A Voice in the Distance (18 page)

The shrill ring of the phone drags me from a deep,
foggy sleep, and I wake shivering, cold and disorientated.
The room is filled with darkness. The
bedside alarm reads ten to nine. The phone continues
to ring. I want to leave it, but what if it's Jennah? Jennah,
calling to say she is on her way back? I grab the receiver
and press it to my ear. 'Hello?'

'Hello, Flynn.' Not Jennah. Sophie. I close my eyes
against the disappointment.

'Hi.'

'Lovey, Jen called and told me what happened. I'm
going to come and pick you up, OK?'

I can't let anyone see me like this. 'No, don't. It's all
right. I'm OK.' My voice shakes.

'I'm still going to come and pick you up,' Sophie says.
'I'm leaving now. Rami's working tonight. Throw some
clothes into a bag and meet me outside when I beep,
OK? I'll have Aurora in the back so I won't be able to
come up.'

'No, Sophie, listen, I don't feel like seeing anyone
right now—'

'See you in half an hour,' Sophie says, and she hangs
up.

I put down the phone and look around in panic. Oh
no, no, no, this is the last thing I want. Sophie driving all
the way from Watford to fetch me. With Aurora in tow.
I pick up the phone and press call-back. The phone just
rings and rings.

Sometime later a car horn sounds from the street
below. I contemplate not answering but then remember
that Rami and Sophie have a spare key. Shoving on my
trainers, I go reluctantly down into the street.

Sophie is double parked with her hazards on, Aurora
asleep in the car seat. As soon as I come out, Sophie gets
back into the car.

'Soph, I'm not coming.'

She ignores me and opens the passenger door. A car
comes up behind her and honks irritably. Sophie winds
down her window and looks at me, waiting. With a sigh
of despair, I go back upstairs, grab my jacket, lock up the
flat and come back down into the street. The driver in
the car behind has opened his door and is now swearing
at Sophie. I slam the front door closed and quickly get
into the car. As soon as I do so, Sophie puts her foot
down.

'Horrible man,' she says, and flashes me a smile.

'Sophie, I really don't need you to do this,' I say. 'I'm
perfectly OK.'

'So? Is it a crime for me to want to see my favourite
brother-in-law?'

I manage a painful smile.

'Put your seatbelt on,' she tells me.

I do as she asks. 'Jennah shouldn't have called you,' I
say.

'And it's lovely to see you too,' Sophie replies with a
wink.

I am shaking all the way up to Manchester. Shaking with
fear at what I have done, shaking with horror, shaking
with cold. The image of Flynn standing in the hallway,
his face shocked, his gaze imploring, is etched into my
brain. The anger has faded now and is replaced only by
a desperate sense of loss, of loneliness, of betrayal.
Although my trust in him has been shattered, my love
for him is still acute, a stab of red-hot pain through my
heart. I know I am running away from more than just
the lies; I am running away from the non-medicated
Flynn, the bipolar Flynn, the two faces like the opposite
sides of a coin. I think of the waxwork Flynn in the
hospital bed and know that it is him, more than anything
else, that I am running from now. I wanted some
assurances that my life would never again be torn apart
like that, that I would never again suffer the pain of
watching my loved one destroyed by his own hand. And
with that one telephone message I realized, in a brutal,
final way, that so long as I was with Flynn I would never
be protected from the horror of suicide. That he would
always be capable of stopping his medication, always be
capable of lying to cover his illness, always be capable of
swallowing forty pills and lying down beside his girlfriend
to die.

I stare out of the grimy window, motionless, numb.
When the train pulls into Manchester, it takes me
several moments to recognize my stop. I stumble off the
train, dragging my suitcase and bag behind me, and
stagger out into the car park, my eyes searching for the
white Nissan. When I see Mum, I drop everything and
throw my arms around her and burst into tears. 'Don't
say it!' I beg. 'Just don't say it! Don't say I told you so!'

She drives me home and makes me have a hot bath
and feeds me soup and listens to me bawl out the whole
story. She doesn't say I told you so but she does say that
I've done the right thing, which only makes me cry
harder. She does her best to listen, does her best to
sound sympathetic, but in her eyes I can read how
relieved she is now that I have left him. And I understand
why, even if it makes me want to scream.

We watch
The Simpsons
and she tells me how a boy
broke her heart when she was seventeen. I listen, to
please her, to make her think she is helping. Her
partner, Alan, pats me on the back and says some kind
words. I go to bed early and stare at my mobile phone,
willing it to ring. I want to call Flynn so badly my fingers
ache. I call Rami instead. He is not there. I tell Sophie
what happened. I ask her to look after Flynn for me and
then hang up before I start to cry again.

I lie in bed, staring at the darkness. The hours crawl
by. I cannot sleep. I look at my watch and see that it is
nearly eleven. By now Sophie will have gone round to
the flat like she said she would, will have somehow
persuaded Flynn to go back with her to the house in
Watford. I think of Flynn, in the guest room at Rami's,
and try to imagine what he is thinking, what he is feeling.
I honestly wonder whether it is possible to die of
pain.

The rest of the week passes in a painful fog. I am
running a temperature, I don't want to leave my bed, I
refuse to eat anything sensible – only biscuits and ice
cream. I shout at Mum when she tries to open the
curtains. I watch hours of daytime TV. In desperation,
my mother persuades the doctor to come round and he
diagnoses tonsillitis. I wish it was something more
serious. At the end of the week my temperature drops. I
haven't showered for five days and the bedroom looks
like a tip. I take a bath and wash my hair, stuff all the
junk into a bin bag, vacuum the room, then tell my
mother I am going out to look for a job. I spend the
next three hours walking aimlessly around the city with
tears in my eyes. I want to give up and lie down here on
the pavement. I don't want to go through the rest of my
life without Flynn.

Mum and I start getting on each other's nerves. 'I just
wish you would do something productive,' she says. 'You
need to think of your career – teacher training, if you're
still interested – but as usual you've left it all till the last
minute and now you're finding yourself with nothing to
do.'

'I said I'd register with an employment agency,' I say
between gritted teeth, trying to read the paper at the
kitchen counter. 'What more do you want?'

'I want you to do something you enjoy,' Mum persists.
'I don't see you working in an office. You've done four
years of music training – surely there is something you
could do where you could use your talent and your
musical skills?'

'We can't all be concert pianists like Flynn,' I point
out acidly.

'I'm not suggesting you become a concert pianist,'
Mum says, with infuriating calm. 'What about that
Frenchwoman you met at your last recital? Didn't
she want to take you on as a pupil? You always said you
wanted to study abroad, and the Paris Conservatoire has
an excellent reputation.'

'I've already said no,' I snap.

'But didn't she ask you to think about it?' Mum
persists. 'Didn't she say you would have a shot at a
scholarship and be able to combine voice study with
a practical teaching qualification?'

'I am
not
going to live in Paris!' I exclaim.

'Why?' Mum challenges me. 'Because of Flynn?
Darling, you're too young to throw your life away on
some guy – some guy with a serious mental illness, who
clearly will never be able to make you happy—'

'Just leave Flynn out of this, OK?' I storm from the
room, my vision blurring with unfallen tears. I sit on
the edge of my bed and press the tips of my fingers
against my eyelids. Why doesn't he ring?
Why doesn't he
ring?

On Saturday morning Mum appears in my room before
I've even had a chance to get out of bed. 'Darling, listen,
it's rather important.'

I sit up, my heart thudding1. Flynn?

'You remember your old singing teacher, Mrs Ellis?
Well, I bumped into her at the supermarket just now
and she's organizing her yearly charity concert, in
support of the NSPCC. Do you remember – you used to
take part in it every year? Well, she was so excited to hear
that you were back, because one of her sopranos has
dropped out with laryngitis and the concert is less than
two weeks away—'

'Mum, no!' I brush the hair out of my eyes and squint
against the morning light. 'I am
not
going to stand in the
church hall and sing
Morning Has Broken
for the benefit
of Mrs Ellis and her cronies!'

'Darling, listen. It's much more upmarket than that.
They're actually performing at the Dewey Hall and
more than five hundred people are due to attend. Oh,
come on, love. Mrs Ellis has been so good to you over
the years. She helped you prepare for the Royal College
audition – in fact, if I remember correctly, she was the
one who suggested you take voice as your second—'

'OK, OK,' I snap. 'Don't go on. What song do I have
to sing?'

'Anything you want,' Mum says eagerly. 'It's the last
piece in the recital and they'll change the programme
just for you.'

I think of the score of
Letting Go
, hidden under a pile
of clothes in my suitcase. 'Fine. I hope the accompanist
is a quick learner because he won't have come across
this one before.'

I am back on the lithium. My plan is very simple. Do
everything I'm supposed to do. Keep taking the meds,
regain some kind of mental equilibrium and then go
and find Jennah. But I need to wait at least a month. I
need to show her I've been back on the meds for a
month if I'm to have a chance of getting her to trust me
again.

Rami and Sophie won't let me go back to the flat.
They help me with the rent and insist I stay in their
guest room. It's been twelve days and four hours. This is
the longest I've been parted from Jennah since we
started going out. I don't recognize myself without her.
I seem to have forgotten who I am. Every day I have to
fight the urge to board a train to Manchester. I have
to remind myself that the only way I'm going to prove to
her that I'm serious about taking the lithium is with
time. But the hours slow to a crawl.

I don't leave the house. Sophie starts to worry. Rami
is working crazy shifts at the hospital so I spend most of
my time with her and the baby. I offer to babysit but
Sophie doesn't seem to want to leave me on my own. I
work my way through their entire collection of DVDs.

I play with Aurora while Sophie prepares dinner. I sit
on the living-room rug, leaning against the foot of the
sofa, knees drawn up, as Aurora toddles happily back
and forth to her toy box, bringing me her favourite toys.
She is looking more like a little girl and less like a baby
now – her blonde curls cover the nape of her neck and
her face is losing that chubby look. During the course of
the afternoon she has somehow managed to lose her
trousers and is now waddling about in her T-shirt and
nappy, her eyes bright with concentration. She plants
her feet firmly apart and bends down to place a ball on
the carpet in front of me, then claps her hands and
staggers backwards, ready to play. I roll the ball gently
over to her and she flies into a flurry of excitement,
tottering after it and sending it rolling even further away
in her desire to catch it. As I watch her play, a sharp,
shocking thought occurs to me. Maybe Jennah is
happier now. Maybe now that she is away from my
moods, away from the arguments, away from the threat
of hospitals, she is finally able to put herself first and
focus on her own life. Maybe the argument about the
lithium was actually a blessing in disguise – maybe it
offered her a way out. I vividly remember the expression
on her face as she approached my hospital bedside after
I came round – she looked white, shell-shocked,
terrified. And I remember Rami telling me later how
much she cried – sobbed – when she realized I was
going to be OK. Later there was the period when she
kept having nightmares and told me she was afraid I was
going to try and kill myself again. And of course there
was the Christmas present, the theatre tickets that I
never even looked at because I was so consumed by my
own despair. I found the still-sealed envelope months
later, after I came back from hospital, when I was
emptying the pockets of her clothes to put on a wash.
She never said anything about that unopened present;
there were never any recriminations, never any anger.
She just accepted it without complaint, the way she
accepted the painting episode and the suicide attempt,
and hid her tears from me. But now – now she is free.
Free to lead her own life, free to move on. Just because
I can't live without her doesn't mean she can't live
without me.

The thoughts don't leave me alone. At night I can't
sleep. I get up and roam the house. Watch television
with the sound muted. Go into the kitchen and drink
milk straight from the bottle. One night, Sophie
surprises me. 'I've only just got Aurora back to sleep and
now you!' She closes the kitchen door, pads over to the
cupboard in her nightdress and hands me a glass.

'Thanks.' I sit down at the kitchen table, resting my
feet on the stool in front. Sophie puts on the kettle and
joins me at the table. 'You,' she says seriously, 'have got
to get some sleep.'

I look across at her. I am so tired, I feel sick. I start to
chew my thumbnail.

'I think we're going to have to put you on a short
course of sleeping pills,' Sophie says.

'Maybe now I'm an insomniac as well as a manicdepressive,'
I mutter.

'I think what you are, lovey, is stressed.'

I manage a wry smile. 'I'm not exactly leading a very
stressful life.'

'I think you're stressed that what happened between
you and Jennah is irreparable. And I think you're
wrong.'

I take a deep breath and look at Sophie. 'Maybe it
shouldn't be repaired,' I say slowly. 'Maybe it would be
best for Jennah if it wasn't. She worries about the future,
you know. Late at night, when I'm practising, she goes
on the Internet and reads up everything she can on
bipolar disorder. She even printed out some stuff too –
I found it hidden in her desk drawer. Stuff like children
having a thirty per cent chance of inheriting bipolar
from their parents, and people with bipolar spending a
quarter of their lives in hospital—'

'It's good that she's aware of some of the statistics,'
Sophie says, 'and it's good that she's keeping herself
informed. And there is the small possibility she
has
decided that it's all too much of a risk. But, Flynn, you
won't know until you talk to her.'

'Maybe – maybe the whole lithium fight was just an
excuse,' I say. 'She didn't want to admit she was breaking
up with me because of the bipolar, so instead she
made out she was breaking up with me because I'd lied.'
There is a silence. I rip off a narrow strip of fingernail
with my teeth. 'I'm starting to think – I'm starting to
think she really might be happier without me.' A sharp
pain rises up behind my eyes and I look away.

Sophie says nothing for a moment. 'She loves you,
Flynn. I'm sure of that.'

'Perhaps, but that doesn't mean I can make her
happy.' My throat hurts.

'You can try,' Sophie says gently.

'I have tried. And I've failed.' I bite the corner of my
lip, hard.

'You're depressed, Flynn,' Sophie says quietly. 'And
when you're depressed, you always think badly of
yourself.'

'But it's not the bipolar that's making me see things
this way, it's the truth. I've messed up this whole
year and put Jennah and my parents and Rami through
hell, and I can't – I can't seem to stop. All I do is drag
everyone down with me, and my family has to put up
with it, but Jennah, she doesn't, she has a choice . . .' I
feel a tear escape down my cheek. 'Shit—' I wipe it away
angrily and sniff hard.

I feel Sophie's hand on my arm. 'It's been a difficult
year. It's not always going to be like this.'

'I j-just don't seem to be able keep it together any
more!' I take a deep breath and hold it.
Pull yourself
together, Flynn, for Christ's sake
.

'You're back on the lithium now; you just need to
give it a chance to work,' Sophie says quietly.

'But the lithium doesn't cure anything.'

'No, but it can help.'

'I just want Jennah to be happy!' I blurt out.

Sophie strokes my back. 'I know you do, love, I know
you do. And you'll find a way. I'm sure about that.'

The following morning I receive a letter. A letter,
addressed to me, here in Watford. My heart starts to
pound. I tear it open while Sophie spoons runny egg
into Aurora's open mouth.

There is nothing inside. Yes, there
is
something
inside. A ticket. Huh? A concert ticket.
Charity concert in
support of the NSPCC, Dewey Hall, Manchester, Saturday
18th July
. That's less than a week away. I look back at the
address on the envelope. Jennah's handwriting, without
a doubt.

'I don't get it,' I say to Sophie, showing it to her.

'It's an invitation to a concert,' Sophie says simply.
'Go and find out.'

'Yes, but why? Is she going to be there too?'

'I don't know,' Sophie replies, still feeding Aurora.
'But if Jennah has invited you to a concert, then I
suggest that you go.'

'Why?' I am crushed that there is no letter. Just a
stupid concert ticket. What is Jennah playing at?

'Don't you think it might be some kind of gesture?'
Sophie asks, noticing the expression on my face.

'Gesture of what?'

'Maybe . . . a step toward reconciliation?'

'Maybe it's a joke,' I mutter. But inside, my heart is
doing backflips. OK, it's not a letter, but it's still something.
A sign. From Jennah. A sign she is still thinking of
me.