Page 2 of The Tapes
It’s only now that vague memories swirl of Mum sitting at the dining table with a cassette player and microphone. I’d forgotten that there was a time in which she used to record her thoughts as some sort of diary. Like everything as a child, people assume your mum and dad are normal and everyone else’s are strange. It’s only now I realise most grown-ups weren’t sitting down to record themselves.
I think I even remember the caravan park: not from the year on the tape, but we visited the same place every August until the early-nineties. There’s a clear memory of being six or seven, complaining about Mum dragging me up a hill, or round a lake on one of those trips. She was always more outdoorsy, while Dad would sit by himself and read the paper.
Dad’s garage still needs clearing but I’m almost paralysed by the box of tapes. Almost all sleeves have identical type, with the month and year. Everything’s out of order but there’s a couple from the early 1980s, before I was born; then a good half-dozen from the 1990s. Even as the world shifted to CDs, Mum was apparently recording the earliest of podcasts for an audience of only herself. I find myself wondering whether she ever listenedback to the recordings, or if it was simply a way of getting the thoughts from her head.
I almost return the lid to the box. This is something for another day.
Almost.
Because tucked at the bottom of a row is a cassette that doesn’t have a month and date. Instead, there’s one simple word.
Eve
My name written by Mum’s hand. Another shiver rips through me and, before I know it, the tape is in the player. There’s that gentlethunkof the microphone being picked up, and then:
This is my second go at this. My name is Angela and I’ve been murdered…
…
…
Well, I think I’m going to be murdered.
…
…
I don’t know. It’s just… I don’t think I’m a good person. I did something. I’ve done lots of things…’
There’s a crackle and a click that makes me wince, then the voice cuts to something different. Mum is there again but her voice is younger, happier.
‘Can you count to three, Eve? We start with one, don’t we? One…’
I listen to a me of the ancient past repeatone-two-threein time after my mother, as she calls me clever. She says I’m going to grow up to be an astronaut or a brain surgeon, except I’m still frozen from the first part. I rest a finger on the stop button, ready to rewind and listen again, except there’s another crackle and click.
‘… if this is Eve listening, I just want you to know I’m sorry. If they say I’m missing, I’m not. I’ve been killed – and I need you to know that I love you.’
TWO
I can’t stop shivering, even though the day is warm. When I stop the tape and press rewind, the machine squeals. The mechanism swirls until there’s a harsh click when the cassette reaches the beginning.
The second listen makes slightly more sense than the first, though not by a lot. Mum must’ve recorded me as a child. My babbling, chirpy voice is there as she tries to teach me to count. I must’ve been two or three at the time. Except, at some point, she tried to record over our little lesson. Perhaps because of the quality of the tape, or any number of other technical reasons I don’t understand, her attempt was only partially successful. There was some sort of cross-contamination between timelines.
That’s not all, of course.
‘I think I’m going to be murdered… I don’t think I’m a good person. I did something. I’ve done lots of things… if they say I’m missing, I’m not. I’ve been killed.’
Shedisappearedthirteen years ago. Except… was sheactuallymurdered? Was she predicting the future? When did she record this?
And what does she mean when she says she did something?
I listen a third time as Mum’s voice intertwines with the infant me. It’s been such a long time since cassettes were part of my life that I can’t fully remember how they work. There was definitely a thing where you could sometimes hear what was on the other side if the tape itself got damaged.
‘…I need you to know that I love you.’
I should be focusing on the other stuff, I know, yet I rewind the tape a few seconds, and then press play to hear it again, then again. Five times in a row. Ten.
It’s been so long since I heard her voice.
