A Voice in the Distance (17 page)

'I guess this is it! We're finally grown-ups!' she yells in
my ear.

'I know! What the hell are we going to do now?' I yell
back.

'You're going to be famous and I'll be your groupie!'
Jennah laughs.

'Let's go round the world!' I shout.

'You really will be going round the world! Next year
you'll be on your concert tour!'

'Come with me!' I shout back. 'Promise me you'll
come with me to every concert and competition?'

Jennah laughs. 'What about a job? I need to earn
money!'

'No you don't!' I shout back. 'I'll share my prize
money with you! And there'll be a lot of it! We'll be
rich!'

Jennah laughs and shakes her head in disbelief.

'You'll see!' I yell. 'You'll see! You'll see!'

We share a cab home with Harry and Kate at three in
the morning. Jennah is walking barefoot and my shirt is
damp with sweat. When we get out of the taxi, the birds
are already singing. We wave goodbye to Harry and
Kate, who are off on holiday together the very next day,
and trip up the steps to our front door. Inside the flat,
Jennah drops her shoes to the floor and limps into the
living room, collapsing onto the sofa.

'Coffee?' I ask.

'Yes please.' She curls up against a cushion.

I head to the kitchen, hitting the flashing answerphone
button as I exit the room. Pouring water into the
kettle, I hear Rami's magnified voice wishing me good
luck for the last exam. A long beep, followed by
Jennah's mum wishing her the same thing. Another
long beep. I take two mugs off the plate rack.

'
Hello, this is a message for Flynn Laukonen from the
Bridge Medical Surgery. You didn't turn up again for your
blood test yesterday, and according to our records you've not
been in since the twenty-eighth of March
.' I drop the kettle
into the sink. '
As I'm sure you know, it's very important that
you have your lithium levels checked regularly to ensure
. . .' I
career into the living room and hit the off button with
such force that the machine falls to the floor with a
crash. I stare down at the broken machine, my heart
pounding, breathing hard.

Jennah hasn't moved from the sofa. Perhaps she is
asleep. Oh, please God, let her be asleep. I squat down
and quietly start gathering up the broken pieces of
machine.

Jennah pulls herself slowly to a sitting position, pushing
her hair out of her eyes. She looks at me, sitting on
the floor, surrounded by bits of broken answerphone.
Her eyes are wide with shock.

'That was a mistake,' I hear myself say. My voice is
shaking. 'They – they made a mistake. I
did
go for the
blood test . . .'

Jennah is breathing hard. 'You liar. Oh, you
liar
. You
never did start taking your lithium again, did you?'

My heart starts to pound. 'OK, Jennah, listen. I was
going to tell you. Only it didn't seem like a very good
idea just before the exams and—'

'That's why you've been so hyper recently! And I was
worried sick that the lithium had stopped working!'

'I was going to tell you,' I say again. 'But – but I
wanted to wait until I could show you that – that I didn't
need it. And I don't need it, I don't—'

'No! No! No!' Jennah starts to shout. 'Not again! We
can't have this conversation again!'

'Shh,' I say desperately. 'We'll wake the neighbours.'

'I don't care about the bloody neighbours!' Jennah
yells. 'I care about the fact that you lied to me,
again
,
after promising,
promising
you wouldn't lie to me any
more!'

'I know, but I was going to tell you—'

'All that crap about being straight with me from now
on! You were just laughing at me when you were saying
it! You were just laughing at me behind my back, knowing
full well you had no intention of going back on the
lithium. You just thought I would never be able to find
out so long as you took three tablets out of the packet
every day!'

'It wasn't like that—'

'You must think I'm such an idiot! You must think
you can lie to me about anything! What else have you
lied about? What else have you been doing behind my
back?' She has absolutely lost it. I have never seen her so
angry. Her cheeks are crimson, her eyes flashing darts.

'Nothing, Jennah, I—'

'All that crap about me being your soul mate. All that
crap about you being in love with me and—'

'It wasn't crap, Jennah, I
do
love you!'

'How can I believe you?' she yells. 'How am I ever
supposed to believe anything you say to me ever again?'

'You can believe me. I only lied about this. I
promise
—'

'You promise?' Jennah scoffs. 'What the hell's that
supposed to mean?'

'Just listen . . .' I try to approach her.

'No!' she shouts. 'Don't come near me! I don't want
you near me!'

I stop. She puts her hands over her face and breathes
deeply. 'OK, OK, now think . . .'

She is talking to herself. It frightens me. It's as if I am
no longer present. I take a step forwards and touch her
arm. 'Jennah . . .'

'No!' Her hand shoots out, pushing me away. 'I want
you to leave me alone! It's my life too!'

I try and grasp her hands. 'Jennah . . .'

'Oh my God!' she shouts. 'You have got to give me
space! Otherwise
I'm
the one who's going to go crazy!'

'OK, OK.' I step back quickly. 'I'm giving you space.'

She drops her hands. 'No, I need space.' Her voice
drops suddenly. '
Real
space.' She breathes deeply and
her eyes meet mine.

'OK, let's sit down and talk about it,' I suggest.

'No,' Jennah says. 'We did that last time. You just fed
me a lot of bullshit, told me what you thought I wanted
to hear . . .' She screws her eyes up tight. 'I need a
break. I need to actually be away from you.'

'You don't,' I say quickly. 'You don't. We just need to
talk this through—'

'I need a break, Flynn!' Her eyes suddenly fill with
tears. 'Don't you get it? I need to be apart from you for
a while.'

I stare at her in horror. 'You're breaking up with me?'

'I don't know.' She looks stunned, exhausted. 'Yes,
maybe that's what we need. Maybe we need to break up
for a while.'

I glare at her in disbelief. 'For a while or for ever?' I
challenge her furiously.

'I don't know, Flynn. But definitely for now.' She
shakes her head, tears hanging on her lashes. 'I'm
sorry.'

She turns and leaves the room, disappearing down
the corridor towards the bedroom. I feel a cold wave of
shock wash over me and for several moments I cannot
move. Then my heart starts to thump as if it's about to
explode and I realize I must do something, anything,
to stop her from walking out of the flat. In the bedroom
she has a suitcase open on the bed. Dawn is already
streaming through the open curtains. She is emptying
the cupboard of her clothes, not even bothering to take
them off the hangers, just tossing them straight into the
open suitcase.

'Jennah, stop.' I put my arm around her to try and
restrain her. 'This is crazy.'

'Flynn,' she says, her voice shaking, 'I asked you not
to touch me. Either you let me pack, or I'm calling
Harry to come and fetch me.'

I step back. 'Don't call Harry,' I say quickly.

'Fine. Then let me pack.'

I move away from her and sit down on the edge of the
bed. 'Jennah, I really think you're over-reacting. I don't
think us breaking up is the answer.' I wish my voice
would stop shaking.

She doesn't reply and starts attacking the drawers.
Within minutes, the bedroom is empty of her clothes.
She grabs her sports bag off the top of the wardrobe and
disappears into the living room, then into the bathroom.
When she returns, the bag is full.

'Where are you going to go?' I challenge her. 'It's
barely even daylight!'

She doesn't answer. She zips up the suitcase, pulls on
a pair of jeans over her party dress, and shoves on her
trainers. Then she pulls out her mobile phone and dials
a number. She orders a minicab and gives our address.
She asks to be taken to Euston station. She is going
home.

'Come on, this is silly . . .' I try and wrestle the mobile
from her but she pushes me away. She snaps it shut and
pulls on her jacket, taking her keys out of the pocket
and laying them on the desk.

She stops and her eyes meet mine. 'I'm sorry, Flynn.'
The anger has left her. A wave of sheer panic rushes
through me.

'You've got to be kidding me.' I can hear my voice
rising. 'You
can't
be breaking up with me!'

She picks up the bag and grasps the handle of the
suitcase, pulling it along on its wheels. 'I've got to go,
Flynn. They said the cab would be here in five minutes.'

'Jennah, please. Would you just listen . . . ?' I grab her
arm, feeling a rush of heat in my eyes.

Her bottom lip quivers. 'I need you to let go of me,
Flynn.'

'Please don't, Jen!' I have started crying but I don't
care.

She bites her lip hard. 'You're going to be OK,' she
says. 'Go and stay with Rami, all right?'

'Jennah, please, I'm begging you!'

There is the sound of a car horn from the street outside.
Jennah pulls away as a tear glances off, her cheek.
'Bye, Flynn.'

The front door clicks closed behind her. I can hear
her wrestling with the suitcase on the stairs. Moments
later the downstairs door bangs shut and there are
voices in the street below. I get up off the sofa and rush
over to the window. As I look down, I see the doors of
the minicab slam closed. The engine starts, and the car
glides down the street and out of sight.

I turn from the window and sink slowly to a sitting
position against the wall.
OK, OK, calm down
, I tell
myself.
It's going to be all right. She's going to come back, isn't
she?
Except that she isn't. I am going to die, I realize. I
am actually going to die. I put my hands over my face
and start to sob. I feel like I am being slowly, carefully,
ripped in two. I realize that this pain is worse than anything
I could ever imagine. Worse than the deepest
depression. I can hardly breathe with the strength of it.
I feel sure that pain of this intensity cannot be sustained:
any minute I will pass out. But I don't, and the pain
keeps on growing, fresh waves of undiluted agony. I am
sobbing so hard I can barely draw breath. My lungs feel
as if they are ready to burst and the gasping, retching
noises make me sound as if I am suffocating.

Fear courses through my veins. Fear and pain, in
equal doses. She has to come back. She simply
has
to
come back. I cannot live without her. I cannot, and I
will
not. So this is what they mean about dying of a broken
heart. It is actually possible. I lie down on the carpet. I
want to knock myself out; I really wish I could knock
myself out. The sobs rack my body as if I am being
brutally shaken. Every muscle aches with exhaustion
and soon the carpet, my hands, my face, my shirtsleeves
– everything is soaked.

I lift my head from my arms and look up at the room
through a thick fog.
She is not going to come back
, I tell
myself.
You are going to live the rest of your life without her.
You are not going to propose to her, you are not going to marry
her, you are not going to have children with her, you are not
going to grow old with her. Maybe you will never even see her
again. You will never again hold her, never again stroke
her cheek, never again smell her hair or feel her kiss. You should
have really, really paid more attention when you made love to
her last night, because it was your last time. You really should
have savoured that last kiss at the party, just a few hours ago.
Never again, never again. Never.

I am tormenting myself and gaining a savage satisfaction
from it. I want to hurt myself more, stab myself
in the wound, break down my horrible self. I sink my
teeth into the side of my hand and bite down as hard as
I can. I taste blood. But the physical pain doesn't even
begin to dent the mental one. I cry until I can barely
move. I cry until the sun outside is high in the sky. I drag
my aching self over to the sofa and continue crying into
the cushions. I go to the bathroom and splash my face
with cold water and still can't stop the tears.

Beside the basin, something catches my attention.
The bottom drawer of the medicine cabinet is slightly
open. I wrench it out and see that all my meds have
been removed. All but a single blister strip of lithium
and a single strip of anti-depressants and four
benzodiazepines. All the rest are gone. Confused, I rifle
through the other drawers of the cabinet. All the aspirin
has gone, all the paracetamol. So that's what she was
doing with the sports bag. Emptying the flat of pills so
that I wouldn't kill myself. I want to laugh.
You're so
stupid
, I want to say.
There are kitchen knives, aren't there?
Windows that open? Glasses which can be broken? Do you
honestly think that by taking away all the pills you will somehow
stop me from killing myself?
Then another thought occurs to
me. That in her hurt, angry state, Jennah still had the
presence of mind to do this.
Don't kill yourself
, she says to
me through the empty drawer.
Don't kill yourself over me
.

I feel like everything inside me has shattered, every
part of me has broken into a thousand tiny pieces that I
will never be able to put back together again. I stagger
into the bedroom and throw myself down on the
unmade bed. Her pillow still holds traces of her smell. I
jump up, look around wildly for something that belongs
to her. I find a T-shirt of hers on the floor. I lie back
down and rub it against my wet, burning cheek like a
comfort blanket, inhaling her gentle odour. I close my
eyes and try to pretend she is still beside me.