A Voice in the Distance (13 page)

'
No
.'

Her shoulders shake with suppressed laughter. 'Liar.
You've been talking about this moment for the last two
weeks! I can't believe you're finally free of that place!'

'Would have stayed if I'd known I was gonna get
roped into this!' I snap. 'How long is this bloody thing
going on for?'

'Only till eight. OK, you come back in here. Shit,
where are we?' Suddenly panicked, she turns over two
pages at once.

'Jennah!'

We grapple with the piano score. Several sheets fall
out and flutter softly to the ground. I re-enter with a
clash of dissonant chords and Jennah claps a hand to
her mouth and snorts with laughter.

I can finally relax when we reach the last piece. I
know the accompaniment to
On My Own
so well I don't
have to bother with the music. Jennah gets up to sing
and I watch her attentively over the top of the piano,
careful to place the notes just right, to blend the
accompaniment with her voice, to buff it and present it
on a pedestal so that it soars above the piano. It is such
a pretty, simple song, just her and the piano. The lights
from the ceiling catch in her eyes, making them shine.
A pretty flush lights up her cheeks. She smiles as she
sings, and makes eye-contact with me at every re-entry.
She is wearing a faded striped green jumper that is too
long in the sleeves, and a long black gypsy skirt that is
coming down at the hem. In her ears, I recognize the
silver pendants I gave her for Christmas. As the song
builds and gathers power, I have to make an effort to
concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing. The
piece reaches its crescendo and Jennah's voice hangs in
the air, even after I have played the last note. There is a
brief silence. Jennah looks over at Professor Williams.
He clears his throat. 'Well,' he says. 'Jennah, I think
you've found yourself an accompanist for the recital. I
don't think even I can compete with that. Would you
mind, Flynn? Just for the last piece?'

I nod and shrug as if to say,
What choice do I have?

Jennah bounces up and down on her toes and claps
her hands with glee.

As I am waiting for Jennah to gather up her things,
Harry comes over. 'Hey!'

'Hey.'

A pause. Harry looks as if he is desperately trying to
formulate some kind of sentence. 'You know – shit –
how are you? I've missed you, mate.'

I nod, my eyes suddenly unable to meet his. Suddenly
he pulls me into a hug. 'Good to see you back. And in
style!' He claps me on the back and turns to Jennah as
she approaches. 'Although there seemed to be a bit of
confusion during Ollie's song!'

'Jennah was trying to put me off by chucking the
piano score around the stage instead of just turning
the pages like a normal person,' I inform him, relieved
at the sudden change in tone. 'At least she sings better
than she turns pages.'

Jennah throws back her head, laughter bubbling out
of her. 'Harry, did you see Flynn's face when Williams
asked him to come and play?'

'Yeah, it was like Williams had asked you to come and
do a striptease in front of the whole student faculty!'
Harry chuckles.

'I don't like sight-reading!' I protest. 'I'm out of
practice!'

'You are so easily embarrassed!' Jennah hoots. 'When
Williams called us
lovebirds
, I thought you were going to
pass out!'

'Very funny,' I grumble.

As Jennah unlocks the door and steps ahead of me into
the flat, I circle her waist with my arm, nuzzling her
neck. She turns and starts to say something but I silence
her with a deep kiss. I pull the long winter coat off her,
kicking the door shut behind us, and unwind the multicoloured
scarf from around her neck. Suddenly my
hands are in her hair, under her shirt, beneath the waistband
of her skirt. Within seconds we are clawing at each
other, shedding items of clothing like leaves from a tree,
rolling down onto the carpet, still only half undressed.
We are having sex in the narrow hallway, my elbows raw
against the rough carpet, and I am alive again.

Having Flynn back, neither manic nor depressed, is
wonderful. My soul mate has returned and I'm only just
realizing quite how much I have missed him. Not
just during his stay at the psychiatric hospital but ever
since the bipolar raised its ugly head again back in
October. The combination of lithium and anti-depressants
he was prescribed during his incarceration, as he
likes to call it, seems to be working wonders at keeping
both the mania and, more importantly, the dreaded
depression at bay. For the first few weeks I am on
tenterhooks, watching his every move, every facial
expression. Is he talking too much, too rapidly: is he
getting manic again? Or is he lethargic, not talking
enough: getting depressed again? But he's sticking to
his bi-weekly psych appointments, attending bipolar
support group meetings, having his blood tested
regularly to monitor his lithium levels, keeping in
contact with Rami and his parents by phone – and being
lovely, lovely towards me. He has written me a song, a
song with a simple piano accompaniment, just for me. It
is called
Letting Go
. When I first sing it, with Flynn at the
piano, it makes me want to cry. It is a sad song – clearly
he wasn't feeling too happy when he wrote it – but it is
beautiful.

I'd forgotten how romantic he could be, how gentle
and sensitive and caring. I'd also forgotten how witty he
was. We spend the whole of reading week closeted in the
warm fug of the bedsit, oblivious to freezing February
mornings and afternoon nightfall, to the thin dusting of
snow that paralyses the city. Instead we spend our time
cooking languorous meals and drinking cheap red
wine, squandering the days on TV and hot baths and
sex. We don't even bother answering the phone. Piles of
library books lie stacked up against the walls, unopened.
When our fridge is empty, we order takeaways. I read
Keats, wrapped up in the duvet, Brahms playing softly
on the radio. Flynn practises hard for an upcoming
competition, the thud of his keyboard audible well into
the night.

At the weekend1 we invite Harry and Kate round for
dinner and spend a chilled evening full of red wine and
beef casserole, swapping anecdotes from the Royal
College, Harry regaling us with tales of his eccentric parents,
who want to sell the flat in Bayswater in order to
buy themselves a houseboat. At first Kate seems a little
on edge around Flynn, but Harry is his usual ebullient
self and soon gets her to lighten up. Flynn is animated,
his cheeks pink and his eyes bright, and for the first
time in ages I think he looks almost happy. I revel in
the normality of it all. I begin to relax again. Just sitting
around with our friends, chatting and laughing and
drinking the night away, feels like an absurd luxury.

On Monday we return to lectures and soon fall back
into our usual routine of rushed breakfasts and canteen
lunches, rehearsals that spill over into the evening and
essays that leak into the night. As winter begins to thaw
into spring, I feel a long-needed sense of calm permeate
our lives, dotted with student parties and pub-crawls.
Harry celebrates his birthday in style. Kate gets accepted
onto the music therapy course. Flynn plays for a spot in
the finals of the hugely prestigious Queen Charlotte
competition.

I sing
Summertime
in a recital at St Martin-in-the-
Fields. It is my last public performance before
graduation. Mum and Alan come down from
Manchester to watch me. Flynn, Harry and Kate join the
audience too. My mother and I have reached an uneasy
truce regarding my relationship with Flynn. I know she
is still deeply worried but after I told her she was just
making things worse for me, she reluctantly agreed to
leave the subject alone – for the time being at least.
When I come off the stage to the sound of healthy
applause, I feel suddenly sad, almost tearful. My last
performance with the Royal College. My four years as a
music student in London are coming to a close. The
end of an era. At the after-concert party, my tutor
introduces me to a Madame Françoise Denier – a wellknown
opera singer from my mother's generation. She
asks me what my plans are for when I graduate. I tell her
that I haven't given it much thought, which isn't strictly
true. But knowing that Flynn is going to be on the road
for most of next year has made me nervous. I like the
idea of teaching, but am reluctant to tie myself down to
a full-time job.

Françoise Denier is telling me about the Paris
Conservatoire where she teaches. After a few minutes I
suddenly realize where she is going with this conversation.
And then she comes out with it: would I be
interested in doing a one-year graduate course at the
Conservatoire de Paris under her tutelage? She is
confident that I would get a full scholarship, and my
voice apparently has a clarity and resonance that she
finds unique. I am absurdly flattered and even feel a
brief flutter of excitement, but I smile politely and say
that moving to Paris for a year is out of the question. I
am relieved she doesn't ask why. I don't want her to
know that I plan to become a freelance flute teacher so
that I can travel with Flynn to his concerts whenever
possible. I don't want to have to explain how much I am
willing to sacrifice, how much I love him. But before she
moves off, she hands me her business card and tells me
to call her if I ever change my mind.

Yet as the weeks roll by and I begin to believe that
the doctors have finally found the perfect drug
combination to keep Flynn well for the rest of his life, a
slither of thought, an unwanted intrusion, pricks at the
back of my mind. I don't want to let it in, don't even
want to be forced to acknowledge it, but it's there
nonetheless, a shadowy backdrop to an idyllic end of
term. It appears to me in my dreams as a door right
before me, a door I know I must open, but I am terrified
– terrified of what lies in wait. I know that if the dreams
are to stop, if the nagging in my brain is to cease, I must
face my fears and open that door, but I can't, I can't. I
just
can't
. Then, one morning, I am hurled against it;
the door is forced open against my will. One morning I
wake up and the sun is high in the sky and Flynn is still
asleep, his arm draped over my chest.

He wakes with a start at my shout and grabs me by the
wrist. 'What? What?'

I am having a panic attack. I've never had one before
but I know that's what this is, because I suddenly feel as
if I can't get enough air into my lungs and so I cup my
hands over my nose and mouth and try to take in less
oxygen. I scrunch up against the head of the bed and try
to elbow Flynn away. He looks faintly comical – his hair
on end, the imprint of the pillow still fresh on his cheek,
his blue eyes wide with fright – and I begin to calm
down.

'I'm OK.' I lower my hands tentatively from my
face and attempt to breathe normally, trying to focus on
a lopsided picture on the wall of the two of us on
holiday.

'Were you having a nightmare?' Flynn is kneeling up
on the bed, looking down at me with concern, his
once-white T-shirt hanging over his green checked
boxer shorts. I focus on the details, just the details. If I
stay in the present, everything will be all right. But I am
shaky, I've come too close, the door is already open and
I have to step through.

I look at him. 'There's something I've been wanting
to ask you. Ever since – ever since Boxing Day.' I can feel
my heart.

He drops his hand from my wrist and sits back on his
heels. When his eyes meet mine, they are wary, almost
afraid. The look on his face nearly forces me back, but I
keep going forward.

'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I know you don't want to be
reminded of that time and I don't either. But I think I
have to talk about it. Just this once. Or I feel like I'll
never be able to put it completely behind me.'

He hasn't moved from his kneeling position, his arms
loose by his sides. He is gnawing at his lower lip; I know
what that means and I want to retreat, retract.

'I need to know why.'

'I wasn't well, Jennah.' The colour has risen to his
cheeks and his discomfort is palpable. It almost feels
like shame.

'I know, my love, I know. And I'm not angry. Not any
more. But I just want to know – did you think – when
you took all those pills and got into bed beside me –
did you think of what it would be like for me, when I
woke up, if – if you hadn't still been breathing? If – if it
had worked as you'd wanted it to? If you had died?' My
voice is shaky, the words catch in my throat, but I've
done it, I've asked the question I'd dreaded asking.

He looks down at his knees, the colour still high in
his cheeks, and I can see the rapid rise and fall of his
chest beneath his T-shirt. I want to reach out, touch
him, say that it's OK, but I can't.

'No.' He says in barely a whisper. He does not look
up.

'Why?' The word quivers infuriatingly.

I'm not even sure he is going to reply. I count his
breaths. Seven, eight, nine . . .

'Because – because when you feel that bad, that low,
you stop caring. About everything and everyone. You
can only think of yourself.' His voice is hoarse, hesitant
and barely audible, as if he is having to force the words
out. 'The pain is so . . . big, it takes up all the space in
your body, in your mind, and there isn't room for anything
else. All you can think about is your own suffering,
and how to stop it – you'd do anything to stop it.
Anything. I really mean anything.' He looks at me now
as if imploring me to understand, chewing savagely on
the corner of his lip, and I realize with a shock that he
is close to tears.

'What does it feel like?'

He shakes his head and looks away from me, out of
the window at the bright late-morning sun. 'You don't
want to know—'

'God, Flynn. I love you.' My voice cracks. 'Of course
I do.' I swallow hard, trying to suppress the rising ball of
pain at the back of my throat.

'I can't explain it . . .'

'Try.'

'It's just this pain, this unbearable mental pain –
often it's your body too, and every part of you hurts. But
you don't really care about your body, it's your mind.
Every thought hurts like hell. Everything you see is
awful, twisted, pointless. And the worst – the worst of it
is yourself. You realize you are the most ghastly person
in the world, the most hideous, inside and out. And you
just want to escape, you just want to get rid of yourself,
of your suffering, of the pain inside your head. You want
to shut out the world and yourself, for ever. A-and death
is the only option left because you've been through this
time and time again, thought and thought about trying
to change yourself, the way you think, the way you
behave, the way you live. Yet it always comes back to this
– the fact that you just d-don't want to be alive—' He
breaks off, turning away suddenly, pressing his fingers to
his eyes.

I stare at the back of his head. My eyes sting, my
throat aches. I
want
to hear this, I
want
to understand,
but at the same time it hurts, on so many different
levels. It hurts to hear that he can reach a place where
he doesn't care about me any more, doesn't care about
damaging me so much I might never recover. It also
hurts to hear him say it, to hear him verbalize even in
the most simplistic terms the agony he was going
through, has been through time and time again, while I
remained blissfully unaware.

I move towards him on the bed and try to touch him
but he holds out his hand to keep me at bay.

'Flynn . . .'

'I-I'm OK!'

'I know you're OK. I just want to touch you.'

He pulls away almost angrily and goes to the window,
resting his forehead against the glass, his arms crossed
above his head.

I clench my teeth together, wincing against the tidal
wave of sobs that threaten to engulf me.

'I'm sorry, Flynn, I just needed to try and understand.
I didn't mean to bring it all back.' The bedsprings creak
as I get up. Suddenly I am afraid.

'Don't go!' He shouts the words, making me start,
whirling round to face me, his flushed face awash with
tears.

'I'm not going anywhere!' I exclaim. 'I'm just
frightened – I'm so frightened it's going to happen
again!' I step into his arms and burst into tears.

'No, Jennah, don't – don't . . .' His face is hot and wet
against mine and he holds me tight, stroking the back of
my head.

'Did you think I – I would be able to carry on, without
you?' I sob, my voice muffled against his shoulder.
'Did you think I'd manage to get through this thing
called life without you by my side?'

'I thought you'd be better off without me – I didn't
think, I couldn't think . . .' We are both sobbing now.

'Who else would run out on their own birthday party,
force me barefoot down the fire escape, bring me fruit
salad in bed, complain that I'm humming a pop song in
the wrong key?' I am laughing and crying at once. 'Who
else would force me to dance in front of a complete
stranger, learn to play the guitar overnight and accompany
me when I sing?' I sniff hard and punch him on
the shoulder. 'How could I possibly live without you, you
stupid, stupid idiot?'

Flynn steps back and grabs a pillow off the bed. 'Fine,
if you're going to get physical about it—'

I lunge for the other pillow but he hits me squarely
on the top of the head. 'Well, you've done it now – you
can never complain about any of my harebrained
schemes ever again—
Ow!
Jennah, why can't you just
fight like a girl? Why do you always have to be so bloody
vicious?'

One of the pillows finally splits and we collapse,
exhausted, on the floor, surrounded by white feathers. I
rest my head on Flynn's chest and listen to the pounding
of his heart. He stares up at the ceiling, wiping the
sweat from his brow. 'What's the betting you can't go for
one hour without getting out the vacuum cleaner?'