The Invisible Ones (28 page)

That’s when I see her. Walking up the road toward me in her black,
shiny coat, unmistakable as always, even a street’s length away. Sharper somehow and more definite than other people, as she always was. And now there are other people around—cars, too, released from their spell. Sounds return to normal levels. She’s on her own. I want to run, I want her to run, but neither of us do. She sees me and doesn’t break stride or falter or betray any shock whatsoever. I stand there by the lights as though I’ve grown roots.

She smiles a slightly weird smile.

“Hello, Ray.”

“Hello.”

It’s so annoying. It’s so unfair. I’m not even stalking her. I haven’t thought about her since the phone call to Lulu. For three whole hours. And now my heart has turned over and is cowering in my chest, because of some straight black hair, some purple eyeshadow; because she is Jen, my wife, and there never was anyone else.

“How are you?”

“All right. Yeah. Just . . . going to meet someone.”

I hadn’t meant to say anything, but I don’t seem to have control over my words.

“O-oh?”

She opens her eyes wide and weights the word, which makes her sound artificially interested and bright. Maybe she is jealous, after all. Maybe . . .

“I’ve been meaning to ring you, actually. My lawyer keeps calling me. Will you sign the papers?”

“Oh, God, yes . . . I’d . . .”

The divorce papers, of course. Jealous? What was I thinking?

“It’s been such a long time, Ray.”

I nod. Of course. I know it’s been a long time. I’ve felt every minute of it.

“Yeah. Sure, I’ll do it.”

I smile, or something like it. Really I want to throw up.

“Okay, well . . . Good to see you. You look . . . good.”

“Thanks. You, too . . .”

She walks on, her coat flashing in the sun, and turns the corner by Boots. Then she crosses the road and disappears into the post-shopping crowds. She doesn’t look back once. Not once.

How do I know? How do you think? Because I follow her. It takes me almost a minute to regain my balance when I finally come to my senses and stop, walking into a shop to lose myself.

I am dull and awkward all through dinner. If Lulu finds this puzzling after my earlier persistence, she doesn’t say so. I apologize, once before we order, once during the starter, and a third time over the steak, for being tired—I say I haven’t slept much in the last three days.

She says, “Makes two of us.”

There is a prawn cocktail in a pink sauce, and steak with another type of sauce, and white wine with the prawns and red wine with the steak, but I don’t taste much of anything. I do a terrible thing, the thing you should never do: I look at the woman sitting opposite me—the complicated, patient, generous, secretive woman on the other side of the table— and compare her to my soon-to-be-ex-wife. And these are the wretched, mean-minded things I think: she’s not as fashionable as Jen, not as well educated, not as tall. Undoubtedly, as a carer, she doesn’t earn as much. She’s not as forthright. She’s not as good-looking, if I’m objective. Of course she isn’t; she is herself. I should be ashamed. I am.

She seems to have made an effort. There is a subtle blackberry glint in her hair. She is wearing the shiny black boots with high heels. A pencil skirt that shows off her slim waist. Is this friendship dressing? I wonder if she considered the red shoes—rejected them because they are for him?

There is so much I don’t know about her; I don’t understand the first thing. So I try. I ask about her childhood, but she is reticent, as if sensing a certain forced note. I try to recapture the feeling I had earlier: I was so excited about meeting her. I was happy. This is what I wanted.
What I want. I take a deep breath; try to remember the perfume, the mother-of-pearl.

“So how long have you been working for this guy in Richmond?”

“David? Oh, about two years.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. It’s a good job, for what it is. After an old people’s home, you know . . . Sometimes I get a bit hacked off with his mother. She’s quite posh and, you know, used to bossing people about. But she’s wonderful with him, really. She gave up her job and everything . . .”

Her voice trails off, distracted. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed. Someone’s fork scrapes loudly against a plate: it’s mine.

“I don’t think I told you where I work.”

I don’t dare look up. I stall, chewing. I could lie. It would be fifty-fifty.

Maybe I could pull it off. But after what I have concluded, how could I be a person who lies? If I have regard for this woman, if I want to have any future with her—or with anyone—surely I have to tell the truth. Liars always get found out in the end.

“None of my family know where I work. Who I work for.”

She is frowning, the double crease appearing in her forehead. “Is this what you do? Find out all about the people you question? Is this part of your . . . investigations?”

She doesn’t actually seem that angry about it. But if I agreed now, that would be a lie, too.

“No. Um. Well, sometimes it is. But not in your case. You’re not a suspect or anything. I wanted to know more about you because I like you, and I . . . I followed you once, to Richmond.”

I’ve drunk only a glass and a half of wine. Tonight, it acts as a truth serum.

Lulu looks astonished, as well she might, as if she’s trying to make up her mind whether to be outraged or . . . or what? Flattered? Hardly.

“You followed me to Richmond? When?”

“Er, a couple of weeks ago.”

She swallows with a jerk of her head, as though her throat has closed up with disgust.

“Why didn’t you just ask me where I worked?”

I’m taken aback. Why did that never occur to me?

“I don’t know. Because . . . because it’s what I do, I suppose. I’m used to it.”

A shadow crosses her face.

“And what did you do when you got there?”

I could lie. I could lie. But then I’d be a liar.

“I . . . saw you go into the house.”

There’s still time to back out. Still time to salvage something from the evening—my reputation, perhaps. Her dignity. A future.

“I got out of the car, went round into the back garden, and watched you for a while.”

Her face is, if that’s possible, whiter than ever. Her tongue flickers over her lips as if she’s desperate for water.

“And what did you see?”

My throat is strangely tense and hard. Perhaps my voice won’t come out, and I’ll have an excuse.

I could say nothing.

I could say, “Nothing.”

“I saw . . . you and a man in a wheelchair in a sitting room. With a fire going. An older woman—I assumed his mother—coming in and going out. You were wearing red high-heeled shoes. I noticed you’d had them mended. The soles, I mean. And . . . I saw you on the chair—with him.”

She looks past me, frozen.

“And then I left.”

She leans back in her chair—away from me—her face closing up, eyes like needles. Her cheekbones sharpen. Everything becomes pinched. I think she’s trying not to cry. Oh, please, God, I think. I will be destroyed if she cries.

Her voice comes out like the rasp of a saw.

“Why did you ask me here tonight? Why are you telling me this? If you’re such a fucking pervert, why tell me about it? Does that give you a kick, too?”

I shake my head. One of the things about telling the truth—you are desperate to be believed.

“No, it doesn’t. I was curious about what you do. I wasn’t expecting . . . I like you. I really like you. It was because of that, and I . . . I’m really sorry; it was stupid and wrong. I don’t want to lie to you. I will never lie to you.”

She gets up, scraping back her chair, pressing her lips firmly down on her horror or her disgust, whatever it is she is feeling. I am despondent, but no more so than earlier. In fact, if anything, less.

“You’re so full of shit! What gives you the right to spy on me? You’re the big detective, so you can do whatever you like? You think you’re God, poking your nose in where you have no business? You think you have the fucking right?”

She spits the words out. I have never heard her enunciate so clearly.

I open my mouth, meaning to say no, but I can’t in all honesty deny it. Instead, I say, “It was my birthday.”

Her mouth stops open in the act of drawing breath. She laughs a little, a jerky, graceless explosion of disbelief.

“You need help.”

“Yes. I expect so.”

A waiter hovers in the background, frozen with horrified curiosity. Neither of us says anything for I don’t know how long. Incredibly, she doesn’t continue to go. Incredibly, she sits down again. And with that, she wins.

She picks up her glass and takes a big swallow of wine. Then she picks up her bag and takes out cigarettes and a lighter. I watch, not daring to say anything else, wondering what’s coming next. The waiter collects our plates, eyes firmly on the table.

“So . . . what did you think, when you saw us?”

“I don’t know. No, I do. I was disappointed . . . No, yes, hurt.”

She stares at me through the smoke.

“You thought it was a service he pays for?”

“No! No. I was jealous. And ashamed. Mainly jealous.”

She seems to think about this for a minute.

“Not surprised?”

“Yes. Although . . . I’d never thought about it before. He’s . . . still a handsome guy.”

“ ‘Still a handsome guy’? Yeah. A rich one, too. Rich . . . helpless, isn’t that what you mean?”

“I don’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

Not lying is hard. I’m not sure what was in my mind that night. “Nothing about you is what I expected.”

She rolls her eyes at that, shakes her head. She smokes in silence for a minute, and then she grinds the cigarette out in the cut-glass ashtray. A waiter brings our dessert.

“I’d like to tell you something else. About the investigation. About Rose. Something has come up, partly due to your help. We may have found something. Nothing definite at the moment, but . . .”

“Really? Is she all right?”

“Where she disappeared . . . human remains have been found.”

Lulu’s eyes grow enormous. Her hand goes to her throat.

“And they’re hers?”

“We don’t know yet. It’s possible. It’s . . . We’ll find out soon enough.” She is obviously deeply shocked. She shakes her head slightly and shifts in her chair. Miserably, she says, “Why are you telling me?”

“I don’t know, really. I feel I owe you something. That’s all I have to give, at the moment.”

“I don’t believe it. I don’t.” She means Rose. She means her family, killing her. And then, “You mean at the Black Patch? It was there?”

We sit in silence for a couple minutes. Neither of us touches our dessert, even though it’s included. I’m exhausted. I want to crawl into a corner under a table and lie down. I shouldn’t have told her anything, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Why tell me? Am I supposed to tell my nephew about this now? Tell Tene? God . . .”

I shake my head.

“I’m not trying to put you in a difficult position. I can see that I have. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking very clearly at the moment.”

“But you don’t know that it is her, do you? You don’t know anything yet.”

“No.”

“It could be anyone. Someone . . . else.”

“Yes.”

“When will you know?”

“They can’t say.”

“Oh.”

She pulls herself together and glares at me.

“You can’t leave me with this. I don’t know what to do. You have to go and tell them as soon as possible. I can’t have this on my mind. I can’t.”

“All right. I’ll go tomorrow. I’ll tell them.”

“First thing. Promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

It’s not what I planned, but then, why not? After all, what else can I do, other than wait?

“As I said, we don’t know anything for sure. The . . . remains could have been there twenty years, not six. It could be anyone.”

“But it could be her. That’s what you think.”

The sadness I feel now is as acute as the happiness I felt on the London Road a few hours earlier. All around us, the other diners seem to feel it and bow their heads, crushed under the weight of my fumbling, stupid melancholy. The waiters are hushed and mournful, gliding about with downcast eyes. The crêpe suzette wilts on our plates. It knows it wasn’t wanted. As we’re waiting for the bill, I gather the nerve for one more outrage.
After all, I probably won’t get another chance. I don’t think I have anything left to lose.

“Can I ask you something?”

She squints at me over the cigarette she is in the process of lighting. “Isn’t that always a stupid question?”

“Yes. You don’t have to answer. Are you happy with him?”

She sucks in some smoke, waits for a minute, then it reappears slowly, transformed, like magic, like smoke from her fiery core. How I envy smokers; they have built-in excuses for stalling. Her eyes are far, far away—in the past? In the future? With him? Then they snap back to me.

“You’ve got a fucking nerve.”

Outside the restaurant, she says, apparently genuinely curious, “What brought on this . . . honesty? I don’t remember what I said.”

“Lying hurts people.”

“The truth hurts people, too, I assure you.”

I asked for that.

“Okay, yes . . . but . . . only when it follows lies. Lying does the damage. At least . . . it did to me.”

“Oh. Hence the divorce?”

“I suppose so. My ex-wife lied to me. She had her reasons, I know, but . . . it nearly killed me.”

“Really?”

She peers at me with a wary, sardonic interest, as if I am a new, pathetic species of creature, unfit for this harsh world.

“My ex-husband lied to me. I nearly killed him.”

37.

JJ

I’ve never spent even one night locked up in bricks and mortar like this. It’s horrible. It makes me want to scream. Okay, so there was the stable, but it wasn’t like a proper building. It still felt thin; noises and air and the smells of rain and earth passed in and out. Not like a house. Not like this hospital, with its endless corridors and double-glazed windows that look like they never open—like being sealed inside a giant vacuum that’s running out of air.