The Voices (22 page)

It was past midnight before his mawkish reverie came to an end. Still disinclined to go anywhere near Laura, Christopher considered how he might busy himself, and, judging the pin-drop hush of the house to be propitious, he decided to record more spirit voices. Making the usual
appeal to ‘unseen friends’, he let a tape run for ten minutes before playing it back. There was nothing, not even a distant whisper. A second attempt was equally disappointing; yet he persevered, doggedly inviting the ‘unseen friends’ to communicate. On the third attempt he allowed the tape to run for twenty minutes before pressing ‘rewind’ and ‘play’.

The voice that he subsequently heard was perfectly clear; so clear, in fact, that he started and looked over his shoulder. It seemed inconceivable that such clarity could be achieved in the absence of a living body, vibrating vocal cords, a tongue and teeth. Moreover, his bewilderment was compounded by the tonal quality of a voice that was entirely different to anything he had heard before. The treble register was so unexpected that several seconds had elapsed before Christopher realized he was listening to a child, a girl of about seven years of age – or so he estimated. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’ The recording was also unusually long. ‘If I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.’ A pause was followed by a solemn ‘Amen.’ Christopher continued listening, alert, until the rev counter showed that the tape had been running for twenty minutes. The prayer was the only communication.

He played it back several times, noticing additional
details with each repetition. The child spoke in a pronounced cockney accent and had difficulty articulating the letter R. Between the first and second couplets she inhaled, causing some phlegm to rattle in her lungs. Her final ‘Amen’ was oddly despairing. It wouldn’t be necessary to clean up the recording as every syllable was distinct. Even something of a background acoustic had survived transmission from the spirit realm – a slight echo.

As Christopher listened to the prayer he became increasingly excited. He had been struggling with the problem of how ‘The Speech of Shadows’ was going to reach its climax, but now he could see what needed to be done. All of the other voices would fall away, leaving only one voice. The girl’s delivery was so affecting and the words of the prayer so apt, he couldn’t help thinking that the spirits approved of his project and were helping him to realize his creative vision. Heady with inspiration, Christopher imagined that he might have been, in a sense, chosen, and that his art might ultimately fulfil some higher purpose. His skull became crowded with possibilities: vast soundscapes, rolling waves of harmony, fundamentals produced by the motion of stars; expanding nebulae, nurseries of light, cosmic orchestration. He couldn’t operate the controls fast enough. He introduced
the voice of the girl into the mix and the effect was thrilling.

The sky was beginning to brighten but he wasn’t tired. Indeed, he hadn’t felt quite so good since the early days of his career when he often worked through the night. He felt invigorated, confident, invincible. Even when the sky had turned fully blue he was still refining harmonies and repositioning the faders. It wasn’t until he heard Laura getting up that he looked at his watch and conceded that the heaviness in his limbs must be fatigue. He closed his eyes and when he looked at his watch again two hours had passed.

After breakfast he tried to resume where he had left off, but something had changed. Fleeting images of Amanda’s body kept distracting him. They flashed into his mind like a pornographic slideshow. Arousal made him restless, agitated, and he couldn’t settle. Every time he tried to develop a new idea, he was distracted by ghostly recollections of caresses and kisses, and he was returned to the ruby half-light of Amanda’s bedroom. He wanted her to hear his new composition.

Abandoning the pretence of industry, he left his studio and descended the stairs.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he shouted.

From somewhere in the house – he wasn’t quite sure where – Laura called back, ‘What about lunch?’

‘I’m not hungry.’

Outside, the warm air smelt faintly of burning wood – the subtle fragrance of a log placed on dying embers. He crossed the soft, yielding tarmac and followed a winding pathway through the trees. A carpet of dry leaves crunched underfoot. Even the leaves on the bushes crumbled like wafers as he brushed past. Christopher pressed on until he joined a wider path that led to a Victorian viaduct. Tiny flying creatures clouded the air and it became necessary to bat them away with his hands. When he leaned over the iron railing to look down, he saw that the water level of the lake below had dropped, exposing steep banks of cracked mud. The still surface was covered with algae and resembled a sheet of emerald.

He thought about the music he had composed in the night and felt a frisson of pleasure. Once again, he began to fantasize about concerts and interviews and appearances on radio arts programmes. He remembered Loxley talking about Maybury –
a bitter, rather conceited man, who believed that he had never been given the recognition he deserved.
It was a terrible thing, to be overlooked.

Christopher entered another area of woodland and continued until he emerged at the foot of Parliament Hill.
His climb to the top was arduous and on the way he noticed something very unusual. The English were keen sun worshippers and rarely missed an opportunity to soak up its rays. Yet the slopes of the hill were empty, a wasteland of bleached dead grass. The sun was so strong it felt sickening, like an aggressive medical treatment that would make one’s hair fall out.

When Christopher reached the summit he stopped to catch his breath. He was panting and his shirt was sticky with sweat. Beyond the heath and its hinterland of high-rise housing, the whole of central London was submerged beneath a layer of pollution, a horizontal brown strip that shadowed the horizon. St Paul’s Cathedral was the only significant landmark distinguishable in the haze. He couldn’t find the slim cylinder of the Post Office Tower because it was hidden behind a bush. A low-flying passenger jet flew overhead, the roar of its engines creating an awful din. It banked and glinted before veering off to the west.

Looking south once again, he saw a figure ascending the hill. Even at two hundred yards the mop of bright orange hair was conspicuous and vivid. An irregular, limping gait was also apparent. Christopher watched and felt an increasing sense of unease as the figure got closer. It was a man, a young man, whose limbs were
extremely thin and wiry. There was something about his step suggestive of a manikin made from pipe cleaners and animated by stop-motion photography. His labouring ascent continued and the gap between them diminished. The youth was dressed so bizarrely, Christopher assumed that he must be a psychiatric patient: a ripped T-shirt held together with safety pins, long chains hanging down from beneath the hem, tight, tapered jeans and big military boots. A razor dangled from his left ear in lieu of an earring and around his wrist he wore a thick leather band festooned with sharp metal studs. The youth paused a few feet in front of Christopher and took a swig from a can. His mean, slit eyes were full of menace.

It seemed fitting that this young man had dragged himself up the hill from the direction of the city, the great, murky sprawl sweltering beneath its blanket of bad chemicals. He was like a new life form, an urban monster that had spontaneously arisen out of the primordial soup of London’s broiling atmosphere. Christopher realized it was extremely unwise to stare, but he was fascinated. How old was this juvenile horror? Seventeen, possibly sixteen; certainly still young enough to be plagued by a disfiguring outbreak of suppurating acne. His ugly expression promised violence and Christopher tensed up. The backdrop of high-rise housing in the middle distance
reminded Christopher that this part of the heath abutted several districts where squalor and casual aggression were commonplace.

The boy sneered, tossed the beer can aside and lunged forward. Christopher raised his arms, a clumsy warding off; however, his spastic gesticulations proved entirely redundant when his presumptive adversary swerved away. ‘Wanker,’ the boy growled before hawking with bitter vehemence. A moment later the lame adolescent was dragging his leg down the scorched incline on the other side of the hill in the direction of Highgate.

Christopher let out a sigh of relief, but when he bowed his head he saw a thick string of mucus attached to his linen trousers. ‘Little shit!’ He picked up an empty crisp bag and used it to remove the sputum, a task that proved remarkably difficult. For the next twenty minutes he sat on a bench, recovering from his unfortunate encounter and gazing out over a landscape of post-apocalyptic emptiness.

On his way home he discovered a dead dog. It was an elderly, overweight mongrel that must have dehydrated. Flies were crawling in and out of its mouth and buzzing around its head. ‘Jesus,’ said Christopher, almost reverentially. The freakish weather was making London unrecognizable. The last time he’d seen a dead animal in a public place was during a holiday in Sicily.

The house was silent when he stepped into the hallway. He wondered whether Laura had gone out for a walk too, but then he spied the pushchair parked beneath the stairs. He went to the kitchen and drank water directly from the tap. It was difficult to stop once he’d started, and he carried on gulping until his stomach felt uncomfortably distended. He re-entered the hallway and craned around the drawing room door. Laura was standing by the French windows and she turned to look at him. He hadn’t made any noise and it was odd how she seemed to have sensed him there. She then provided him with the answer to the question he was about to ask: ‘Faye’s upstairs, asleep. The heat is exhausting her.’

‘It’s exhausting all of us,’ he replied.

As he was about to withdraw, Laura protested: ‘No, don’t go. We need to talk.’

Surely he hadn’t been found out already? How could that have happened? He thought of Amanda. How well did he know her, really? Doubts began to multiply. Had Amanda spoken to Laura? Or had she confessed to Simon and was it Simon who had called? His mind became a chaotic hubbub. Laura saw that something was wrong and asked, ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied, stepping into the room. ‘I think I overdid it on the heath, that’s all. I shouldn’t have gone
out when it’s like this.’ He fanned his face to emphasize the point.

‘Can we sit?’

‘Sure.’

Laura looked anxious. She placed her hands in her lap and they moved against each other as if she was washing them very slowly. Christopher noticed that her eyelids were rimmed with pink and her cheeks were puffy. It was obvious that she had been crying.

‘Well?’ His voice was a dry croak.

‘Chris . . .’ She offered him a faint, tormented smile, but seemed unable to find the language to express her thoughts.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m not happy here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not happy here . . . in this house. I want to move.’

For a few seconds he experienced an airy lightness that threatened to become laughter; however, this euphoria soon melted away when the meaning of his wife’s words finally sunk in. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘I want to move.’

‘We can’t. We don’t have enough money. It cost us a fortune getting this place sorted out; we can’t move again, just like that!’ He snapped his fingers in such a way as to
suggest that the satisfaction of her wish would require an expedient as outlandish as stage magic. ‘Why on earth do you want to move?’

‘I told you. I’m not happy here.’

He knew that she took pills. Didn’t everybody these days? Especially women. Pills to lift you up, pills to let you down. He had tried to talk to her about her ‘moods’ but on every occasion she had underplayed their significance. ‘Hormones,’ she had replied dismissively. As a result, Christopher had consigned her ‘hormonal problem’ to a category of female biological mysteries traditionally ignored by men.

‘Moving house won’t make you happy.’ He paused to select his words with greater care. ‘What I mean is . . . if you’re unhappy, then maybe that’s because of other things. You can’t blame it on the house. Maybe you should see the doctor.’

‘He doesn’t listen. I told you.’

‘All right, see another doctor – someone private, someone in Harley Street.’

‘I thought you said we didn’t have any money.’

‘Harley Street doctors are expensive, sure. But not as expensive as moving home.’

‘Chris, I know what I’m asking is a lot—’

‘No. No.’ He couldn’t allow her to continue. She was
being ridiculous. ‘It’s just not possible, OK?’ Laura removed a piece of dark fluff from her smock and stared blankly at her feet. ‘You need to find the right specialist,’ Christopher added.

Laura looked up again and Christopher watched sunlight collecting in her eyes until they turned gold. ‘You want me to see a psychiatrist. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘No, I said you need to find the right
specialist.
If you think that your hormones have got something to do with it, then go and see an endocrinologist. But if you did need to see a psychiatrist . . . if that’s appropriate, why not? As long as you get the right treatment and get better.’ She had been such a striking woman. She had looked like a goddess. Now only her eyes attested to her former divinity. Christopher took one of her hands and squeezed it. He noticed that several of her fingernails were torn and ragged. She would never have been so remiss in the past; her nails were always filed to perfection and expertly painted with varnish. ‘You haven’t been yourself, have you? Not for a long time, probably not since Faye was born.’

She responded as if she hadn’t really been listening to him. ‘I want to move. And please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Christopher.

‘I’m worried about Faye.’

‘The doctor said she was fine.’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling.’

‘That’s because you’re not well, not because of the house.’