The Sound of My Voice

by Ron Butlin

  ‘No, no,’ she pleaded. But what could the sound of her voice matter now? Could anything ever cancel out the suffering you had known?

  She was not wearing tights, so you pushed the crotch of her pants to one side and began to stroke her, repeating her name tenderly. You felt certain she would want to once you had begun to caress her – she was lying motionless. It was very quiet in her room. You looked up at her, but she turned her face away.

  If only, you thought to yourself, you could manage to get your fingers inside her. You said her name again, but still she kept her face turned away; her body had stiffened. Cautiously you tried sliding your forefinger in – she caught her breath.

  ‘That hurt,’ she said.

  The next few moments passed in silence.

  Then with horror you realised that your erection had begun to slacken – you gritted your teeth and concentrated on stiffening the muscles while at the same time continuing to stroke her. The erection held, but only for as long as you could concentrate on it – a moment’s inattention and it slackened a little more.

  You had forgotten your father’s death now. Of the history of your pain there remained only this fast-weakening erection, this humiliation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ you said.

  For several moments the two of you remained without speaking. You could hear a small bedside clock ticking. Sandra’s skirt was up above her waist; her bra and blouse were undone but she remained quite still.

  ‘Perhaps I’d better go,’ you said as you got up from the bed. She did not reply.

  ‘Listen,’ you began again, ‘I’m very sorry for all this. It’s not been—’ But you couldn’t continue.

  She sat up, straightened her skirt, buttoned her blouse, then watched as you went to the back of the chair to pick up your coat.

  ‘Don’t let’s part like this,’ you said as you went towards the door. ‘Not like this, when it could have—’

  ‘Why not part like this?’ she demanded with sudden anger.

  She stood up, crossed the room, and opened the door.

  ‘Sandra . . .’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, I . . .’ But you didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Well?’ she insisted.

  Somewhere in the building a lift shuddered. She was waiting for you to speak. Over her shoulder you could see the crumpled bed, and on the small side table the rum and the two empty glasses. What did you want to say? What could you say?

  ‘I . . .’ you began again.

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice was no longer so angry. She looked at you as she held the door open.

  ‘I . . .’ you repeated, but again you could get no further. You bit your lip. If she had laid her hand on your arm at that moment, as Andy and Helen had done earlier, you would probably have burst into tears. By yourself, however, you could do nothing.

  Instead you pointed beyond her into the room. You were trying very hard to speak.

  ‘It’s not like this,’ you managed to say eventually, and then stopped. You pointed with one hand, the other clenched at your side.

  ‘It’s not like this,’ you repeated.

  You could hardly believe the effort it was taking to say even these words.

  ‘Not like this – not now,’ you faltered.

  You looked into her face. A complete stranger: a girl with a blonde fringe, eye-shadow, a yellow blouse.

  ‘This,’ you continued, indicating the crumpled bed, the rum.

  You seemed about to take a step into the room, but didn’t. Your fist clenched tighter.

  ‘Sandra, I need . . . I need—’ you tried again, but stopped.

  If everything you had ever longed for had been set before you at that moment, you would have swept it aside in despair, in disgust even.

  ‘Yes?’ she answered.

  You had taken her hand, and were no longer looking at her. After a short pause you heard her repeat the word ‘Yes?’ Then she placed her other hand on yours. You were trembling.

  For several moments the two of you stood like that without speaking, then the lift shuddered again. You listened to it until it came to a standstill.

  ‘I’d better go,’ you said.

  Sandra nodded.

  ‘Goodbye,’ you said, then paused, uncertain whether to kiss her, shake hands perhaps.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said.

  You turned – and when you reached the end of the corridor you looked back to see if she was still there. But already you had seen her for the last time.

  It was nearly dawn when you arrived at your flat after walking through the deserted streets. You climbed the stairs, opened the door, and went in. You expected to be afraid, to sense your father’s presence – and so you looked into each of the rooms in turn before going to bed. After a short but deep sleep, you took the train home the following morning.

  Since then, however, you have felt demons inside you, dancing to the boom-boom music. They lead you down a narrowing lane. Death, they tell you, is simply a failure to see far enough into the darkness. Recently their tempo has quickened. You have tried to keep pace with them, learning that Time is a straight line only to those needing to prove themselves sober. Each moment has become the sound of Sandra’s voice pitched between anger and compassion; it is the quickening rhythm of the boom-boom music. For you, there is the fear of immortality in the pause between drinks.

  3

  You are thirty-four years old and already two-thirds destroyed. When your friends and business colleagues meet you they shake your hand and say, ‘Hello, Morris.’ You reply, ‘Hello,’ usually smiling. At home your wife and children – your accusations, as you call them – love you and need you. You know all this, and know that it is not enough.

  Every day, every moment almost, you must begin the struggle over again – the struggle to be yourself. You keep trying, like an actor learning his lines, in the belief that eventually, if you work hard enough, you will play the part of ‘Morris Magellan’ convincingly. In time you hope to convince even yourself.

  Over the years you have become very skilful at sensing what is expected of you, irrespective of your own needs or wishes. You have never been accepted, nor have you ever tried to be; you have never loved, hated or been angry. Instead you have known only the anxieties of performance: that you do not make even one mistake by forgetting a line or missing a cue.

  There are two histories to your life: one that belongs to other people – this history has many variations – and another that is yours alone. Both of them are true: their contradictions must be maintained and resolved inside you every moment of your life. In effect, you carry the burden of two lives at least, and not only are you running out of energy to do this, but you realise you have lost sight of any purpose to this weary exercise.

  In the conventional script there has to be a leading lady. Nowadays she is played by Mary, but there have been others – from those you attempted to coach into the role by flattery, manipulation, pleasing, or whatever seemed required over a course of weeks, months or years, to last-minute understudies who were forgotten the morning after. You needed to have someone to speak her lines in answer to yours, to respond to your gestures – someone who played her part well enough that the show could go on.

  When you discovered a leading lady with whom the script seemed to make sense, you called this love. And when you said you loved her you looked into her eyes with such hope – hope that she would not stumble over her reply nor embarrass you with a silence. For nothing can erase the silence or even slightest hesitation that one day answers the words, ‘I love you.’ Sensing there was awkwardness to come, a lesser actor would have ignored everything and insisted on speaking lines already grown more and more ridiculous. You, the greater actor, raised yourself above deception: your declarations of love would sound convincing right until the last moment. What a flawless performance you have learnt to give over the years.

  Exit one leading lady and enter her replacement – your main concern was not to confuse their stag
e names. That way you felt you knew what you were doing. As though a sailor – you are called ‘Magellan’ after all – could expect to control the sea-weather by renaming his ship whenever a storm threatened! You believed that the intensity, the conviction, with which you loved could save you – as though a drowning man could save himself simply by an effort of will! Each time you fell in love you tried harder, and more desperately. So many histories, so many performances of the same play – and you, trying to make everything appear real and true at all times, trying to overcome a worn-out plot with passion and pretence. The effort has almost killed you.

  The downstairs clock had just struck four. Having woken up, you couldn’t get back to sleep. Mary lay beside you, breathing very gently. The alarm clock ticked busily. Though you had been asleep for three hours you were still rather drunk, but at least the room had settled down since you saw it last: the floor was less storm-tossed, the walls no longer billowing in and out like sails.

  Mary must have taken off your jacket and shoes before putting the top blanket over you. An understanding woman. A night out for the biscuit-men and their wives – could anyone have endured that sober? Not that many seemed to be trying. You needed to be drunk to feel normal with all those publicity-biscuits walking round in high heels, cardboard and tassels. The launching of a new line: British biscuits – famous historical characters covered in chocolate, and each with its own particular flavour. Wrapped in Union Jack foil. Patriotic. Educational.

  No wonder you had felt sick – a Newton, two Shakespeares, a Nell Gwyn, a Drake and a Margaret Thatcher. But no one seemed to notice.

  After a short sleep you were feeling better and could move your head without bending the room in the same direction. The bed was horizontal.

  ‘Like being on board a ship,’ you had remarked to Mary as the two of you crossed the hall.

  ‘Sea-legs?’ she enquired.

  You tried to keep hold of the banisters, the stairs rolling and pitching beneath your feet.

  ‘A bit stormy here,’ you called out as you rounded the landing.

  Eventually you reached the bedroom.

  ‘Our harbour and haven,’ you insisted. ‘Not the dry dock.’

  You intended having grog rations issued immediately, but once you had lain down on the bed the slightest movement made the walls and ceiling ripple uneasily. You lay trembling like a compass needle about to settle. By concentrating hard you steadied everything, briefly. The moment your concentration slackened, however, the room began sliding sideways once more. You kept your eyes wide open to hold the ceiling in place. You had to keep concentrating. It was a comfort to know that very soon you would pass out.

  When Mary got into bed you felt the room slip momentarily from your grasp. You let it go.

  It returned. Lopsidedly.

  Then, like a television picture with the horizontal hold gone, it began to flip over and over and over . . .

  That had been a few hours earlier. No hangover – but four in the morning is always a very deceptive time: the head is still drying out and things could yet go either way.

  You have been a loyal biscuit-man for many years, having worked your way out of the open-plan and into a private office. You are one of the few executives who consume a Majestic biscuit occasionally, but that night’s complete pack of six of the ‘Best of British’ was beyond the call of duty. You exceeded your office, let’s say – usually you just drink there with Bach, Beethoven, Mozart or whoever. You never drink alone. By noon, especially if it’s a high and dry noon, things often become a little scrambled, pulling you this way and that, and work becomes impossible until you’ve relocated your position. Its co-ordinates, as you discovered some time ago, are the taste of brandy and the sound of a Mozart string quartet. Whenever possible, lunchtime and at least part of the afternoon are spent in trying your hardest to remain on course. The more you drink, the more easily you can distinguish between north, south, east and west. By five o’clock you have usually drunk enough to find your way home.

  That night, however, it had been hard enough finding your way upstairs to bed. Even with Mary to navigate.

  It was almost light now. Another Sunday: the shortest day of the week when compared with those in your weekday biscuit-tin box, but, close to, the most wearying of them all. The accusations would need attention, the house, the garden, the car would all need attention – and so would Mary.

  It used to be the case that each time you fell in love, the effort of loving released in you the energy to hold everything together a little longer. Then, after several months or years, when things began to crack apart again, you would fall in love with someone else. New energy would be released, and for a time you and your world would be safe once more.

  By now, however, you have exhausted that. There seems to be no energy left – if you had discovered alcohol earlier it might have saved a few broken hearts. For you, alcohol is not the problem – it’s the solution: dissolving all the separate parts into one. A universal solvent. An ocean.

  Thirty-four years ago you were born in a small ocean and came into the world on its fullest tide, washed ashore after many months drifting hopelessly at sea. These days, however, you live from moment to moment like a drowning man. When you drink you cease struggling and slip gradually below the surface, easing yourself down fathom by fathom. Six feet at a time; burial at sea. Letting the turbulent waters close far above you, you sink to a gentle rest upon the seabed. There, nothing can touch or hurt you. All movement is slowed down, all noise silenced. Anxiety and even anger are no more than gentle disturbances in the atmosphere, caresses almost, ebbing back and forth.

  The moments in your life you regard as the divisions on a compass rather than on a clock face: there are no dates and numbers, but directions, possibilities whose ‘longevity’ depends upon your commitment to what is happening, i.e. upon how drunk you are. Time is the sense of longing you feel to be elsewhere.

  At first you wanted to drink the ocean dry, but as you did so all manner of horrors – both living and dead – were exposed. These creatures groped sightlessly towards you. The more horrific they were, the more you drank – as though trying to swallow them, to remove them from sight. You don’t drink to forget – it doesn’t happen that way any more – instead, the ocean has become everything that has ever happened to you, and when you drink you can swim effortlessly wherever the mood suggests. You do drink like a fish, for drink allows you to breathe underwater.

  No one likes it when you go down to the ocean by yourself. They don’t like that at all. Nor when you turn politely to look back at them from the other side of a dinner table, for example, then wave goodbye as you sink smoothly out of sight. Occasionally, guests have arrived to find you already waterlogged, let’s say, and beached comfortably on the lounge carpet. Such drinking is what your wife, who understands these matters, would call ‘displaced activity’. Displaced in the liquid of your own choice!

  Mary is very understanding. In fact, she understands your problems much better than you do – and works harder at them. Whenever there is a summit conference to deal with the latest crisis in your life, she asks all the questions and gives all the answers. You are required simply to nod: it is enough that you have provided the agenda for discussion. Your relationship with her reads like a very scholarly book: each page has two or three lines of actual text at the top, your contribution; the remaining nine-tenths of the page is her commentary and footnotes in the smallest, most discreet print possible.

  A few days before, you had thrown a wine bottle against the kitchen wall. Instead of getting down on her hands and knees to clear up the broken glass, she immediately put her arms around you and assured you how unhappy you must feel. Hardly news. When she added that you were killing yourself – well, that was hardly news either. In fact, it was more like an acknowledgement of your method, a sort of encouragement. Only after you’d threatened to hit her with the next bottle did she become a little less understanding.

  Saturday
had been a big biscuit day: Majestic Baking Co. Ltd, morning, noon and night. Your business is biscuits – the new ‘Best of British’ among others. 480 per minute. Early that evening you came home to change and not-todrink before the reception. The latter was your own idea, but inspired, let’s say, by others.

  You had passed the afternoon in your third-floor office of a west-facing biscuit tin. You kept your window open; the sky was a cloudless haze unmarked even by the sun; pure brightness. The air was so heavy and still that, being hardly able to breathe, you felt you were drowning fathoms deep in an invisible ocean. All around was so much debris – the cars, lorries, the other vast biscuit tins – that had drifted down at some former time and settled on the muddy sea-bed. Above, you could see the waters standing clear and untroubled.

  But in your office, in your third-floor mud-trap, your hands left sweatmarks wherever you touched. By three o’clock you needed a few minutes away from the administration of biscuits; you needed to look up from your desk and gaze at the ocean, to cleanse yourself in its invisible, immaculate waters. Also, you needed brandy and Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’.

  And so: round with the executive swivel, feet up on the sill, the brandy handy and yourself plugged in. At 480 Majestics a minute, Schubert weighed in at approx. 9,500 biscuits.

  No matter how clean and fresh the day appears, soon enough mud starts seeping in. After some brandy and Schubert, some brandy and Bach. You could tell from a glance at the mud-skies and mud-streets that it was getting towards late afternoon. In a short time you would be on a train hardly able to push its way along the rails, a train having to struggle free of each station. After six stops you would heave yourself up from your seat, ease yourself on to the platform, then wade home.

  Mud-streets, mud-skies, and – inside you – the mud rising. You drink to keep it down, to stop from choking. You drink to gain another breath – and so you struggled through the afternoon. Recently it has been getting hard for you to struggle through the morning as well. Sometimes you wake already choking in mud. But not always, not yet.