Into The Silence

by Sarah Pinborough

  However, as they'd gathered in the tatty and cramped reception area, it had become all too apparent that the Melrose Hotel didn't live up to the photos and description on its website. Hannah's teeth clenched tighter, straining her jaw, which wouldn't be good for her singing, but she couldn't help that. The hotel had failed to mention in their advertising that they had no lift, that all ten of the ladies' twin rooms were up on the fourth floor, and that the stairs were steep and uneven to say the least. Some doctors might encourage old women to spend their days dragging themselves up and down flights of steep and uneven stairs for no good reason other than their health but, as far as 62-year-old Hannah Lafferty was concerned, those doctors were daft. Old age was all about taking it easy and eating what you wanted. If it had been up to her, they'd have complained to the manager, but it seemed the rest of the group didn't want to cause a fuss and so she had gone along with it.

  Staring now at Annaliese George and her chignon hair and perfect make-up, Hannah decided this was one time she was going to take a stand.

  'What exactly do you mean you want us to move all the chairs?' Her voice a soft growl, she felt very tempted to point out that Annaliese was quite new to the organisation and should really stop trying to boss them around. She was their musical director; she could boss them around when they were singing. That was about it.

  'They'll interfere with the acoustics.' Annaliese's clipped tones reeked of Surrey, and Hannah wished, not for the first time, that the woman would just move back there.

  Enid Evans timidly stepped up, unwinding a scarf from around her neck. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. 'But there must be at least a hundred or more of them.'

  'Keep that scarf on, Enid!' Annaliese tutted. 'You need to protect your voice.'

  'Well, folding up and stacking all those chairs is hardly going to help our singing voices, is it?' Alice's voice rose from somewhere towards the back of the group, and Hannah smiled. The choir had no chance of winning anything in the competition, they had no illusions about that, but they did have Alice Jones and her beautiful soprano. Some of the others might not want to admit it, but it was Alice who lifted them out of the ordinary and into something more than that.

  'You don't have to move them, Alice.' Annaliese obviously knew it too. 'You could just make sure that everyone has a bottle of water to sip by their place.'

  A murmur of discontent rustled along the line, and Hannah raised an eyebrow. 'We don't have any stars in the choir, Annaliese.'

  'No we don't,' added Alice.

  Hannah stared at the rows of chairs that stretched towards the gloomy rear of the Llandaff community centre, and then checked her watch. 'Look ladies, we've only got the hall for an hour and a half. It's six o'clock now. If we move all those chairs it'll just waste rehearsal time. We can work around the acoustics. Let's just get on with singing.'

  The rustle of discontent translated into murmurs of assent and, knowing when she'd lost, Annaliese clapped her hands together and turned her back on the uniform chairs. 'Let's get to your places and ready to start. Form your lines.' With a nod and a raised eyebrow she organised the choir into a presentable semi-circle of three rows. 'And remember ladies, never sing louder than lovely!'

  Half an hour later and they were in full voice, belting out their arrangement of 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?' It had been Annaliese's choice and, although Hannah had hated it at first, she had to admit that it worked for them. They were women of the right age and could have fun with it, without making it sound twee. As much as Annaliese George irritated her as a person, she was definitely a talented musical director.

  Despite the chill that hovered under the high ceilings of the practical seventies hall, Hannah's face was warm as her breath moved in a steady flow, pushing out her sections of the song, and she relaxed into the enjoyment of being part of the wave of sound created by her friends around her. She looked down at Annaliese, her stout but elegant form standing about two rows back into the empty audience seating, the top of her hair lost and absorbed into the dusky darkness of the rear of the centre.

  Hannah tried not to smile, knowing that their musical director would pick it up immediately. Annaliese had insisted they leave the back lights off in order to create a theatre atmosphere since the chairs were already laid out. She said it would help them with their stage fright. Hannah thought they could turn out all the lights and she'd still have a hard time imagining she was on the stage of the Millennium Centre. Her stomach knotted for a second with a fizz of excitement. It was hard to believe they'd really made it this far.

  Alice's voice cut through the air with the purity of a diamond through ice, and Hannah paused for breath, just relishing the exquisiteness of it. For a brief second though, something discordant interrupted it. Tilting her head, she peered at Annaliese, thinking she may have dropped a glass or bottle, but the conductor was smiling as she waved her arms and counted the next part in. That was strange. She was sure the sound had come from somewhere towards the back of the hall. Maybe she'd just imagined it. Taking a deep breath to come in with her section of altos, she stopped midway as Alice lost her note, veering into a bad sharp.

  Annaliese rapped her baton harshly on the metal chair beside her, bringing the choir to an abrupt silence. She flashed an angry glare at Alice. 'What on Earth was that? You sounded like a cat that's been run over and left for dead.' Her mouth tightened into a thin line, all her hidden years apparent in the sudden crinkles around her lips. 'We can't have that so close to the finals. We're going to be on television, Alice. We're representing Women's Institute branches all over the country.'

  Alice lifted her shoulders helplessly. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I just felt...' She hesitated. 'I just felt a little strange for a moment.'

  Hannah looked across at her younger friend. She was pale and trembling slightly. That didn't look like 'strange' to Hannah. That looked like fear. What could have shaken her like that?

  'Maybe we should take a short break,' she said softly. 'I could use a quick drink of water.'

  It was only when they were wearily leaving an hour later, that Enid spotted the pane of broken glass in the window beside the door. The group huddled round it.

  'Was that here when we arrived?' Hannah stared at it. 'I thought I heard something breaking. Just before Alice lost that note. Must have been kids mucking around.'

  With a big sigh, Annaliese hurried them outside and towards the battered minibus. 'The caretaker will be here in a minute to lock up. I'll explain it to him. I'm damned if they're going to charge us for the damage.'

  Wearily, the women hauled themselves onto the minibus and waited in the damp chill for their conductor to join them, Hannah already looking forward to the four-storey climb to her bed. It had been a very long day.

  The creature hung suspended somewhere at the edge of the dark space that had carried it so far from its origin, a void within a void, blackness coated in dark. It was too tired to pull itself into a physical form and it felt defeated. Feelings, emotions, the curse it carried: the creature endured them all in its silence. Too much loneliness. It had been pulled across the universe to this place, through the yawning cut in space and time that had found it desolate and alone and teased it with the noise of a different world; a world of sound, of communication, of emotion. It needed some of that. It needed to take this world home, to make its life bearable.

  The shapeless form howled silently with frustration, the emotion a vibration across its surface. It was failing. It couldn't get what it wanted. The absorbed parts worked only on a barely functional level, reproducing primitive sound when the creature forced them to work, mentally manipulating the parts as if they were a mechanism but, however it tried, it couldn't make the air resonate and fill and touch its emptiness in the way that they did in their original hosts. Rage filled it and it came as bursts of cymbals and drums and soaring rich song in the alien's head. Until the sounds had come through the tear in the sky, it had only ever known empty
silence, and now it couldn't bear to give those sounds up. It wouldn't go back, it couldn't, not until it could take the sound with it.

  And so, after blinking in and out of the city seeking in vain, it waited, nothing at the edge of nothing, until the voices called it again.

  TEN

  After the short drive from the Millennium Centre to Mermaid Quay, Maria Bruno, or plain Mary Brown as she had been christened not so very many miles from here, waited until Martin was ready with the umbrella and then stepped out of the well-polished modern black Sedan and walked elegantly into the five-star St David's Hotel. She didn't acknowledge her supposed manager and unfortunate husband as he scurried beside her, holding the umbrella to make sure her perfectly set hair didn't get wet. Perhaps that was all he was really good for, being the hired help.

  She fought an itch of irritation that threatened to force its way onto her face. It never did to show one's feelings. If only she'd realised Martin's limitations in their early days. But then, they'd been caught up in the flush of love, hard as that was to remember now, and who ever doubts the objects of their desire? All women want to believe their men strong and capable. Just like the heroes and lovers in the operas that she'd spent so much of her life performing.

  The sleek doors slid open, and she stepped into the lobby holding her head high and back straight, flicking her wrist at Martin to shoo him and his umbrella away from her side. The bright lights bathed on her face and she pushed her chin out ever so slightly in order to make any lines on her neck less defined. Every entrance to every room was like an entrance on stage for Maria Bruno. She was a star, and for stars there were always people watching. If only these so-called celebrities would realise that these days. Then perhaps they'd remember to put their knickers on when they went out. The world had forgotten about class, and she intended to remind them of it.

  Although she had to admit in her quieter moments, if only to herself, that some of those tasteless flash-in-the-pan pop stars had more fans than she did now. But she could blame that on Martin. He wasn't getting her the auditions she needed to keep herself on the premiere stages of Europe. Auditions. Even just thinking the word almost made her choke. Who would have thought that Maria Bruno, the finest soprano to come out of the Valleys, would have to audition for anyone. Until a few years ago, she had had to fight her way through the offers.

  Her heart sinking a little, she forced her chin upwards to compensate. Dotted around the vast and clinical lobby a few heads turned her way, muttering amongst themselves with a buzz of recognition. A few pointed in her direction. It was barely surprising they knew who she was, even though she doubted any of them had ever heard her sing. Her face was on the posters for the competition that were spread on every billboard across the city. She pretended not to notice them. There was no class in acknowledging the fans. A cool aloofness was the way of true stars. And these weren't her fans, not really. They weren't the people who had waited outside the stage doors of the Royal Opera House on nights when Covent Garden had suffered worse rain than even Cardiff was getting, huddling there for hours just for a chance of getting an autograph. And yet here she was, judging a plebeian talent show simply in order to remind the world that she was still around. At least the final was being televised and she would be singing on it. That was something. Perhaps it would lead to an album deal. And the hotel was world class; she had to give the organisers credit for that. It seemed like a long time since she'd been pampered like this.

  Her heels tip-tapping across the endless marble floor, she didn't pause as Martin struggled to take down the umbrella that'd had approximately thirty seconds' use.

  'I'm going straight up. I'll see you in the morning.' She spoke without looking at him, focusing instead on pressing the button to call the elevator. 'Be a dear, and ask room service if they can send a fresh fruit salad up to me in half an hour.' If she looked at him he might see her disgust and pity and, as much as whatever love they had once shared was long gone, she didn't want him seeing that. He was mumbling something to her as, thankfully, the doors closed and the lift purred as it rose up through the atrium and to her suite on the fifteenth floor. It was bliss just to have a moment's peace.

  An hour later and she'd soaked in the bath and nibbled the occasional piece of watermelon from the deliciously arranged fruit salad that the waiter had politely left on her table while she bathed. Having scrubbed her face clean, she reapplied a light base coat of make-up and a touch of natural pink lipstick and mascara. She wasn't planning on having visitors, but you never knew when someone might knock on the door and at ten o'clock it wasn't yet late enough to know that she'd be left undisturbed. Only just before turning out the final light would she let her skin sag as if it were letting out a long breath of air like any 52-year-old's would, even with regular Botox. Then she would reset her hair in curlers, before wrapping a scarf around her head and carefully going to sleep on her back. But for now, she'd stay casually glamorous.

  Her open curtain lifted as a light breeze brushed past them and, picking up her champagne glass, Maria Bruno looked out onto the balcony and beyond. The air was cold and crisp and, after the heat of the bath, her skin prickled and tightened. It felt good. Sliding the doors open a little wider she stood in the opening, gazing out at the water, the moonlight dancing and winking back at her from its surface. She smiled a little, suddenly looking effortlessly younger than her years. It was beautiful. Wales was beautiful. At some point over the years she'd somehow forgotten that.

  To her left, the lights of Cardiff Bay sparkled, the bars and restaurants staying valiantly vibrant despite the continual onslaught of dismal rain. If it weren't for the cold air, she could almost imagine herself somewhere on the Mediterranean. Her face tingled. But it was precisely the cold air that was giving the Bay its magical quality.

  Closing her eyes, she pulled her diaphragm tight in a move that was as natural to her as breathing and, tilting her head back, none of the control for performing on stage required, she let her knees bend before the first delicate strains of 'Ave Maria' slipped from her mouth. Even though she was limiting her volume, the long notes soared out through the patio doors and into the night, carrying their beauty up to the freedom of the skies. For a moment, Maria herself was lost in the creation of the song, pouring her heart into it. When she performed this piece it was truly hers, her own 'Ave Maria': Ave Mary Brown, the poor girl made good.

  The initial low notes fading away, she pulled herself up to the next octave, adding strength without damaging the emotional power or relaxing quality of the song. She needed no accompaniment other than the patter of rain on the balcony and, as the music filled the empty space between the earth and the heavens, the haunting Latin words defied any who called the language dead.

  'Et in hora mortis nostrae.'

  And in our hour of death. She repeated the line three times, each time with more intensity than the one that went before. It was the song she wanted for her own cremation, preferably one of her own versions of it. Somewhere behind the music that filled her, soothing her as no other lover ever had, she wondered bitterly if Martin would manage to get that right.

  A gust of sharp wind tugged her hair, and the temperature dropped suddenly. Stepping back slightly into the warm brightness of the room, Maria shivered, pulling her robe a little tighter across her body. Lowering her song to barely more than a whisper, she drew the sliding door shut. Maybe there was something to be said for the Mediterranean after all. Turning away, she reached for the champagne to refill her glass. Her hand stopped halfway. There was something outside. On the balcony. But it was impossible. Her singing stopped completely. Toes gripping the soft carpet beneath them, Maria Bruno's legs trembled as fear clambered up them, its invisible limbs clutching at her heart.

  She turned back to face the doors. Outside, the night had sunk to some colour beyond black. Even the light from her room seemed to be sucked into the darkness beyond the glass, her reflection wavering, as if something on the other side was pulling i
t away.

  Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, her breath cold in her lungs as if that darkness – whatever was in that darkness – was filling her up, oozing into her through the air. One hand fluttered instinctively to her throat, but her terror was wrapped in her head, not her voice. Her brain was emptying. Her soul was emptying, filling instead with nothing. She tried to gasp but no sound came out. Not nothing. Worse than nothing. She was being left with only her; only the very core of herself as if no one else had ever existed. It was desolation. Isolation. Her heartbeat faded until it was only a whisper and then the echo of that whisper.

  Across the room, the phone by the bed taunted her from a distant universe away. Unreachable. Untouchable. And what would she say if she could... Her internal thoughts drained away, leaving her fumbling for lost words, language fleeing from within her back to the outside where it belonged.

  The unnatural blackness on the other side of the patio doors slowly pulled into itself, the antimatter creating a dense form. Flecks of metallic gunmetal grey shone as a solid, almost human shape appeared pressed against the glass. Its hairless skull and face were slick with a sheen like a crackled glaze on dark ceramic; the surface of its naked body covered in a network of sharp interlocking lines that made it appear fractured, as if the casing could never hold the bleakness inside. Two points of laser light beamed crimson from small dark spaces in the centre of its oval head, just above the shapeless hole that had to be its mouth.

  For a moment they stared at each other, Maria lost in the rage of the red streaks that pierced through the glass as if it wasn't there, preferring even that to the terrible loneliness that filled her. She gasped again, aware of the pitiful sound escaping her, feeling the vibration in her perfect throat, but unable to hear it.