The Last Voice You Hear (23 page)

It would have been nice to lie there, but that too was not an option. She heaved herself up and brushed grit from her hands while her vision slipped out of focus; she had to shake her head before the picture returned to normal. Even then, there was something wrong with reception. Either that or a bird from another planet was eyeing her from behind a wire-mesh fence.

‘Oh,’ she said, and she was speaking out loud.

It strutted closer, then halted. Bent its neck low, and made a threatening noise.

‘You are so . . . fucking . . . not normal,’ she said.

At which it pulled itself up to its full height, like a ladder unfolding. There were two more birds behind it, and both seemed to be studying her, though you could never tell with birds. When she blinked everything swam: filmy ripples washed the landscape, and for a moment the big fuzzy birds were cartoon monsters, or TV puppets, lacking only primary colours and huge letters branded on their chests. Soon they’d be dancing and reciting the alphabet backwards. Zoë could barely wait.

‘Hello?’

And now a man approached from wherever this lane led: striding between trees as if he owned the place. The possibility existed, of course, that he did. He was dark-haired; wore a donkey jacket and a pair of wellies he’d tucked his jeans into. Beyond that, he blurred.

‘Hello?’

She was suddenly too tired to reply.
I’ve done my best
, she wanted to say.
You think that was a picnic? Dealing with those
men? Getting here?
Wherever here was. It was unclear what this man would do with the information, but the list of things Zoë considered her problem was shrinking by the moment.

‘You,’ he said, as he reached her. ‘You’re Zoë Boehm . . .’

He was quick, then, though not quick enough to catch her as she fell. But this, too, seemed somebody else’s problem, and while she undoubtedly hit the ground, the lights went out long before impact.

ii

There was a film once, he remembers – and everyone knows the
film – and it had a line, and everyone knows the line.
Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Of which he hates
every syllable. Because some idiot got it the wrong way round –
love means
always
saying sorry, and that’s the truth. It means
always being aware of how far you’re falling short of the Grand
Ideal. But at the same time, love means never having to forgive,
never
needing
to forgive, because there’s never anything wrong
with what the loved one does. Case in point:

He’s standing on a corner in the rain, near where she parks
her car, and there’s broken glass on the road and painful
strangers on the pavement; one with a handkerchief to his eye;
another who’s clutching his leg. The handkerchief blooms red. As
for Man Three, he holds himself gingerly, like a marionette with
suspect strings; he looks like he’s recently had a concrete interlude.
And watching this – the men, their obvious pain; the anger
steaming off them in the wet – all he can think is:
That’s my girl
.

Nothing to forgive.

So maybe she’s done wrong. Maybe these men represent whatever
justice looks like on a wet night, out of uniform, but he Just.
Doesn’t. Care. Which is not a matter of refusing to accept the
possibility of her wrongdoing. It’s that the need to forgive’s been
obviated. Whatever she’s done, he’ll applaud: she could blunt her
knife on these men’s bones, and he’d champion her right to inflict
damage. That’s the pact and that’s the promise. Even if she’s not
aware of it yet.

You and I must make a pact

We must bring salvation back . . .

But that’s not to say there’s no responsibility involved.

As he watches, the men move to a nearby car. Two of them are
limping, and the one with the handkerchief to his eye makes a
noise halfway between wounded animal and broken machinery:
it’s not especially loud, but carries on the wet air to the corner
where he watches. And he trembles, as if there’s a bass being
played right here beside his elbow. Nothing outrageously funky.
A ballad, perhaps; dripping regret and pain and loss, but making
a promise. Exactly what you might feel if you’d encountered Zoë,
and appreciated her worth, and experienced rebuff. Judging by
the blood, this one had experienced rebuff.

. . . And she’s some kind of woman. Turn your back on her five
minutes and she starts her own casualty franchise. The men are
in their car now. Choosing the designated driver has to be some
kind of uphill struggle, but that’s their problem, and now they’re
gone. And what’s left is the blank space after the jigsaw puzzle’s
been tidied away unfinished: the splash of broken glass by the
kerb; the echo of a one-eyed man’s pain . . . A black leather jacket
on the pavement. Whatever happened here was serious, and
possibly Zoë’s hurting. Though it’s clear she got away.

He could go to her flat. Ring the bell. She won’t answer. But
it would be a gesture of solidarity; the keeping of a promise, even
if she remains unaware of the pact they’ve made:

I’ll reach out my hand to you

I’ll have faith in all you do . . .

Because this is where responsibility lies. You do not turn away
when things become difficult. Such never happened with Caroline
or Victoria. They had been needy not needful, hungry for
love in their lives, and the simple fact of his presence had
supplied what they’d lacked. Nothing more had been asked or
given. And perhaps – painful as it is to admit, even to himself,
even in the dark – perhaps that helped, when it grew time to let
them go. Perhaps the knowledge that their love had reached its
natural conclusion triggered a kind of . . . He hates to call it
boredom. Boredom has nothing to do with love. But completion
was achieved, sooner than might have been expected. And push
came to shove. But that’s behind him now.

He waits a while longer, enjoying the moment’s melancholy:
the lover in the rain. It might look like he’s planning his next
move, but that was settled back when he first cast eyes on her,
and knew she was the one.

Where there is love

I’ll be there

Because what kind of man would let her drift now, with these
strangers on her case? Finding her might be a problem – the
tracking device on her car has a limited range – but not a grave
one; not knowing her like he does. Superficially, theirs is a
passing acquaintance, but they connect on a deeper level, and he
knows what makes her tick . . .

A sudden draught sprays water from a gutter overhead, and
he shivers at the contact. It will be another long night. But in the
end you do what you do, and if your motives are pure, you reap
the reward. Love is the storybook ending, but it has to be earned.
He already knows this.

One last look at a scene that is over, then he turns and walks
away. But first, he retrieves her leather jacket. Near the main
road, he passes a homeless man, a wanderer whose life packs into
three stuffed laundry bags, but he barely notices; doesn’t give
him a thought. He’s too busy listening to words that spin and
tango round his head. Words to live by. The old songs are the
best.

Just look over your shoulder

I’ll be there

iii

Light hung solid in the air where it sabred through chinks and flaws in the shed, which held the usual shed paraphernalia – a reasonably well-organized display of tools and feedbags; of gardening stuff (rakes, hoes, shears) hung on walls; of cans of white spirit and paint ranged on shelves – and also a metal-framed camp-bed on which Zoë lay, the pain in her elbow pulsing with every heartbeat, while those light sabres pierced her mind with brittle stabs. To recover control, she focused on her surroundings. There was shelving above her head, but she couldn’t see what it held. Beside the bed was an old and child-sized wooden chair, which had been painted white at some stage of its existence, and had some of this paint removed at another. The patches that remained had the stained and yellow unpleasantness of old snow.

The man on the chair said, ‘They’re flightless, but that doesn’t mean they’re slow. They can hit forty miles an hour, where they’ve space to reach full throttle. Ratites, that’s the family they belong to. Ratites are running birds. Ostriches are not defined by their inability to fly. They’re defined by their ability to run.’

Zoë closed her eyes, and decided to keep them this way for some time.

He said, ‘Mr O, he’s the male, is a shade under nine foot. That sounds pretty big, but when you get right next to him, you realize it’s actually bloody huge. And he weighs God knows how much, because trust me, I’ve never tried to lift him. Your adult male ostrich is like a large smelly piece of furniture. It’s not surprising they can’t fly. I mean, gorillas can’t fly either, and they don’t get a lot of bad press on the issue.’

The more he talked, the more Zoë’s head throbbed. Every third word, she grew nearer busting. She’d already learned more about ratites than she needed. But stopping him meant speaking, and she wasn’t ready for that.

‘He’s about thirty, best guess. They can live to seventy-five, did you know? It’s surprising how little people know about ostriches, it’s as if they’re not entirely on the agenda. Anyway, we reckon he’s about thirty, and the girls – Nicole and Gwyneth, by the way – they’re probably younger.’

Some of this, Zoë already knew.

He paused, as if he’d heard something outside, and for a moment Zoë stopped breathing, and they were just two bodies in the cramped air, straining for what might have been a distant car changing gear. Even her heart stopped, it felt like. A momentary suspension of service. And then their silence was broken, and there was no car anywhere, and nothing to be worried about.

He said, ‘Personally, I think of them as a potentially major barbecue, but that can stay our secret.’

Zoë’s bearings were beginning to slide; when she opened her eyes the shed’s walls were swelling out then sucking back in, as if she were trapped inside her own lung. Her power of speech was quite gone.

‘Maybe you should get some sleep.’

That was the first sensible thing in a while. A while which roared suddenly, becoming much much longer and much much darker, and so large, it swallowed her whole.

* * *

Next time she reached consciousness, she felt drugged or flu-struck. The air was unpleasantly warm, as if she’d been her own heater, and left herself on too long: par-broiled, her clothing stuck to her damply. The chair was empty. The door shut. Light filtered through those chinks and flaws in the woodwork. Something specific had woken her, but she couldn’t tell what. And despite her strong desire to know whether the door was locked, the effort of finding out was beyond her . . . In this grey nowhere, she was sure of nothing but exhaustion and thirst. Next time she woke she’d find a jug of water by the bed, but for now she lay aching a few minutes longer, her throat beginning to rasp and catch, before mist took hold of her once more, and wrapped her in forgetting.

When he came back he approached so quietly, he was in the shed before Zoë heard him. She’d been awake fifteen minutes, and had found the water along with a couple of serious-looking painkillers. After some hesitation, she’d taken these. Maybe they’d slowed her reactions. Either way, he was in the shed before she heard him.

‘You’re awake.’

‘Yes.’

Her voice sounded as if it belonged to someone older.

‘I looked in a while ago. You were still on planet nowhere.’

His looking in undetected while she slept would have worried her in most moods, but right now she was more concerned about his burden: a tray holding a pot of coffee, and possibly food, but most importantly a pot of coffee. He poured for her as soon as he’d settled on the ridiculously small chair.

‘Thanks.’

‘Feeling better?’

Well, not a hundred per cent, but she wasn’t going to die soon . . . The thought brought a twinge, a reminder of mortality in her left breast. But she nodded, and sipped her coffee. ‘What is this place?’

He looked around, as if just noticing it. ‘It’s a shed. We pretend it’s a barn, but it’s not very big.’

‘So why put me in here?’

‘Seemed like a good idea.’ When she raised her eyebrows, he added, ‘Sarah’s always reckoned, if you ever needed to run, she’s who you’d run to. And anything bad enough to get you running would call for a hiding place. Do you want more coffee yet?’

His name was Russell, and he and Sarah Tucker had lived here a little over two years: Sarah freelance editing, while Russell was ‘mostly retired’ at forty. ‘Wondering what to do next,’ was as much as he’d elaborate. Sarah’s ‘boy and two girls’ – Mr O, Nicole and Gwyneth – they’d rescued, expensively, when a nearby farm found that ostrich-rearing wasn’t the goldmine expected. And Sarah would be back that afternoon. ‘She’s in London, seeing a client. She’s doing well. Turning work away.’

‘Did she tell you how we met?’

‘Yes. But I don’t scare easy.’

Zoë didn’t reply.

‘Sorry, that was macho. But Sarahs don’t happen often. I’d be an idiot to be frightened off by a little history.’

‘Multiple deaths and chemical warfare.’

He said, ‘We were visited after we moved in together. A couple of men with polite smiles and minimalist ID. I had to sign an official secrets form. Sorry, was
asked
to sign. I think they’d have insisted, but Sarah made them ask.’

‘She was a pushover when we met. But she had a steep learning curve. You haven’t asked why I’m here yet.’