The Voices (15 page)

When Laura opened her eyes again she knew that she had not been asleep for very long. She raised her head and looked at the window for confirmation. There wasn’t
even a glimmer of sunlight in the strip of sky that separated the curtains. The reason why Laura’s sleep had been disturbed soon became apparent. Faye was ‘talking’. There were no gurgles or squeals, but a continuous stream of utterances that approximated adult speech. It was something Faye did occasionally, but only when playing a turn-taking game in which Laura would say a few phrases and Faye would try to copy them. Faye stopped chattering, paused, and then started again.

Laura was puzzled, because Faye usually slept until early morning, and if she did wake up in the night she nearly always became distressed.

As before, the utterances stopped briefly before their resumption. There was something about this repeated stop-start pattern that made Laura feel distinctly uneasy. She sat up in bed and switched on the lamp, feeling oddly vulnerable. When Faye ceased her babble, the silences that followed were absolute, suggesting that the child was listening intently, and when she started making noises again, it seemed to Laura that Faye was reacting to something. Each episode of speech seemed to contain slightly different registers of emotion: curiosity, wariness, surprise.

Laura got up and went out onto the landing. She turned the light on and hurried to the nursery; grasping
the door handle, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. As Laura had expected, she found Faye standing in the cot, holding the wooden bars. The child was staring across the room at the bookshelves. She turned to look at her mother. There was no trace of a smile on her face, although her eyes widened slightly.

‘Faye? What’s the matter? What are you doing?’

The child’s features softened and showed the first signs of recognition. Laura sighed, feeling oddly relieved. She picked up her daughter, who became limp in her arms, and tested the temperature of her forehead with the back of her hand. The child was hot, but that didn’t mean much. It had been very hot all day and the house was like an oven.

‘What is it, darling? You should be asleep.’ Laura manoeuvred Faye’s head so that it was resting on her shoulder and circled the nursery. She stroked the child’s back and hummed a lullaby. Eventually, Faye fell asleep and Laura put her back in the cot.

On returning to bed, Laura found that she was feeling tense, so she retrieved her novel and started to read. The words on the page blurred as her eyes tired and in due course the book dropped from her hands and her chin fell against her chest.

Laura awoke feeling somewhat disorientated. She
examined her wristwatch, which she had laid on top of the bedside cabinet, and was amazed to see that the time was ten minutes past three. She had been asleep for over an hour. As she reached to switch off the lamp, Laura froze when the monitor crackled into life and emitted yet another stream of chatter. Like before, each of Faye’s vocal experiments was followed by an interlude of silence, and Laura was reminded of her earlier, disconcerting impression that she was eavesdropping on one half of a conversation. She threw the bedcovers off and her book fell to the floor. Faye stopped talking, and it was then that Laura heard a man’s voice. His speech was soft and obviously modulated to engage a child. It dropped from high to low registers and had a coaxing, encouraging quality. He may have laughed, but if he did, his laugh coincided with a burst of electrical interference and it was difficult to be sure.

For a few seconds, fear reduced Laura to imbecility. She sat on the edge of the bed, her limbs shaking violently, her bowels loosening with terror. It was only when she heard Faye’s voice again that maternal instinct made her spring into action. She opened her bedside cabinet and took out a pair of scissors, which she gripped in her raised hand like a dagger. Then she crept out onto the landing and tiptoed to the nursery door, where
she paused to listen. She could hear nothing except the pounding of her heart in her ears. Her fingers found the light switch and she kicked the nursery door open. It flew back and she leapt forward, ready to plunge the sharp point of the scissors into the intruder’s chest. There was no one to attack. Confused, she jerked around and turned a full circle. Everything was just as it had been before. Faye was standing in her cot, grasping the bars, except this time she was staring not at the bookshelves but directly at Laura and her lower lip was trembling.

If there had been a man in the room, he couldn’t have escaped without being seen. Laura walked over to the window, shaded the glass to block a reflection and looked down into the garden. It was too dark to see anything. Faye began to whimper, so Laura put the scissors on the windowsill and went to pick her up. ‘There, there,’ Laura said, ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. Come with Mummy’ She was reluctant to leave the child on her own again, so she carried her back to the bedroom. Laura noticed that her novel was still lying on the floor, but she left it where it was and got into bed with Faye. She held her daughter close, kissing her soft hair and gently pinching her chubby cheeks. ‘Go to sleep, honey. Go to sleep.’

Laura had definitely heard a voice, of that she was absolutely certain; a man’s voice, coming through the
monitor speaker. The device was still hissing, so she reached out and turned it off. She was about to switch the lamp off as well, but she hesitated and withdrew her hand. She did not want to spend the remaining hours of the night in darkness.

Ancel greeted Christopher and ushered him into a spacious room with tall windows and an intricately moulded ceiling. A pall of cigarette smoke made the interior look gloomy even though the light was strong. There wasn’t much furniture: a low modern sofa, a matching armchair and a glass coffee table covered with well-thumbed scripts. Beneath a large abstract oil painting the separate units of a stereo system were arranged along the skirting board. A television, canting precariously on four spindly legs, was connected to a videocassette player by way of a twisted lead.

Christopher had been dreading his second meeting with Ancel all morning. He had had enough of the young director’s haughty posturing and really didn’t want to hear another word about Jacques Lacan, mirrors or psychoanalysis.

Ancel pointed at the sofa and said in English, ‘Please sit.’ As Christopher crossed the room, the sound of his
steps on the bare floorboards was enriched by a slight echo. ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

‘No thanks,’ Christopher replied.

Ancel lit a cigarette and sat beside his guest on the sofa. He reached for one of the scripts on the coffee table and turned a few pages. ‘So,’ he said in French, ‘do you have any questions?’

‘Yes,’ Christopher replied, ‘I do. Our conversation yesterday was very interesting; however, I wondered if – today – we might agree to focus on practicalities.’

Ancel drew on his cigarette. ‘As you wish. What do you want to know?’

They started talking and, much to his surprise, Christopher discovered that Ancel was perfectly willing to discuss the structure of his plot, his characters, the style in which he intended to shoot the film, and, above all, the music he wanted Christopher to compose. ‘I would like to play you something,’ said the director, casting the script aside. He knelt and searched through his record collection, rapidly flipping one album cover against the next until he found what he was looking for. After sliding the vinyl disc out of its sleeve, he positioned it on the turntable and waited for the automatic arm to swing across and drop. A loud thud preceded the eerie opening of Stockhausen’s ‘Studie 1’. Ancel stood up and paced
backwards and forwards, gesturing to indicate those effects that he hoped Christopher would be able to reproduce. When the piece came to its oblique conclusion, Christopher said, ‘You know I worked with him – at NWDR in Cologne?’

Ancel made a minute adjustment to the position of his spectacles. ‘Who? Stockhausen?’

‘Yes, back in the fifties.’

The director was clearly impressed. He pushed out his lower jaw and nodded. ‘Exciting times . . .’

‘Yes. Exciting times,’ Christopher repeated.

Christopher began to suspect that Ancel’s appalling display of bad manners the day before had been an act put on for Baumann’s benefit. The producer clearly considered rudeness to be a necessary condition of genius.

A door opened and Martine entered. Her hair was tousled and she looked as though she had just got out of bed. She was wearing one of Ancel’s shirts and, Christopher guessed, little else. Ancel acknowledged her by raising his eyebrows and she responded with a shrug, before passing in front of the sofa like a lynx. She climbed onto the armchair, curled her legs beneath her buttocks and reached for the cigarettes and a lighter.

Christopher had been mesmerized by Martine’s
progress, and when he turned to address Ancel he was relieved to find that the director had been occupying himself with the video player. The television screen began to glow and the opening credits of a film appeared. Christopher immediately recognized the music, because it was his own. Oscillators throbbed, a fairy gamelan suggested enchantment and limpid chords promised landscapes of ice. Ancel looked back over his shoulder at Christopher and spoke in English. ‘This . . . this sound . . . for me, it describes perfectly the world of the unconscious.’ The look on his face was almost pained. ‘Your music expresses the inexpressible.’

‘Thank you,’ said Christopher. ‘You’re too kind.’ He hadn’t received a heartfelt compliment for so long he wasn’t sure how to react.

‘When Aimée looks in the mirror,’ Ancel continued, ‘this is what I want, this sound.’ As the title of the film slipped from view a spaceship materialized in a field of drifting stars. The fairy gamelan and the chilling chords faded but the oscillators continued to throb like giant engines. Ancel pressed the ‘pause’ button on the video machine and reverted to his native tongue.
‘Formidable.’

Christopher was pathetically grateful.

Before getting the train to Charles de Gaulle airport, Christopher walked briskly through Beaubourg and Les
Halles to the Tuileries quarter, where he bought his wife a bottle of perfume. He was feeling penitent, having allowed himself the previous evening to dwell upon his illicit liaison with Amanda Ogilvy. As he waited to cross a busy road, he tilted his head back to catch the sun and felt, if not exonerated, then at least cleansed by its fierce heat.

Laura had pulled a chair out onto the terrace and as she sat, sipping beer from a can, she gazed steadily at the clump of bushes that had grown around the hidden statue. A smoky impression of the cherub’s rounded features and its sly smile had persisted in Laura’s memory. Faye was crawling around by the French windows, occasionally stopping to inspect one of the many stuffed toys and wooden bricks that were scattered on the flagstones.

Chris would be back soon, but this didn’t make Laura feel any better. Her sense of being alone had become almost intolerable, a deep bedrock of pain over which alternate waves of boredom and anxiety endlessly rolled. Suddenly, she leapt up from her chair and lifted Faye off the ground. She marched into the house, picked up the telephone receiver and dialled Sue’s number. The ringing
tone sounded in the earpiece and she waited for a long time. She supposed that Sue was probably working, but she hung on regardless, hoping. Faye buried her hands in Laura’s hair and emitted a pleasant, liquid gurgle.

‘Come on,’ Laura urged. ‘Come on.’

The ringing continued, and then, after a beat of silence, Sue said, ‘Hello.’ She was a little out of breath. In the background there was a clattering noise, things falling onto a wooden floor. ‘Shit. Sorry’

‘Sue? It’s Laura.’

‘Oh – hi – Laura.’ Recognition raised the pitch of Sue’s voice in three musical steps like the beginning of a major scale. ‘I just got through the door and dropped everything. I’ve been to the garden centre.’

‘Really? Which one?’ It was a ridiculous question. Laura didn’t know any garden centres.

‘Pavilion. Enfield. What can I do for you?’ Laura didn’t reply. It was such a lengthy pause that Sue clearly thought the line had gone dead. ‘Laura?’

‘I was . . .’ She hesitated before trying again. ‘I hope you don’t think I was rude yesterday.’

‘Rude? What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You offered to do me a favour and I think I may have appeared unappreciative.’

‘Oh, forget it. You weren’t feeling well.’

‘And I was wondering . . .’ Again she faltered. ‘I’ve been sitting with Faye on the terrace today, and . . . well, it isn’t ideal. It would be much nicer to sit by the rockery.’

‘You’ve changed your mind? Not a problem. As soon as I’m free I’ll pop over. I’ll get rid of the overgrowth and clear a space by the wall.’

‘Would you?’

‘Sure.’

‘Coloured stones or a gravel surround.’ Sue shared her thoughts. ‘I can see how it would work; something simple but effective.’

‘Great. That’s really great.’

They spoke for a few more minutes and when Laura put the phone down she was feeling a lot calmer.

Last week in June

‘With respect,’ said the politician, ‘since the beginning of March the value of sterling has dropped by over ten per cent and the Bank of England is almost without reserves. We borrowed two billion dollars from the IMF in January which has already been squandered propping up the pound. The situation is very serious indeed and it is essential that the British public accepts that cuts are absolutely necessary.’

Laura switched the radio off. When would there be some good news? She remembered what Simon had said the last time he’d come to dinner:
Shanty towns on the heath, no food in the shops.
It was all so very frightening. There had been so much optimism, creativity and hope in the sixties, how was it possible that the country could be so utterly transformed in less than a decade?
The real issue, of course, is whether democracy can survive if things get any worse.
Laura didn’t want to think about what might happen if the pessimists turned out to be right – it was just too awful. She gazed at her daughter, who was sitting
in the highchair scribbling on a piece of paper.
What a world to bring a child into.
She had had the same thought the morning after the Birmingham bombs, the morning she’d come to see the house for the first time with Christopher. The words vibrated in Laura’s mind like the refrain of a Greek chorus; however, they were no longer a lament but an accusation. Something made her turn, a liminal event that demanded her attention, an impression of movement in the margins.