The Voices Read Online Free PDF Page A

noise?’
    The engineer raised his hands, offering his ignorance to the heavens as well as his employer. ‘I have no idea.’
    Although Christopher went to bed early he didn’t fall asleep. The heat of the day seemed to be trapped in the house and he could not make himself comfortable. Timbers creaked and the baby monitor hissed in the darkness. Very occasionally Faye would snuffle or cough, but she didn’t wake. When Christopher heard the sound of anapproaching vehicle he hoped that it was Laura returning from the talk she’d attended in Islington. The engine fell silent and a car door slammed shut. Good, Christopher thought. It’s her. The wideness of the bed had unsettled him. Other sounds preceded her arrival: her key in the lock, the latch chain being secured, her footsteps on the stairs; a toilet flushing and then water flowing through the pipes. The door opened and Laura crept in.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Christopher said. ‘I’m still awake.’ Laura slipped beneath the quilt and Christopher embraced her naked body. ‘How was it?’
    ‘Interesting,’ she replied. She spoke a little about a couple of the women she had met. One of them was a psychotherapist, the other a garden designer.
    ‘Did you get the designer’s number?’ Christopher asked. ‘We’ve got to do something about the garden soon. It’s getting like a wilderness.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Laura, ‘I got her number.’ And then, after a lengthy pause, she added, ‘I might join a readers’ group. The shop has one that meets every fortnight.’
    ‘OK,’ Christopher replied, laying his palm on her stomach. She had put on a little more weight recently. Not much, but enough to cause a revision of the contents of her wardrobe. She used to wear tight jumpers and T-shirts, garments that emphasized her slender form,but she was now much more likely to throw on a smock. Christopher supposed that she had become self-conscious, which was ridiculous, he thought, because it would take more than a few additional pounds to ruin her figure. Her graceful transit across a room never failed to stop conversations and attract interest.
    Laura’s body seemed to be giving up its scents to the night: the lavender of her soap, the lacquer in her hair, the musk of her perfume, all of the sweet-smelling lotions and creams that she assiduously rubbed into her skin. Christopher’s hand moved over the fleshy contours of Laura’s abdomen and it came to rest between her thighs. His index finger curled into her and he began a gentle oscillation that eventually elicited a moan of pleasure.
    Their lovemaking was slow, not merely because of the heat, but because slowness (a slowness close to lethargy) had become almost second nature. A miscarriage following Laura’s first pregnancy had made them overly cautious when making love and the habit had stuck. Although Laura responded to Christopher’s initial caresses, she quickly lost interest. She became inert, detached. There was no mutuality or reciprocation. It made Christopher feel as if he were pursuing his pleasure alone. When it was over, Christopher extricated himself, somewhat inelegantly, and rolled over onto his back.
    A police siren sounded in the distance.
    Christopher felt disappointed. It hadn’t always been like this. Sex used to be meaningful, imaginative and fulfilling. Since Faye’s birth, however, Laura’s desire for intimacy had dwindled. Where there had once been a great torrent of libidinous energy, there was now only a thin, miserly trickle. She never showed any enthusiasm. Their infrequent couplings were rarely protracted and Laura’s forbearance was clearly dutiful, a spousal obligation that could be discharged along with the childcare, cooking and cleaning. Laura’s sexual disengagement was only one part of a general torpor that made her seem distant. When Christopher spoke to her, he was never quite sure that she was listening.
    It was all so ironic, because Laura had built her modelling career