Quiver

“Mezzo-soprano slipping into contralto on every syllable beginning with F. Hot, very hot.”

I should have known then.

QUIN

The next morning I’m up at ten for the first time in four years. Hair runs in the family on both sides. I need a shave. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but today I want to feel smooth, just in case. I shake a razor blade clean of foam and slowly begin.

A beam of sunlight travels across the sink and my hands, bouncing off the water. It gets me thinking about God, the cosmos and the harmonics between C and C sharp. A high electronic frequency makes me shake my head. Perhaps it’s a new frequency, one of limbo, of all those souls caught between material and spiritual worlds. Even the very name of the shaving foam seems mystical. I forget what I’m doing and cut myself. The thick welling of blood reminds me of my mortality. Not that I’m religious. What hope do I have with a Catholic father and a Jewish mother? I only believe in impulse. The power, the flesh. The only part of the Bible I remember is: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

It’s my personal philosophy: Being only came into existence once it had been given a tone. Naming was important, but already it had the constructs of culture imposed. I am heard, therefore I exist.

MACK

He told me they had their first meeting in the State Library. Sick. I mean what are you going to get up to in a large stone mausoleum? But then it is kind of kinky. All that whispering and toes under the table. I mean, h

ey, whatever turns you on. I know someone who even had a orgy in a deep freeze. Now that’s perverse.

QUIN

I like it in here, especially in summer when the cold air off the stone hits you as you walk in from the sun. But now it’s winter.

I’m waiting at a table, newspapers scattered in front of me. I am sick with nerves, like my cool has evaporated. For the first time in my life I feel, well, vulnerable. I have asked her to say my name out loud. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

When I close my eyes now and visualize that moment, I see myself sitting there in my good blue shirt and black jeans. I’m little, like I’ve shrunk under the skin. Fear did this. I am frightened of rejection. All around me half-caught whispered phrases like “Sarah’s graduating next year. She’s pregnant, haven’t you heard?” “We’ve got the mortgage to pay off and Tom still hasn’t got a job” bounce off the walls and fall into my lap. Insidious, empty sounds.

I’m drumming my fingers, a little march of wood. A woman walks past in a tailored suit. This babe is on a mission. Tall, brunette, breasts visible under the blazer. Her high heels ricochet from wall to wall; “speak to me,” taps the refrain from my fingers. She moves closer, trailing her fingers across a shelf of encyclopedias.

I can smell her perfume, fruity with an edge of spice. Speak to me, speak to me. She walks right past, oblivious. I shrink further into myself. I am a shadowy ghost-man, hazy around the edges.

“Quin?”

Music. The beating of angel wings, the sound of a fountain, heat across the throat. I swing around. A woman stands just behind me. Solid, middle-aged with a body that has made a comfortable pact with gravity. White skin, a nest of jet-black hair piled on top of her head. Everything is buried except her eyes, which are undeniably beautiful.

“Quin?”

The voice has me nodding like a somnambulist. She steps forward. Her hands, I notice, are remnants of a past glory.

“I’m Felicity.”

Drowning in the last tone, I clasp her wrist with all the wisdom of a dead man.

FELICITY

He drove me back to his house. I remember pulling up outside and trying not to be disappointed. The house was a decrepit terrace with faded curtains drawn across the windows. We didn’t say anything, we didn’t need to. There are those rare moments when one just knows.

Suddenly I’m frightened. Here I am, standing in this dingy room with its leather couch and second-hand rug, in front of this tall, dark, young man. A total stranger. Maybe it’s menopause, a flash of hormonal madness. In an instant my survival instinct shakes itself awake. I turn to leave, but then he moves, and nothing else matters.

He puts on a Shirley Bassey record and asks me to sing. I’m so nervous I think I’m going to throw up.

I haven’t sung in years. I used to sing when I was in my early twenties, in a jazz club. That’s when I met Adrian, my husband. Safe, secure, predictable. He’s so—dry. He just doesn’t excite me anymore. Actually I wonder whether he ever excited me.

Sing, Quin keeps telling me. What have I got to lose? My marriage? My dignity? Adrian would kill me if he could see me now.

I open my mouth and surprise myself with a perfect C. It fills the room like light. He closes his eyes. There’s an ecstasy about him as he breathes the music through his skin, his very cells.

QUIN

She’s singing my life, in tempo, underscoring it with the sadness, the loneliness, the great unspoken epic. I can’t stop my body from moving. I am transported beyond the mundane. She is singing up all my dreams. All my forgotten memories. Even with my eyes closed, I can see the color of each tone: red shooting through yellow, black clashing into purple. I don’t need to touch her, I could come now, just from the pitch of her voice sliding up and down the octaves.