‘But this is only the first part of my project,’ Clay continued. ‘I add to my collection.’
‘Your collection of speakers?’ Nina said.
‘No, no. Not the speakers. The sound.’
‘But there is no sound.’
Laurie stood up, glaring at Clay before addressing Tammy. ‘I’ll see you guys outside, okay? It’s stuffy in here.’
Nina waited until Laurie had left. ‘I’m not trying to be obtuse. Nothing happened.’
‘But it was a recording, nonetheless,’ Tammy replied.
‘Of what exactly?’
‘Silence. No, don’t laugh. Clay has been all over the island, collecting recordings.’
‘Of… silence?’
‘Exactly right. And that recording, Clay…?’
Clay double-checked the readout on the MiniDisc player. ‘Yes. This is your house, Cat’s Ear Cottage. Empty. Even I was outside of it, starting this recording with remote control.’
Tammy nodded. Her breath caught sharply. ‘Thank you.’
To Nina, she said in a loud voice as if to somebody with impaired hearing, ‘Each silence has its own quality, you see. I think it’s a wonderful project. But I have to say, hearing that silence is kind of eerie. Like it’s my life, but without me or Abram in it.’
Nina had no idea how to respond. The concept was compelling enough in theory, but in practice it seemed nonsense.
Clay clapped his hands, startling Nina. ‘A little bit of fun. Part two is more interaction.’ From the side of the church he produced a tall metal stand and another trailing wire. He hooked up a microphone and placed it onto the stand. ‘I thought to myself, what could I do with this big amount of speakers? I have become interested in feedback. Feedback… how should I say?’
‘Loops,’ Tammy said loudly. ‘Feedback loops, they’re called.’
‘Quite right. Nina, would you please?’
Clay tapped the grille of the microphone, producing a sharp thud from the speaker stack that made Nina wince. Moments later, the thud repeated, less harsh this time. It repeated again and again at intervals, becoming diffuse with the slight latency between the speakers in the stack.
‘The sound plays and then it is heard – I should say picked up – by the microphone once again,’ he said. ‘And on and on and on and so on.’
Tammy was looking at Nina expectantly.
Nina rose from the pew, though she didn’t really want to. This felt like a test.
‘What do I need to do?’ she said.
‘Come here to the microphone. Speak into it a single word.’ Clay held up a hand. ‘But not any word. Speak a word that you would like to understand. A word and my installation will reveal the…’ he paused to consider, ‘…essence.’
Nina felt their gazes upon her. She trod slowly to the microphone. It was hard to shake the feeling that this was some sort of a trick. She reached up and cupped the microphone in both hands, producing a sharp pip that reverberated around the room, echoing and then deteriorating into fuzz.
To Nina’s surprise, she realised that she didn’t want to disappoint Tammy.
Clay was watching her carefully, his expression as serious as a surgeon examining a patient.
What was the answer? A word she would like to understand. Possibilities occurred to her. Loss. Anger. Purpose.
She raised her face to the microphone, which Clay had placed a fraction too high. She wet her lips.
She said, ‘Laurie.’
The speaker stack spoke the name back to her. She had always hated hearing recordings of her voice, but this was different. She blinked rapidly, experiencing the sound as a gust, her own breath amplified and heated.
Laurie.
It was loud without being loud. She could have believed the speakers weren’t turned on, that the voice was inside her.
And then, after a second or two:
Laurie.
This time the name was rounded at its front, the attack on the ‘L’ softer.
Laurie.
Laurie. The repetition came around faster, or perhaps it was only that the previous utterance lingered.
Laurie.
The name became part of the air within the church, became the air itself.
Nina wanted to move away but she remained standing there, no longer holding the microphone, her hands lowered but still cupped around the ghost of its shape.
Laurie.
It was barely distinguishable now. The ‘L’ had become a breath that began and ended the name, the only rise in pitch the ‘au’ sound which now was only a soft moan.
It repeated. It kept repeating.
It no longer repeated but only continued, a drone with only the slightest inflection acting as a hillock within the waveform.
Now it was only a hum, flattened and reverberating so that every few moments Nina found herself unable to hear anything at all, experiencing the sound as something very distant but also very close, physical against her skin, moist and cloying. She spasmed and fought the urge to rub at her bare arms. Nausea rose up, flooding her throat with sweetness.
‘I—’ she blurted out.
This new sharp sound punctured the drone, then it did so again and again, and each time she felt it sting like a blade piercing her belly.
She turned and fled.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Laurie.’
‘Like a truck?’ Nina replied. ‘Lorry?’
‘Lorraine. Laurie. Like Hugh Laurie.’
Nina snorted. ‘That’s hardly better. I like Hugh Laurie as much as the next person, but that’s no basis for naming our child.’
Her eyes moved from Rob’s face to the baby in his arms. He had a natural way of crooking his left arm to support the head, even though he had never really held an infant before, as far as she was aware. A muslin cloth was draped over his shoulder, as they had been shown at the antenatal classes, and his posture in the low bedside armchair appeared totally comfortable. Only the top of the baby’s head and one rounded cheek were visible to Nina from her position propped up on the bed. The soft fuzz of the baby’s sparse hair mingled with the thick, fair hair on Rob’s forearm.
‘You look good,’ she said. ‘You’re a natural.’
‘You too,’ Rob said, but it might easily have been a kneejerk response. She wasn’t the one holding the child, after all. All she had done was push it out of her.
She wet her lips. ‘I’m really tired. That’s pretty much all I am right now. I’m not a person, I’m a tired.’
‘I know, love. I don’t understand how you had the energy.’
‘I did eat three Yorkies.’
He grinned. ‘Want another?’ He reached into the holdall positioned at his feet. He had been prepared for weeks, had packed the bag himself, following online guides and NCT photocopies scrupulously, then adding flourishes of his own. He knew Nina inside out. Her nose wrinkled at the unsavoury thought. Rob took her expression to be a refusal and withdrew his hand from the bag to resume stroking their child’s back.
It took Nina a few moments to register that she was crying. She sniffed and rubbed at her nose with the back of a shaking hand.
Rob looked up. ‘Hey. Hey, what’s up?’
Nina shook her head. She waved a hand to mean: all this.