But I don’t stop at Grace’s on the way home this time. I keep driving. Keep my hands on the wheel, my foot on the pedal. I turn up the music. Up, up, up. The song is so lovely, isn’t it? It really transports you. I float above my seat. Literally. Surely because the music is so uplifting. Judy singing about being happy. Poor Judy who was mostly so sad. Who wouldn’t levitate to hear Judy sing? What did Paul once say to me about Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”？ That it sounded like the happiness that can only come after great sorrow, great pain. Judy is my “Ode to Joy.” “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” is a happy roar all around me now. I turn it up higher. Not only because I love it but because lately there’s been this other sound I’ve been hearing. Scares me a little, if I’m honest, but I’ve really been too busy, far too busy, to deal with it. At first, I wasn’t even sure, was it even a sound? Was I even hearing something? It was so very slight. Far away and close at the same time. Underneath everything, like a hum. Could you call it music? You could call it an underneath music. I wasn’t even sure if it was outside or if it was inside. Could it be inside? Surely it was outside, I told myself, and I forgot all about it, there was so much to do. But no, no it was inside. Definitely inside. Inside me somewhere. Something like a drone. A drone? No, that doesn’t even make sense but, yes, a drone. In my skull. Surely my head doesn’t have a skull anymore. My head feels far too light for a skull. I’m hearing it now. Just under this song like a bass, but it’s not a bass sound. More like the music has a lower floor, a basement that Judy’s “Zing!” doesn’t know about. Dark and unfinished. Full of boilers. Dread is the word that comes to mind. Dread, dread, dread. I see the word in my mind as black stones. But I don’t fill with dread. At all, at all. I put my fingers on the dial and turn up the volume. I drown it out with Judy’s joy, which really can’t be any louder.
I think of the toe tapping of the three men. And I look into my rearview mirror, just to check. Just to see if anyone’s behind me, back there on the road, following me. I’m doing that lately. Just checking, just looking behind me. Nothing ever back there. Nothing back there now. Just some dark dawn. That’s good. Because lately there’s been this feeling, along with the noise, along with the hum inside, I feel it on the back of my neck, raising the small hairs there. Of eyes. Of watching. Being watched. Who’s watching me? Never anyone when I turn my head. Never anyone even when I turn all the way round. Again and again and again.
Professor Fitch, did you lose something? they ask me when I do this in rehearsal.
Lose? I say. I haven’t lost.
Professor Fitch, are you looking for something?
Nothing. No one.
The only problem with this feeling, the feeling of eyes watching me, following me, dogging me, is that no sound can drown it out. Not even Judy cranked all the way up. It’s always there. On the nape of my neck. Making the hairs stand on end, the skin prickle. Making me drive a little faster now. My foot pressing down on the pedal. My hands gripping the wheel.
Look at that, I’ve driven past my house. I’m heading somewhere. Where am I heading? Only my hands and my feet know. Where? I ask them. But they just keep driving, driving. I can feel the wound smiling on my shin. I open my window to feel the spring night on my face. So lovely. To hear the roar of the cold wind.
It appears that I’m driving to the ocean. Right to the water’s edge. To the cliff’s edge. Of course I came here. To hear and see the waves, which surely along with Judy’s joy will drown the sound right out. No one will follow me here. I leave the car door open, I leave the music on, my feet walk me right into the cold crashing water. I gasp, dress billowing. Not with pain. Sorry, Goldfish. Sorry, Hugo. Only pleasure here. So sharp I shudder with it. Because the cold is so delicious on my skin. The wound sings from the salt. It doesn’t burn, it sings. I skim the water with my fingers. How long has it been, really, since I’ve gone for a swim? Been in the ocean? I watch the red poppies swell all around me in the dark water. The crashing ocean looks to me like a field of flowers. A scent rises up. You’d think what with the black waves and the blowing wind, and Judy’s voice floating to me from the open car door, that the hum would be gone. But the hum is now a roar. Just the waves, I tell myself. The black waves. And no eyes on me here, though I feel them still. On the back of my neck. Although where could there be eyes here? I turn around and around and around to be sure. No eyes.