Somebody's Voice Read online

  Alex takes a seat beside an equally low table scattered with recent Tiresias books. As he leafs through a copy of Nobody Sees, someone emerges from Men, where the faceless sketchy emblem of a man flares with light as the door next to Rod’s desk shuts. The newcomer’s extravagantly wide face looks as though he doesn’t own a razor or is resolved to live without one. He plants himself on the seat opposite Alex, and Rod seems about to speak, but returns to reading his phone instead. Now that Alex is observed he feels more self-regarding than he wants to be, and lays his book down. The man scowls at it, provoking Alex to ask “Not your taste?”

  The man’s voice sounds resolutely gruff. “Don’t like that kind of thing.”

  “We all have our preferences.” Having tried to leave it at that, Alex says “What kind would that be?”

  “Books about how awful someone’s childhood was.”

  “I ought to say this is a novel, and it isn’t just about that.”

  “If they made it up when they haven’t been through it, that’s worse.”

  This feels like the argument Alex had with ToM, and he’s about to pursue it when Kirsty appears. Her ankle-length black and white pinstriped dress makes her look taller and slimmer than ever. Her high blond eyebrows lend her smooth oval face a perpetually surprised expression or at any rate the air of expecting to be. The grin of welcome she starts to give Alex snags on an obstruction, and she turns to his neighbour. “With you shortly, Carl,” she says, and to Alex “Come through for a minute.”

  He thought they were going for lunch. Has the stubbly man taken some sort of precedence? Alex feels vulnerable in a way he hasn’t felt since he sent his first novel to his agent Linder. In Kirsty’s office, where slatted blinds blot out the world, the sight of a copy of Nobody Sees doesn’t help – it’s singled out from heaps of books on her desk as if it needs to be discussed. Perching on an undernourished leather chair while Kirsty sinks into its plump relative behind the desk, Alex says “How are we doing?”

  “I’m pretty fair.” As he hopes this will be true in every sense, she says “You?”

  “Fine as far as I know.” His wary query has left him having to explain “I meant our book.”

  “Not as well as it started out. Not as well as your others.”

  “Oh, hasn’t it?” Alex detests questions that have been answered in advance, and now himself for asking one. “Too much of a departure,” he wonders aloud, “do we think?”

  “That could be part of the problem.”

  “I’m guessing you’re wanting me to return to my old ways. I’m sure I can.”

  The guess is closer to a hope, and stays that way while Kirsty blinks at him. “I don’t know if that will fix it, Alex.”

  He’s by no means certain of wanting to learn “Fix what?”

  She looks saddened, perhaps only by his lack of comprehension. “The response.”

  “Our sales, you mean.”

  “I wish it were only those. Haven’t you seen all the comments on Twitter?”

  “They’re publicity for us, don’t you think?”

  “No publicity is bad publicity.” He’s about to agree when Kirsty says “That isn’t how it works these days, if it ever did. We’re glad you didn’t answer them.”

  “Too busy working on my next book for you.” This appears to revive her unhappiness, which leaves him afraid to speak, but he makes himself say “Can’t we turn the controversy to our advantage?”

  “You don’t seem to have when you were talking at Texts.”

  He’s angry now. “What am I meant to have done?”

  “Didn’t you read what people said about it on Twitter?”

  “People.” When Kirsty looks offended by his gibe he says “Just one person who was actually there, and they brought their agenda.”

  “Are you saying what they wrote about you wasn’t true?”

  “I am, and so would Lee.”

  “I’m sure she would be on your side. So you didn’t try to get this man ejected from the shop.”

  “Tommm, you mean.”

  “I hope you didn’t make fun of him like that either.”

  “That’s how he pronounces himself. ToM with two capitals, just like TransMission. It’s their joke, not mine.”

  “If you think it’s a joke.”

  “And it was Janet from the shop who wanted him to leave. I kept him.”

  Kirsty consults her computer screen. “Did you encourage somebody to bully him?”

  “I most certainly did not, and he wasn’t bullied. He had a disagreement with Lee.”

  “Would he have known you were together?”

  “We don’t hide anything, not like him.”

  “What are you saying he hid?”

  “How he picketed the shop and then sneaked in to disrupt the show, but Lee recognised him.”

  “Then I suppose he might say he didn’t try to hide it. Here he’s saying you acted as if the twist in your story was more important than what people like him have to go through.”

  “I should think it would have been to the rest of the audience.” When she doesn’t respond Alex says “And you good folk at Tiresias.”

  “We need to be sensitive when other people are. Did you try to silence him when he gave away your ending?”

  “No, Janet tried to involve the rest of the audience.”

  “Maybe that’s what made him feel bullied.”

  “Maybe he should act more like the man he wants to be.” Reining in his anger, Alex says “Sorry, that was sexist.”

  “That’s some of what it was. I shouldn’t like to think you’d say that kind of thing in public.”

  “I don’t like being lied about, that’s all. I told him I’d never been abused and never changed my gender. Honestly, I don’t see how anything I said to him can do us any harm.”

  “It isn’t only what he posted. It’s the replies as well.”

  Alex hasn’t bothered looking. His phone shows him that since he last visited Twitter, hundreds of people have responded to ToM, most of them attacking Alex. Some of the comments are so vicious, wishing abuse or emasculation if not both on him, that he has to laugh. “In case you’re worried,” he tells Kirsty, “I won’t be provoked.”

  “Our director thought you should apologise.”

  “I’ve done nothing to apologise for. I hope you don’t think I have.”

  “Sometimes we should even if we don’t think there’s a reason, if it can resolve a problem.”

  “I’d rather make amends for things I’ve actually done.” Her regretful expression drives him to enquire “Just what would you expect me to say?”

  “That’s what she thought at first, but she’s decided an apology won’t be enough.”

  “What more can I do?” His plea infuriates him, and he demands “What am I doing it for? How much of a threat are these people really?”

  “Maybe more than you know. They aren’t just picketing bookshops, they’re boycotting them.”

  “Not many, surely.”

  “More shops every day and more people doing it, and it isn’t just the shops. They’re boycotting all our books.”

  “So what are you saying we can do?”

  “It’s funny you should put it that way, Alex.”

  He can’t see how, and then he’s afraid he can. He was including her and Tiresias Press, but suppose she means he won’t be involved any longer? Before he can bring himself to ask, she turns her attention to the glass door at his back. “Samira,” she calls, “can you tell my guest in reception I’ll be with them in just a few minutes?”

  Alex feels more vulnerable than ever – about to be sent away for good, perhaps. “You’d better tell me whatever you need to,” he says but can’t bring it out too loud.

  Her eyebrows mime bemusement. “I’m looking for a way to rescue
your career.”

  He does his best not to sound as anxious as he feels. “Any luck?”

  “Let me ask you this first. You and Lee work pretty closely on your books before you send them to Linder, don’t you?”

  “Lee’s my other set of eyes.”

  This seems not to be the answer Kirsty wants. “Wouldn’t you say you collaborate? And you’ve been happy to work on suggestions I’ve sent you. I’ve enjoyed working with you as well.”

  “I hope we still can.”

  “Would you consider working with somebody else?”

  “Why, who would I have to lose?”

  “Nobody at all if we can make this happen. I’m suggesting the next book could be ghostwritten.”

  The relief he began to feel at her first remark turns into dismay on the brink of rage. “I’d rather stay myself.”

  “Our director thinks it’s the only answer, and I don’t mind telling you I had to fight for it.”

  “I’m sorry you had to, but shouldn’t you have asked me first? I’m certain I can come up with a story she’d approve, and I don’t need anybody else to write it for me.”

  “Alex, I’m sorry.” Kirsty’s laugh seems grotesquely at odds with this. “I wasn’t clear, was I?” she says. “I meant you could write one for somebody else.”

  He experiences relief again and then immediately less of it. “What sort of book?”

  “We’ve been approached by an abuse survivor. They want their story to be told.”

  “I’m sure it ought to be, but why should I come to mind?”

  “You came to mine, Alex. I think it could be the solution for us all, and it might help you grow as a writer.”

  “I thought I’d been doing that.”

  “I didn’t say otherwise.” Just the same, Kirsty looks disappointed by his response. “You don’t have to decide here and now,” she says. “I expect you’ll want to discuss it with Linder and maybe Lee as well.”

  “More like definitely Lee.”

  “So would you like to meet your subject?”

  “I’d say that would be a good idea.”

  “Wait here,” Kirsty says and heads for the corridor so fast he could think she’s eager to leave him. Beyond the open door he hears a gruff complaint: “Thought you’d gone home.” In a moment Kirsty reappears with the stubbled man. “Alex, let me introduce Carl Batchelor,” she says. “Carl, Alex Grand.”

  Alex stands up, though not entirely, and thrusts out a hand. Batchelor’s handshake is aggressively firm but terse. “We’ve met,” Alex says. “Mr Batchelor let me know what he thinks of my novel.”

  Kirsty resumes her seat while Batchelor sprawls in the one beside Alex. “It brought you to us, didn’t it, Carl?”

  “How did it do that?” Alex needs to hear.

  “You put out a story,” Batchelor says, not necessarily to him. “Time you put out some truth.”

  “That’s how Carl pitched it to our director.”

  “And whose idea was it for me to help him write it?”

  “I told you, Alex, mine.”

  He senses how she’s urging him to accept, but that’s just half the situation. “Are you comfortable with that, Mr Batchelor?”

  “Name’s Carl,” Batchelor says more forcefully than Alex finds applicable.

  “I honestly believe Alex is your man. I don’t know any writers who are more professional.”

  “I think I’m demonstrating that.” Not without an effort, Alex tells Batchelor “I can see how you might think my book can’t live up to your experience.”

  “Nowhere near.”

  “I take it you’re prepared to talk about that.”

  “I’ll have to,” Batchelor says but looks at Kirsty. “To whoever’s going to write my book.”

  “Kirsty was saying you were abused.”

  “More ways than you could make up.”

  “I won’t be making any.” As Batchelor gazes at him while withholding his expression Alex says “May I ask how old you were when it began?”

  “Not much more than six.”

  “I’m truly sorry to hear that.” Although Alex imagined in Nobody Sees how victims might grow up, the dull haunted look that fills Batchelor’s eyes suggests he failed to do the consequences justice. “Who was responsible?” he says.

  “Hope you’re not saying I was.”

  “Of course not, not at all. I meant who was the perpetrator.”

  “My mother’s second husband.”

  “That wouldn’t have been your father.”

  “Wish it had been.” As Alex searches for an apt reply, if there is one, Batchelor lets out an unamused laugh. “I mean,” he says, “I wish my dad hadn’t gone and died.”

  “I hope you’ll let me offer you my sympathies for everything. Any abuse of a child is appalling, but I wonder if in some ways it could be worse for a boy of your age to be abused by a man.”

  Kirsty looks anxious to intervene, but it’s Batchelor who speaks. “I wasn’t.”

  “Sorry, I thought you said—” Alex feels not much less bewildered by suggesting “You mean he, how should I put it, made the change.”

  “No.” Batchelor gives him time to suffer his mistake and then says “I have.”

  “Oh, of course.” At once Alex hears how this sounds like a comment on the man’s appearance. Apologising won’t help, and so he says “Are you with TransMission?”

  “Don’t even know what that is.”

  “It’s a pressure group for people who’ve taken your route.” Alex barely hesitates before settling on the last phrase. “They’ve been picketing shops that sell my book,” he confines himself to adding.

  “Don’t need anyone like them.”

  Batchelor looks close to insulted, though surely not by Alex. Is he implying he needs him? Kirsty seems to think so, and Alex sees that both their jobs may be in jeopardy. All of this feels like enough, and he says “I’ll be happy to talk more if you are, Carl.”

  “In that case I do believe it’s time for lunch.” Kirsty stands up as though Alex has released her from detention. “Let’s go and celebrate the birth of a team,” she says, and Alex vows to make it work.

  CARLA

  I was nearly six when my mother started being ill every day before she took me to school. Sometimes I heard her throwing up in the toilet while I was having my breakfast, and that made me feel ill too. She would come downstairs pretending she was fine so as not to bother Mr Randal. I was afraid she might ask him to walk me or drive me to school and let him take over more of my life, but she said “I’m all right walking, Malcolm. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

  I had the impression that she wanted me to appreciate how brave she was being at the same time she convinced herself she was keeping it from him. It made me feel her illness was my fault, because he’d given me the notion that anything wrong with her could be. One morning on the way to school I blurted out “Mummy, why are you sick?”

  “It’s God’s way, Carla. It’s only natural. You made me like that, child.”

  This confirmed my fears and Mr Randal’s opinion of me. “I’m sorry, mummy.”

  “I don’t mean now,” she said, tousling my hair the way my father used to. “When you were inside me.”

  If it wasn’t my fault any longer I could only think Mr Randal was to blame. “Who’s doing it now?”

  “Someone who’s coming to see you. Wait till next year and you’ll get a lovely surprise.”

  “Do you mean a baby, mummy?”

  “That’s right,” she said as if I’d spoiled her treat. “I was more innocent at your age. You’re growing up too fast, child.”

  I didn’t understand the accusation. It was just one more of the ways I’d felt blamed ever since Mr Randal had entered our lives. Perhaps my mother saw how she’d affected me, beca
use she said “Your father and I have made you a little friend.”

  So it was Mr Randal’s fault, and yet another way he was trying to take over from my actual father. I nearly said he wasn’t mine, but instead I asked “How long are you going to be sick?”

  “Maybe you’ll have a little brother or a sister by your birthday. That would be a special present, wouldn’t it? Which would you like?”

  “Can’t we have both?”

  “One’s enough for me to go through, Carla. You don’t know what ladies have to put up with. You gave me more pain than I thought I could stand. I felt as if you’d never come.” I saw she wished she hadn’t said so much, and she added “You’ll learn for yourself when you grow up. There’s no need for you to know about it now.” Even this made me feel it was somehow my fault, particularly when she said “You look a fright, child. What will they think of me, sending you to school like that. Let’s get a comb through your hair.”

  Before long her state was plain to everyone. I thought she looked like a walking egg. The neighbour ladies cooed like birds at it, and some of them offered to help with her shopping as the egg got bigger, but Mr Randal didn’t seem to want her friends in the house. “You’ve got a little helper,” he told her, meaning me. He kept telling her to take it easy and watching to make sure I did my household tasks, but he still made her cry out in bed. I had a confused idea that he wasn’t meant to do that to her in her condition, and some nights I couldn’t sleep for hearing her. When I tried blocking my ears with the pillow and the bedclothes I felt as if I was hiding from Mr Randal. I couldn’t help hoping that when his child arrived it would divert his attention from me.

  It hadn’t come by my birthday, even though my mother’s dress looked like a tent someone was hiding under. Sometimes she made me put my hand on it, but if I felt a kick I imagined Mr Randal’s child trying to push me away from her. Mr Randal took us out for my birthday dinner, which I thought he meant more as a treat for her, though she showed her gratitude by saying “You’ve never had a birthday like this, have you, Carla?” I wished I were spending it at home with my mother and my real father as we always used to, and I felt Mr Randal was waiting for me to behave some way you weren’t supposed to in a restaurant, even though he kept telling me “There’s a good girl” and “You’re growing up fast, Carla.” At the end the waiter brought a birthday cake, and I didn’t realise I was meant to thank Mr Randal till my mother urged me to and shook her head at him about me. I’d only just blown out the candles when she jumped up and ran to the toilet. “That was a lovely meal, Malcolm,” she wanted him to know as soon as she came back. “The child blew her smoke in my face, that was all.”