A Voice in the Distance Read Online Free PDF Page A

us a
break, Flynn came over to the platform and handed me
my sandwich. We chatted for a few minutes but he
didn't really hang around for long because the two
other soloists were with us, and Flynn is funny around
people he doesn't know.
    This evening, Harry comes round to work on the
Aesthetics and Criticism essay we both have to write.
Flynn has an evening lesson with Professor Kaiser, the
infamous German piano maestro at the Royal College.
The lesson is only meant to last an hour but usually runs
into two or three and so I am glad to have Harry to
spend the evening with. Unlike Flynn, I don't do the
solitary thing too well. And Harry is like the brother I
never had. I put on the pasta while he sits at the kitchen
table and sifts through the hundreds of scrawled notes I
seem to have amassed.
    'You've got enough for three essays here, Jen.'
    'Yes, but most of it is probably irrelevant. You know
how Professor Meyers likes to drone on and on.' I join
him at the table and we get to work, passing books and
notes back and forth, occasionally reading a sentence
aloud to each other to see how it sounds. Harry types his
essay straight onto his laptop while I scribble it all out
onto pages and pages of lined paper. The stove makes a
loud sizzling sound as the water boils over. I drain the
pasta, shake a bottle of sauce into it, and Harry and I
each take a fork and eat it straight out of the saucepan.
Cooking has never been my strong point. After a couple
more hours of academic drudgery I make some coffee.
I have only managed a thousand words and Harry even
less. The essay is due in at nine a.m. tomorrow. Looks
like it's going to be a long night.
    Sometime around ten, Flynn comes in, cheeks pink
from the night air, hair damp from the rain.
    'How was the lesson?' I ask him.
    'Great!' He kisses me hard, his hand freezing against
my face. His mouth tastes of beer.
    'Have you been to the pub?' I ask in surprise.
    'Yeah! Met up with André and Bertie. André came
second in the Chopin competition. Wanted to drown
his sorrows.'
    'Why didn't you enter the Chopin competition?'
Harry asks.
    'Don't like Chopin.' Flynn throws open the fridge
and begins scavenging for food. 'Are you two still working
on that essay? You're so boring.' He takes out some
eggs and starts making himself an omelette, still wearing
his coat. He puts the bowl on top of my pile of papers
and starts greasing the pan right next to Harry's laptop.
'Why don't you just write the same essay? One of you
could write the first half and the other could write the
second half.'
    'I think Meyers might notice if we hand in two
identical essays,' Harry says drily, leafing through An Anatomy of Musical Criticism . I start rewriting a clumsy
sentence for the fourth time.
    'They'd hardly be identical! Not with all your spelling
mistakes!' Flynn starts to laugh.
    I look up at Flynn in surprise. Harry is mildly
dyslexic, and although it has never been a big deal, I
have never heard Flynn make a joke of it before. Harry
just shakes his head good-naturedly and moves his
laptop out of harm's way as Flynn starts to grate cheese
energetically onto a plate. Soon, more than the plate is
covered. I pick bits of cheese off the open pages of the
library books. 'Couldn't you do that on the counter?'
    As Flynn starts whisking the eggs, we move over to the
living room to grind on with our essays. Flynn joins us to
eat his omelette but turns on the television so loud we
have to ask him to turn it down. He seems restless,
practising at the keyboard, then vacuuming the flat,
finally climbing onto the back of the sofa, bouncing a
tennis ball annoyingly over our heads against the
opposite wall. It is an effort to stop myself from
snapping.
    'What was that quote from Authenticity and Early Music ?' Harry asks me as the tennis ball thuds against
the wall behind us. 'Something about the critical issues
raised by period instruments . . . I wrote it down somewhere
and now I've lost it . . .' He shifts wearily