A Voice in the Distance by Tabitha Suzuma

  I am tormenting myself and gaining a savage satisfaction from it. I want to hurt myself more, stab myself in the wound, break down my horrible self. I sink my teeth into the side of my hand and bite down as hard as I can. I taste blood. But the physical pain doesn't even begin to dent the mental one. I cry until I can barely move. I cry until the sun outside is high in the sky. I drag my aching self over to the sofa and continue crying into the cushions. I go to the bathroom and splash my face with cold water and still can't stop the tears.

  Beside the basin, something catches my attention. The bottom drawer of the medicine cabinet is slightly open. I wrench it out and see that all my meds have been removed. All but a single blister strip of lithium and a single strip of anti-depressants and four benzodiazepines. All the rest are gone. Confused, I rifle through the other drawers of the cabinet. All the aspirin has gone, all the paracetamol. So that's what she was doing with the sports bag. Emptying the flat of pills so that I wouldn't kill myself. I want to laugh. You're so stupid, I want to say. There are kitchen knives, aren't there? Windows that open? Glasses which can be broken? Do you honestly think that by taking away all the pills you will somehow stop me from killing myself? Then another thought occurs to me. That in her hurt, angry state, Jennah still had the presence of mind to do this. Don't kill yourself, she says to me through the empty drawer. Don't kill yourself over me.

  I feel like everything inside me has shattered, every part of me has broken into a thousand tiny pieces that I will never be able to put back together again. I stagger into the bedroom and throw myself down on the unmade bed. Her pillow still holds traces of her smell. I jump up, look around wildly for something that belongs to her. I find a T-shirt of hers on the floor. I lie back down and rub it against my wet, burning cheek like a comfort blanket, inhaling her gentle odour. I close my eyes and try to pretend she is still beside me.

  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.

  Chapter Fourteen

  JENNAH

  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.'

  Chapter Fifteen

  FLYNN

  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 possib
ility 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.