I thought I’d forgotten her. I was wrong.
Three tapes. One chance to hear her again.
#26. Mothers’ Voice
Part One
It’s arrived.
I run downstairs to the ding-dong, but when I open the door there’s nobody there – just the parcel, proffered to the front step, and a breeze cutting through the stiff summer afternoon.
The package is huge, but when I pick it up it’s as light as air. It feels almost empty. I draw a line along the duct tape with scissors, revealing its polystyrene guts.
Something catches my eye. A flash of silver. It’s a USB stick, tiny and perfect, hidden amongst the white packing peanuts. I excavate it and marvel at its lightness in my hand. Somewhere on this artefact could be my mother’s voice.
She died when I was eleven. I don’t remember much about my life before that crisp morning, one Saturday in March. When I try, all I can grasp is a whirling void where a mother should be. In place of love, comfort, reassurance, simply one endless nothing. If only I can hear her voice, perhaps I could connect with her again; perhaps I could feel something in that space where warmth should be.
My dad had given me three TDK MC60 voicemail cassettes. Like relics from another life, they stirred memories of his office, the answering machine stacked next to a leather-bound Filofax stuffed full of names and addresses in spidery black ink; summer holidays spent playing Pokémon Blue on a chunky grey Gameboy. I’d sent the tapes to a media preservation company for digitisation. ‘Laugh and cry to see and hear old times and old faces brought to life,’ read the website.
One of the tapes is blank, it says. My heart drops: my chances have been cut from three to two.
And when I load up the USB stick, there’s only one audio file on there.
This has to be perfect. It’s sacred. Outside, tinny pop music wafts up from the neighbour’s stereo. Downstairs, Sonny is babbling happily. I sequester myself away in a room on the other side of the house. It’s Sonny’s bedroom, so the blinds are drawn, making it dark and cool. A painting of my mum’s – of my favourite childhood toy, Tigger – watches from the shelf. I place headphones in my ears, inhale deeply, and open the file.
I receive a blast of heavy static from the 20-year-old magnetic tape. I can make out voices, buried under the snow. It’s my father, hesitant.
‘Hi. If you leave a message, I’ll get back to you.’
If it’s just him, my mum is probably not on here. I keep listening.
An unknown male speaks. ‘Thanks for your help. I think it’s been very useful. I’ll raise it with John when I see him. Goodbye.’
More static. A beep. My dad again.
‘We need to find the SFP for it to connect into the IMN.’
‘Yeah that makes perfect sense,’ replies another man’s voice. He sounds posh, and my dad’s mirroring it. He’s probably a client. ‘You’ve got one of the kids sick? Patrick’s not well? It goes around doesn’t it. Particularly when you’re a one-parent family, you’ve got to be there.’
‘Tell me about it.’ My dad sounds sad, deflated. It’s obviously soon after she’s died. He changes the subject without a beat, and they continue discussing the SFP and the IMN.
The conversation is swept away by static. The doot-doots-doots of a mobile signal. A robotic female voice (‘THE TIME ANNOUNCEMENT, IS OFF.’). Static. Click. End.
She’s not there. She’s never been there. I’m trying to claw at a ghost, slipping through my fingers. This was a stupid exercise. I feel even emptier than when I started. At least then I had the hope of hearing her voice. She was so close. In the anticipation, I could almost hear her. Now, there’s nothing.
Well, I think, she’s definitely still dead.
And that’s that.
I wonder if I turn the volume up really loud, I’ll be able to hear her trace, taped over.
And the digitisation company only gave me information about two tapes, even though I sent them three. Maybe they missed one. Or maybe my dad has some more tapes somewhere.
Maybe. Maybe.
Part Two
I was looking for a scarf when I found it, tucked away amongst the bric-a-brac of a wardrobe’s bottom shelf. Another cassette. The last one my dad had given me, separate to the first clutch of three, discovered by chance himself hiding between some old paper files in his office.
Another £80, another week’s wait, but soon enough…
It’s arrived.
I’m nervous. I get everything perfect again. The room’s too messy. My mind’s too busy. Not yet, not yet. I’m not ready. But I’ll never be ready. I press ‘play’.
There’s a voice. A woman’s voice, unfamiliar at first. It’s formal but working class, nurturing; it has twinges of my sister, but older. It’s her. It’s my mother. My mum! A smile starts to melt across my face. Mum! It’s pure warmth. Pure joy.
‘I’m sorry, we’re not available at the moment, but if you’d like to leave a message after the long tone, then either Peter or Sandra will get back to you. Thank you!’
Tears push their way up into my face. I can’t help it. I miss her so much. I never realised how much! I never thought I cared, but I do, I do. There is no reasoning with the tears; I can’t work out why I’m crying or how to stop them, they just come and come.
I push it deep down, back inside where it belongs, and get back to the stiffness I’m used to, the grey safety of please and excuse me and ‘Fine thanks, how about you?’
But part of me has changed. Within the whirling void, a tiny candle, flickering.
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