When Max called I hadn’t heard the sound of his voice for five years. I hung up immediately and then cried. I don’t know what happened to me. I hadn’t cried like that for years. He rang again a few minutes later but I didn’t answer. He left a message and I listened to it many times over, crying the whole time. The sound of his voice hurt. It was a sound from another life. Another age. Like the sound of history. Something gone forever, returning. It frightened me. The sound itself, and the power the sound had over me.
I was in Helen and Malcolm’s flat when he called. Which I was thankful for. The calm white cleanliness of it. I could have been anywhere – on the street, in the arms of a lover, at the office. But I was alone. More alone than I had been for many years. And it had been good, this time alone. A quiet time with just me and Helen’s words.
But now I couldn’t stop crying.
I blame the timing of the call. Helen’s writing had done something to me. She had been leading me to memories I would normally avoid. Asking things of me I’d prefer unasked.
I read her books, and I knew what I was up against. This was writing. I read the two battered paperbacks of her previous novels Malcolm had found for me before I read the physical manuscript of the first version of her new work. And yes, Clarissa and Malcolm had been right. The new manuscript wasn’t the work of the Helen Owen they knew. But then Helen’s agent and Maxine had been right, too. It was good. In the way I had grown used to using the word good. It would sell. It might even win some of the accolades ordinary writers win.
Her older writing, however; that was something altogether different. As were the second and third versions of the new novel. Brilliant didn’t cover it. The final version was sublime. But they wouldn’t recoup the money Maxine had given her. Only the first version could do that. The novel Helen and Malcolm didn’t want published.
I should have let Julia know a manuscript with sales potential existed. She would have been relieved to hear it. Yet I didn’t. I had been ignoring her calls and emails. I couldn’t say why exactly, but it was definitely a Helen and Malcolm thing.
After the call from Max I realised I had been haunted by him this past week while living in the flat. Malcolm and Helen reminded me of Max. Helen’s writing reminded me of Max. And the books did, too. Second-hand. Everywhere. And their cups of tea and their talk. The quiet in the house. The sound of people reading. The sound of people writing. The sound of thought. They were all reminders of Max. But I gave him no direct thought until that phone call.
Then he was everywhere.
I couldn’t read or think. I took a shower and dressed. I tied my hair back and put on some makeup. My eyes were still puffy from crying. In jeans, T-shirt and trainers, I left the flat and walked to the tube. It was cooler than I thought and I hugged myself as I went, crossing the street to catch some sun. I needed to spend some money. It was my one antidote to Max thoughts.
I love spending money. Love it. I love having money. So much money I don’t have to worry. I understand why Helen doesn’t want to lose the house. After a lifetime of worrying about money she was enjoying the pleasures of material comfort. Max and Malcolm could live without it, Helen and I couldn’t. Max never understood what money meant to me. He said my love of mammon was my one great flaw. He didn’t appreciate my need for fine things. When I spent £500 on a rug, or £100 on some wine glasses he was shocked to his core. It offended him. When I started to make money from Liam’s books he was as suspicious as Malcolm was of Helen’s good fortune.
Spending money now served to banish Max from my mind. Shopping was something we never did together. The boutiques I entered on New Bond Street were as far from the world of Max, Helen and Malcolm as I could go. I spent thousands in a few hours and took a cab back to my Chelsea studio. I couldn’t bear going back to Helen and Malcolm.
The cleaners had just been and the studio smelt of citrus and bleach. It might have been a hotel room or a rented apartment. I had never lived there for more than a few days at a time. It was my post box and a very expensive storage unit, really. Some of my clothes and a few mementos from my life before I had fucked everything up were in sealed boxes in the wardrobe. After Max threw me out, I never went back. I left everything – furniture, photos, clothes, paintings, books. Not that he wanted them. He had wanted nothing from me. He left the apartment, too. It was mine, after all. Yes, he threw me out of my own flat. Then it was empty, but for my stuff. It remained as it was for a year. Untouched. A Miss Havisham’s without a Miss Havisham. I eventually asked Alan to sell it all for me. That’s when the boxes turned up. Alan had gone through my stuff and chosen items he knew would be dear to me. They weren’t. That’s why they’re still in the boxes.
I’ve owned the studio for years. Before this place there was the flat I shared with Max. Before that, I lived on campus. Before that boarding school. Before that, when I was very young, a number of different houses. I don’t have fond memories of any of those. My parents are great at marriage, bad at families.
I have always much preferred other people’s homes. While at boarding school I would always make sure I’d be invited to holiday with friends, and my mother and father would make no effort to stop me. I went to my parents as seldom as possible. I wouldn’t know where to start making a home of my own.
Even Liam’s ‘office’ is more of a home to me than this place. If I know Liam and Gail are travelling, I move into the office. It’s a one-bedroom apartment in Vauxhall overlooking the Thames. Liam and Gail bought it in the first flush of his success, although they now live on a grand estate in Surrey. I often stay over in the office, after Liam goes home to Gail. The place is layered. The original style is all Gail, the furniture and decorations. But since she handed it over to Liam and his work, the place has been altered. The living room is an office. A big desk dominates the space, with the whiteboard on wheels we use to plot his novels. There is a large printer, too. Liam likes to bind his drafts. So they read like a book, not a manuscript. They look like cheap rip-off paperbacks. The apartment is very much a workspace. And there are books everywhere. Liam is forever researching his novels. He loves detail. He is obsessed with new technologies. With weaponry. With history and politics. If I have a home at the moment, it’s that place.
I took my phone out of my handbag and played Max’s message again. Amy, it’s Max. I need to speak to you. A work thing. Call me back. No tears this time. I replayed it again. I still love the sound of his voice. He used to read to me when we were together. We’d lie in bed for hours and he would read to me. It was usually something he was reading. I didn’t care. What mattered was the sound of his voice and that he was mine and that he loved me so much. I listened to the message again. The tears had stopped but I felt empty. After hearing his voice the studio seemed even more desolate to me. And I was desolate, too.
For four years Max had been the only home I needed.