Thieving Fear

'That's because I didn't hear.' Rory yanked the headphones lower on his ears and felt more shut in than ever. 'Didn't answer what?' he supposed he had to learn.

'What you were asked,' a flat distant female voice said.

'I told you I couldn't hear you.'

'I didn't ask you anything.' As Rory decided she'd lost any right to politeness she added 'Eunice from Holmfirth did.'

'She rang off.'

'I'm sure we'd all still like to hear what you care about,' Sabyasachi said.

'Plenty.' Rory might have been more specific if he hadn't needed to say 'What?'

'Not books, Brenda said. You don't destroy them if you care about them,' the presenter added, possibly quoting the caller. 'You'll be thinking of his piece called Read, or was it Read?'

'It was both. Pronounce it how you like, and I didn't destroy anything.'

'Hold on for a minute, Brenda,' Sabyasachi said as a technician wearing a grey wool cap over her ears removed Rory's headphones and donned them. 'Hearing me?' the presenter said.

'Like you're in my head. Nothing up with these.'

As she boxed Rory in with the headphones Sabyasachi said 'Just fixing a glitch, Brenda. He's all yours.'

'Sounds pretty destructive to me, drowning War and Peace in an aquarium.'

If anything her voice seemed to have receded, inflaming Rory's frustration. 'Did you see it for yourself? Some people said it changed how they thought about books.'

'I wouldn't waste my time, but my sister saw your other silly business with the wheelchair.'

'That would be Age,' Sabyasachi supplied.

'Age isn't that senseless, and if it ever is he oughtn't to be making fun. Another fish tank with a wheelchair going rusty in the water.'

'It was the most talked-about piece in the exhibition,' Rory felt defensive for saying.

'I'll bet you couldn't broadcast what they said. You don't like criticism much, do you? Shouldn't it make you look again like you keep telling the rest of us to?'

'I do it all the time.' After a pause clogged with silence Rory said 'Is she still there?'

'I think you scared her off.' Sabyasachi patted the air, though Rory hadn't been conscious of shouting. 'Next up is Hugh from Huddersfield,' the presenter said. 'Have you a question for Rory Lucas, Hugh?'

'Where do you get your ideas?'

The voice was so faint that Rory wasn't sure he'd identified it. The invisibility of the caller made him feel as if the failure of one sense had robbed him of another. The sight of the pale boxy room didn't improve matters, nor did Sabyasachi's professionally expectant face. Rory tried closing his eyes, but not for long. 'Wherever other people don't,' he retorted while his lids sprang open as if he were fleeing a nightmare.

'Can't you say where, Rory?' It was indeed his brother, who appeared to think he could help by adding 'Your thing with the tins, didn't you get that from someone working in a supermarket?'

Rory was distracted by the notion that straining his ears had brought him more than Hugh. 'I'm taking all the blame,' he said.

'But didn't you say putting tins on the shelves was a kind of art too?'

Rory couldn't judge whether Hugh aimed to make his brother's work more accessible and populist or was hoping for some kind of acknowledgment. 'That's the truth,' he said.

'Then do you think –' Hugh seemed distracted, perhaps by an ill-defined sound. 'Do you think your things you've been talking about could be about the family?'

'You'll have to tell me how.' This was meant to dismiss the idea rather than invite an explanation, and Rory didn't wait for one. 'Are you at work?'

'No, at the house. Why?'

'I thought someone was calling you.'

'Weren't they saying our name at your end?'

Rory felt bound to say to Sabyasachi 'In case you're wondering, we're brothers.'

'Nothing wrong with family. Hugh, how are you saying Rory's work is about them? Is that including you?'

'I –' Hugh faltered, perhaps from embarrassment. 'I'm at Frugo,' he admitted, 'and our cousin looks after old people and the other one does publishing.'

'Tins and age and books,' the presenter said. 'Well, Rory, it sounds as if you secretly care about something.'

Rory didn't want to claim this as a reason to appreciate his work. 'Are you still hearing that, Hugh?'

'I can't,' Sabyasachi said. 'Have you any more insights for us, Hugh?'

'He's always been artistic.' Hugh's voice had begun to fall short of its intentions before he said 'Rory, I think I still can.'

'We'll need to say goodbye if you've got a crossed line.'

'Hold on,' Rory said and cupped his hands over the headphones. 'Do you want me to come and see you, Hugh?'

'No, you stay there. It's publicity.'

'When I'm done, I mean. You don't sound quite right to me.'

'Nothing's up at all. You ought to find out what they've done to your thing with the tins.'

'If you aren't talking about his work there are callers who want to.'

'I'll come and visit soon and we can go out for a meal or a drink,' Hugh said and was gone.

'Hugh there from Huddersfield speaking up for the family, and now we have Alf from Netherthong. What's your point, Alf?'

Rory watched more than heard Sabyasachi say all this. If there was another voice in the headphones, it sounded buried deep. Only the presenter's expectant look told Rory the caller had finished. 'What did he say?' he was reduced to asking.

Sabyasachi gazed at him before murmuring or mouthing 'You had to get your brother to come to your defence.'

'That's bollocks. I didn't know he was ringing up.'

Sabyasachi patted the air again as if cuffing a child, which left Rory's senses feeling even less reliable. 'Thanks, Alf, and now it's Daphne from Heckmondwike.'

Any voice was so muted that Rory couldn't even identify it as female. Perhaps he was hearing less than a voice inside his head – nothing but the echo of his name. When he grew aware of the presenter's waiting gaze he had no idea how loud he demanded 'What is it this time?'

'You don't seem to want to hear anything you don't like.'

'You're saying that or she is?' When Sabyasachi raised his eyebrows and his upturned hands Rory said 'It's bollocks either way.'

The presenter used both hands to tamp the air down. 'Be as lively as you like, but can you keep an eye on the language?'

The prospect of being restricted still further made Rory's brain feel shrunken. He snatched off the headphones but refrained from slamming them on the ledge in front of him. 'I talk how I talk, like I work how I work.'

'Daphne says that's almost a poem. Maybe you should try your hand at that.'

'Everyone should. Everyone's an artist. You just need to open up your senses.'

Sabyasachi touched his left headphone, apparently to indicate that he was reciting the call. 'In that case why do we need you.'

'You don't,' Rory said and walked out of the studio.

'A final bit of controversy there from concept artist Rory Lucas,' Sabyasachi said through the speaker above the receptionist, who gave Rory a pink smile bordering on straight-lipped. 'Yo Yorkshire! This is the Sabya Show every weekday afternoon on Moorland Radio. My next guest will be Prue Walker, great-grandmother and founder of Wrinkles Against Racism . . .'

As Rory left the concrete building, which was so featureless it might almost have been designed to deny perception any hold, he saw the Frugo supermarket across the business park. If Hugh had been at work Rory could have looked in on him. Perhaps he'd found a girl at last, hence his reluctance to be visited. Unlike Rory, he hadn't discovered that he didn't need them.

Six lanes of traffic were racing back and forth across the moor under a blue sky and flocks of giant clouds. Rory climbed into the aR tSeVe rYwh eRe van and drove onto the motorway, where drivers peered at the letters stencilled on the sides and rear doors of the vehicle before signifying comprehension with an enlightened grin or an aggravated scowl. As he headed west, sunlight flooded across slopes aglow with heather, and someone else might have fancied it was celebrating his approach. Once the motorway began a protracted descent into a valley he saw Can Do on the horizon.