"My name is Roger and I wonder—"
"Porne."
"I wonder what number I've called."
"Ours. Porne."
That was the name in the directory, but Speke suspected that he had inadvertently keyed the numbers which perhaps, for an instant too brief for him to have been conscious of it, had been visible through the line of ink. "Don't I know you?" he said.
"Where from?"
"From in here," Speke said, tapping his forehead and baring his teeth at the screen, where his grin appeared as a whitish line like an exposed bone in the midst of a pale blur. "I expect you wish you could see my face."
"Why, what are you doing with it?"
Speke stuffed the topmost form into the edges of the screen, because each flicker seemed to render his reflection less like his. "Don't you think that your name says a lot?" he said.
"What do you mean by that, young man?"
"You're a woman, aren't you? But not as old as you want me to think."
"How dare you! Let me speak to your supervisor!"
"How did you know I've got one? You gave yourself away there, didn't you? And since when has it been an insult to tell a woman she isn't as old as she seems? Sounds to me as if you've got something to hide, Mrs or Miss."
"Why, you young—"
"Not so young. Not so old either. Same age as you, as a matter of fact, as if you didn't know."
"Who do you imagine you're talking to? Charles, come here and speak to this, this—"
"It's Charles now, is it? Too posh for that ape," Speke said, and fitted the handset into its niche while he read the next number. He fastened his gaze on the digits and touch-typed them on the handset, and lifted the form with which he had covered the screen. His grin was still there amid the restless flickering; the sight made him feel as though a mask had been clipped to his face. He let the page fall, and a voice which felt closer than his ear to him said "Posing."
"Who is?"
"This is Miss Posing speaking."
"Why do you keep answering the phone with just a name? Do you really expect me to believe anyone has names like those?"
"Who is this?"
"You already asked me that two calls ago. Or are you asking if I know who you are? Belum—"
Mrs Shillingsworth was staring at him. He hadn't realised he was speaking loud enough for her to overhear, even if his was the only voice he could hear in the crowded room. The panic which overwhelmed him seemed to flood into his past, so that he was immediately convinced that every voice he'd spoken to on the phone was the same voice, not just tonight but earlier— how much earlier, he would rather not think. "Thanks anyway," he said at the top of his voice, both to assure Mrs Shillingsworth that nothing was wrong and to blot out the chorus around him, which had apparently begun to chant "I'm speaking" in unison. The only voice he wanted to hear, was desperate to hear, was Stef's. He couldn't remember the number. He stared at the flickering line of black ink while he thumbed through the wad of corners. As soon as he'd glimpsed the number, which now he saw was in the same position as the line of ink, he let the directory fall back to the page from which he was meant to be working. He pulled a form towards him and poised his pen above it as he typed the digits, resisting the urge to grin at Mrs Shillingsworth to persuade her this wasn't a private call. He had barely entered the number when the closest voice so far said "S & V Studios."
"Stef?"
"Hang on." As the voice receded from the earpiece it seemed to retreat into Speke's skull. "Vanessa, is Stefanie still here?"
"Just gone."
"Just gone, apparently. Is there a message?"
"I've already got it," Speke said through his fixed grin.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're forgetting to disguise your voice," Speke said and, dropping the handset into its niche, leaned on it until he felt it was secure. "I'm speaking," said a voice, then another. All the screens around him appeared to be flickering in unison, taking their time from the pulse of the line of black ink on the page in front of him. He shoved himself backwards, his chair colliding with the desk behind him, and was on his feet before Mrs. Shillingsworth looked up. He didn't trust himself to speak; he waggled his fingers at his crotch to indicate that he was heading for the toilet. As soon as the door of the long room closed behind him he dashed out of the building to his car.
He drove home so fast that the figures on the pavements seemed to merge like the frames of a film. He parked as close to the entrance as he could and sprinted the few yards, his shadows sprouting out of him. He wasn't conscious of the number he keyed, but it opened the door. The lift displayed each floor to him, and he wished he'd thought to count them, because when he lurched out of the box it seemed to him that the room numbers in the corridors were too high. He threw himself between the closing doors and jabbed the button for his floor, and the doors shook open; he was on the right level after all. He floundered into the corridor, unlocked his door, and stumbled into the dark which it closed in with him. He was rushing blindly to the bar when the doorbell rang behind him. He raced back and bumped into the door, yelling "Yes?"
"Me."
Speke shoved his eye against the spyhole. Outside was a doll with Stef's face on its swollen head. "Haven't you got your kum?" he shouted. "Can't you see I've got my hands full? Didn't you see me flashing my lights when you were driving? I've been right behind you for the last I don't know how long."
"I saw some flickering in the mirror" Speke seemed to recall.
"That was me. Well, are you going to open the door or don't you want to see my face?"
"That's a strange way to put it," Speke said and found himself backing away from a fear that he would be letting in the doll with her face on its bulbous outsize head. He wasn't fast enough. His hand reached out and turned the latch, and there was Stef, posing with armfuls of groceries against the blank backdrop of the corridor. He grabbed the bags from her and dumped them in the kitchen, then he fled to the bar. "Drink," he heard his voice say, and fed himself a mouthful from the nearest bottle before switching on the light and calling "Drink?"
She didn't come for it. He traced her to the kitchen by the order in which the lights came on. "Have something to eat if you're going to drink," she said as she accepted the glass. "It's in the microwave."
The sight on the screen of the microwave oven of a plastic container rotating on the turntable like some new kind of record sent him back to the bar. He was still there when Stef switched on the main light in the room and wheeled the trolley in. "Roger, what's—"
He interrupted her so as not to be told that something was wrong. "Who's called Lesley where you work?"
"Leslie's one of the sound men. You've heard me mention him."
"Sound, is he, and that's all?" Speke mused, and raised his voice. "How about Vanessa?"
"Roger..."
"Not Roger, Vanessa."
Stef loaded his plate with vegetarian pasta and gazed at him until he took it. "You told me there was no such name before some writer made it up."
"There is now."
"Not where I work."
Speke's voice appeared to have deserted him. He made appreciative noises through mouthfuls of pasta while he tried to think what to say. By the time Stef brought the ice cream he was well into his second bottle of wine, and it no longer seemed important to recall what he'd been attempting to grasp. Indeed, he couldn't understand why she kept looking concerned for him.
He'd taken his expansive contentment to bed when a thought began to flicker in his skull. "Stef?"
"I'm asleep."
"Of course you aren't," he said, rearing up over her to make sure. "You said we agreed. Who? Who are we?"