A Voice in the Distance

by Tabitha Suzuma

  'Jennah!'

  We grapple with the piano score. Several sheets fall out and flutter softly to the ground. I re-enter with a clash of dissonant chords and Jennah claps a hand to her mouth and snorts with laughter.

  I can finally relax when we reach the last piece. I know the accompaniment to On My Own so well I don't have to bother with the music. Jennah gets up to sing and I watch her attentively over the top of the piano, careful to place the notes just right, to blend the accompaniment with her voice, to buff it and present it on a pedestal so that it soars above the piano. It is such a pretty, simple song, just her and the piano. The lights from the ceiling catch in her eyes, making them shine. A pretty flush lights up her cheeks. She smiles as she sings, and makes eye-contact with me at every re-entry. She is wearing a faded striped green jumper that is too long in the sleeves, and a long black gypsy skirt that is coming down at the hem. In her ears, I recognize the silver pendants I gave her for Christmas. As the song builds and gathers power, I have to make an effort to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing. The piece reaches its crescendo and Jennah's voice hangs in the air, even after I have played the last note. There is a brief silence. Jennah looks over at Professor Williams. He clears his throat. 'Well,' he says. 'Jennah, I think you've found yourself an accompanist for the recital. I don't think even I can compete with that. Would you mind, Flynn? Just for the last piece?'

  I nod and shrug as if to say, What choice do I have?

  Jennah bounces up and down on her toes and claps her hands with glee.

  As I am waiting for Jennah to gather up her things, Harry comes over. 'Hey!'

  'Hey.'

  A pause. Harry looks as if he is desperately trying to formulate some kind of sentence. 'You know – shit – how are you? I've missed you, mate.'

  I nod, my eyes suddenly unable to meet his. Suddenly he pulls me into a hug. 'Good to see you back. And in style!' He claps me on the back and turns to Jennah as she approaches. 'Although there seemed to be a bit of confusion during Ollie's song!'

  'Jennah was trying to put me off by chucking the piano score around the stage instead of just turning the pages like a normal person,' I inform him, relieved at the sudden change in tone. 'At least she sings better than she turns pages.'

  Jennah throws back her head, laughter bubbling out of her. 'Harry, did you see Flynn's face when Williams asked him to come and play?'

  'Yeah, it was like Williams had asked you to come and do a striptease in front of the whole student faculty!' Harry chuckles.

  'I don't like sight-reading!' I protest. 'I'm out of practice!'

  'You are so easily embarrassed!' Jennah hoots. 'When Williams called us lovebirds, I thought you were going to pass out!'

  'Very funny,' I grumble.

  As Jennah unlocks the door and steps ahead of me into the flat, I circle her waist with my arm, nuzzling her neck. She turns and starts to say something but I silence her with a deep kiss. I pull the long winter coat off her, kicking the door shut behind us, and unwind the multicoloured scarf from around her neck. Suddenly my hands are in her hair, under her shirt, beneath the waistband of her skirt. Within seconds we are clawing at each other, shedding items of clothing like leaves from a tree, rolling down onto the carpet, still only half undressed. We are having sex in the narrow hallway, my elbows raw against the rough carpet, and I am alive again.

  Chapter Twelve

  JENNAH

  Having Flynn back, neither manic nor depressed, is wonderful. My soul mate has returned and I'm only just realizing quite how much I have missed him. Not just during his stay at the psychiatric hospital but ever since the bipolar raised its ugly head again back in October. The combination of lithium and anti-depressants he was prescribed during his incarceration, as he likes to call it, seems to be working wonders at keeping both the mania and, more importantly, the dreaded depression at bay. For the first few weeks I am on tenterhooks, watching his every move, every facial expression. Is he talking too much, too rapidly: is he getting manic again? Or is he lethargic, not talking enough: getting depressed again? But he's sticking to his bi-weekly psych appointments, attending bipolar support group meetings, having his blood tested regularly to monitor his lithium levels, keeping in contact with Rami and his parents by phone – and being lovely, lovely towards me. He has written me a song, a song with a simple piano accompaniment, just for me. It is called Letting Go. When I first sing it, with Flynn at the piano, it makes me want to cry. It is a sad song – clearly he wasn't feeling too happy when he wrote it – but it is beautiful.

  I'd forgotten how romantic he could be, how gentle and sensitive and caring. I'd also forgotten how witty he was. We spend the whole of reading week closeted in the warm fug of the bedsit, oblivious to freezing February mornings and afternoon nightfall, to the thin dusting of snow that paralyses the city. Instead we spend our time cooking languorous meals and drinking cheap red wine, squandering the days on TV and hot baths and sex. We don't even bother answering the phone. Piles of library books lie stacked up against the walls, unopened. When our fridge is empty, we order takeaways. I read Keats, wrapped up in the duvet, Brahms playing softly on the radio. Flynn practises hard for an upcoming competition, the thud of his keyboard audible well into the night.

  At the weekend1 we invite Harry and Kate round for dinner and spend a chilled evening full of red wine and beef casserole, swapping anecdotes from the Royal College, Harry regaling us with tales of his eccentric parents, who want to sell the flat in Bayswater in order to buy themselves a houseboat. At first Kate seems a little on edge around Flynn, but Harry is his usual ebullient self and soon gets her to lighten up. Flynn is animated, his cheeks pink and his eyes bright, and for the first time in ages I think he looks almost happy. I revel in the normality of it all. I begin to relax again. Just sitting around with our friends, chatting and laughing and drinking the night away, feels like an absurd luxury.

  On Monday we return to lectures and soon fall back into our usual routine of rushed breakfasts and canteen lunches, rehearsals that spill over into the evening and essays that leak into the night. As winter begins to thaw into spring, I feel a long-needed sense of calm permeate our lives, dotted with student parties and pub-crawls. Harry celebrates his birthday in style. Kate gets accepted onto the music therapy course. Flynn plays for a spot in the finals of the hugely prestigious Queen Charlotte competition.

  I sing Summertime in a recital at St Martin-in-the- Fields. It is my last public performance before graduation. Mum and Alan come down from Manchester to watch me. Flynn, Harry and Kate join the audience too. My mother and I have reached an uneasy truce regarding my relationship with Flynn. I know she is still deeply worried but after I told her she was just making things worse for me, she reluctantly agreed to leave the subject alone – for the time being at least. When I come off the stage to the sound of healthy applause, I feel suddenly sad, almost tearful. My last performance with the Royal College. My four years as a music student in London are coming to a close. The end of an era. At the after-concert party, my tutor introduces me to a Madame Françoise Denier – a wellknown opera singer from my mother's generation. She asks me what my plans are for when I graduate. I tell her that I haven't given it much thought, which isn't strictly true. But knowing that Flynn is going to be on the road for most of next year has made me nervous. I like the idea of teaching, but am reluctant to tie myself down to a full-time job.

  Françoise Denier is telling me about the Paris Conservatoire where she teaches. After a few minutes I suddenly realize where she is going with this conversation. And then she comes out with it: would I be interested in doing a one-year graduate course at the Conservatoire de Paris under her tutelage? She is confident that I would get a full scholarship, and my voice apparently has a clarity and resonance that she finds unique. I am absurdly flattered and even feel a brief flutter of excitement, but I smile politely and say that moving to Paris for a year is out of the question. I am relieved she doesn't ask why. I don't wan
t her to know that I plan to become a freelance flute teacher so that I can travel with Flynn to his concerts whenever possible. I don't want to have to explain how much I am willing to sacrifice, how much I love him. But before she moves off, she hands me her business card and tells me to call her if I ever change my mind.

  Yet as the weeks roll by and I begin to believe that the doctors have finally found the perfect drug combination to keep Flynn well for the rest of his life, a slither of thought, an unwanted intrusion, pricks at the back of my mind. I don't want to let it in, don't even want to be forced to acknowledge it, but it's there nonetheless, a shadowy backdrop to an idyllic end of term. It appears to me in my dreams as a door right before me, a door I know I must open, but I am terrified – terrified of what lies in wait. I know that if the dreams are to stop, if the nagging in my brain is to cease, I must face my fears and open that door, but I can't, I can't. I just can't. Then, one morning, I am hurled against it; the door is forced open against my will. One morning I wake up and the sun is high in the sky and Flynn is still asleep, his arm draped over my chest.

  He wakes with a start at my shout and grabs me by the wrist. 'What? What?'

  I am having a panic attack. I've never had one before but I know that's what this is, because I suddenly feel as if I can't get enough air into my lungs and so I cup my hands over my nose and mouth and try to take in less oxygen. I scrunch up against the head of the bed and try to elbow Flynn away. He looks faintly comical – his hair on end, the imprint of the pillow still fresh on his cheek, his blue eyes wide with fright – and I begin to calm down.

  'I'm OK.' I lower my hands tentatively from my face and attempt to breathe normally, trying to focus on a lopsided picture on the wall of the two of us on holiday.

  'Were you having a nightmare?' Flynn is kneeling up on the bed, looking down at me with concern, his once-white T-shirt hanging over his green checked boxer shorts. I focus on the details, just the details. If I stay in the present, everything will be all right. But I am shaky, I've come too close, the door is already open and I have to step through.

  I look at him. 'There's something I've been wanting to ask you. Ever since – ever since Boxing Day.' I can feel my heart.

  He drops his hand from my wrist and sits back on his heels. When his eyes meet mine, they are wary, almost afraid. The look on his face nearly forces me back, but I keep going forward.

  'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I know you don't want to be reminded of that time and I don't either. But I think I have to talk about it. Just this once. Or I feel like I'll never be able to put it completely behind me.'

  He hasn't moved from his kneeling position, his arms loose by his sides. He is gnawing at his lower lip; I know what that means and I want to retreat, retract.

  'I need to know why.'

  'I wasn't well, Jennah.' The colour has risen to his cheeks and his discomfort is palpable. It almost feels like shame.

  'I know, my love, I know. And I'm not angry. Not any more. But I just want to know – did you think – when you took all those pills and got into bed beside me – did you think of what it would be like for me, when I woke up, if – if you hadn't still been breathing? If – if it had worked as you'd wanted it to? If you had died?' My voice is shaky, the words catch in my throat, but I've done it, I've asked the question I'd dreaded asking.

  He looks down at his knees, the colour still high in his cheeks, and I can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath his T-shirt. I want to reach out, touch him, say that it's OK, but I can't.

  'No.' He says in barely a whisper. He does not look up.

  'Why?' The word quivers infuriatingly.

  I'm not even sure he is going to reply. I count his breaths. Seven, eight, nine . . .

  'Because – because when you feel that bad, that low, you stop caring. About everything and everyone. You can only think of yourself.' His voice is hoarse, hesitant and barely audible, as if he is having to force the words out. 'The pain is so . . . big, it takes up all the space in your body, in your mind, and there isn't room for anything else. All you can think about is your own suffering, and how to stop it – you'd do anything to stop it. Anything. I really mean anything.' He looks at me now as if imploring me to understand, chewing savagely on the corner of his lip, and I realize with a shock that he is close to tears.

  'What does it feel like?'

  He shakes his head and looks away from me, out of the window at the bright late-morning sun. 'You don't want to know—'

  'God, Flynn. I love you.' My voice cracks. 'Of course I do.' I swallow hard, trying to suppress the rising ball of pain at the back of my throat.

  'I can't explain it . . .'

  'Try.'

  'It's just this pain, this unbearable mental pain – often it's your body too, and every part of you hurts. But you don't really care about your body, it's your mind. Every thought hurts like hell. Everything you see is awful, twisted, pointless. And the worst – the worst of it is yourself. You realize you are the most ghastly person in the world, the most hideous, inside and out. And you just want to escape, you just want to get rid of yourself, of your suffering, of the pain inside your head. You want to shut out the world and yourself, for ever. A-and death is the only option left because you've been through this time and time again, thought and thought about trying to change yourself, the way you think, the way you behave, the way you live. Yet it always comes back to this – the fact that you just d-don't want to be alive—' He breaks off, turning away suddenly, pressing his fingers to his eyes.

  I stare at the back of his head. My eyes sting, my throat aches. I want to hear this, I want to understand, but at the same time it hurts, on so many different levels. It hurts to hear that he can reach a place where he doesn't care about me any more, doesn't care about damaging me so much I might never recover. It also hurts to hear him say it, to hear him verbalize even in the most simplistic terms the agony he was going through, has been through time and time again, while I remained blissfully unaware.

  I move towards him on the bed and try to touch him but he holds out his hand to keep me at bay.

  'Flynn . . .'

  'I-I'm OK!'

  'I know you're OK. I just want to touch you.'

  He pulls away almost angrily and goes to the window, resting his forehead against the glass, his arms crossed above his head.

  I clench my teeth together, wincing against the tidal wave of sobs that threaten to engulf me.

  'I'm sorry, Flynn, I just needed to try and understand. I didn't mean to bring it all back.' The bedsprings creak as I get up. Suddenly I am afraid.

  'Don't go!' He shouts the words, making me start, whirling round to face me, his flushed face awash with tears.

  'I'm not going anywhere!' I exclaim. 'I'm just frightened – I'm so frightened it's going to happen again!' I step into his arms and burst into tears.

  'No, Jennah, don't – don't . . .' His face is hot and wet against mine and he holds me tight, stroking the back of my head.

  'Did you think I – I would be able to carry on, without you?' I sob, my voice muffled against his shoulder. 'Did you think I'd manage to get through this thing called life without you by my side?'

  'I thought you'd be better off without me – I didn't think, I couldn't think . . .' We are both sobbing now.

  'Who else would run out on their own birthday party, force me barefoot down the fire escape, bring me fruit salad in bed, complain that I'm humming a pop song in the wrong key?' I am laughing and crying at once. 'Who else would force me to dance in front of a complete stranger, learn to play the guitar overnight and accompany me when I sing?' I sniff hard and punch him on the shoulder. 'How could I possibly live without you, you stupid, stupid idiot?'

  Flynn steps back and grabs a pillow off the bed. 'Fine, if you're going to get physical about it—'

  I lunge for the other pillow but he hits me squarely on the top of the head. 'Well, you've done it now – you can never complain about any of my harebrained schemes ever a
gain— Ow! Jennah, why can't you just fight like a girl? Why do you always have to be so bloody vicious?'

  One of the pillows finally splits and we collapse, exhausted, on the floor, surrounded by white feathers. I rest my head on Flynn's chest and listen to the pounding of his heart. He stares up at the ceiling, wiping the sweat from his brow. 'What's the betting you can't go for one hour without getting out the vacuum cleaner?'

  'What are you talking about? I'm not some kind of neatness freak!'

  His chest vibrates with laughter. 'OK. Bet you five pounds.'

  'Why not make it ten?' I retort.

  'Fine. Ten pounds it is.'

  I raise my wrist to look at my watch.

  Flynn laughs again. 'An hour is a long time, Jennah. I wouldn't start counting down the minutes quite yet.'

  I turn my head on his chest in order to give him a nasty smile. 'I was checking to see what time I would be collecting my money.'

  'Oh, and there's another condition,' Flynn adds. 'We have to lie in this mess until the hour is up.'

  I jack-knife up. 'That's not fair! We can't sit here the whole time. What are we going to do, stuck in the bedroom for a whole hour?'

  Flynn gives me a mischievous grin and pulls me back down on top of him. 'I can think of a whole bunch of things, Jennah.'

  'Well, if you're going to get creative . . . Wait—' I hold him off, sobering for a moment. 'Promise me one thing?' I stare into his clear blue eyes, just centimetres away from mine. 'Next time, when you feel that bad, when you feel even slightly depressed – will you tell me? Even if you're convinced it won't make a difference, or even if you think it might make things worse, will you just promise – promise to let me know?'

  'I promise,' he says, and then bites my nose.

  The day before the Easter weekend, Flynn receives a phone call. It's from Professor Kaiser. Flynn has made it to the finals of the Queen Charlotte competition. He slams down the phone, bounds onto the sofa and whoops with joy. The Queen Charlotte International Music Competition. Held every four years in Brussels, it attracts top musicians from all over the world. It is one of the Big Four, one that Flynn really wants to win. He whirls me round and round till my head is spinning and I beg for him to stop. I am effervescent with joy. After everything – everything he has been through, he deserved something like this. He deserved it so much. But I am also in awe. A psychotic episode, months of depression, a breakdown at Christmas, a month incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital, and still he manages to pull this off. Years ago at music camp Harry once said to me, 'He's not just a musical prodigy, you know. He's a musical genius.' It comes back to me now. And I laugh when I kiss my 'musical genius' because really he's just Flynn.