Bob sighed. He slumped in the office chair.
'Usually there's more than one voice. Sometimes there's three or four. Sometimes half a dozen. Sometimes, there's twenty of them.
Twenty distinct voices. They're temperamental and sarcastic.
Sometimes they manifest at different speeds. Sometimes they talk gibberish. But on this tape, this entire tape, there is only one voice.'
'Shut up,' said Nathan.
'What are we going to do?'
'I'm not joking. Shut the fuck up.'
Bob pressed Play. Nathan heard it plainly. A young woman, clear and crisp behind the hiss, like someone shouting from the edge of the sea.
Bob! I'm here!
Nathan waited until he had some control over his voice and said, 'Bob, if you don't get a grip on yourself, this is all going to fall apart.
All right?'
'Don't kid yourself
'Kid myself what?'
'That it's not her.'
'Fuck you.'
Nathan was running before he reached the bedsit door. He sprinted up the stairs and ran on to the street. And he was panting and wheezing and had a stitch in his side when finally, a long way away, a taxi finally stopped to pick him up, and take him back to work.
He sat through the meeting without making a contribution. When the meeting was over, Justin automatically invited Nathan to an afternoon meeting in the Cricketer's Arms.
Nathan said yes.
They sat in the pub. It was almost empty. A scrawny, prematurely wizened barman with baby-soft hair served them drinks at the table, Justin being a precious slow-time regular. Nathan ordered a double whisky with his lager. When the drinks arrived, he downed the whisky and ordered a second.
Justin laid a hand on his shoulder.
'What's wrong?'
Nathan sipped lager. 'What's the worst thing you've ever done?'
Justin pretended to think. 'I was best man once, for an old school friend. I shagged the bride the night before the wedding.'
'That's pretty bad,' said Nathan, not believing him.
'And I shagged her on the morning of it. She was wearing her bridal underwear, and her dress was all laid out on the bed. The full wedding cake. One of the white ones.'
'Did you get caught?'
'No. You don't want to worry about that. I had the bride's mother the same day, just after the speeches. I didn't really fancy her. It was for the thrill, you know?'
Nathan took a long draught of his beer.
'So, it's possible to do something you regret, and get away with it.' 'If you do it with enough style, nobody will ever know.'
Nathan stared at him with sadness where the incredulity should be. He happened to know that Justin had been impotent for many years. He knew because Justin's wife had used his impotence as a pretext to attempt the seduction of several members of staff-and once, Nathan himself. Two or three of them had obliged her in the back of company Mondeos or in wine-bar toilets. Nathan hadn't.
Justin never got away with anything. He just thought he did. And yet, here he was. Still here, long after he should be gone.
'So,' said Nathan. 'What's your secret?'
'Never sleep with anybody who has less to lose than you do.'
Nathan pondered the wisdom of this, then drained his pint and raised his hand to order another.
Justin said, 'So who is she?'
'Who's who?'
'Your guilty secret.'
'Nobody.'
'You can tell me. You know how good I am at keeping secrets.'
Nathan knew exactly that.
'It's nothing like that.'
'It's always something like that. You wouldn't be human otherwise.'
They
stayed in the pub for hours. Justin seemed to think of it as a special occasion and, after the fourth pint, he ordered a bottle of champagne.
He spent a long time talking about office politics. And he kept asking who she was. Nathan maintained that she was nobody.
When Nathan got home, he was drunk. Holly was watching television in bed. She watched from the corner of her eye as he fell over, trying to get out of his trousers. When he leaned over the bed to kiss her, she turned her face away. She got up to visit the bathroom, and when she came back she was wearing a nightdress.
He woke, as he always did when he'd been drinking, in the early hours of the morning, badly needing to piss. But he lay curled on his side, the duvet clutched over his head, trying to sleep.
In the morning, he said, 'I'm sorry.'
She said 'Fine, whatever,' and stomped downstairs. Halfway down, she paused, saying: 'You could've called.'
'I know. I'm sorry.'
'I don't care what you do. I just want to know that you're okay. I just want to hear your voice.'
Nathan sat on the bed. Yesterday's clothes, reeking of smoke and beer, lay in a pile beside it. He wanted to burn them.
30
In Nathan's pigeonhole that morning was a tatty buff envelope.
Because PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL had been scrawled across it in red ink, Angela hadn't opened it for him - she'd placed it on top of his other post, internal and external.
Sometimes, people were offended by one of Hermes' cartoonish and lewd greetings cards. The complaints often came in envelopes like this.
He opened the envelope and unfolded the letter inside.
DearN
Naturally I understand your reaction.
Here are some transcripts of further conversations. At all times, only a single voice (1) appears on the tape. I should reiterate how unusual that is.
Tape 1, Monday, 12 am
Duration: 17 minutes
Bob, I'm here
you bastard (Jew bastard?)
cold here
Tape 1, Monday, 3.40 pm
Duration: 9 minutes
didn't get there
Bob!
Tape 1, Tuesday, 7 pm
