at first martin found that he was not listening to her words , still slightly bemused by the whole procedure - it reminded him of watching the draw for the fa cup in his youth , when balls , representing the names of the football teams still in the competition , were manually drawn from an old cloth sack , partly it had the suspenseful nature of a seance - but as the one note of silvias voice took on a more insistent , mesmerising quality , martin allowed himself to be carried along by her incantations .