A Voice in the Distance (15 page)

When Harry hugs me hello, I want to hold onto him. As
I draw away, he looks at me and says, 'Hey, cheer up,
you're not the one that's meant to be strung-out!' I
force a painful smile. Harry and Kate are all chatty and
excited, Flynn is charging on ahead through the automated
ticket machines. We sit around in the departure
lounge for what seems like hours, Flynn pacing the floor
and Kate chatting to me about her revision timetable,
until finally we are able to board the train. In the quiet
air-conditioned carriage, we sit facing each other across
a small table. Around us, the seats quickly fill with
passengers. Flynn, wedged between me and the window,
plugs into his iPod, closes his eyes and practises the
fingering to the concerto against the edge of the table.

Harry flashes me a sympathetic grin. 'At least after
this one you'll get a break from the Rach Two, won't
you?'

'For a bit,' I reply. 'But then there's the Leeds
International at the end of August. So that'll be fun.' I
flash him a wry smile.

Harry laughs. 'Oh, Jen, you sound like the concertweary
wife.'

We arrive in Brussels in the early afternoon. Harry's
mother, Diane, is at the station to pick us up. She is a
petite, well-dressed woman, as unlike Harry as you could
imagine. In the car, Flynn sits in the front, chatting away
to Diane. I hear my name mentioned several times.

'Are you all right, Jen?' Harry looks at me suddenly.

'Yes,' I say quickly.

'What do you girls think of Brussels, then?' Harry
asks with a grin, peering out at the grey, rain-soaked city.
Kate laughs in reply and I force a smile.

Harry's parents live in a spacious house just outside
the city centre. Flynn and I are given one guest room,
Harry and Kate the other. Paul, Harry's father, is an
older version of Harry, laid-back and jovial. He has aged
since I saw him last. Dinner is a three-course meal with
napkins and a tablecloth. The talk revolves around the
Royal College, finals, Flynn's competition. At one point
Diane brings in a large framed photograph of Harry,
Flynn and me when we were at music camp together. We
are sitting atop a huge fallen log in the camp's grounds.

Kate bursts out laughing. 'God, look at you three,
you were all so cute! How old were you then?'

'It was the year we all first met,' Harry replies,
grinning. 'We must have been ten or eleven.'

'Flynn looks so sweet,' Kate says. 'Like a little angel.'

Flynn narrows his eyes at her in mock annoyance.

'Oh, but he wasn't,' Diane says, giving Flynn an
affectionate smile. 'He was like one of those Duracell
bunnies, constantly on the go. Used to drive poor Maria
spare.'

'Look at Jennah,' Paul says, pointing to the messyhaired
girl in dirty jeans with the dimple-cheeked grin.
'Smiling away as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
Oh, she was such a tomboy. Always in trouble. Worse
than the boys!'

'Hey!' I protest, feeling myself blush.

'Yeah, yeah, she was,' Flynn chips in. 'And she was
always so bossy, always deciding where we'd go, what
games we'd play. She still is, you know. Some things
never change.'

I turn to him in mock outrage. 'I'm not bossy!'

He starts to laugh. 'Yeah, right. You're worse than my
mother! It's like,
Pick your clothes up off the floor, Flynn;
You're practising too much, Flynn; Peel the potatoes before you
mash them, Flynn; It's your turn to do the washing-up,
Flynn
. . .'

Everyone laughs.

I roll my eyes, the heat rising to my face. 'He's
exaggerating, as usual.'

'I swear it's worse than being back at home,' Flynn
goes on, clearly enjoying himself. 'It's enough to drive
anyone crazy. Nag, nag, nag, all day long—'

'Oh, come on.' Harry comes to my rescue. 'Jennah's
hardly a nag—'

'And she's so fussy!' Flynn continues. 'Talk about
OCD. Everything has to go in its right place: pencils
parallel to the edge of the desk, books flush with the
edge of the shelves—'

'I never do that!' I exclaim in astonishment.

'She even irons her own knickers!' Flynn exclaims in
a flourish.

'That's a complete lie!'

Kate, Diane and Paul are laughing. Only Harry seems
aware of my plight. He puts a restraining hand on
Flynn's arm. 'Hey, ease up. I think that's a bit of an
exaggeration . . .'

'Gag him, Harry,' I implore, tears of frustration
suddenly springing to my eyes.

Kate, still laughing, notices my face. 'Hey, hey,
stop,' she says to Flynn. 'Poor Jennah. Come on, just
because she's tidy and you're not—'

'And you couldn't even imagine what she's like in
bed—'

'Stop it!' I half rise from my seat, my cheeks burning.
I don't know if I'm trying not to laugh, or trying not to
cry. 'Stop it right now!'

'She's like,
Right, you lie there and
—'

'Flynn!' I shout furiously.

'
And I'm going to
. . .'

I walk out. I am down the corridor and out of the
front door and halfway down the darkened, rain-soaked
street before I fully realize what I am doing. Even then I
am only aware that I can't walk fast enough and that my
knees feel weak. Hugging myself against the cold, I
hurry down one street and then another, not knowing
where I am going, only wanting to put as much distance
between myself and the dinner table as possible. As I
walk, a slow painful thought begins to penetrate the fog
inside my brain.
Jennah, it's rude to walk out on someone
else's dinner. It's shamefully, shockingly rude.

I take in great lungfuls of cold night air, trying
desperately to fight back the tears. I can barely believe
it. I can barely believe that Flynn, my boyfriend, the
person I love most in the whole world, would do that. I
see the bright gleam in his eyes, the laughter at my
rising discomfort, the revelling in my excruciating
embarrassment. Couldn't he see that he was going too
far? Couldn't he see that he was being cruel? Harry had,
Kate had, even Harry's parents were looking uncomfortable
towards the end. But he just went blithely
on, loving it, not caring that I was dying with
humiliation.

A voice breaks the silence behind me. I walk faster
but there are running feet on the pavement behind me,
someone touching my arm. Flynn, come to apologize?
Flynn, come to say he is so sorry, he didn't know what he
was thinking?

'Jennah, hey, slow down. Put this on, for goodness'
sake.' Harry. He wraps his jacket around me.

'Harry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about your parents—'
I start to cry.

He pulls me into a hug. 'Hey, don't worry about my
parents. You're like a daughter to them. They
understand. Jesus, you're shaking.' He tightens his arms
around me. 'Oh, Jen, Flynn's being an idiot, a completely
insensitive idiot, but I'm sure he didn't mean to
upset you that much—'

'He doesn't care!' I sob against Harry's chest. 'He saw
how embarrassed I was getting! It just amused him! It
j-just spurred him on! A-and talking about sex in front
of your
parents
!'

'I know. He doesn't seem himself. Maybe he's
stressed about the competition and this is his way of
dealing with it. He's been acting pretty weird all day.'

'He's g-getting manic again!' I sob.

'No, no. I'm sure it's just the stress of the concert . . .'
Harry tries to reassure me.

'It's not that! He
is
getting m-manic again! He's
stopped taking his lithium!'

There is a silence. I hear Harry inhale sharply. Then
he starts to walk, taking me by the hand. 'Come on, let's
go to a café and sit down.' He reaches down into the
pocket of the jacket I am now wearing and retrieves his
mobile. I hear him speak to Kate, tell her he is taking
me to a quiet place to calm down. I hear him assure her
I'm going to be fine. I wish I could be so sure.

In the gentle warmth of the near-empty café, Harry
and I face each other over two cups of steaming coffee.
I use the napkin to wipe my face as best I can, scraping
my hair back, trying to shed the role of hysterical-cryingfemale.
Harry's face is pinched and grave.

'Are you sure?' he asks me.

I nod and sniff, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. 'I
found all the boxes this morning. There were a whole
two months worth, all crammed into the drawer.'

'And you haven't confronted him?'

'I didn't want to mess up his chances in the
competition!'

There is a silence. Then Harry sighs. 'Yeah, I can
understand that.' He is frowning down at the tabletop,
his brows knitted together in thought. 'Oh fuck,' he
breathes.

I bite my lip, inhaling deeply. Harry looks up at me.
'Any idea why?'

I tell him about the conversation I overheard about
the tremor in Flynn's hands.

'That would make sense,' Harry responds. 'I remember
him complaining about his hands shaking when he
first started taking the drug.'

'But then it wore off,' I protest. 'I'm sure it would
have this time if only he'd given his body a chance to get
used to the higher dose.'

'He's still taking his anti-depressants though, right?'

'I – I think so. I didn't see any of them lying around.'

'Then he probably is,' Harry tries to reassure me.
'Which is something. It will hopefully keep him from
dropping down as low as he did at Christmas. The
problem now is how to stop him from getting too
manic.'

'I've got one of the packets of lithium with me,' I tell
him. 'Maybe we could crush a pill and put it in his coffee
or something . . .' I am grasping at straws.

'It wouldn't work long-term. And he'd guess what
you'd done as soon as the side-effects came back,' Harry
replies sensibly. 'I think the only thing you can do is talk
to him about it. Tell him you know. Tell him how upset
and frightened it's making you feel. Try and persuade
him—'

'Tonight?' I look at Harry, softly aghast.

'No, no, you're right. You can't do anything until
after the concert,' Harry says. 'And even if you did
manage to talk him into taking a pill tonight, it wouldn't
do him much good for tomorrow. Apparently that stuff
takes weeks to kick in.'

We finish our coffee in silence. We walk back to the
house, Harry's arm linked with mine. I am no longer
crying and I do feel slightly better. But I wish there was
some way of avoiding Flynn.

I apologize to Diane about three times that evening.
Finally she gives me a hug and says if I apologize again,
she is going to throttle me. I meet Kate on the stairs outside
the bathroom and she asks if I'm all right. I nod
and force a smile.

I take a very long time in the bathroom, thawing
gently under the steaming shower, hoping against hope
that when I return to the guest bedroom, Flynn will have
dropped off to sleep. But he is sitting fully-dressed
against the headboard, doing finger exercises against
his thighs. I go over to the mirror and start brushing out
the wet tangles in my hair.

'Where did you take off to so suddenly?' he asks me
casually.

I take a deep breath and don't turn round. 'I wasn't
feeling very well. I just needed some air.'

He says nothing. I glance at him in the mirror and
see that he's gone back to doing his finger exercises. He
doesn't seem in the slightest bit perturbed by my lame
excuse. I bite my lip, hard, and concentrate on my hair.
'We should get an early night,' I say. 'Because of
tomorrow.' It is not yet ten o'clock but I just want to turn
off the light and crawl into bed.

'Yeah, OK.' Flynn has his sheet music spread out over
the duvet. He doesn't even look up.

I finish with my hair, glance at my puffy eyes in the
mirror and decide I have had enough of this day. I climb
into one side of the bed and pull the covers up to my
chin. 'Goodnight,' I say.

'Are you going to sleep right this second?' Flynn asks,
sounding surprised.

I decide it's better if I don't answer. Perhaps, if I try
hard enough, I can will myself asleep even with the overhead
light on.

After a few minutes there is the sound of shuffling
papers, creaky floorboards and the zip of his rucksack
opening and closing. I can hear Flynn kicking off his
jeans, not bothering to pick them up off the floor. I feel
his weight descend onto the mattress. I hug the duvet
tighter around me. He rolls over. Suddenly his arms are
around my waist, pulling me backwards towards him.
'No,' I protest, pulling away. 'I'm sleepy.'

'You're not sleepy.' Flynn's breath is hot against my
neck. His arms tighten around me. 'You so turn me on
when you play hard to get.'

I half turn my head. 'I'm not playing hard to get,' I
say coldly. 'I'm really tired and I'm not in the mood.
Goodnight.'

I press my cheek back to the pillow. Flynn's hands
slide up beneath my T-shirt.

I shove him hard. 'Get off me!' I surprise myself with
the force of my own shout.

There is a silence. I roll over onto my back. Flynn
is propped up on one elbow, looking down at me, his
face registering hurt and bewilderment. I reach out
and switch off the light.

The following afternoon Harry, Kate and I do some
sightseeing while Flynn is in rehearsals at the concert
hall. After trailing round the small city for a few hours,
we reconvene in a café and spend the rest of the afternoon
sipping lattes and eating waffles. At half past six
we make our way back to the Palais des Beaux-Arts, a
vast, grey, stone-pillared monument lined with flags.
We feel distinctly under-dressed and bedraggled from
the persistent drizzle as we follow the elegantly
turned-out French and Flemish speakers into the
large auditorium. Normally this would be the moment
when my heart starts to pound, when I feel myself
oscillating between pleasure and pain. But today I feel
only a dull ache, a hollowness. Harry and Kate make
up for it though, keeping me entertained with nervous,
excited chatter and poring over the order of play,
counting Flynn's place in the running order. I try to
join in, but my cheek muscles ache from the effort of
smiling. I am relieved when the lights go down and a
hush descends.