef's face on its swollen head. "Haven't you got your kum?" he shouted. "Can't you see I've got my hands full? Didn't you see me flashing my lights when you were driving? I've been right behind you for the last I don't know how long."
"I saw some flickering in the mirror" Speke seemed to recall.
"That was me. Well, are you going to open the door or don't you want to see my face?"
"That's a strange way to put it," Speke said and found himself backing away from a fear that he would be letting in the doll with her face on its bulbous outsize head. He wasn't fast enough. His hand reached out and turned the latch, and there was Stef, posing with armfuls of groceries against the blank backdrop of the corridor. He grabbed the bags from her and dumped them in the kitchen, then he fled to the bar. "Drink," he heard his voice say, and fed himself a mouthful from the nearest bottle before switching on the light and calling "Drink?"
The Collected Short Fiction Page 115
