Somebody's Voice Read online

  I don’t know how many weeks it was after my father died that he first took her out for dinner. At first I didn’t mind, because it meant I slept next door in Bridie’s room and we could talk when we were supposed to be asleep. Then I started feeling as if my mother had some news for me. One day as I came out of school I saw she was ready to speak, though I couldn’t tell if she was eager or determined. She made sure we’d left everyone else behind, and then she said “I hope you realise how much Mr Randal has done for us.”

  I thought she meant I was failing to appreciate him as much as she did. “I always say thank you.”

  “You like it when he comes to see us, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, partly because I saw her urging me to.

  “Well, soon he will for good.”

  “What do you mean, mummy?”

  “For the good of both of us. He’ll be looking after us the way your father tried.”

  I was dismayed to think I understood. “He can’t be my daddy,” I protested.

  “Of course he’ll never take his place, but just be glad we’ll be a family again.” As if she was pretending I couldn’t hear, my mother added “And he won’t be such a worry as your father.”

  I resented this on my father’s behalf. The next time Mr Randal gave me sweets my mother had to prompt “What do you say?”

  My thanks must have sounded as forced as I felt, because Mr Randal took the bag out of my hand. “No treats for sullen little girls, are there, mother? I think someone ought to go to bed.”

  “You heard Mr Randal. Off you go and stay there till you learn to be polite.”

  “And don’t forget to say your prayers,” Mr Randal called after me.

  As far as I was concerned I’d been polite to him. I hated him for rustling the bag of sweets as an extra punishment as I trudged out of the room. I crawled into bed without getting undressed, because my mother hadn’t said I should. I prayed that my father was happy in heaven, and as I wondered what to pray about Mr Randal I heard the stairs creak. I thought my mother was coming to lecture me, but Mr Randal opened the door. “You aren’t supposed to come in my room,” I cried.

  “Your mother has no problem with it. Don’t upset her more than you already have.” He shut the door and sat on the end of my bed. His weight tugged at the bedclothes as if he meant to strip them off me, and I was glad I hadn’t undressed. “Do you want to make her ill?” he said.

  I took this for one of the questions grownups asked that didn’t invite any answer, but he frowned at me so hard that his face seemed to shrink further. “No,” I pleaded.

  “Then try and be a good girl. Your mother says you used to be one. Don’t you know how ill it makes her when she has to worry about you?”

  I’d begun to feel he wouldn’t let me say anything except “No.”

  “That’s because she does her best to hide it from you. You don’t need to know how much she’s had to worry about money, because that’s over now. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You want your mother to be happy, don’t you?”

  He seemed to have left me no answer but “Yes.”

  “Then let’s talk about something nicer. I know what little girls like.” I thought he was going to offer me a sweet, but he said “You like dressing up, don’t you? You’ll be a bridesmaid when I marry your mother.”

  I felt as if I was agreeing to more than I might welcome by saying “Yes,” but I thought at least I’d placated him till he said “No need for that. What do you think you’re doing?”

  I was keeping hold of the bedclothes with both hands, because he’d sat towards me, pulling harder at them. “Come downstairs if you think you’re going to be able to behave yourself,” he said and stood up so quickly he might have been trying to pretend he hadn’t sat on my bed. “Just promise me you won’t upset your mother.”

  I didn’t mean to distress her, and I wanted to be with her. “I promise.”

  When I followed him downstairs my mother said “I hope you’ve made your peace.”

  I thought she should be talking to him too or even might be, but he said “We’ve got ourselves a little maid. Now where’s a sweet for a good girl?”

  I wanted to enjoy the wedding for my mother’s sake, even if it felt like sending my father away. Bridie and I were all in white like Mr Randal and my mother, and a fat white flower stuck out of his lapel. I was expecting my mother’s dress to have a train for me and Bridie to carry – it would have made her seem like a queen – but I was glad she didn’t have one, since it would have brought back the name my father couldn’t call her any more.

  That afternoon the sun was so fierce it looked like one of those lights police in films shine in people’s eyes to find out what they’ve done wrong. It woke up the scents of flowers in our house, making it smell even more like a funeral. When we went out to the limousine our clothes turned so bright I almost couldn’t look at them. I had to slit my eyes, but Mr Randal said I shouldn’t or I’d end up working in a Chinese takeaway, which made my mother laugh and tell him he was terrible. I expected him to drive the limousine, but he sat facing me and Bridie and my mother. All the way to St Brendan’s he told the driver what to do – “Easy on my gears, Dave” and “No call to brake so hard” and “About time you were signalling.” He kept his hands clasped in his lap, and I nearly asked if he was praying, but now I wonder what they hid.

  “Little angels,” I heard someone say when Bridie and I followed Mr Randal up the aisle, and I thought how our dresses were the colour Father Brendan said our souls had been when we were born. All the outfits were Mr Randal’s idea, and my mother had seemed flattered, though back then I didn’t understand why. When Father Brendan asked her such a long question that I’d forgotten how it had started by the time he finished, she said “I do” as if she was daring anyone to contradict her. When he asked Mr Randal something like the same, Mr Randal said “I do” as though he couldn’t believe anyone might doubt it. A lady in the front row dabbed at her eyes, and her face was squashed so small for the size of her head that I knew she was his mother. Across the aisle my grandmother hid a sniff in her lace handkerchief, and her husband cleared his throat as though she’d given him a cold.

  After the wedding Mr Randal drove us to a local hotel, just my mother and me while Bridie went in the family car. There was a buffet I would have enjoyed more if Mr Randal hadn’t made me nervous, telling me to keep my dress clean “like the good girl you are.” I managed not to spill my plateful, but I was impatient to see where we were going to live. When he took us back where we’d always lived I couldn’t muffle my disappointment. “Aren’t we going to the big house?”

  “She means Speke Hall, Malcolm. I expect he’ll take us one day soon, Carla.”

  “Not there. Where Mr Randal lives.”

  “You think I deserve a mansion, do you? That’s a thoughtful little girl. I’ve never needed one of those, and I’ve got your house now. We wouldn’t have had room in my apartment. And no more of the Mr Randal. You just call me dad.”

  I was so unhappy to be robbed of the fairy-tale dwelling I’d imagined was a compensation for his presence that I blurted “You aren’t.”

  “Would you like your poor mother to bring you up all by herself with nobody to help?”

  I didn’t see how he could assume I’d meant that, but I had to say “No.”

  “Then just you remember what we agreed, and that includes calling me dad.”

  He was reminding me not to upset my mother, and now I saw I couldn’t even explain that to her. I could only mumble “Dad.”

  “That’s the spirit. Keep it up till it’s natural. And speaking of helping, I hope you do around the house. You should be glad it’s not a mansion.”

  He stared at me without a blink till I said “Yes, dad.”

  I told myself I would never call him daddy, which belonged to my father and nobody else
. That night I prayed he would look after my mother as much as he made out he meant to, and me as well. I was still awake when I heard them come upstairs to what used to be my parents’ room, and Mr Randal murmured “Let’s just be certain she’s asleep.” I huddled under the bedclothes as he opened my door, and I stayed there once he shut it, because I was afraid to learn the secret they were anxious for me not to know. When I heard my mother cry out I thought she was yearning for my father. I hoped she was, but the sound disturbed me so much that I pressed my hand against the ear that wasn’t buried in the pillow, and soon fell asleep.

  When my father came home and went to my mother Mr Randal pushed him out of the bed, telling him “It’s all mine now.” I woke up feeling the dream was stuck to my mind, which dismayed me so much I ran across the landing to the other bedroom. I’d only just opened the door when Mr Randal sat up in the bed. I could barely see his face in the dark, but it looked the way he’d met my father in the dream. “What do you mean by coming in like that?” he whispered. “You’ve no idea what your mother and I might have been doing. At least, I pray you’ve none.”

  My mother rolled over to peer at me. “You listen to him, Carla. Some things are private. In future just you knock and wait to be told.”

  “But you and daddy used to let me come in when I was lonely in the night.”

  I suppose I should have understood why this didn’t please my mother. “Well, you can’t any more without making sure you’re welcome.”

  “Nobody’s saying you have to be lonely,” Mr Randal added. “Remember that now and go back to your bed.”

  “Just you do as he tells you, Carla.”

  I felt as if they were united against me in a way she and my father never had been. As my mother walked me to school next day she said “It’s about time you started appreciating your new father. He’s a blessing and I thank God for him.” I had no idea what I’d done to deserve the rebuke, and I wondered what she and Mr Randal might have said about me while I wasn’t there. “He cares so much about us he’s gone straight back to work,” she wanted me to know. “He hasn’t even had a honeymoon.”

  I thought she wished she’d had one, which made me feel left out, because where would I have been? I felt the one she’d had with my real father should have been enough, but she seemed to think Mr Randal was suffering for us, though I’d been led to believe only Jesus had. She had nothing but sympathy for him whenever he told us about his day – how one of the receptionists had got an address wrong again, or yet another driver had shown up late or called in sick, whereas Mr Randal had never taken a day off in his life “except to marry my pet.” Apparently she didn’t wonder how much time he spent sitting around the taxi office or waiting for his employees to do something else wrong, since he took the limousine out so seldom. When he did we were treated to more tributes to his passengers than Mr Randal had given my father at the funeral, though they sounded just like footballers and stage performers and owners of companies I’d never heard of.

  My mother let him know she was impressed, as if she thought he was the only man who could have done the job. Maybe she had to think that, and it bothered me less than how he made her feel she needed help around the house, as though he meant to leave her helpless. Before long, if I didn’t show enough enthusiasm for my household tasks when I came home from school, I felt I’d let her down, though she’d never expected so much of me while my father was alive. “Don’t tire me out, child,” she would say more like my grandmother than herself, but I blamed Mr Randal for exhausting her or persuading her she deserved to be fatigued.

  Did he mean to do that on our Sunday outings? “Open the door for your mother, Carla,” he would say when we were getting into the limousine and out of it as well. Soon she made me feel I’d let her down if I didn’t do it readily enough. The first time he took us out a neighbour admired the car and said “Gone up in the world, Mrs Randal.” I thought the idea was as disloyal to my father as her new name, and when my mother asked me what was wrong I couldn’t speak. “Keep your secret and see if I care,” she complained, but I’d grown wary of provoking Mr Randal.

  He drove us into the countryside for walks, though not too much of them. “Don’t go scurrying off,” he warned me as the two of them strolled a little way through a wood. “Have a thought for your mother.” Soon he just took us for drives, and I remember him saying “You sit and rest and enjoy the view. You’ve earned it, Elaine.” I’d have liked to stop at some of the places we passed – at least, I would have while I was with my mother.

  One day we stopped at a petrol station for Mr Randal to check the tyre pressures and fill up the tank. “Come and feel this, Carla,” he said as he pumped the tyres up. I held the hose and felt it throb with each surge of air. “If you think that’s exciting try this one,” he said when he’d finished, and let me hold part of the tube while he filled the petrol tank. As I felt the liquid surging through my grasp I saw my mother frown at us through the window. “What’s wrong, mummy?” I said once I was back in the car.

  “Nothing I know about and nothing you should either. I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, child.”

  Her reaction confused me as much as it hurt me. As Mr Randal returned to the car he said “Has someone been upsetting somebody again?”

  “Just a misunderstanding,” my mother said, staring hard at me to see I knew it was, which didn’t help me understand. “Let’s leave it behind, Malcolm.”

  I felt blamed for something I hadn’t done and didn’t even know had happened, and I thought it was my fault that next Sunday she stayed home. “You look worn out, my pet,” Mr Randal told her. “You try and have a snooze and I’ll look after our child.”

  He started taking me out for hours once he’d brought us all home from mass. He would find somewhere in the countryside to park and then stride off as if leaving my mother behind set him free. “You need tiring out,” he told me. “It’s only fair to your mother.” Though he brought the binoculars he’d used to show her birds, he wouldn’t let me look through them. “Some things are too big for you to handle just yet,” he said with a smile that seemed to be meant purely for himself. Instead he’d lift me up to see birds and their nests, and once his hands slipped under my dress. I started wriggling because his fingers felt like cold fat worms, but at first he didn’t put me down. “No need to kick,” he said after a while, and let me down. “Nothing’s the matter, is there?”

  I couldn’t find words to express my doubts, unless I was afraid to. “Don’t suppose,” I mumbled.

  “That’s right, don’t do that. I hope you’re enjoying your walk after you made such a fuss about wanting them.”

  I didn’t think I had, but felt I was only allowed to say “Yes.”

  “Then please see you tell your mother you’ve enjoyed it. We don’t want her worrying about it and making herself ill. A good girl is a healthy girl.”

  Though this reminded me of the things my father used to say Mr Randal said, I no longer felt like laughing. I told my mother I’d had a good walk, but after that I made sure to change into my jeans after church. I didn’t want to feel Mr Randal’s wormy fingers under my skirt again, and at least my mother agreed jeans were more suitable for the sort of walks we took. I didn’t like him lifting me with a hand on my bottom either. I mightn’t have minded if he’d put me on his shoulders the way my father used to, telling me that when I grew as tall as him I’d go high in the world. Once I tried pretending I felt too ill for a Sunday outing, and doing my best to convince my mother did give me a headache, but she acted as if I simply wanted to be ill like her. “Get some fresh air and you’ll feel better,” she said. “Go with your dad and get to know each other.”

  I thought I knew him as well as I wanted to. He would never be my dad – he was more like a parody of one, but not the joke my father used to make of him. Now my mother only walked me and Bridie to school on some days, and Mrs Shea did on most of th
em. Once when my mother brought us home I went to fetch my new doll to show Bridie, and found Mr Randal with his binoculars at my bedroom window. Girls in their sports kits were practicing in the schoolyard across the road, but he said he’d been watching a bird that had just flown away. I was more concerned about his intrusion. “You said I couldn’t come in mummy’s room if I didn’t ask.”

  “That’s completely different. This is my house now,” he said, which reminded me of dreaming that my father had come home and found him in the bed. I wasn’t to know that the nightmare had hardly begun.

  ALEX

  The tower of offices on Euston Road is so full of windows that it resembles a concrete lattice embedded in a block of glass. The upper storeys are an incandescent mass of sunlight, but nobody apart from Alex seems to notice. Many of the pedestrians are intent on phones, while the rest of the crowd hurry past without meeting anybody’s eyes, as if they’re anxious to avoid facing any threat – a terrorist, perhaps, or someone with a knife. On the ground floor Alex displays Kirsty Palmer’s email to a guard behind a desk, and without having said a word the man releases the waist-high hurdle of a barrier.

  As the scenic lift elevates Alex, pedestrians shrink into their bodies until they’re no more than a swarm of toys in the shape of heads sprouting mechanically active limbs. Halfway up the shaft the sunlight blazes in, and he turns his back to be confronted by a version of himself surrounded by his shadow. At the thirteenth floor, which is numbered fourteen, his reflection splits in two, vanishing as the glass doors admit him to the lobby of Tiresias Press. Rod is at the reception desk, which is made of glass so black it’s opaque, and gives him a flawless polished smile that enlivens Rod’s immaculately made-up face. “I’ll tell Kirsty you’re here,” Rod says and, with the switchboard, does. “She’ll be with you in a pair of shakes.”