The Infinity Groove

He had dug deep. At least that was what he had told himself. The needle had dropped onto the grooved surface of the record, and the ghost of the voice could be heard. At this point in his life, the voices were increasingly hard to hear as anything but ghosts. Most were gone; he could name-check the singers, the bands, the solo artists, the duos.

When he was young, they were present. Of course, there had been those who had sung and flown like modern Greek gods, and had been appropriately reduced to ashes. Too garish, too explosive, and sometimes, oh so rarely, simply too gifted.

But now it was different. It had started without a hint of being noticed. At first, it would be an almost casual newspaper note that the singer of a favourite song had died in a car crash or a freak accident. And soon, as he noticed his life slipping into another gear, it would be cancer or a heart attack that would take them from the now.

This continued for a decade or more. He could mostly ignore the narrative. He told himself it was ordinary. And then he realised that the pace was increasing; his childhood gods, his teenage heroes, were slipping into what he realised was old age. It was an adjustment. They were all at least a generation before, and that was understandable.

It really is a cliché, but life does have a habit of creeping up on you when you’re busy doing other things. It all only hit home, truly home, when it was a voice of his time, his generation, suddenly up and died. It’s hard to put it more subtly than that; it just was. One day, all was present and accounted for, and the next moment, one of them was silent. It was a little hard to ignore.

He gave it his best shot, explained it away. These things happen; there are always pitfalls and speed humps, not everyone gets out alive. And most importantly, they all lived in the far more rarefied air of The Other. His world was not of that place. When he was younger, he had secretly dreamed that somehow he’d find a magical key to unlock that world, but it was not to be.

And now, at this point in his life, when he did dig deep and search for a living link, it had become almost elusive. Their numbers were thinning out, and those he had thought young were approaching seventy. How does one suddenly find oneself to be seventy? It seemed a strange thing, a very strange thing indeed.

The record had revolved to the end, and the needle sat on the infinity groove. He didn’t pay attention to the soft crackle; he was searching. Flicking through the covers, he stopped at a bright cover from his youth. A fresh face smiled up at him. He smiled back and pulled the record from the stack. As he slid the vinyl from the cover, he noted how it looked as new as the day it had been pressed, as untouched as the girl’s face on the cover. As youthful as his own face had been when he’d handed the crumpled dollars over the counter to make the record and the voice his own.

The voice stopped time; records have a habit of doing that. He turned the volume up ever so slightly and crossed the room to the kitchen. The coffee had just started to bubble on the stove. He poured two cups, one with sugar, both with milk. The morning sun filtered through the thin curtains and caught the specks of dust that twinkled in the light.

She was lying on the bed, stretched out, her legs in the sun. He placed the coffee cup beside her on the bedside table. He couldn’t quite see her face; it was facing away from the window and deep within her pillow. She was naked and on her stomach, one hand under the pillow, the other half hidden by her body. He gently and quietly pulled the sheet over her, covering her nakedness. Steam from the coffee rose in the air beside her.

He decided to take his coffee to the lounge. As he passed the stereo, he hesitated. The third song on side one was a favourite of hers. Should he turn it up a little, just for her? Instead, he lifted the needle and skipped to the next track. There would be other times to play that song, just not right now.

He sat in the chair; it was deep and enveloped him. He blew on his coffee and took a sip. He looked at his watch; it had already been half an hour. A long half hour. Longer than he could remember. He looked across the lounge room at the bedroom door and the silence beyond.

He looked at his watch again; not even a minute had passed since his last glance. For once in his life, time was going too slow. He quietly laughed at the irony of the thought and took another sip.

The record was coming to an end; he knew every track off by heart, just as she did. He put his cup down and stiffly rose from the chair. When did chairs become so deep, and so difficult to leave? He lifted the needle as the last song was beginning to fade out. With care, he turned the disc to side two and replaced the needle. The first song on side two came to life; it began with a whisper and barely got beyond that. God, he loved this song.

Maybe he should do a little tidying while he had a chance. He suspected the day would be busy, and it was bound to spin out of control before he knew it. Breakfast was unlikely, even though he knew he should eat something. He just wasn’t in the mood.

In the kitchen, he stood and stared out the window at the beautiful morning. The sun was warming the zinc of the apartment roofs, and looking down, the street was starting to fill with people, most on their way to Sunday morning café rendezvous. There was a definite bounce in the air, the sort that only a city like this on a Sunday morning could inspire.

On the sink, last night’s wineglasses and an ashtray were all that hinted at a good night had by the two of them. He glanced over his shoulder at the bedroom doorway and smiled to himself. It had been a fun night. Not quite one for the books, but definitely one he would remember.

He then realised that he hadn’t taken his morning meds. Reaching into the cupboard, he dropped a small assortment of white, orange, and red pills into his palm. No breakfast before the tablets; he shrugged. It wouldn’t matter just this once. He swallowed the pills and washed them down with lukewarm tap water.

When had it been, he thought, that medication had become part of his morning ritual? It hadn’t happened suddenly; maybe when he turned sixty it had begun, but now, ten years later, it was a handful every day. For her, it was even more, he thought as he looked at her collection on the cupboard shelf beside his. He closed the cupboard door.

He quietly glanced into the bedroom again. The sun was a little higher now and had slipped away from her sheet-covered legs; it now illuminated her underwear, dropped casually on the floor mat beside the bed. The pale blue silk framed and spotlighted, a reminder of last night.

In the lounge, the record had ended, unnoticed. He let it play out, not sure if he should or could put on another record. He glanced at his watch; it had been an hour. Surely that was too long. He sat again in the lounge chair and stared at the amateur painting they had bought at the flea market on a winter’s day when they were young. It had followed them from apartment to apartment and always made them laugh at its dubious quality.

With a sigh, he stood and crossed the room to the front door. Glancing at his watch again and noting the time for reassurance, he unsnibbed the door and opened it a crack. He didn’t want the sound of a loud knock to disturb the apartment. He flicked off the record player, leaving the disc sitting, mute, on the turntable. The dust would be drawn to its surface, but he didn’t care, not today.

Back in the chair, the silence broken only by the muffled noise from the street, he sat and listened. Finally, an hour and twenty minutes after he had made the call, he heard footsteps on the stairs. There were two sets, and there was the metallic sound of something else, something knocking against the steps and the rails.

A moment later, there was a soft knock, and the door was slowly pushed open. A woman and a man filled the doorway. They nodded, their eyes scanning the apartment. He nodded towards the bedroom door, and the woman crossed the space silently. The man approached him with a hand outstretched.

He stood and limply shook it. There were apologies and a few questions, none of which he remembered later. The woman returned and nodded to her colleague, who went into the bedroom with a bag and a clipboard. She looked at him, then embraced him; it was a gentle embrace, not quite tender, but not perfunctory either.

She asked if he needed a moment in the bedroom, a moment before they did what they had come to do. He nodded yes and almost whispered the word.

Her colleague returned and apologetically asked him to sign the form. It all seemed so simple and without fanfare. He signed and left the two of them in the lounge; they were busy with the stretcher.

The sun was higher now, the room a little darker. They had moved her; she was on her back, her arms beside her. The illusion of sleep gone. Her mouth and eyes closed, it was now another form of sleep. She looked content, just as she always had. He bent down beside the bed, one knee on her pale blue silk underwear. Her scent was on the sheets, a perfume she had worn as long as he had known her. He still didn’t know its name.

He held her hand for a moment. They had told him it was better if he removed her ring. Her hand was cold; the ring slid off easily. It had never been a tight fit. Too soon, they were at the door and, with an apology, squeezed in with the stretcher. He left the room and stood alone in the lounge.

A moment later, the three of them were gone, and it was just him in the apartment. Suddenly, it seemed far too large; there was too much room for one person. He had thought there would be more expected of him that day, but they had reassured him there was nothing he needed to do. There would be time during the week to make arrangements, just some minor formalities.

He turned to the record player, flipped the record back to side one, and carefully selected a track. It was her favourite. He’d play it one last time, just one last time.