Free A Voice in the Distance by Tabitha Suzuma Page A

rest my forehead
against the wet intercom. Harry's voice crackles out.
'Yep?'
    'Let me in. It's Flynn.'
    Brief hesitation. 'Uh – just hold on a sec.'
    'For fuck sake!' I kick the door. 'Just let me in, will
you?'
    'OK, OK.' The buzzer sounds and I shove open the
door and go up the stairs.
    Harry is standing in the doorway. 'She's not here, you
know.'
    I glare at him. 'I don't believe you.'
    He sighs wearily and holds open the door. 'You can
come and search the flat if you want to. I think she's still
at uni. Doesn't she have lectures till five on a Thursday?'
    I stop and think. 'Oh yeah. Shit.'
    'You may as well come in,' Harry says. 'Coffee?'
    'OK.' We go into the kitchen. Harry puts the kettle
on.
    I run my hands through my hair and look around to
see if any of Jennah's things are still here. 'So, is she
planning on sleeping here again tonight?'
    'I've no idea,' Harry says.
    'What, she didn't tell you anything? She didn't tell
you if she was coming back here or not?'
    Harry sits down at the table. 'I didn't see her this
morning, Flynn. I had a lesson at ten and by the time I
got home, she'd left.' He looks at me. 'Sit down, man,
you look rough. Do you want something to eat?'
    'No. She must have given you some idea—'
    'Look, I really don't know,' Harry says, getting up to
pour the coffee. 'Have you tried her mobile?'
    'Obviously! It's been off all day!'
    'Well then, she's still in lectures,' Harry says. 'Or . . .'
He hesitates.
    'What?' I challenge him.
    'Or she doesn't want to speak to you.' He glances at
me nervously. 'Probably she's still in lectures.'
    'Why wouldn't she want to speak to me?' I demand.
    'I dunno, Flynn. She seemed pretty upset last
night.'
    'We had a fight ,' I say. 'That's what couples do . Shit
happens! She needs to learn to deal with it.'
    'Right.' Harry sets down a mug of coffee in front of
me, infuriatingly calm. 'One bit of advice though –
don't say that to her.'
    I take an angry gulp of coffee, scalding my tongue.
'Did she sleep here last night?'
    'You know she did—'
    'What did she say ?'
    'Nothing. Just that you'd had a row.'
    'Why did she have to spend the night here? Why
couldn't she spend the night at home? Why did she have
to come running to you and Kate, for Christ's sake? How
are we supposed to resolve our differences if she won't
even talk about them?'
    'Maybe she just wanted a little space.' Harry holds up
his hands. 'Hey. I'm not acting as go-between here. Jen's
a mate – if you'd needed a bed for the night I'd have
done the same for you. My guess is she's on her way
home now. So go and sort it out. But for God's sake,
calm down and stop shouting.'
    I finish my coffee in silence. Harry is looking at me
with an expression similar to Professor Kaiser's. It
irritates the hell out of me.
    I stop off at the supermarket on the way home. I figure
one way of saying sorry might be by cooking dinner. I
stagger down the narrow hallway under the weight of
the bags and find Jennah curled up on the sofa.
    'Hello.'
    'Hi.' She glances at me fleetingly. She is watching TV,
an unreadable expression on her face.
    I dump the bags in the kitchen, pull out the bunch of
roses I picked up from the florist at the end of the road,
and go back into the living room.
    'These are to say sorry.'
    She gives me a long look. Fights a smile. 'Oh,
Flynn . . .'
    'I was a bastard.'
    'You really were,' she agrees, taking the flowers
from me and laying them down on the coffee
table. 'And that's not like you.' She kneels up and
puts her arms round me. 'What's going on with you?'
    I give an embarrassed shrug. 'Nothing. I was just
cranky.'
    'Cranky, huh?' She begins to laugh. 'That's the word
for it. God, you were like a bear with a sore head! I don't
know how we're ever going to persuade Harry to
practise the trio with us again.'
    'We will.' I squint down at her. 'Am I allowed a kiss?'
    'I'm considering it . . .'
    'If I cook dinner?'
    She gives in with a smile.
    The thought of dinner only comes back to me sometime
later