A Voice in the Distance (6 page)

'And so – you're saying I should just weather the
storm?'

Harry nods slowly. 'I think so, yes. Otherwise you're
going to wear yourself down, trying to help him, trying
to make things better, when it's basically out of your
control.'

I look at Harry. Somewhere, at the back of my mind,
I think he might have a point. But I don't want to admit
it. Not yet.

Harry hugs me in the doorway, a quick, comforting
warmth, and I watch him get into his car and accelerate
down the quiet street. As his red brake lights disappear
round the corner, silence descends and I feel suddenly
lonely. I wonder if Kate knows how lucky she is. I go
back into the kitchen, turn off the oven, put the food
out to cool and make myself a cup of hot chocolate. I
have no appetite for a solitary dinner. I sit at the kitchen
table, sipping my drink and staring out into the black
pane of night. Some old friends from music camp who
knew Harry, Flynn and me as kids expressed surprise
when they first heard I was going out with Flynn. They
had always thought I would end up with Harry. I don't
know why it comes back to me now.

I finish my hot chocolate, wash my cup, cover the fish
slowly congealing on the sideboard and put it in the
fridge. There is no light under the bedroom door and
so I figure Flynn has gone to bed. Although it's barely
ten o'clock, I decide to follow suit – I have an early
lecture tomorrow and I'm not in the mood to do anything
more productive. So I double lock the front door,
switch off the lights, brush my teeth and creep into the
bedroom. I fumble around in the dark, getting
undressed, pulling my nightie over my head. It's only
when I'm about to get under the covers that I'm aware
that the curtains are still open, the streetlight falling
over an empty bed. My slowly adjusting eyes make out a
figure sitting against the wall beneath the window. I
switch on the bedside lamp.

'What are you doing?'

He is plugged into his iPod and can't hear me. His
eyes squint against the light.

'I thought you'd gone to bed,' I say, louder.

He yanks the earphones out. 'I was just waiting for
you and Harry to finish talking about me,' he retorts.

I stare at him, stung. 'What exactly did you expect?'

'For my girlfriend and best mate to bitch about me
behind my back, obviously.'

The tension that has been growing inside me all
evening rises to my throat. 'You really have a nerve, complaining
about me, when you're the one who ruined the
whole evening by behaving like a prat! What do you
expect? For us to start talking about the weather after
you go and storm out of the room like a hormonal
teenager?'

He throws his iPod furiously against the foot of the
bed and starts to shout. 'I had every right to be pissed
off, seeing how the two of you were ganging up on
me! That's what you always do, isn't it? "Oh God, what
are we going to do about Flynn? He's so crazy."
"What are we going to do about Flynn? He's all
depressed again." '

'What would you rather we do? Ignore you?' I am
kneeling up on the pillows, almost shaking with rage.
'God forbid we should be
concerned
about you! God
forbid we should
care
about you!'

'I didn't ask for your bloody concern!' Flynn yells.
His face is puce, the cords standing out in his neck. I
have never seen him so angry. 'A fat lot of good it does
me, having you and Harry witter on about how screwed
up I am!'

'We never said you were screwed up! We're just
worried about you!'

'Well, save your stupid worry, I don't need it!' Flynn
yells. 'Stop trying to be Florence fucking Nightingale!'

There is a silence. I feel as if I have been punched in
the stomach. The wind is knocked out of me. I am going
to start crying. I need to move fast. I stumble from the
bed and pull on my jeans and grab a jumper. I pick up
my bag in the corridor and shove my feet into a pair of
trainers.

'OK, wait, where are you going?' Flynn is beside me
in a flash, his hand on my arm. 'Don't be stupid, Jennah,
it's late—'

I jerk myself free and keep on going. He grabs my
arm again as I reach the front door.

'Get your hands off me!' I yell.

My voice sounds somewhat hysterical. Flynn backs
off, looking alarmed. 'Jennah, come on. Listen—'

I crash out of the front door and run down the staircase
and out into the street. The night air is sharp,
stinging my bare arms. I walk quickly away, towards the
bright lights of the main road, blinded by tears.

Harry and Kate are comforting and sympathetic. Of
course I can stay the night, of course it will blow over,
and of course I did the right thing by walking out.
Hunched up in the corner of the sofa, sipping hot
coffee, it takes me some time to stop sniffing and
shivering. I feel guilty for having intruded on them just
as they were about to go to bed but could think of
nowhere else to go. Mum is living in Manchester with
her partner now – I can't just go running home. I am so,
so tired.

Kate suggests I have a hot bath, which I do. Thawing
gently in the steamy tub, I look up at the cracked ceiling
and wonder if this is the beginning of the end. Two and
a half years is not so bad, I suppose. My eyes fill again
with painful tears. Why was Flynn so nasty? That's what I
can't get my head around. To lose his temper during the
rehearsal was one thing, to accuse Harry and me of
ganging up against him was another. But to tell me to
stop playing Florence Nightingale! That could only have
served one purpose – to wound. And he has certainly
succeeded.

I get out, dry myself and pull my nightdress back on.
In the living room, Harry helps me open up the sofa bed
and lends me an alarm clock. I climb under the covers.
The phone on the coffee table suddenly springs into
life.

Harry sits down on the armrest and picks up. 'Hello?'

I stretch out beneath the duvet. I wonder if I dare
skip my morning lecture.

'Calm down, mate, she's here with us,' Harry is
saying. He turns to look at me.

I look up at him and frown, shaking my head
vigorously.

'She doesn't feel like talking to you right now,' Harry
says.

I am watching Harry's face. The sound of rapid speech
comes out of the receiver. Harry is struggling to get a word
in. 'Yes, yes, I know . . . Yes, she's spending the night . . .
No, don't come round now. We're all going to bed. Get
some sleep and call back in the morning.'

More rapid speech.

'Yes, all right . . . But she doesn't want to talk to you
just now . . . I'll tell her you called, OK?'

Harry looks at me again. Widens his eyes dramatically.
'No, I really don't think that's a good idea . . . No.
Listen, mate, I'll get her to call you tomorrow.'

When Harry finally hangs up, he turns to look at me.
'He sounded upset.'

A sliver of fear runs through me. 'How upset?'

A pause. 'You look knackered, Jen,' Harry says
suddenly. 'Get some sleep, OK? Things will seem better
in the morning.'

He gets up to go and I pull the duvet around me.
'Harry?'

'Mm?' He stops in the doorway.

'Thank you.'

'At bar one eighteen,' Professor Kaiser says, 'are you
playing it
accelerando
with intention?'

I am not doing anything with intention. I am just trying
to get through this lesson without popping a blood
vessel.

'Keep it
a battuta
until the E flat,' the professor continues.
'Let the notes maintain their weight until the
quaver passage after the F sharp.'

I don't know what the fuck he is talking about. The
only weight I am aware of is inside my head. I didn't
sleep last night. I bought a bottle of vodka and a packet
of cigarettes and watched in a blurry, drunken haze as a
watery dawn rose over the rooftops. Now I am playing in
a winter jacket in Kaiser's under-heated study at the end
of a wet, rainy day; the professor pacing the room like a
caged animal as I attack Rachmaninov's Second Piano
Concerto with barely concealed hatred.

'
Da pum pum pum
. . .' Kaiser repeats the fingering of
the runaway semi-quavers on the top of the piano. 'Keep
– the – tempo,' he chants in time to the imaginary notes.

I throw myself back into the semi-quavers to drown
out the sound of Kaiser's voice.

But Kaiser just starts to shout. 'Flynn!
A battuta!
Quavers, not semi-quavers!'

I close my eyes and try and shut him out. My fingers
don't want to stay in time. They want to race ahead in
fury, plunging into the dense fog of black notes, pulling
the music out by its roots, hurling it up out of the piano
and into the air. I dive into the fat staccato chords like a
madman with a hammer, pounding the notes out of the
grand piano until the floor shakes. I collapse at the end
of the first movement, my forehead hitting the piano
ledge with a thud.

'Very theatrical, Flynn,' Kaiser says dryly as the final
chord hangs in the air. 'But I'm not sure that is exactly
what Rachmaninov meant when he wrote
decrescendo
. We
need some element of control or the piece loses its
centre. The staccato chords need more space –
pum,
pum, pum
. They are sounding more like quarter notes
than two whole notes tied. You need to massage them
and then use pedal, get them to ooze . . .'

I stare at a spot on the wall just above a portrait of
Handel and try and remove the thought of oozing
chords from my mind.

'Show me,' Kaiser is saying. 'Milk the chords—'

'From where?' I snap irritably. My head is killing me.

'The cadences, of course.' Professor Kaiser looks at
me in surprise.

'OK, OK. From the G sharp?'

'The B flat.'

I take a deep breath and dive back in. The sound
crashes about the room like a stormy sea. I can't for the
life of me remember why I ever agreed to learn this
piece. I am sure that music was never meant to sound
this harsh, this painful.

'Whoa, whoa!' Professor Kaiser shouts.

I pretend not to hear him.

'Clarity! Clarity!' he shouts again.

I lose my fingering and jolt to a dissonant halt.
'What?' I bark furiously.

'Even in eruptions of
fortissimo
, you need to take
more time to ensure
clarity
,' Kaiser says.

'What are you talking about?' I snap. 'I've got pedal
markings till the end of this whole section!'

'What I mean is—'

'You want it without the pedal now?' I demand
furiously. 'Or you want it with pedal but without
sostenuto
and clear within the resonance?' I can hear my heart.

The professor stops his pacing and turns, looking at
me thoughtfully. 'I think you are more excited than
even the music today, no?' He considers me for a
moment.

I breathe. I realize I have been shouting and I can
feel the heat pounding in my cheeks. I gnaw at my
thumbnail.

'Let's stop for today. We can keep the clarity-withinresonance
problem for next time,' Professor Kaiser
suggests gently. 'You look tired.'

I busy myself, gathering my music together.

'I can tell things are difficult at the moment . . .'

My teeth are clenched together so hard, my jaw
aches. Does the whole world know? I mumble something
not even I can hear.

As I pull the strap of my bag across my chest and
move towards the door, Professor Kaiser puts a restraining
hand on my arm. 'Flynn—'

'I'm OK!' I jump away violently. 'I'm OK. Really.
Thanks for the lesson. I'll see you tomorrow, as usual.'
And I turn and hurry from the room, away from the
menacing threat of his concern.

I buy a packet of cigarettes and chain-smoke them on a
damp bench in the park, a mini-gale buffeting around
me. I've smoked so much in the last twenty-four hours
that the taste makes me feel sick, but I feel like doing
something self-destructive. It's funny how you can think
you've reached rock bottom, then sink a whole lot
further. I know I only have myself to blame but that is
little consolation. Yesterday evening Harry and Jennah
made me so angry, and I hardly know why. Something to
do with their friendship, which has always been very
close. Something to do with the realization that Jennah
has more in common with Harry than with me.
Something to do with the fact that I am depressed, and
they are not. Something to do with them being the longsuffering
friends and I the pain-in-the-neck. Something
to do with wishing I was anyone but me.

I don't know where the stupid Florence Nightingale
remark came from. I regretted it as soon as the words
were out. I just grabbed at the first nasty taunt I could
think of. I wanted to hurt Jennah; to make her see, just
for a second, what it felt like to really hurt. How evil that
sounds. To want to make someone you love suffer the
way you suffer. I am cruel and selfish and envious. I hate
myself more than they could ever hate me.

I am so, so sick of it. This is the overriding feeling.
They say depression is an incredible sadness, an unbearable
mental pain. No, it doesn't have to be so dramatic.
Sometimes it is nothing more than feeling tired. Tired
of life. In therapy they tell you to remember that the bad
spells pass. That things do get better, that medication
does work, that things don't stay the same. I can't see
how this is supposed to help. Ultimately everything ends
with death. What they should say is: things might get
better for a while, but eventually you will go back to
being nothing, and all the pain and suffering will have
been in vain. I wonder what Dr Stefan would have to say
to that. They say that depression makes you see everything
in a negative light. I disagree. It makes you
see things for what they are. It makes you take off the
fucking rose-tinted glasses and look around and see
the world as it really is – cruel, harsh and unfair. It
makes you see people in their true colours –
stupid, shallow and self-absorbed. All that ridiculous
optimism, all that
carpe diem
and life's-what-you-make-ofit.
Words, just empty words in an attempt to give
meaning to an existence that is both doomed and futile.

I need to walk. When I start thinking like this, I scare
even myself. Because I know I'm right, and because I
know there is only one way out. There are people you're
supposed to call when you're feeling like this. The
Samaritans, my psychiatrist . . . Why? So they can talk
you out of it? Talk you out of 'harming' yourself? It's all
rubbish. I'm harmed already. I only want to be kind to
myself, to put myself out of my misery.

I walk quickly, even though I have nowhere to go. My
warm breath mingles with the cigarette smoke, creating
small white clouds against the cold air. It has been raining,
and everything is wet and sharp and new. Cars swish
by, their lights picking out the puddles on the pavement.
A weary chill settles in between my shoulder
blades. The hand holding the cigarette is soon numb
with cold. Autumn has turned into winter.

My mobile erupts into a series of clamorous
vibrations. I pull it hurriedly out of my jacket pocket in
the vain hope that it will be Jennah's name on the caller
ID. It's Rami. I flick the phone open without thinking.
'What?'

'Hello. Nice to hear from you too.'

'I'm busy.'

'Doing what?'

'Practising.'

'You're outside – I can hear the wind.'

'I'm on my way home to practise.'

'Well, you can talk to me till you get there, can't you?'

'I don't need you calling me every fucking day to
check up on me!'

A weary pause. 'That's a bit of an exaggeration.
What's going on, Flynn?'

'Nothing!'

'Is the dose too high?'

'How the hell should I know?'

'There's always a massive come-down after a manic
episode, you know that,' Rami reminds me, his voice
heavy with infuriating moderation. 'And your body's
having to adjust to the increased dose in medication, so
you're getting a double whammy of depression right
now. It'll pass, Flynn.'

'Who the hell said I was depressed?'

There is silence at the other end of the line and I
picture Rami biting his lip, trying to resist saying something
funny but sarky that will cause me to hang up on
him.

After Rami finishes quizzing me about my mood,
side-effects, psych appointments and all the fucking
rest, I leave the park and find myself heading towards
Harry's. My pride tells me I should go home and wait it
out, but a strange mix of self-destruction and despair
keeps me going. I have sunk so low now, it almost entertains
me to try to sink further. I pass a homeless guy in a
damp sleeping bag and realize with a jolt that there is
precious little standing between him and me. A girlfriend
who doesn't return, a couple of months' missed
rent, clothes that haven't been changed for a few weeks.
An emptied-out bank account, the last of the student
loan spent on fags and booze, parents who don't know
what to do any more . . .

I press the buzzer to Harry's flat and rest my forehead
against the wet intercom. Harry's voice crackles out.
'Yep?'

'Let me in. It's Flynn.'

Brief hesitation. 'Uh – just hold on a sec.'

'For fuck sake!' I kick the door. 'Just let me in, will
you?'

'OK, OK.' The buzzer sounds and I shove open the
door and go up the stairs.

Harry is standing in the doorway. 'She's not here, you
know.'

I glare at him. 'I don't believe you.'

He sighs wearily and holds open the door. 'You can
come and search the flat if you want to. I think she's still
at uni. Doesn't she have lectures till five on a Thursday?'

I stop and think. 'Oh yeah. Shit.'

'You may as well come in,' Harry says. 'Coffee?'

'OK.' We go into the kitchen. Harry puts the kettle
on.

I run my hands through my hair and look around to
see if any of Jennah's things are still here. 'So, is she
planning on sleeping here again tonight?'

'I've no idea,' Harry says.

'What, she didn't tell you anything? She didn't tell
you if she was coming back here or not?'

Harry sits down at the table. 'I didn't see her this
morning, Flynn. I had a lesson at ten and by the time I
got home, she'd left.' He looks at me. 'Sit down, man,
you look rough. Do you want something to eat?'

'No. She must have given you some idea—'

'Look, I really don't know,' Harry says, getting up to
pour the coffee. 'Have you tried her mobile?'

'Obviously! It's been off all day!'

'Well then, she's still in lectures,' Harry says. 'Or . . .'
He hesitates.

'What?' I challenge him.

'Or she doesn't want to speak to you.' He glances at
me nervously. 'Probably she's still in lectures.'

'Why wouldn't she want to speak to me?' I demand.

'I dunno, Flynn. She seemed pretty upset last
night.'

'We had a
fight
,' I say. 'That's what couples
do
. Shit
happens! She needs to learn to deal with it.'

'Right.' Harry sets down a mug of coffee in front of
me, infuriatingly calm. 'One bit of advice though –
don't say that to her.'

I take an angry gulp of coffee, scalding my tongue.
'Did she sleep here last night?'

'You know she did—'

'What did she
say
?'

'Nothing. Just that you'd had a row.'

'Why did she have to spend the night here? Why
couldn't she spend the night at home? Why did she have
to come running to you and Kate, for Christ's sake? How
are we supposed to resolve our differences if she won't
even talk about them?'

'Maybe she just wanted a little space.' Harry holds up
his hands. 'Hey. I'm not acting as go-between here. Jen's
a mate – if you'd needed a bed for the night I'd have
done the same for you. My guess is she's on her way
home now. So go and sort it out. But for God's sake,
calm down and stop shouting.'

I finish my coffee in silence. Harry is looking at me
with an expression similar to Professor Kaiser's. It
irritates the hell out of me.

I stop off at the supermarket on the way home. I figure
one way of saying sorry might be by cooking dinner. I
stagger down the narrow hallway under the weight of
the bags and find Jennah curled up on the sofa.

'Hello.'

'Hi.' She glances at me fleetingly. She is watching TV,
an unreadable expression on her face.

I dump the bags in the kitchen, pull out the bunch of
roses I picked up from the florist at the end of the road,
and go back into the living room.

'These are to say sorry.'

She gives me a long look. Fights a smile. 'Oh,
Flynn . . .'

'I was a bastard.'

'You really were,' she agrees, taking the flowers
from me and laying them down on the coffee
table. 'And that's not like you.' She kneels up and
puts her arms round me. 'What's going
on
with you?'

I give an embarrassed shrug. 'Nothing. I was just
cranky.'

'Cranky, huh?' She begins to laugh. 'That's the word
for it. God, you were like a bear with a sore head! I don't
know how we're ever going to persuade Harry to
practise the trio with us again.'