A Voice in the Distance (3 page)

Jennah makes me jump with a kiss and a cup of
coffee sometime after ten. I pull my headphones down
round my neck and keep on playing arpeggios with one
hand, taking the cup with the other. Jennah puts her
arms around me and nuzzles my ear as I continue to
play one-handed.

'Harry took off about half an hour ago,' I inform her.

'I'm not surprised, with you thudding away. How
long have you been at it?'

'Couple of hours.' It's easier to lie. For some reason
Jennah gets nervous if I practise too much. She is wearing
her white bathrobe and her hair is wet and smells of
apricot shampoo. I put my coffee down on the end of
the keyboard and go back to my arpeggios, headphones
still round my neck. I have the sound on so high, I
can still just about hear what I am playing. Jennah
comes round and perches on my knee. I put my arm
round her so that I can reach the bottom octave.

'Flynn?' She kisses my face.

'Mm.'

'Have you got lectures this morning?'

'Mm.'

'Come and have breakfast with me?'

'Mm.'

She presses her nose against mine, completely
obscuring my view of the keyboard. I find myself staring
into her large dark green eyes. Her irises are flecked
with gold. I keep playing.

'Wrong note!' she cries, triumphant.

'No!' I protest.

'Liar.'

I laugh.

'I'm so hungry I could eat you,' she says.

'OK, OK!' I reach behind her and turn off the keyboard.
'Talk about distracting!'

'You know what they say about concert pianists,' she
says, dragging me to the kitchen.

'What's that then?'

She puts the toast on. 'Can't be a top concert pianist
if you're in love.' She twirls around, her bathrobe
flapping against the fridge door.

'Huh. Well, who said I was in love?'

'Bastard!' she gasps dramatically in mock outrage.

I laugh and kiss her.

The Royal College is a university that never sleeps. From
early in the morning till late at night, the marble
entrance hall resonates with the strains of some instrument.
On the steps outside, students come and go,
carrying scores and music books and large black instrument
cases. On the first floor, the wood-panelled lecture
hall is filled with sleeping students as Professor Meyers
mumbles his way through a mind-numbing lecture on
the rise of expressive monody in the late sixteenth
century. On the bench next to me, Harry has given up
his doodling and looks to be sound asleep, his glasses
askew. I practise the fingering to Rachmaninov's Second
Piano Concerto on the edge of the desk and think
about Jennah, the concerto, Professor Kaiser, my essay
on the role and development of incidental music in
nineteenth-century stage productions . . . My mind is
jumping about all over the place this morning. It's a
feeling I've missed.

Jennah has rehearsals for the Christmas concert all
through her lunch break, but I've promised to deliver
her a sandwich. Music explodes from the double doors
that lead to the concert hall. Mozart's
Laudate Dominum
– a piece Jennah has been practising for weeks. I sneak
in through the swing doors at the back of the amphitheatre,
holding the sandwich out of view of Professor
Williams, who is leading the rehearsals, and take a seat
near the back. Jennah and the other two soloists are
sitting on the edge of the concert platform, looking
bored, while Williams talks to the first violinist about
quarter rests. Jennah says something to the girl sitting
next to her, laughs, and earns herself an angry '
Shh!
'
from Williams. She sighs, then yawns and starts pulling
the loose threads off the bottom of her long denim skirt.
She hasn't seen me.

Williams is clapping his hands together, trying to get
people's attention. By now, everyone has begun to talk,
and the murmurs rise like the buzz from a beehive. 'A
bit of quiet, please!' he bellows, waving his baton like a
wand. I am so glad I'm not involved in the concert this
term. Williams goes over to the piano and plays an A.
The sound of tuning is deafening. Finally there is
silence. Williams draws himself up self-importantly and
raises his baton. Then he looks at Jennah. She is trying
to fix the broken zip on her ankle boots. Someone
nudges her.

'First soloist!' Williams barks.

Jennah pulls a face and stands quickly, brushing the
hair out of her eyes. Williams gives her a long look, then
drops his baton. The music begins . . .

When Jennah starts to sing, I feel the goose pimples
rise on my arms. I haven't heard her sing this piece with
the orchestra before. Her voice is strong and pure,
resonating through the hall. She sways forward onto her
toes and gazes out to the back of the concert hall,
her eyes bright. The sleeves of her grey jumper are too
long so I am sure I am the only one to notice when she
taps her finger against her skirt to help her with a
re-entry. I can almost taste her voice in my mouth. It is
the colour of dawn. I want to run up and grab her and
twirl her around. I want to yell,
She's mine!
The sight of
her, standing there, singing, makes me want to shout
with joy.

Flynn arrived in time to hear me sing
Laudate Dominum
,
which pleased me no end. I'd been watching the double
doors for most of the lunchtime rehearsal, hoping he
would get here before it was my turn to sing. When
he finally snuck in, holding the sandwich he'd promised
me, I looked away quickly and pretended I hadn't seen
him. I don't know why exactly – I suppose I didn't want
him to realize I was waiting for him. It also reduced the
risk of eye-contact when I got up to sing. And it meant
that I could be secretly aware of
him
watching
me
, which
is always fun. When Professor Williams finally gave us a
break, Flynn came over to the platform and handed me
my sandwich. We chatted for a few minutes but he
didn't really hang around for long because the two
other soloists were with us, and Flynn is funny around
people he doesn't know.

This evening, Harry comes round to work on the
Aesthetics and Criticism essay we both have to write.
Flynn has an evening lesson with Professor Kaiser, the
infamous German piano maestro at the Royal College.
The lesson is only meant to last an hour but usually runs
into two or three and so I am glad to have Harry to
spend the evening with. Unlike Flynn, I don't do the
solitary thing too well. And Harry is like the brother I
never had. I put on the pasta while he sits at the kitchen
table and sifts through the hundreds of scrawled notes I
seem to have amassed.

'You've got enough for three essays here, Jen.'

'Yes, but most of it is probably irrelevant. You know
how Professor Meyers likes to drone on and on.' I join
him at the table and we get to work, passing books and
notes back and forth, occasionally reading a sentence
aloud to each other to see how it sounds. Harry types his
essay straight onto his laptop while I scribble it all out
onto pages and pages of lined paper. The stove makes a
loud sizzling sound as the water boils over. I drain the
pasta, shake a bottle of sauce into it, and Harry and I
each take a fork and eat it straight out of the saucepan.
Cooking has never been my strong point. After a couple
more hours of academic drudgery I make some coffee.
I have only managed a thousand words and Harry even
less. The essay is due in at nine a.m. tomorrow. Looks
like it's going to be a long night.

Sometime around ten, Flynn comes in, cheeks pink
from the night air, hair damp from the rain.

'How was the lesson?' I ask him.

'Great!' He kisses me hard, his hand freezing against
my face. His mouth tastes of beer.

'Have you been to the pub?' I ask in surprise.

'Yeah! Met up with André and Bertie. André came
second in the Chopin competition. Wanted to drown
his sorrows.'

'Why didn't
you
enter the Chopin competition?'
Harry asks.

'Don't like Chopin.' Flynn throws open the fridge
and begins scavenging for food. 'Are you two still working
on that essay? You're so boring.' He takes out some
eggs and starts making himself an omelette, still wearing
his coat. He puts the bowl on top of my pile of papers
and starts greasing the pan right next to Harry's laptop.
'Why don't you just write the same essay? One of you
could write the first half and the other could write the
second half.'

'I think Meyers might notice if we hand in two
identical essays,' Harry says drily, leafing through
An
Anatomy of Musical Criticism
. I start rewriting a clumsy
sentence for the fourth time.

'They'd hardly be identical! Not with all your spelling
mistakes!' Flynn starts to laugh.

I look up at Flynn in surprise. Harry is mildly
dyslexic, and although it has never been a big deal, I
have never heard Flynn make a joke of it before. Harry
just shakes his head good-naturedly and moves his
laptop out of harm's way as Flynn starts to grate cheese
energetically onto a plate. Soon, more than the plate is
covered. I pick bits of cheese off the open pages of the
library books. 'Couldn't you do that on the counter?'

As Flynn starts whisking the eggs, we move over to the
living room to grind on with our essays. Flynn joins us to
eat his omelette but turns on the television so loud we
have to ask him to turn it down. He seems restless,
practising at the keyboard, then vacuuming the flat,
finally climbing onto the back of the sofa, bouncing a
tennis ball annoyingly over our heads against the
opposite wall. It is an effort to stop myself from
snapping.

'What was that quote from
Authenticity and Early
Music
?' Harry asks me as the tennis ball thuds against
the wall behind us. 'Something about the critical issues
raised by period instruments . . . I wrote it down somewhere
and now I've lost it . . .' He shifts wearily through
a pile of papers.

I try to find the page for him in the relevant book.
'The one about authentic texts?'

'No, it was in the other book, the Kenyon one.
Something about period instruments . . .'

I lift up books and papers from the coffee table, trying
to find the elusive book. 'Where's it gone? I had it
just a second ago. I'm so tired I'm seeing double. Isn't
that the Kenyon book, behind your—' I break off as the
tennis ball hits me squarely on the back of the head.

'Jesus, Flynn!'

There's a silence. I have startled myself with the force
of my shout. Harry pulls an embarrassed face and looks
down at his laptop. Flynn jumps down from the back of
the sofa and treads all over my notes, looking for his ball.
I grab it and hold it behind my back. He lunges at me.

'Children, please . . .' Harry tries to add some
humour to the situation.

Flynn grabs my arm. 'Give me back my ball.'

'No!' I shout.

'Give it back!'

'No!'

'Why?'

'You're driving us crazy, that's why! Can't you see
we're trying to write this essay? We've got exactly eight
hours before it has to be handed in! You can either help
us with it or go to bed!'

Flynn only grunts in reply, still trying to wrestle the
ball out of my hand.

'Now, kiddies, come on,' Harry says.

Flynn wins the struggle and whoops in triumph,
shooting the ball across to the opposite wall, knocking a
picture frame off the mantelpiece.

'For God's sake!' I yell, furious now.

Harry stands up and picks up his laptop. 'Let's go
back to the kitchen and leave Flynn to his game of
squash,' he suggests calmly. I follow suit, gathering up
books and papers. As I follow Harry into the kitchen,
there is a crash behind us and the sound of broken
glass.

We finally finish our essays at half past four in the
morning. I am so tired I can hardly speak. But Harry is
worried about Flynn. He seems to think he is getting
manic again. I remind him that Flynn's always irritating
when he's drunk. I give my essay to Harry to take in and
watch him get into his car before stumbling into the
bedroom and pulling off my clothes. Flynn has passed
out, fully dressed, sprawled across the bed. I shove him
unceremoniously off my side and crawl under the duvet.
Sleep. At last.

I'm awoken by a rustle and the tread of footsteps across
the bedroom floor, followed by the clatter of keys meeting
with the surface of the wooden desk. I emerge slowly
from the covers, groggy and blurry-eyed, as Flynn throws
open the curtains, flooding me with harsh white
sunlight.

'Ugh . . .' I groan. 'What time is it?'

'Nearly nine,' he replies. He is wearing his suede jacket
with the collar turned up and his cheeks are bright pink.
'You don't have lectures this morning, do you?'

'What day is it?'

'Tuesday.'

'I have Professional Skills at eleven.' I yawn. 'And
don't you have Conducting?'

'Skipped it.' Flynn throws himself across the bed,
propping his head up on his hand. 'It's such a beautiful
day. Let's go for a walk in the countryside.'

I smile. Out of the two of us, Flynn is definitely the
more romantic. I brush the hair out of my face and lean
forward to kiss him. His face is pink and cold. 'Where
have you been?'

'I needed to buy some stuff from Boots but it wasn't
open yet. Do you want breakfast in bed?'

'I think I can make it to the kitchen.' I smile. 'God,
you were annoying when you were drunk last night.'

'I wasn't drunk!'

'Yeah, right,' I say disbelievingly.

He kisses me again. 'I'll make it up to you. Let's skip
uni today and go to Chessington.'

'An amusement park?' I roll my eyes. 'Aren't we a bit
old for that?'

'Then let's go to the river and catch a boat down the
Thames. Or go on the London Eye! I know, I know, I'll
borrow Harry's car and we can drive down to the coast!'

I laugh at his enthusiasm. Sometimes Flynn reminds
me of an overexcited puppy. I feel almost guilty at
having to dampen his fireworks.

'Flynn, there's no way I can miss my Aesthetics
tutorial. I have to read out my essay today and I've been
working on it half the night. Let's save it for the weekend,
OK? I'm going to have a shower.'

I drag myself out of bed and go to the bathroom,
pulling off my T-shirt. I step into the cold tub and draw
the curtain. I turn the shower on full force—

'Jesus!' I am knocked off balance and narrowly miss
banging my head on the tiles as Flynn suddenly springs
into the bath with me, sending the shower head flying
out of my hand. It falls to the bottom of the bath, spurting
up a fountain of water into our eyes. 'You nearly
gave me a heart attack! What on earth are you doing?
Did you even ask me if I wanted—?'

He shuts me up with a kiss . . .

* * *

After my morning lecture I head over to Harry's flat in
Bayswater. The flat actually belongs to Harry's parents,
who now live in Brussels. Since moving in with Harry last
summer, Kate, his girlfriend, has had plans to strip the
flat of its austere burgundy wallpaper and paint the walls
a pale beige. However, after putting in more than a few
weeks worth of elbow-grease over the holidays, she
seems to have finally realized she has bitten off more
than she can chew. Since term started the flat has been
a building site of stripped walls and sheet-clad furniture.
The news that Harry's parents were coming over to visit
at the end of the month understandably sent Kate into
a frenzy, and so in a fit of mad generosity I offered to
help her finish decorating.

I find her in paint-stained clothes, smoking a
cigarette out of the living-room window, looking
harassed. 'Harry helped me finish the kitchen this
morning but we've still got the living room and the two
bedrooms to do,' she tells me. 'And I think I'm suffering
from toxic fumes inhalation.'

'Nothing that a good old-fashioned fag won't put
right,' I tease her.

She shoots me a grin, tosses me an old shirt of Harry's
and we get to work – Kate applying a second coat of glossy
white to the living-room door while I attack the tricky bit
around the fireplace. We chat about uni, careers and our
respective boyfriends as the afternoon sunlight streams in
through the curtainless windows.

At around two, Harry bursts in brandishing pizza and
seems suitably impressed by our morning's efforts. I
have pains in my legs, back and neck. Kate and I drop
our paintbrushes and join him as he rummages around
in the kitchen under paint-stained sheets for plates and
cutlery. Kate pulls the sheet off the kitchen table and I
collapse gratefully onto a stool, comfortably exhausted.

'Who wants coffee?' Harry asks.

'Have you got tea?' I ask.

'No, but I can ask your other half to pick some up on
the way.'

'Flynn's coming over?' I ask in surprise.

'Yeah, I caught him on my way out of uni – he was just
finishing off something for Kaiser. Told him to come
over and have some pizza with us.' Harry digs his mobile
out of his pocket and flicks it open.

'You tricked him into giving us a hand with the painting
more like!' Kate laughs.

'Hi, where are you?' Harry speaks into the phone.
'Can you pick up some Earl Grey on your way past the
supermarket? Cheers. See you in a bit.' He snaps
the mobile shut and returns it to his pocket.

'Where is he?' I ask Harry.

'He's having lunch with a crowd from Music and
Literature,' Harry replies, his eyebrows arched in
surprise. 'He's becoming very sociable all of a sudden!'

After we've finished gorging ourselves on pizza, we
get back to work again. Harry and Kate bicker amicably
about the merits of paintbrushes over rollers. Harry gets
paint on the cuff of his new shirt and then spends an
inordinate length of time trying to get the stain out with
white spirit and a nailbrush. Kate points out that if
Harry spent more time putting paint on the walls and
less time putting paint on himself, there would be a
chance his parents wouldn't have to stay in a hotel.
Harry points out that he wasn't the one allergic to red
wallpaper. Kate points out that she wasn't the one who
suggested they move in together. Harry adds that he
wasn't the one who used to complain about the long
walk home. Kate retorts that she wasn't the one to start
this relationship.

'You see what I have to put up with?' Harry turns to
me for support.

'Hey.' I hold up my hands, laughing. 'I'm keeping
right out of this.'

The buzzer goes and Harry gets up. I sit back on my
heels and survey the room. 'We've nearly finished!' I
exclaim with satisfaction.

Harry comes back in with Flynn. I stand up for a kiss
but Flynn is too busy looking around at the freshly
painted walls. 'What colour d'you call this?' he exclaims.
'Vomit?'

'Flynn!' I give him a meaningful look but he doesn't
appear to notice. Kate is worried enough already about
Harry's parents' reaction.

'Did you remember the tea?' Harry asks him.