The Glamour

I

I thought I had seen you first, but Niall was always quicker than me. He had said nothing, but the moment I noticed you he was aware of that.

He said, “Come on, let’s find another pub.”

“I want to stay here.”

It was a Saturday evening and the pub was crowded. All the tables were occupied, and many people stood in the spaces between, clustering around the bar itself. The room had a low ceiling, and cigarette smoke was thick in the air, blending with your cloud. If I had seen you earlier I had not actually noticed you, and in your seeming normality you had been paradoxically invisible to me.

I watched you from our table with all the fascination that like has for like. The woman you were with must have been a girlfriend, one you had not known long. You were trying to please her, making her laugh, paying her attention, but never touching her. She appeared to like you and smiled a lot, nodding whenever you spoke. She was a normal, and did not know what I already knew. In a sense I felt I already possessed a part of you, even though you were unaware of me. I felt predatory and excited, and waited for you to see me and recognize me.

Niall and I were both invisible that night, sitting at a small table just behind the main door, sharing it with two normals. They had not noticed us. Earlier, before I saw you, Niall and I had been arguing about his behavior. There was always something immature about him, and he had stolen a cigarette from the man’s packet and used his matches to light it. It was a petty, stupid thing to do, the sort of casual trick Niall played as a matter of habit. He also insisted on getting all the drinks at the bar, going behind the counter and helping himself. He knew that if I went for the drinks I would make myself temporarily visible, wait with everyone else, and pay for them. He always interpreted this, rightly, as a gesture of resistance to him, a way of showing that for me the glamour was a partial option.

Watching you, I was wondering if you would see me. You were wholly preoccupied with your girlfriend, though, and if you glanced around the bar you did so with general eyes, looking without seeing. I thought you were very handsome, very attractive.

Niall said, “He’s only incipiently glamorous, Susan. Don’t waste your time.”

I could not stop watching you, because it was that incipient quality that interested me. It seemed possible that you did not know, that you were only partially invisible. Your confidence in yourself was unlike any I had ever seen in an invisible, with the possible exception of Niall.

He was drinking heavily, and was pressing me to keep up with him. He relished drunkenness, lapsing into it like all the others. Sometimes when Niall was very drunk even I could barely see him. His cloud became dense, impenetrable, obscuring him.

I continued to stare at you. You were drinking moderately, obviously wanting to keep your wits about you, saving yourself for later in the evening when you would be alone with her. How I envied the woman you were with! Your cloud was thickening as the drink made you relax.

I said to Niall, “I’ll get the next round.”

Before he could argue I walked across to you and stood deliberately between you and your girlfriend, pretending to wait to be served by the bartender. You shifted your position to see around me, knowing subconsciously that I was there but failing to notice me. I was invisible to you, but standing so close I could feel my cloud mingling with yours, a deeply sensual imagining.

I moved away, satisfied for the moment, then went behind the counter to help myself to drinks. When I had poured them I put the money in the till, then carried the glasses back to our table.

“What were you doing, Susan?”

“I wanted to know if he could see me.”

“You took too long.”

“I’m just going to the Ladies’.”

I left him again, thinking of the dullness in his eyes after so many pints of beer. As I crossed the room I made myself become visible, and went into the Ladies’. When I came out I walked across to you and stood beside you. Now that I was visible I could barely see your cloud, but I was almost as close as before. Then you noticed me at last, and eased back slightly.

You said, “Sorry … are you trying to get to the bar?”

“No. It’s all right. I just wondered if you would have change for the cigarette machine?”

“The bar staff will change it for you.”

“Yes, but they’re busy at the moment.”

You reached into your pocket and brought out a handful of coins, but there were not enough to exchange for a pound. I smiled at you and walked away, knowing you had seen me properly. Still visible, I sat down next to Niall.

“Will you quit doing this, Susan?”

“I’m not doing anything wrong.”

I felt defiant. I was looking across the bar at you, hoping you would look in my direction. I was excited and nervous, feeling like a teenager again. For the first time since I had met him I did not feel intimidated by Niall. He always took me for granted, knowing that I disliked most of the other invisibles, that meeting a normal person was virtually impossible. But I had never made secret my wish for something better, and seeing you made me reckless.

I felt myself slipping back into invisibility, and as the change was completed Niall said, “Finish your drink. We’re leaving.”

“I’m going to stay a bit longer.”

“You’re wasting your time. He’s not one of us.”

Niall had already finished his drink and was anxious to get away and take me with him. He knew I often saw other men I found attractive, but because they were normals he felt safe from them. You were less clouded than any other invisible I had ever seen; Niall called you incipient, but I knew you simply weren’t aware of the glamour. You appeared to be integrated into the real world, and it was this that excited me.

I too was then only partially invisible, just under the surface of normality, able to rise to visibility if I made the effort. Niall had no such choice: he was deeply invisible, profoundly lost from the world of normal people, and so he would have known immediately what you represented to me. You were the next transitional stage.

Concentrating, I forced myself into visibility again, deliberately challenging him.

“Come on, Susan. We’re leaving.”

“You go,” I said. “I’m staying here.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“Then do what you like.”

“Don’t fuck around with me. There’s nothing you can do about him.”

“You’re just scared of me meeting someone else.”

“You can’t do it without me,” he said. “You’ll revert.”

I knew this was true, but stubbornly I refused to accept it. Only after meeting Niall had I perfected the technique of forming or unforming the cloud, and it was only when he was present that I could do it effortlessly. When I was alone, visibility was a constant strain and it always exhausted me. I knew that this was because my cloud had become linked with his; we had become interdependent, each of us holding on to the other long after we should have parted.

“I’m going to try anyway,” I said. “If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

“Fuck you!”

Niall stood up suddenly, clouting the edge of the table and slopping the drinks that were standing on it. The two people opposite looked at me in surprise, thinking I had done it. I muttered an apology and slid one of the cardboard beer coasters across to soak up the splashes. Niall had gone, shoving through the crowd; the people made way for him, stepping back automatically as he elbowed past. None of them reacted, none of them really noticed him.

I stayed visible when he had left, proving to myself that I could do it. While the emotional charge was in me I found it fairly easy to sustain. I had never stood up to Niall like this before, and was amazed at my determination to do so. I knew there would be reprisals from him eventually, but at that moment I hardly gave them a thought. You were more important.

I considered carefully what to do, then got up from the table with my drink and moved to stand in the crowd around you. Now you had turned so your back was toward the rest of the people in the pub, and you were leaning with both elbows on the bar, turning your head to speak to your girlfriend. Hovering around, almost within touching distance of you, I felt predatory again, as if moving in on a victim. Because you were so unaware of me you seemed defenseless, and this gave me an extra edge of guilty excitement. I could sense your cloud, pale and incomplete, drifting around you without shape. Tendrils of it seemed to waver toward me.

I waited, and then one of the bartenders rang the bell for closing time. Several people moved toward the counter to buy their last drinks but you talked on to your friend, absorbed by her.

Then she said something to you, and you nodded and turned to your drink. She moved away from the bar, pushing past me and heading toward the Ladies’. I stepped forward and touched your arm.

I said, “I know you, don’t I?”

You looked at me in surprise, then smiled. “Are you still looking for change?”

“No. It’s all right. I just thought I knew you.”

You shook your head slowly, and I saw in your face an expression I had sometimes seen in men when they meet a woman for the first time. It was curiosity mixed with a wish to be found interesting. I guessed that you knew many women, were always meeting more, and you did not always stay with the same one. This simple male reaction, in which you treated me as one more chance encounter with a member of the opposite sex, gave me a thrill I had not known before: you saw me as noninvisible, a normal.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” you said.

“You’re here with someone, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever come here on your own?”

“I could do.”

“I’ll be here next week. On Wednesday evening.”

“All right,” you said, and smiled. I backed away from you, feeling embarrassed by my brazenness. I had hardly known what I said, motivated only by the urgency of getting to know you better. I couldn’t imagine what you were thinking, approached by a stranger in a pub, a straightforward pickup. I walked through the crowd to the door, still visible, wanting to run away from you because of what I had said, yet at the same time hoping fervently that enough had indeed been said, that you would want to see me, that you would, if only out of curiosity, come to the pub again next week.

I went outside and stood in the street. I expected to find Niall waiting for me, but there was no sign of him. I breathed deeply, making myself calm down, letting myself revert naturally to invisibility. I could hear the noises from the pub: conversation, music, and the clink of glasses being collected. It was warm in the open air, because it was summer, but also, because it was London, a light drizzle was falling. I was tormented by the discovery of you, thrilled that you had treated me as normal, elated and yet wincing inside at the directness of my approach to you. I wondered if this was what normal people went through when they tried to meet someone.

The pub customers were leaving, sometimes in groups, sometimes in couples. I watched carefully for you, hoping there was no back exit from the pub so that I would miss you. I wanted to see you once more before you went away, in case we never met again. At last you appeared, walking with your friend and holding her hand. I followed you closely, hoping I would hear her say your name or that I would pick up some other clue about you.

You walked to a side street, and I saw you go to your car. I noticed that you held the passenger door open for her, and closed it gently when she was seated. When you were inside you kissed her before starting the engine.

As you drove away I memorized the number on the license plate, thinking that if I lost you it might help me find you again later.

II

I was born in a suburb of Manchester in the south of the city, close to the countryside of Cheshire. My parents were Scots, originally from the west coast, but they had lived for some time in Glasgow before moving farther south to England. My father worked as a payroll clerk in a large office near our house, and my mother did part-time work as a waitress. When I and my sister Rosemary were very young, she stayed at home to bring us up.

As far as I know or can remember, my childhood was normal with no hint of what I was to become. I was always the healthy one of the two girls, but my sister, three years older, was often ill. One of my clearest memories is of being told to be quiet, to tiptoe around the house so as not to disturb my sister. Silence became a habit, because I was not a rebel. I always wanted to please, and was, or tried to be, a model daughter, every mother’s dream. My sister, between illnesses, was the opposite: she was a tomboy, a risk taker, a noisy nuisance about the house. I cringed and crept, wishing not to be noticed. With hindsight, it seems that it might be part of a pattern, but at the time it was only one aspect of my personality. I did the normal things of childhood: I went to school, I made friends, I had birthdays and parties, I fell down and grazed my legs and arms, I learned to ride a bicycle, I wanted to own a pony, I pasted up photographs of popstar idols.

The change in me came with puberty, and it developed gradually. I cannot remember exactly when I was aware I was different from the other girls at school, but by the time I was fifteen a distinct pattern had emerged. My family took no notice of what I was doing; teachers at school usually ignored any contributions I tried to make in class. They were all aware of me, but as I grew older it took increasing effort to impose myself on my surroundings. One by one, I drifted away from my earlier friendships. I always did well in class, and my marks were generally good, but the term-end reports talked of average ability, quiet working, steady progress. The only school subject in which I excelled was art, and this was partly from an innate ability, and partly because the art mistress made a special effort to encourage me out of school hours.

All this sounds as if my teenage years were quiet and meek, but the opposite was the case. I discovered I could get away with bad behavior. I became a talented troublemaker in class, emitting rude sounds at teachers or throwing things across the room or playing stupid pranks on the other kids. I was almost always undetected, and used to enjoy the reactions to my misbehavior. I started to steal at school, petty objects of no value, just for the sheer kick of getting away with it. And yet for all this I remained an averagely popular girl, never close to anyone but accepted by everyone.

My growing invisibility became a danger to me. When I was fourteen I was knocked down by a car, the driver claiming he had not seen me on the pedestrian crossing. I came close to being badly burned one day at home when I was leaning against the mantelpiece over an unlit gas fire and my father came in and lit the fire without realizing I was there. I remember my feelings of disbelief as it happened, being sure that he was not going to do it; I just stood there while the flame popped into life, and my skirt caught fire. My father only realized I was there when I shouted and leaped away, beating at the smoldering cloth.

Because of these incidents, and others less serious, I developed a phobia about objects and people that could hurt me. Even now I hate walking in crowded streets, or crossing roads. Although I learned to drive a few years ago, I dislike driving because I can never throw off the uneasy feeling that my driving it will make the car itself become unnoticeable. I never swim in the sea, because if I got into difficulties I might not be able to make myself seen or heard; I am nervous on the Underground, in case I am jostled on a crowded platform; I haven’t ridden a bicycle since I was twelve; I’ve always steered clear of people carrying hot liquids since the time my mother spilled boiling tea on me.

Being unnoticed so much began to affect my health. Throughout my teens I was debilitated. I suffered one headache after another, fell asleep at inopportune moments, was prone to every infectious disease that went around. The family doctor attributed it all to “growing up,” or congenital susceptibility, but I now know the real cause was my unconscious attempt to stay visible. I wanted to be noticed, to be thought the same as everyone else, to live an ordinary life. The wish manifested itself by forcing me into visibility. Throughout those late school years I must always have been sliding into and out of invisibility, impinging in varying degrees on the people around me.

The only relief from this strain was solitude. During the long school holidays, and sometimes on weekends, I frequently went off by myself into the countryside. The suburbs were spreading out from the city, but even so it was only a short bus journey south, past Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, to a still undeveloped landscape of farmland and woods. Out there, away from the main roads, I could draw a quiet strength from being on my own, from not having to force myself to be noticed.

It was on one of these trips, when I was about sixteen, that I met Mrs. Quayle.

It was she who first saw me, and she who made the approach. I was only aware of a pleasant-looking middleaged woman walking along the lane toward me, a small dog running at her heels. We passed each other, smiled briefly as strangers sometimes do, and went on in our separate directions. I thought no more about her, but then her dog ran past me, and I realized she had turned around and was following behind.

We spoke, and the first words she said to me were, “Dear, do you know that you have glamours?”

Because she was smiling, and because she looked so ordinary, I felt no alarm, but I suppose that had I known what she was I would have been frightened and hurried away. Instead, the oddness of her question interested me and I walked along with her, chattering inanely about the countryside. I somehow never answered the question then, nor did she repeat it. She shared my love of the country, the wild flowers and the peacefulness, and that was enough. We came eventually to her house, a cottage set well back from the lane. She invited me in for a cup of tea.

Inside, the house was pleasant and well furnished, with central heating, a television set, a stereo, telephone, and other modern fittings. She sat down on the sofa to pour the tea, and her dog curled up beside her and went to sleep.

Then the conversation returned to where we had begun, and she askedme again about my “glamours.” Of course I had no idea what she was talking about, and being the age I was I said so. She asked me if I believed in magic, if I ever had strange dreams, if I could sometimes tell what other people were thinking. She had become intent, and this scared me. As soon as she saw me, she said, she had known that I was possessed of glamours, that I had psychic powers. Was I aware of this? Did I know anyone else like me?

I said I wanted to leave, and stood up. Her manner changed at once, and she apologized for frightening me. As I left she told me to call again if I wanted to know more, but outside in the lane I ran and ran, full of fears of her. The following week, though, I returned to her cottage, and over the next two years I made repeated visits to see her.

I now know that what Mrs. Quayle told me was only a part of the story, and that it was influenced by her own special interests. She once described herself as a psychic, but never fully explained. I sometimes thought she might be a witch, but was always too scared to ask. It was she, though, who awakened me to the true nature of my special condition, and who gave me some idea of the extent and limitations of inherent invisibility.

The glamours she had seen around me, she said, were a kind of psychic aura emitted by those in touch with natural powers. She told me that I could instinctively intensify or weaken this “cloud,” and within this projection from the astral plane my glamours could be worked. She told me of Madame Blavatsky, the spiritualist and Theosophist, who recorded many accounts of productions and vanishings through use of the cloud, and who claimed to be able to make herself invisible. Of the Ninja sect in medieval Japan, who made themselves invisible to their enemies by use of deception and distraction. Of Aleister Crowley, who declared invisibility a simple doctrine, one he claimed to have proved by parading around the streets in a scarlet robe and golden crown while no one noticed him. And of the novelist Bulwer Lytton, who believed himself capable of invisibility and tried to surprise his friends by moving among them before revealing himself. She taught me folklore, such as collecting the spores of ferns, possession of which was supposed to impart invisibility.

I only half believed what she told me, even then. I knew I was not psychic, that I was incapable of magic, but Mrs. Quayle would admit of no other possibility. Because I knew no better I accepted that at least some of it was true.

It was Mrs. Quayle who showed me, with a mirror, that I was invisible.

I had always been able to see myself in mirrors because I looked for myself, as everybody does, and in looking I noticed and saw. But one day Mrs. Quayle tricked me, placing a mirror in an unexpected position beyond a door and following me as I walked toward it. Before I realized what it was I saw the reflection of her behind me, and for two or three seconds, while I wondered at what I was seeing, I noticed no reflection of myself. Then I saw, and understood at last: I was not invisible in the sense that I was transparent, or that I could not be seen, but that the cloud somehow obscured me, made me difficult to be noticed. The effect was the same, explaining to me why most people reacted as if I were not there.

Mrs. Quayle could always see me, even when I was invisible to others—even, that time with the mirror, when I was briefly invisible to myself. She was a funny, singleminded woman, plain and ordinary in every way but the one she claimed. She was a widow, living alone, surrounded by prosaic snapshots of her family, by artefacts of the modern consumer society, by souvenirs of Italy and Spain. Her son was in the Merchant Navy, both her daughters were married and lived in another part of the country. She was a practical, down-to-earth woman who helped me a lot, and who filled my head with ideas and gave me a vocabulary for what I am and for what I can do. We became friends in an odd, unequal way, but she died suddenly, of angina, a few months before I moved to live in London.

My meetings with her were occasional, and sometimes separated by several months. I was finishing at school during the time I knew her, creeping almost unnoticed through “O” and “A” levels, passing my subjects with medium marks, gaining a distinction only in art. The strain to stay visible continued, and my last year at school was punctuated by fainting attacks or bouts of migraine. I was completely relaxed only when I was with Mrs. Quayle, and her death, just before I sat my “A” level exams, made me feel isolated and helpless.

On my eighteenth birthday my parents produced a surprise. They had taken out a small endowment policy for me when I was born, and now it had matured. I had been offered a place at an art college in London, but the only grant I qualified for would cover just the fees, not living expenses. The endowment policy was almost enough, and my father said he was prepared to make up the rest. At the end of the summer I left home for the first time in my life, and traveled to London.

III

Three years. College is a time of transition for every student: the growing away from school friends and family, mixing with an entirely new group of people of your own age, acquiring skills or knowledge for use in adult life, taking shape for the first time as an independent human being. All these happened to me, but something unique to me also changed. I came to terms with the fact of my invisibility, knowing that it was a part of me and would not go away.

I shared a flat with two other girls from the college. Although I made myself visible to them when I had to, for most of the three years they took for granted that I was somewhere around, closed away inside my own room, separate from them. This was the first change forced on me, because through them I learned that an invisible person is simply ignored, accepted as being there but not somehow functioning. They noticed me when I wished them to, and the rest of the time they acted as if I were not there.

College itself was more difficult. I was required to attend, and to be seen to attend, and to complete my courses and submit work and in general make my presence felt. I survived the first year by extending myself and establishing myself with the tutors, but at the expense of my health. From the beginning of the second year the strain was in theory eased, because we were encouraged to work alone more. I chose a large but general course in commercial art, because here, when working with others, I could blend with the crowd. Even so, the strain of being visible was continual and my exhaustion was a major problem. I lost weight, suffered recurring headaches and was frequently nauseated.

Living in London brought another change. At home I had grown used to eluding authority. At school it was the stupid pranks, the meaningless thievery, but away from school I had learned that I could get away with not paying fares, that if I used shops I never had to spend money unless I chose to. Now that I was in London and surviving on a tiny and fixed income, it soon became a habit to avoid payment. From there it became a way of life.

Living in a big city was a part of this corruption, because in London it is possible even for normal people to lose themselves in the crowd. After the first few weeks, in which I was psychologically adjusting to life in a major city, I felt more at home than I would ever have thought possible. London is made for invisibles; it deepened my state of anonymity, made my condition a natural means of survival. No one has identity in London unless it is claimed.

I bought a ticket the very first time I used the Underground, not knowing how the system worked. That was, literally, the last time I paid my fare. After that, swallowing my fear of the crowds, I used the trains and buses as my free taxi service, the cinemas and theaters for my free entertainment. None of this took anything from anybody: public transport would run whether or not I used it, the shows would be on regardless of my presence. I never took a seat that should have been occupied by someone who had paid, so kept my conscience clear. But these were still the early days.

A combination of need and opportunity took me farther into the state I thought of as the shadow world. Unless I had taken a part-time job, as one of the girls I shared with was forced to do, I could not have survived without stealing. Because of my constant debilitation, a job was never a real option anyway.

And invisibility refreshed me. A day in my shadow world, drifting unnoticed along streets and through buildings, gave me a feeling of power. To extend that and quietly steal whatever I needed made me feel vindicated. This was the function of invisibility, to move on the outer limits of the real world undetected, unseen. It always gave me a thrill to steal from out of the shadows, knowing that I was doing wrong, that I could never be caught. I never tired of this, and fled into the shadows as a cure for the emotional and physical drain caused by trying to be real.

Invisibility fitted me like old, familiar clothes.

Because I did not know how to see, and was concerned mostly with my own read justments, it took me several months to realize I was not alone. There were other invisibles in London.

The first one I noticed was a girl about my own age. I was waiting for a train in an Underground station. As I glanced along the platform I saw her sitting on a bench, leaning back against the tiles of the curving tunnel wall. She looked tired, dirty and distraught. As I looked at her I felt there was something familiar about her without understanding why. The tube stations have many down-and-outs moving around them, usually in winter, and by her appearance she was one of these.

She moved, and sat up to look around. She saw me, and stared at me in momentary surprise. Then, losing interest, she looked away again.

My first reaction was terror. She had noticed me! But I was invisible, secure in my shadow world! I hurried away into one of the access tunnels, frightened at the ease with which my cloud had been penetrated. I reached the concourse at the bottom of the escalators, where dozens of people were moving about, heading up to the streets above, riding down to catch one of the trains, all of them moving past me as if I were not there. The renewal of my anonymity reassured me, and I became more interested than frightened. Who was she? How could she see me?

Sensing the answer I went back to the platform, but a train had been in and out and she was no longer there.

The second time it happened, the invisible was a middleaged man. I saw him in Selfridges department store in Oxford Street, moving quietly around with a plastic bag in his hand. I sensed the same aura about him, and recognized the calm, unfurtive way he was stealing the goods. His condition was the same as mine. When I was sure I moved around so that I was in front of him, and walked directly toward him.

His reaction appalled me. He looked surprised, not because I was another invisible but because he interpreted my smile and my open expression as a sexual advance. He looked me up and down, then to my horror raised his bag and crammed it under his arm and moved toward me with a dreadful leering smile. What I remember is the sudden sight of his teeth: they were black and broken. I backed away from him, but his eyes were fixed on mine. He said something, but in the clamor of the store I could not hear what it was; there was no need, because I could guess what he said. He looked huge. All I wanted was to correct my blunder and get away from him. I turned to run and collided with someone, another man, but he was unaware of me. The invisible man was almost on me, reaching out with his free arm, the hand clawing to grab me. I knew that being in a public place offered no safety, that if he caught me he could do anything he liked in full view of everyone. I had never been so frightened. I rushed away, dodging between the shoppers, knowing he was behind me. I wanted to scream, but no one would hear me! It was lunchtime, there were hundreds of people in the store, and none of them moved to get out of the way. In a crowd like that there was no help, only obstacles. I looked back at him once again: he was running with terrifying agility, his face violently angry, a predator deprived of his prey. This glimpse of him so scared me that I nearly fell. My legs were weak, and the fear almost paralyzed me. I knew I was plunging deeper into invisibility—my instinctive defense, but useless against this man. I pushed through the crowd, aiming for the closest exit.

When I next looked back I was in the street, and the man had given up. I saw him by the entrance to the store, leaning against the wall, winded, watching me flee. Even then he was still utterly menacing, and I continued down the street, running until I could not keep going. I never saw him again.

These two encounters were my introduction to the larger shadow world of the invisibles. After the incident in Selfridges I began to notice more and more invisibles around London—as if seeing one or two had opened my eyes to the rest—but I kept out of their way. I learned the places where they generally gathered, somewhere that food could be stolen or a bed found or crowds tended to congregate. I usually saw at least one other invisible person whenever I went to a supermarket, and department stores were frequent haunts. Some invisibles lived permanently in large stores; others drifted around, sleeping in hotels or breaking into people’s houses to borrow unused beds or stretch out on furniture. Later I discovered that this underground network had a semblance of organization: there were known meeting places, even a particular pub where some of them gathered regularly.

Inevitably I was drawn to them. I learned that the man who had attacked me in Selfridges was not typical of them, but neither was he all that unusual. As male invisibles grew older they became loners, moving on the periphery of society, uncaring of how they acted. Normal friendships were impossible except with other invisibles, forcing abnormal behavior. Lonely outcasts, thinking themselves above the law, are dangerous in any form.

The typical invisible would be young, or youngish. He or she—the sexes were more or less evenly divided— would have had an isolated adolescence, and been drawn to London or one of the other big cities out of a need to meet others.

Collectively the invisibles were a paranoid group, believing themselves rejected by society, despised, feared, and forced into crime. They were terrified of normal people but envied them profoundly. Most of them were frightened of each other, but when in each other’s company would brag about their individual achievements. There were even some who took the paranoia to the other extreme, attempting to make claims for the inherent superiority of invisibles, the power and freedom of their condition being paramount.

The invisibles seemed to have two traits in common. In the first place, almost every one I met was a hypochondriac, and with good reason. Health was an obsession, because illness was incurable except by nature. Many of the invisibles had VD, and all of them suffered with their teeth. Life expectancy was low, partly because of the risk of illness and partly because of the vagrant lifestyle and irregular diet. A large number of them were alcoholics or incipient alcoholics. Drug taking was not, in general, a problem, because of the difficulties of supply. Most of the invisibles dressed well, because clothes were easy to steal, but few cared about their appearance. What they most cared about was their health, and many of them carried about with them large quantities of patent medicines, the only ones they could steal with any regularity.

The second unifying factor was the cloud. Meeting other invisibles, I began to understand what I had thought was Mrs. Quayle’s mysticism. Each invisible person is surrounded by an aura, a certain density of presence, and this can be detected by the others. It was what I had instinctively recognized in my first two encounters, and what Mrs. Quayle, in a different way, had noticed about me. Her talk of ectoplasm and spiritual auras had confused me, but I realized now that this was simply her way of describing it.

Interestingly, though, the invisibles had picked up the same vocabulary and incorporated it into their slang. They all knew about the cloud, and called it that. Ordinary people were fleshers; the real world was hard. To themselves, they were the glams. It was part of their defensive but bragging paranoia to think of themselves as glamorous.

IV

I was not one of them. I knew it and they knew it. From their point of view I was only half-glam, able to enter and leave their world at will. I was never trusted, never accepted, always betrayed by my clean clothes, my equanimity about illness, by my cared-for, unhurting teeth. I had an identity in the hard world, a place I lived in, a college course to attend. I went home to my parents at Christmas and Easter, escaping, as the invisibles saw it, to the world of the fleshers.

Even so, entering the glamorous world was important to me. For the first time since my early teens I was meeting people like myself. That to them my invisibility was a question of degree made no difference to me. I was more invisible than visible, and this constantly affected me. The glams tried to reject me, but only because for most of them there was no escape.

There was another attraction too. I had always found invisibility refreshing, making the next return to the hard world that little bit easier. Once I met the real invisibles—pathetic, frightening and isolated as I found them to be—I discovered that the option of visibility was more accessible. At first I was repelled by their hopelessness and paranoia, but later I found them a source of strength.

Contact with their clouds gave me the energy to reenter the real world, and knowing them gave me the thrill of the glamorous life. I was still very young, and I was attracted to both.

Then, in my last term at college, when I knew I was going to have to make new decisions, and when I was less certain than ever of how I wanted to live, I met Niall.

V

Niall was different from any other invisible I had ever met. He was profoundly glamorous, completely unnoticeable by anyone who was not another invisible, his cloud a dense screen against the world. He was more deeply embedded than any of the others, more remote from reality, a thin wraith in a community of ghosts.

But his separateness was also in his personality. While most invisibles lamented their lack of identity, he relished his.

He was the only invisible I ever found physically attractive. He was fit, handsome, elegant. He was at ease in his body, and worried no more about illness than I ever did. He dressed rakishly, choosing the most modern clothes and the most flowery colors. He smoked Gauloises cigarettes and traveled light; the average glam worried too much about his health to smoke, and carried vast amounts of belongings wherever he went. Niall was funny, outspoken, rude to people he disliked, full of ideas and ambitions, and completely amoral. While I and some of the other glams had scruples about our parasitic lives, Niall saw invisibility as freedom, an extension of normal abilities.

Something else I found attractive and different about him was that he was doing something. Niall wanted to be a writer. He was the only invisible who ever stole books. He was always in and out of libraries and bookstores, borrowing or stealing poetry, novels, literary biographies, travel books. He was always reading, and when we were together he would sometimes read aloud to me. Books were the only part of his life where he was not amoral: when he was finished with one he would leave it somewhere it could be found, or would even return it. Paddington Library was the one he frequented, conscientiously returning what he had borrowed, and sometimes pretending guilt to me if he thought the book was overdue.

When he was not reading he was writing. He filled innumerable notebooks with his work, writing slowly in his ornate and flamboyant handwriting. I was never allowed to see what he had written, nor did he read it to me, but I was supremely impressed.

This was Niall when I first met him, and I fell under his spell at once. He was a few months younger than I, but in every other way he was wiser, more exciting, more experienced, more stimulating than anyone I had ever known. When I finished at art school and came away with my diploma, I no longer had any doubt about what I wanted to do. The glamour had become a sanctuary from the hard world, and I fled into it.

The sheer excitement of being with Niall swept aside any doubts. Everything we did was enhanced by irresponsibility, and because I admired him I tried to impress him by being like him. We brought out the worst in each other, his amorality satisfying my wish for a better life.

I became thoroughly assimilated into the glamorous world. We lived nowhere, and drifted from one overnight stay to the next; we slept in the spare room in someone’s house, or went to a department store or hotel. We ate well, having nothing but fresh food stolen as we needed it. When we wanted cooked food we went to the kitchens of hotels or restaurants. We always had as many new clothes as we wanted, we were never cold, never hungry, never forced to sleep outdoors.

It was Niall who showed me how to break into banks and steal from post offices, but money was something we never needed. A bank robbery was always a dare, done for the sheer fun of it, entering the staff area in full view of the employees, taking a handful of bank notes from the cash drawers, riffling them unnoticed in front of their faces. Sometimes we would steal only a few coins or a note or two, just to prove we could do it. We were never silent during a robbery, talking to each other as we went, sometimes laughing aloud or singing with the glee of being unseen and unheard.

I feel guilty about this now, looking back. I was easily impressed, and Niall was awakening the restlessness in me, the last stirring of immaturity.

In time I grew less dazzled by him. I saw that he was not so original after all, that many people in the real world affected bright colors, unusual hairstyles, French cigarettes. Niall was different only in comparison with the other invisibles, and they no longer mattered to me. His interest in books and in becoming a writer was still admirable, but I was always held at arm’s length from this. I continued to find his personality attractive, but with increasing familiarity I realized most of what impressed me was superficial.

Even so, our reckless life as invisibles carried on for about three years. It all runs together now in my memory, blurring into what I would like to think of as an adolescent escapade. But I still often remember specific incidents, when the heady feeling returns to me of how clever and superior we thought we were. It was an ideal life; everything we wanted was literally within our grasp, and we never answered to anyone.

Internal changes were taking place too. Because of my constant closeness to Niall, I drew strength from his cloud. I found it increasingly easy to move into visibility, and it was this that started to erode our relationship.

Niall hated it when I was visible. It gave me an advantage over him. If he ever saw me visible, and he always knew when I had made the change, he would claim that I was endangering us both, risking discovery. The reality was that he was deeply resentful of his condition, and his bravado was a front. He was jealous of me, and my ability to move in the real world was a freedom from him.

Or that’s how he saw it. The paradox was that this very strength came from him. I needed to be close to him to gain the normality I had always craved, and which he so feared, but the closer I drew the more dependent on him I became.

Other needs were surfacing. As I grew older I began to develop a conscience about the money and goods we were stealing. A culminating incident occurred in a supermarket: as we were leaving I saw an open till full of cash, and on an impulse I took a handful of five-pound notes. It was a foolish and needless theft, because money was superfluous. A few days later I found out that the woman on the checkout had lost her job as a result, and this was the first time I realized that other people were being hurt. It was a sobering realization, changing everything.

More subtly, though, I was hungering for an ordinary way of life; I wanted the dignity of a real job, the knowledge that I earned what I lived by. I wanted to pay my way, buy food and clothes, pay to see movies, pay to travel on buses and trains. Above all I wanted to settle down, find somewhere I could call home, a place that was mine.

None of this was possible unless I was prepared or able to be visible for substantial periods of time. While I lived the rootless life with Niall, that was out of the question.

Then these stirrings took a positive shape. I wanted to go home, see my parents and sister, wander around in places I remembered. I had been away too long, because I had not been back since meeting Niall. My only contact with home was the occasional letter I wrote to my parents, but even this had been taken by Niall as a breach of our compact of invisibility. In the last twelve months I had written home only once.

I was growing up at last, and it was taking me away from Niall. I wanted something more than he was giving me; I could not spend the rest of my life in the shadows.

Niall sensed the change, and he knew I was trying to break away from him.

We reached a compromise about my parents, and one weekend went to see them together. I cannot imagine what I had hoped this would achieve, because I knew in my bones that it would lead to disaster.

Everything started to go wrong from the moment we arrived. I had never before seen at close hand how normal people react to the presence of an invisible, and the fact that these were my parents, from whom I was already partly estranged, only added layers of emotional complexity. I was visible throughout my stay, able to maintain it without much effort because Niall was there, but Niall remained unnoticed. I was trying to cope with three different problems simultaneously: I wanted to behave toward my parents in a natural way, relax with them, tell them something of my life in London without revealing the truth; I was constantly aware that they could not see that Niall was with me; and Niall himself, no longer the focus of my interest, began to behave badly.

Most of all it was Niall. He callously exploited the fact that they did not know he was there. When my parents were asking how I lived, who my friends were, what work I was doing, and I was attempting to answer with the bland lies I had been using in the few letters I had written, Niall was beside me, talking across me, giving them (unheard) the answers he felt they should have. When we sat down in the evening to watch television, Niall, bored with their choice of program, started touching my body to distract me. We drove over to see my sister so that I could meet her new husband, but Niall, getting into the back seat beside me, whistled loudly and talked across my parents, infuriating me but leaving me helpless to do anything about it. All through that weekend I was never allowed to forget Niall was there: he stole drinks and cigarettes, yawned boredly whenever my father spoke. He lounged around, used the toilet without flushing it, objected to every suggestion anyone made about where we could go or who we might see—in short he did everything in his power to remind me that he was the true center of my life.

How could my parents not have known he was there? It was the most uncanny and disturbing sensation because even setting aside Niall’s abominable behavior, it seemed impossible they could not be aware of him. Yet I was greeted and he was not; they spoke only to me, looked only at me; no place was set for him at mealtimes; I was given the single bed in my old room; even in the cramped confines of my father’s car, no acknowledgment was made of his presence. Trying to cope with this—the blatant contradiction between what I knew was happening and how my parents were reacting to it—was my major preoccupation. I knew how they had reacted to my own invisibility in the old days, but then there had always been ambiguities. This was different: Niall was emphatically there, but somehow they could not see him. Even so, I was convinced that on some deeper level they were aware of him. His invisible presence created a vacuum, a silent nexus of the whole weekend.

For me it made real the fact that my life in London was a rebellion against my background. I found my father dull and inflexible, my mother prissily concerned over details that did not interest me. I loved them still, but they could not see that I was growing up, that I was not, and never would be again, the child-daughter they had glimpsed a few years before. This was Niall’s influence on me, of course, and his sardonic interjections, heard only by me, were a continual counterpoint to my own thoughts.

As the visit progressed I felt more and more isolated—cut off from my parents by misunderstandings, alienated from Niall by his behavior. We had been planning to stay for three nights, but after a blazing row with Niall on the Saturday—invisible together in the bedroom, shouting at each other in cocoon of our protective clouds—I could stand the strain no longer. In the morning my parents drove me, us, to the station, and there we said goodbye. My father was stiff and white with suppressed anger, my mother was in tears. Niall was jubilant, dragging me back, as he thought, to our invisible life in London.

But none of that could ever be the same. Soon after we reached London I left Niall. I made myself visible, I integrated with the real world. I was escaping from Niall at last, and I tried to make sure he would never find me.

VI

He found me. I had been living in the glamorous world too long, and didn’t know how to survive without stealing. Niall knew our haunts better than I did, and one day two months later he was there.

I had had enough time, though, and something had changed. In my two months of solitude I had rented a room, the place I still live in. It was mine, and although it was not yet earned it was full of stuff I thought of as mine, it had a door and a lock, and it was a place I could be. It meant more to me than anything else in my life, and nothing would make me relinquish it. I was still surviving by theft, but I was full of resolve. I was slowly working up a portfolio of drawings, I had contacted one of my old tutors, and had already visited one editor in the hope of getting commissions. A freelance life, with all its difficulties, was my only real hope of independence.

But Niall walked back into my life assuming we would continue as before. He understood better than anyone what the room signified to me, but I made the mistake of letting him in. I showed it off to him proudly, thinking that he would have to accept that I had changed, that by showing it to him I was implying that he could be included in my new life.

What it really meant, I quickly discovered, was that he always knew where to find me when he wanted me. This was the worst of it: he would turn up at any time of the day or night, wanting company, wanting reassurance, wanting sex. My independence made him change, and I saw a new side of him: he became possessive, sulky, bullying.

I held on, knowing that the room and what it stood for were my only hope of a better life.

Through my tenuous contacts I started to sell a little work: an illustration for a magazine article, some layout work for an advertising agency, some lettering for a firm of management consultants. The fees were small to begin with, but one piece of work led gradually to another, and I became known for what I could do. Commissions started to turn up without my seeking them, I was recommended by one editor to another, I made contact with a small independent studio that gave me freelance work. I opened a bank account, had some letterheads printed, bought a proper desk, and by such tokens felt I was establishing myself in the visible world. As soon as I started earning money I cut my stealing back to the absolute essentials, and when the checks began arriving with reasonable frequency I stopped altogether. It became an article of my faith in myself that I would never go back, and although there were difficult times I never weakened. I derived real pleasure from making myself visible to cash a check, to line up with everyone else at supermarket checkouts, to try on dresses in clothing stores and produce my checkbook for payment. As a final gesture I took driving lessons, and passed the test at the second attempt.

The strain of being visible was also less. By working at home I could relax inside the glamour as long as I wished, only becoming visible if I went out. I achieved an emotional stability I had never known before.

Even Niall began to accept that it was permanent. He knew that the old days were gone for good, and he adjusted to that, but he also had a claim on me he could always exploit. Only I understood the profundity of his invisibility, how impossible it was for him ever to become normal. He played on my sympathy for this, blackmailing me with it. If I tried to cut myself off from him, he pleaded with me not to abandon him. He pointed out the advantages I had over him, the stability I had achieved, hinting at the misery and loss he had always to endure. I invariably capitulated. I saw him as a tragic figure, and even as I knew he was manipulating me I let him get away with it.

He would not let me grow away from him, and used his invisibility against me. When I started a tentative friendship with one of the young illustrators at the studio and fixed up an evening with him, Niall put on such a display of recriminations and wounded jealousy that I almost canceled the date. I had never had a real boyfriend, though, and was determined to stand up for myself. I went on my date, an evening of total innocence, but it was ruined by Niall. Niall followed, Niall hung around, Niall interfered. It led to a furious row that night, back in my room, and the seedling romance was crushed. I never tried again.

This was the worst of Niall, but it was not all of him. So long as I remained sexually faithful to him and was available whenever he chose to see me and did not make any more overt gestures toward the hard world, then he left me to live and work as I chose.

He was not always around me; sometimes he would vanish for a week or two at a time, never explaining where he had been. He told me he had found a place to live, although how he managed it or where it was I never discovered. He claimed to have friends, never named, who owned property where he could come and go as he pleased. He told me he had started writing in earnest, and was submitting his work to publishers. He dropped hints about other women, presumably hoping to arouse my possessiveness, but if they were true nothing would have pleased me more; anyway, in Niall’s amoral world view, sexual fidelity was a one-sided matter, and I had always assumed he slept with other women when he felt like it.

Above all, he allowed me to work, to live on the fringes of the real world, to develop self-respect. In my distorted life, cursed by natural invisibility, it seemed to be the best I could hope for.

Then, that night in the pub in Highgate, I saw you.

VII

After the excitement of talking to you, my preoccupation was Niall and what he would do in revenge.

Your glamour was so faint that you were probably unaware of it. It was like an aura of sexuality, the more potent for being unconscious. I had felt the touch of your cloud, and the stimulus of it made me dizzy. It was unshaped, unused; invisibility was an option—you were the converse of me.

What Niall and I both knew was that you could lead me to the real world. I could draw strength from your cloud, make myself visible with ease and permanence, pass for normal.

You were to Niall more potentially threatening than even a fully visible man; you could take me from him for good.

I dreaded what Niall would do, because I thought I knew him. I expected his bullying, his blackmail, his usual tears, the self-pitying but contrived pleas about his hopeless invisibility. I braced myself against his violence. Yet in the pub he had left us alone, freeing me to approach you.

After you had driven away with your girlfriend, I walked back to Hornsey in the light rain, joyful at the meeting but terrified of its consequences with Niall. I was ready for the worst.

But Niall was not waiting for me. He was not in the street outside, not hanging around in the hail. I let myself into the room, convinced that he had used his copy key to enter it—but he was not there either, and nothing had been disturbed.

I was awake most of the night, certain he would turn up in the end. I waited through Sunday, trying to get on with some work. Niall made no contact with me then, nor on Monday, nor on Tuesday. I managed to complete the commission I was working on and took it into the West End to deliver it, again expecting Niall to contact me.

I wanted to get it over with. I hated his blustering threats, but at least I was used to them and within certain limits could deal with them. Whether by instinct or planning, Niall had hit on the perfect way of making his feelings known. By leaving me alone and making me wonder what he would do, he succeeded in getting my full interest.

And inside that, a moment of panic. Suppose Niall could make himself invisible even to me!

The thought had never occurred to me before. I could always see Niall, even when his cloud was densest, but then how would I know? Had there been times in the past when he had concealed himself from me? I was halfway in the real world; suppose Niall could move below my threshold of sight? He had often revealed an uncanny knowledge of me, an almost supernatural degree of insight. Did he watch me when I thought I was alone? Niall was clever and unscrupulous. How far would he go to protect what he saw as his interests?

Suppose he had not actually left the pub? He might have been there when I spoke to you, followed me as I followed you, haunted me as I walked home in the rain.

He could be with me now! In my room, even as I thought of it!

Truly terrified, I sat at my drawing board, head bent and eyes closed. I knew then the primal fear of ghosts, the terror of the invisible, of the concealed watcher. I listened for his breathing, for the faintest movement of his clothes. The room was silent, and when I turned my head, fearful of both seeing and not seeing, I formed my cloud more densely than ever before, hoping to know the truth.

There was nothing I could see.

The telephone rang late on the Wednesday afternoon. I was not expecting to hear from anyone so I let it ring, thinking someone else would answer it. After a long time it was still ringing, so I went into the hall and picked it up.

It was Niall, speaking from a private phone. I felt a surge of relief, because only then was I certain he was not invisible somewhere around me.

“I’m going away for a while,” he said. “I thought you’d like to know.”

“Where are you going?”

“Some friends of mine own a house in the South of France. I thought I might stay with them for a week or two.”

“All right,” I said. “That’s a good idea.”

“Don’t you want to come with me?”

“You know I’m working.”

“You’re seeing that man, aren’t you?”

“I might be.”

“When is it? This evening?”

“I haven’t arranged anything yet.”

Silence from Niall. I waited, staring at the wall with its notice board full of old messages for the other tenants. Their lives always seemed so straightforward to me, so uncomplicated by unseen matters. Anne, please phone Seb. Dick, your sister called. Party at No. 27 on Saturday night, all invited.

I said, “How long did you say you’d be gone?”

“I haven’t decided yet. A couple of weeks. Maybe longer. I’ll call you when I get back.”

“When will that be?”

“I’ve told you, Susan, I don’t know. It shouldn’t matter to you now, should it? You’re going to be busy.”

“I’m going to be working.”

“I know what you’ll be doing.”

The conversation was a fraud. It was completely unlike Niall to go away, especially if he knew I had met someone else. He was planning something, and we both knew it.

“Where exactly are you going to be?” I said.

“I’ll call you when I get there. Or send a card. I don’t know the exact address. It’s a house somewhere near Saint-Raphael.”

“But who are these people you’ll be staying with? Do I know any of them?”

“Why should that matter? You’ll be having fun without me.”

“Niall, you’re jumping to conclusions. I just want to talk to him, that’s all. I don’t know anything about him.”

“I can tell you something. His name’s Richard Grey.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Suddenly, my heart started thumping.

“I make it my business to find things out.”

“What else do you know?”

“That’s about all. I’m going to hang up now. We’re leaving in an hour.”

“If you’re thinking of interfering, Niall, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“You’ve nothing to worry about. You won’t see me for a while.”

“Niall! Don’t hang up!”

“I’ll send you a card from France.”

He put the phone down. I stood in the hallway, fuming with anger and fear. How had he found out your name? What had he been up to? What was he doing now? I knew he was lying to me about going away, because his voice had a familiar threatening tone. In this mood he was capable of anything. He never ran away from me when he wanted to control me.

Back inside my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to calm down. There were only another two hours before I was due to meet you, and Niall had succeeded in driving you from my mind. I loathed his cleverness: he knew that I would stand up to him somehow, but appearing to relent was a deliberate new tactic. I was thinking about him, not about you.

It was hopeless trying to get any more work done, so I showered and changed, then spent some time tidying up my room. I had nothing to eat, because Niall had ruined my appetite.

I set off for Highgate far too early, walking quickly to burn off my nervous energy. When I reached the High Street I started to dawdle, looking in the shop windows, staring without seeing. I was invisible, saving myself for later. I was trying to concentrate on you, remember what you looked like, recall that feeling of excitement when I had seen you. I knew in my heart that this would mean the end of Niall, and even though I knew nothing about you the risk and novelty were preferable to the past.

After eight o’clock I made myself visible and went into the bar where we had met. You were not there. I bought myself a half of bitter, then sat alone at one of the tables. Because it was midweek and still relatively early, the pub was less than half full. I let myself sink into invisibility.

You arrived a few minutes later; I saw you enter the bar, look briefly around it, then go to the counter. What struck me first was how normal you looked, just as I remembered you. I became visible, and waited for you to see me.

Niall slipped from my mind.

You walked over, smiling, and stood by the table.

“Can I get you another drink?” you said.

“No, thanks. Not at the moment.”

You sat down, across the table from me. “I was wondering if you’d be here.”

“I can’t imagine what you must have thought,” I said. “I don’t normally approach strange men in pubs.”

“It’s all right,” you said. “I don’t—”

“You see, I thought I recognized you.” I wanted to get through my explanation, the only one I had been able to invent. “You look like someone I used to know, but once I’d spoken to you I knew I was wrong and I didn’t know what to say next.” It sounded lame, but you were still smiling.

“Don’t explain any more. I was glad to meet you.”

I had reddened, remembering my clumsy approach to you. We talked for a while about the mythical friend you were supposed to resemble, and then at last we exchanged names. I was both pleased and irritated to learn that Niall had been right about your name. I told you I was called Sue; everyone I had ever known called me Susan, but I liked the idea of becoming Sue to someone I had newly met.

We had a few more drinks, talking about the sorts of things I had always presumed normal people discussed when getting to know each other—what we did for a living, where we lived, places we both knew, possible mutual friends, anecdotes about ourselves. You told me frankly about the woman you had been with, that her name was Annette, that she was an occasional girlfriend, that she had gone away for a month to visit relatives. I said nothing about Niall.

You suggested a meal, so we crossed the road to an Indonesian restaurant. I was hungry, and glad of the idea. You appeared to be liking me, and I started being worried in case I was being too eager. I knew I should act more coolly, maintain a slight distance from you to keep your interest alive—I had read about this in magazines! But I was excited. I found you more likable than I had dared hope, and it had nothing to do with that first attraction. All the time we were together I was aware of your cloud, its slight exhilarating haze just touching on mine. I was drawing from it, holding myself visible without any strain, finding how easy it was to relax with you and be normal. But aside from this I found you amusing, intelligent, interesting. When you left the table to visit the men’s room I had to close my eyes and breathe steadily, force myself not to overdo it. I was trying to imagine how you must be seeing me, and I did not want to appear too interested or gushing. I was painfully aware how inexperienced I was: twenty-seven, and still a virgin in matters of normality!

At the end of the meal we shared the expense, conscientiously dividing it between us. I was wondering what was going to happen next. From my restricted viewpoint you were such a man of the world, talking lightly of past girlfriends, of having traveled to the States, Australia, Africa, of not having ties or any intention to settle down. Were you taking it for granted we would go to bed together? What would you think of me if we didn’t? What would you think of me if we did?

We walked to your car, and you offered to run me home. I was silent in the car, watching the way you drove, thinking how self-confident you were. Niall was so different, and so was I.

Outside my house you switched off the engine, and for a moment that seemed to say you expected to be invited in. Then you said, “Can I see you again?”

I couldn’t help smiling, hearing the unconscious irony of the phrase. This was what I found so refreshing after years of Niall: all your assumptions about me were entirely new. You saw me smile, but of course I was unable to explain. We sat there in the darkened car for several minutes, making plans for a second date on Saturday evening. I wanted more and more to invite you in for a drink, delay you, but I was scared you would tire of me. We parted with a light kiss.

VIII

A heat wave broke over London that week, making it difficult to concentrate on working. All incentive to work declined in the summer anyway, as many of the firms I dealt with slowed down their output, and hot weather always distracted me. Bright sunshine emphasizes London’s inherent scruffiness, the old buildings showing their cracks and weathering faults. I liked the city under gray cloud, the narrow congested streets closed in by dark stone and low roofs, softened by rain. Summer made me restless, thinking how much I should like to be on a beach or cooling down in mountain passes.

Now I had you to distract me even more. The morning after our date I lay in my bed, musing contentedly and staring up through the window at the tops of the trees in the adjacent gardens. It was all right to indulge myself when you were not there to see me. I knew I was acting like a teenager, but I was happy. Niall had never made me happy.

The three days passed slowly again, and I had plenty of time to indulge my fantasies. Although I was worried about seeming too keen on you, I was also wondering how long Niall would be lying low. It was so important to know you well before he returned. I thought about him briefly, away on his mysterious trip to France, wondering if he was really there.

I was getting ready to go out on the Saturday evening when I was called to the telephone. It was Niall—of course it was Niall. His talent for sensing the most inconvenient and intrusive moment was almost psychic. I was expecting you to pick me up in less than half an hour.

“How are you getting on, Susan?”

“I’m fine. What do you want? I’m just about to go out.”

“Yes, that’ll be Grey again, won’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. Can you call back tomorrow?”

“I want to talk to you now. This is long-distance.”

“It isn’t convenient now,” I said. His voice was clear and loud in the earpiece, making me suspicious. There was none of the usual quiet electronic noise on the line, the sense of intervening miles. He sounded as if he was in London.

“I don’t care about that,” he said. “I’m lonely, and I want to see you.”

“I thought you were with friends. Where are you?”

“In France. I told you.”

“You sound very close.”

“We’ve got a good line. Susan, I made a mistake coming here without you. Why don’t you come and join me?”

“I can’t. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“You always say there’s not much in summer.”

“It’s different this time. I’ve got a pile of stuff to deliver next week.”

“Then why are you going out this evening? It wouldn’t take you long to get here, and you needn’t stay more than a few days.”

“I can’t afford it,” I said. “I’ve run out of money again.”

“You don’t need money to travel. Get the first train.”

“Niall, this is ridiculous! I can’t just drop everything!”

“But I need you, Susan.”

I was suddenly less sure he was lying to me. Niall’s fits of introspection and loneliness were real enough. If he really had been in London, as I still half suspected, he would have abandoned the pretense of being away and come to see me. It made me feel hard and unsympathetic to hear the self-pity in his voice, because it was a naked appeal to my better nature, one that had usually worked in the past. I wished he would leave me alone! I was staring again at the notice board by the telephone; the same messages were there, unanswered.

“I can’t think about this now,” I said. “Call me tomorrow.”

“You think I don’t know what you’re up to. You’re with Grey, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.” The truth was temporary, but it was still a truth.

“Well, you will be seeing him. I know what you’re doing.”

I said nothing, turning away from the wall and the phone, the coiled cable of the receiver stretching across my throat. A telephone conversation has an unseen quality, each speaker invisible to the other. I tried to imagine where Niall was: a shuttered room in a French villa, bare polished floorboards, flowers and sunlight, different voices in another room? Or some house in London, one he had broken in to so he could use the phone? His voice sounded so close it was impossible to believe he was in France. If he wanted me to visit him, why did he not tell me where he was? If he was paranoid about you, why had he gone away and left me?

He was still crowding me; it was just a new way of doing it.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Niall said.

“I’ve nothing to say that you would want to hear.”

“I’m only asking you to see me for a few days.”

I said, “You’re interfering because you know I’ve met someone else. If you must know, I’m going out with Richard tonight.”

Niall broke the connection immediately, hanging up on me. The line clicked, went clear, and then I heard a whining sound. I was left standing there with the thing in my hand, still tangled up in the cable, listening to the petulant noise. No one had ever hung up on me before, and it had an instant effect. I felt angry, humiliated, repentant and alarmed, all at once. I wanted to call him back directly, but I had no idea how to do that.

You arrived a few minutes later, and I was still upset by the call. I was relieved, just then, that we were still relatively unknown to each other, because I was able to conceal this from you. We saw a film that evening, then afterward went for a late supper. That night, when you ran me home in the car, I invited you in. We stayed up talking very late, and at the end of it our kisses were lingering and intimate. We did not sleep together. Before you left we made plans to go for a walk the following afternoon.

Shortly before you were due to arrive, I finally admitted to myself that I was in a jumpy state. It had been growing in me all morning, and I had tried to ignore it. A few minutes before you arrived I could hardly keep still for the tension, knowing that Niall was going to ring.

When the telephone went I was almost relieved. I ran to it before anyone else in the house could get to the hail, and picked it up. How did he know?

This call was different. Niall was in, or sounded as if he was in, a suppressed mood. He apologized for hanging up on me the day before, and said he had been upset.

“When I saw you in the pub with Grey, I knew you preferred him to me. I had to go away. I knew this would happen one day.”

His voice was clear and close, almost as if he were in the next house. I was trembling.

“I want to lead a normal life,” I said. “You know that.”

“Yes, but why are you doing this to me?”

“Richard’s just a friend.” It was a lie, because already you had become more than that. Perversely, I wanted Niali to be angry, because that would be easier.

“Then if he doesn’t matter to you, come and see me.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, wondering if by appearing to go along with what he wanted I would find out what he was doing. “I don’t even know where you are.”

“If I tell you, will you promise to visit me?”

“I said I’ll think about it.”

“Just a few days, so we can be together.”

“Then tell me how to find you. No, wait a minute—”

The doorbell had rung, and I could see your shape through the frosted and stained-glass window built into the front door. While the receiver swung on its cable I opened the front door. I explained I was in the middle of a conversation, and showed you into my room. I made sure the door was closed so you would not hear, and cupped my hand over the mouthpiece.

“Go on, Niall.”

“He’s there, isn’t he?”

“Tell me where you are.”

He started detailed instructions which I barely heard: a train to Marseilles, a bus along the Coast, the village of Saint-Raphael, a white-painted house. I was thinking: it’s a lie, he’s making it up, he’s somewhere close by and watching me, in a house across the road, standing by the window and seeing you arrive, following me whenever I meet you. How else does he know to call just before I see you?

I let him finish, then said, “Why are you telling me all this, Niall?”

“I want to see you. When will you leave? Tomorrow?”

“I’m going to have to go now.”

“Not just yet!”

“I’ve got to. Goodbye, Niall.”

I put down the phone before I heard anything else. I was still trembling because I knew he was in London and the story about France was untrue. He knew I would know, but we both maintained the lie. What was he up to?

I was too upset to see you straight away, so I walked to the front door and leaned against it for a few moments, trying to steady myself. Something moved outside, vaguely blurred through the translucent glass. I started with alarm, and backed away. I think it was only a bird, or someone walking down the road. I thought of you, waiting inside my room, just a few feet away. All I wanted was to be with you, but Niall intruded at every step. He must know our plans! I remembered the terrible dread that Niall could achieve a level of invisibility which even I could not detect. He could be with me every moment I was with you!

It was madness to think he was capable of such deviousness.

But how else? As I stood alone in the bare hallway, plucking up the courage to go in and see you, I wondered, not for the first time, whether invisibility itself was a form of madness. Niall himself had once described it as the inability to believe in oneself, a failure of identity. The glams led a mad life, riddled with phobias and neuroses, paranoiac in their creed, parasitic on society. Their perception of the real world was distorted, a classic definition of insanity. If so, then my wish for normality would be a quest for sanity, a search for belief in myself and a sense of my own identity. Niall’s hold on me was the desperate clutching of a madman who sees a fellow inmate open the outer door of an asylum, yet who knows he cannot follow.

To escape I had to put the madness behind me. Not just cure myself, but change my whole knowledge of the invisible world. While Niall made me believe he was haunting me, his grip was still tight around me.

My only hope of normality was to disbelieve in him.

You were standing by the window in my room, looking out at what could be seen of the overgrown garden. You turned as soon as I walked in, and came smiling across the room to kiss me.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Just a friend.”

“You look a little pale. Is everything all right?”

“I need some fresh air. Where shall we go?”

“What about the Heath?”

I made a perfunctory effort to tidy the room, realizing I had left a pile of unwashed clothes on the floor and half-finished work scattered across my desk, then collected my bag and we drove to Hampstead. It was another hot afternoon, and there were people all over the Heath, enjoying London’s unreliable summer. We strolled around all afternoon, arms linked, talking and looking at the other people, sometimes kissing. I loved being with you.

That evening we went to your flat and there we made love for the first time. I felt secure in your flat, believing that Niall could not find it, and so I was more relaxed with you than I had ever been. A summer storm blew up while we were in bed, and we lay there in the sultry evening, the windows open, while the thunder rolled across the roofs. It felt delicious and illicit to be curled up naked with you, listening to the weather.

IX

You dressed and went out to buy some Greek take-away food, and when you returned I put on your dressing gown and we sat side by side on the bed, chewing our way through chunky kebabs. I was very happy.

Then you said, “Are you busy at the moment? I mean, do you have a lot of work on?”

“Not really. In fact, there’s hardly anything. Everyone’s away.”

“I’m at a bit of a loose end myself. What I’d planned to do was lounge around for the summer, but I’m getting rather bored. And it’s difficult finding freelance work at the moment.” You had told me earlier why you had given up your job. You said, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do, an idea I had for a film. I don’t think it’ll amount to anything, because it’s really just an excuse for a trip. I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

“A trip?” I said. “When?”

“Whenever you like. We could leave more or less straight away, if you’re not busy.”

“But where would we go?”

“Well, that’s the idea for the film. Have I told you about my postcards?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you.” You left the bed and went into the room you called your study. You returned a few moments later carrying an old shoe box. “I’m not really a collector … I just hoard. I bought most of these a year or two ago, and I’ve added a few since. They’re all prewar. Some of them go back to the last century.”

We pulled some of the cards out and spread them on the bed. They had been sorted into groups by countries and towns, with neat labels for each section. About half of all the cards were British, and these were unsorted. The rest were from Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, a few from Belgium and Holland. Almost all of them were black and white or sepia-tinted. Many of them had handwritten messages on the back, conventional greetings from holidaymakers to people still at home.

“What I’ve often thought I’d like to do is go to some of these places. Try to find the views as they are today, compare them with these old photographs, and see how places change in half a century. As I said, it might be the basis for a film one day, but all I’d really like to do is go and have a look. What about it?”

The cards were fascinating. Frozen moments of a lost age: city centers almost free of traffic, travelers in plus fours parading on foreign seafronts, cathedrals and casinos, beaches with bathers in modest costumes and strollers in straw hats, mountain scenery with funicular railways, palaces and museums and broad deserted plazas.

“You want to go to all of these places?” I said.

“No, just a few. I thought I’d concentrate on France, in the south. I’ve got a lot of cards from there.” You took some of the postcards from me. “It’s really only since the war that the Riviera has been intensively developed for tourism. Most of these cards show the places before that.”

You started going through them, pulling out a few examples to show me. I saw familiar names, unfamiliar views. One of the sets of cards was of the coastline around Saint-Raphael. The coincidence was striking, and my fear of Niall suddenly hit me.

“Couldn’t we go somewhere else, Richard?” I said.

“Of course we could. But this is where I’d like to go.”

“Not France—I don’t want to go to France.”

You looked so disappointed, the cards spread out on the bed around us.

I said, “What about some of the other places? Switzerland, for instance?”

“No, it’s got to be the south of France. Well, we could leave it.”

I found myself going through the same excuses I had used on Niall. “I’d love to go, really I would. But I’m broke at the moment.”

“We’d go in my car … I could pay for everything. I’m not hard up.”

“I haven’t got a passport.”

“We could get you a Visitors’ Passport. You buy those over the counter.”

“No, Richard. I’m sorry.”

You started picking up the postcards, keeping them in their meticulous order. “There’s another reason, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” I could not look at you. “The truth is there’s someone I know, someone I don’t want to see. He’s in France at the moment. Or I think he is, and—”

“Is this the boyfriend you’ve gone out of your way never to mention?”

“Yes. How do you know?”

“I always assumed there must be someone else.” The postcards were all put away now, restored to their neat row in the shoe box. “Are you still seeing him?”

Again, your unconsciously ironic choice of words. I started telling you about Niall, trying to translate the reality into terms you would accept. I described him as a longtime lover, someone I had known since I was young. I said that we had grown away from each other, but that he was reluctant to let go. I characterized him as possessive, childish, violent, manipulative; Niall was all of these, of course, but that was only a part of it.

We discussed the problem for a while, you putting the reasonable case that we were most unlikely to run into him, and anyway if we did that Niall would be forced, by seeing us together, to accept that I had left him. I was adamant, saying that you could not conceive the influence he had over me. I wanted to run no risk of meeting him.

Even as I was saying this I was remembering my own doubts about where Niall might actually be, and the way I knew I had to deal with this. To believe that Niall was anywhere other than Saint-Raphael was to accept the madness.

“But if you’re finished with him,” you said, “he’s going to have to live with the idea sooner or later.”

“I’d rather it was later. I want to be with you. We could go somewhere else.”

“All right. It was just an idea. Any suggestions?”

“What I’d really like is to be out of London for a while. Couldn’t we just get in your car and drive somewhere?”

“In England, you mean?”

“I know it sounds very dull … but I’ve never seen some parts of Britain. We could tour around. Wales, or the West Country, just on our own.”

You seemed surprised, the French Riviera exchanged in favor of Britain, but that was what we agreed. When you took the cards back to your study I went with you, looking at the oddments of film equipment you had bought up. You seemed a little embarrassed about them, saying they took up space and collected dust, but for me they were an insight into you before we met. Your awards were in the study too, half hidden behind a stack of film cans.

“You didn’t say you were famous!” I said, taking down the Prix Italia and reading the inscription.

“Come on … that was luck.”

“… extreme personal danger’,” I read. “What happened?”

“Just the sort of thing news crews get into from time to time.” You took the trophy from me and put it back on the shelf, even farther out of sight. You led me back into the bedroom. “It was a riot in Belfast. The sound recordist was there too. It was nothing special.”

I was intrigued. Suddenly I was seeing you as I had not seen you before: a cameraman with a reputation, a career, awards.

“Please tell me about it,” I said.

You looked uncomfortable. “I don’t often talk about it.”

“Well, tell me.”

“It was just a job—we all took it in turns to go to Northern Ireland. You get paid extra, because it’s fairly difficult work. I don’t mind that sort of thing. Filming is filming, and you get different sorts of problem on every job. Well, there had been a Protestant march during the day and we’d covered that, and in the evening we were back in the hotel having a few drinks. Then word came round that the army were going in to sort out a few kids who were throwing stones in the Falls Road. We talked about whether we should go down there, we were all tired, but in the end we decided to go and have a look. I loaded the camera with night stock, then we hitched a ride with the army. When we got down there it didn’t look like much—about fifty teenagers hurling stuff around. We were behind the troops, fairly well shielded, and nothing much seemed to be about to happen. These things generally fizzle out around midnight. But then suddenly it got worse. A few petrol bombs were thrown, and it was obvious that some older men were joining in. The army decided to break it up, and they fired a few plastic bullets. Instead of scattering the kids carried on, slinging rocks and bombs. A couple of Saracens were called in, and the soldiers charged. Willie and I—Willie was the soundman—went forward with them, because it’s generally the safest place, behind the troops. We ran about a hundred yards and came straight into a sort of ambush. There were snipers in houses, and one of the side streets had a whole gang of people waiting with bombs and rocks. Everything went mad. Willie and I were separated from the reporter and didn’t see him again until later. The soldiers were dashing in every direction, and petrol bombs were going off all around us. I suppose I got a bit carried away, and went on shooting film—right in the middle of it all. Nothing hit us, but a couple of bullets were quite close. We got in among the people who were stoning the troops, and somehow they never seemed to notice us. Then the soldiers started firing plastic bullets again, and this time we were on the receiving end. Well, we got away in the end, but the footage was pretty good.”

You grinned, trying to minimize the story. It suddenly struck me that I might have heard about the incident somewhere, one more horrifying night in Northern Ireland.

I said, “When you were there filming, what did it feel like?”

“I can’t remember much about it now. It just happened.”

“You said you got carried away. What did you mean?”

“It was like flying on autopilot. I went on filming and didn’t take too much notice of what was going on around us.”

“Were you excited?”

“I suppose I was.”

“And the people didn’t notice you?”

“Not really, no.”

I said nothing more, but I knew then what had happened. I could see it in my mind: you and the soundman, running and crouching, linked by the equipment, right in the thick of the action, filming by instinct. You said you had had a few drinks, that you were tired, that no one seemed to notice you. I could sense the feeling, imagine exactly how you had felt. For those few moments your cloud had thickened around you and the other man, and taken you through the danger invisibly.

X

We spent three more days in London, ostensibly preparing for our holiday but in practice using the time to get to know each other better, and to spend a lot of time in bed. Your bachelor existence made me feel domestic. We talked about redecorating your flat, I made you buy a lot of cookware and household goods, and as a present I gave you a huge houseplant for your living room. You seemed bemused by all this, but I had never felt more blissful.

We left London on a Thursday morning, driving north on the Mi motorway with no particular route in mind, just a shared wish to be on our own together.

I was still nervous that Niall might be somewhere around, in spite of my self-declared belief that he was in France. Only when we were in your car, speeding away, did I feel finally safe from him.

We stopped for the first night in Lancaster, checking in to a small hotel near the university. We rested after the long drive, feeling happy, anticipating the holiday together. That evening we made plans for the next day, touring around the Lake District.

We discovered we were both lazy about sightseeing. We were content to drive to a place, walk around briefly, perhaps have a meal or a drink, then drive on to somewhere else. I liked being driven by you, and found your car smooth and comfortable to sit in. With our things in the luggage space at the rear, the back passenger seat was empty, and so we used it as a dump for the tourist guides and maps, the food we bought to eat on the way, a bag of apples and chocolate, and all the other accumulated litter of traveling.

For three days we followed an erratic route, crossing and recrossing the north of the country: from the Lakes we went to the Yorkshire Dales, then briefly visited the hills of southern Scotland before returning to the northeast coast of England. I loved the contrasts in the British scenery, the swift transitions from low to high ground, from industry to open countryside. We left the north and headed down the eastern side. You said you had never seen this part of the country before, so it was new to both of us. The longer we were together like this the more I felt I was leaving my old, inadequate life behind me. I felt free of cares, happy, loving, and above all assimilating at last into a normal life.

But then, on the fifth day, there came the first of the intrusions.

XI

We had arrived in a village called Blakeney, on the north coast of Norfolk, and were staying in a bed-and-breakfast private house in the narrow Street leading down to the shore. I had disliked the look of the village as soon as we arrived, but we had been driving all day and all we really wanted was a place to stay for the night. We planned to visit Norwich the next day. The woman who owned the house told us the restaurants closed early, so after a brief rest in our room we went straight out, leaving our bags unopened.

When we returned, all my clothes had been removed from my suitcase and were laid out in neat piles on the bed. Each garment had been carefully folded.

“It must have been the woman downstairs,” you said.

“But surely she wouldn’t come in and interfere with our stuff?”

I went downstairs to find her, but the lights in the rooms were out, and to judge by the gleam under one of the doors upstairs, she had already gone to bed.

The following night, in a hotel in Norwich, I was awakened in the small hours by the sudden and unpleasant sensation of having been hit by something. You were asleep. I reached over to switch on the bedside lamp, and as I did so something moved quickly down the pillow and onto the mattress. It was hard and cold. I sat up in fright, moving away from it, and got the light on. What I found in the bed beside me was a cake of soap, quite dry, perfumed, the brand name engraved into its surface. You stirred but did not wake up. I climbed out of bed, and almost at once discovered the colored-foil wrapper. It had been neatly opened, and laid flat on the carpet. I climbed back into bed, switched off the light, then lay deep under the covers, holding on to you. I did not sleep again that night.

In the morning you suggested driving westward, right across the widest part of the country, and visiting Wales. I was deeply preoccupied with the event in the night, and simply agreed. We realized we had left the road map in the car, so I offered to go down and collect it.

The car was where we had left it the night before, in the hotel park. There was a key in the ignition, and the engine was running.

My first thought was that it must have been running all night, that you had accidentally not switched off, but when I tried the door I found it was locked. The same key was used for both. Trembling, I opened the driver’s door with the key you had given me, and reached in for the one in the ignition. It was brand-new, as if recently bought, or stolen.

I hurled it as hard as I could into the shrubbery surrounding the car park. Back in the room, when I gave you the road map, you asked me what the matter was. I did not know what to say, so I told you my period was due to start, as in truth it was, but the real reason was my growing dread of the inevitable.

I was silent all through breakfast, and stayed deep inside my terrified introspections as we drove along the straight roads that crossed the Fens.

Then you said, “I’d like an apple. Do we have any left?”

“I’ll look,” I managed to say.

I turned around in my seat, pulling against the restraint of the seat belt, something I had done many times in the last few days, but this time I was shaking with fear.

The paper bag containing the apples was on the part of the passenger seat directly behind you. Everything else was there, heaped into a pile on that side: the maps, your jacket, my holdall, the shopping bag with the food for our picnic lunch. It was all on the one side of the bench seat: every time we put the stuff behind us we instinctively placed it there, leaving the other side empty.

There was room for a passenger.

I forced myself to look at the place, behind my seat. The cushions were slightly indented, bearing weight.

Niall was in the car with us.

I said to you, “Can you stop the car, Richard?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Please—I’m feeling sick. Hurry!”

You pulled the car over at once, running it up on the verge. The moment it stopped I scrambled out, still holding your apple. I staggered away from the car, feeling weak, shaking all over. There was a rising bank, a low hedge, and beyond was an immense flat field with crops. I leaned forward into the hedge, the thorns and sticks prodding into me. You had switched off the engine, and you came running to me. I felt your arm around my shoulders, but I was shuddering and crying. You were saying soothing things, but the horror of what I had just discovered was throbbing through me. As you held me I thrust myself forward and down against the hedge, and vomited.

You brought some tissues from the car, and I wiped myself clean with them. I had moved back from the hedge, but I could not turn to face the car.

“What shall we do, Sue? Do you want to find a doctor?”

“I’ll be all right in a few minutes. It’s my period. It sometimes happens like this.” I couldn’t tell you the truth. “I just needed some air.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

“No, we can drive on. In a while.”

I had some magnesia tablets in my bag, and you brought me those. They helped settle my stomach. I sat down in the dry grass, staring at the stalks of cow parsley nodding around and above me, insects drifting in the heat. Cars rushed by on the road behind us, their tires making a sucking sound on the soft tarmac. I could not make myself look back, knowing Niall was there.

He must have been with us from the start. He had probably stayed to overhear me speak to you in the pub, had been with us on our first dates, had been with us in the car from the time we left London. He had been there, silent behind us, watching and listening. I had never been free of him.

I knew that he was forcing me to act. To have for myself the normal life I craved, I had to put Niall behind me forever. I could not go back to that morbid, vagrant life of the glams. Niall wanted to drag me back; he sought nothing less. Niall was the worst of that past, hopelessly and despairingly holding on to me.

I had to fight him. Not at that moment—the shock of discovery was still too fresh—and probably not alone. I would need you to help me.

I waited in the grass while you crouched beside me. A few minutes earlier the thought of getting back in the car, knowing Niall was there, would have been out of the question, but now I knew it would be the first necessary stage.

“I’m feeling a little better,” I said. “Shall we drive on?”

“Are you sure?”

You helped me up, and we embraced lightly. I said I was sorry to cause a fuss, that it wouldn’t happen again, that as soon as the period actually started I would feel a lot better … but over your shoulder I was looking at the car. Reflected sunlight glinted from the rear passenger window.

We walked back to the car, took our seats and strapped ourselves in. I tried to listen for the sound of the door behind me, in case Niall too had been outside while we halted, but an invisible can use a door without being detected.

When we were back on the road, I steeled myself and turned to look at the back seat. I knew he was there, could feel the presence of his cloud … but it was impossible to see him. I could look at our untidy pile of maps and food, could see to the luggage compartment behind, but when I tried to look at the seat directly behind mine, my eyes would not settle, my sight was diverted away. There was just the unseen presence, the suggestion of weight compressing the seat cushion. After that I stared straight ahead at the road, constantly aware of him being there, looking at me, looking at you.

XII

We stayed overnight in Great Malvern, the hotel built in a beautiful position on the side of the hills overlooking the town. The Vale of Evesham spread away beneath us. I had said and done nothing about Niall all day, trying to establish my priorities. I came back time and again to you, who had so suddenly become the most important person in my life. How could I ever begin to tell you about Niall? And what future would we have if he continually followed us?

The decision I came to was to act as if Niall were not there, suppress the thoughts of him. But it was impossible to act on such a decision: all through the evening as we walked on the hills, then drove into the town for a meal, I instinctively steered the conversation away from anything personal. Of course, you were aware of this.

Later, when we went up to the hotel bedroom, I took the room key away from you and opened the door myself. You walked in first, and I followed quickly, pushing the door closed suddenly. I was rewarded with the feeling of weight pressing against it from outside, but I shoved the door into place and locked it. There was no bolt. Locked doors presented no barrier to Niall: he could steal a master key, and later enter the room without either of us noticing. But that would take him several minutes, which was all I needed.

I said, “Richard, I’ve got to talk to you about something.”

“What’s going on, Sue? You’ve been acting strangely all evening.”

“I’m upset, and I’ve got to be frank with you. I told you about Niall. Well, he’s here.”

“What do you mean, he’s here?”

“He’s in Malvern. I saw him this evening when we were walking.”

“I thought you said he was in France.”

“I never know where he is. He told me he was going to France, but he must have changed his mind.”

“But what the hell is he doing here? Has he followed us?”

“I don’t know … it must be a coincidence. He’s always traveling around to see friends.”

“I don’t see it makes any difference,” you said. “What are you saying, that he should join us for the rest of the trip?”

“No.” It was painful having to lie, but how could I tell the whole truth? “He’s seen us together. I’ll have to talk to him, tell him what’s happening with you and me.”

“If he’s seen us he’ll already know. What’s the point of saying any more? We’re leaving in the morning, and won’t see him again.”

“You don’t understand! I can’t do that to him. I’ve known him for too long—I can’t just walk out on him.”

“But you already have, Sue.”

Trying to see it from your point of view I knew I was being unreasonable, but the only way I could present Niall to you was as a possessive former lover, accidentally encountered. We argued on for an hour or more, both of us getting depressed and entrenched. Niall must have entered the room at some point during it all, but I could not allow the fear of him to influence me. At last we went to bed, worn out by the impasse. I felt safer in the darkness, and we held on to each other under the sheets. Because my period had actually started in the afternoon we did not make love, nor did we wish to.

I had another restless night, the problem churning away in my mind. Like all obsessive thoughts that keep you awake, no solution presented itself beyond the resolve to confront Niall as soon as possible.

I was awake at half-past six, and I decided to act. I left you asleep in bed, got dressed, then walked quickly from the hotel.

It was already a fine, warm morning. Knowing it made no difference where I went to find Niall, I walked up the hill, following the long straight road as it climbed away from the town. At the top there were a few houses, then the road turned sharply to cut between two steep cliffs to the other side of the hill. I scrambled up one of the mounds and walked across the broad summit. Rocks protruded from the grass. It was utterly still and quiet.

I found a flat rock and sat down on it, staring across Herefordshire.

I said, “Are you there, Niall?”

Silence. Sheep grazed on the slopes beneath me, and a solitary car drove up the road then cut through the gap toward Malvern.

“Niall? I want to talk to you.”

“I’m here, bitch.” His voice came from a short distance away, somewhere to my left. He sounded out of breath.

“Where are you? I want to see you.”

“We can talk like this.”

“Make yourself visible, Niall.”

“No … you make yourself invisible.”

He made me realize that I had been continuously visible for more than a week, the longest time since puberty. It had happened so naturally that I had simply not thought about it.

“I’m going to stay like this,” I said.

“Suit yourself.”

He had moved; his voice came from a different place each time he spoke. I was trying to see him, knowing there was always a way to find the cloud if only I knew how to see. But I had been with you too long, or Niall had retreated too far into his glamour. I imagined him prowling around, circling as I sat on the rock. I stood up.

“Why won’t you leave me alone, Niall?”

“Because you’re fucking with Grey. I’m trying to make you quit.”

“Leave us alone! I’m finished with you. I’m never going to see you again.”

“I’ve already arranged that for you, Susan.”

He was still moving around, sometimes behind me. If only he had stayed still I would not have grown so frightened.

I said, “Don’t interfere, Niall. It’s over between us!”

“You’re a glam. It’ll never work with him.”

“I’ll never be like you! I hate you!”

It was then that he struck me, a hard fist coming out of the air, banging against the side of my head. I lurched backward gasping, trying to keep my balance, reaching behind me as my foot struck a rock and I fell heavily on the ground. An instant later Niall kicked me, high up on my leg by my hip. I shouted with the pain and curled up desperately in a fetal position, my arms over my head. I braced myself against more pain.

But I heard him right beside me, leaning down so that his invisible mouth was close by my ear. I smelt the sourness of old tobacco on his breath.

“I’m never going to leave you, Susan. You’re mine, and I’m helpless without you. I’m not going to leave you until you finish with Grey.”

His hand thrust roughly into the front of my blouse, and he tore and scratched at my breast. I hunched myself tighter and squirmed away from him, forcing him to remove his hand but ripping the fabric at the front.

He said, still by my face, “You haven’t told him about me yet. Tell him you’re an invisible, tell him you’re mad.”

“No!”

“If you don’t, I will.”

“You’ve done enough harm already.”

“I’ve hardly started. Would you like me to grab the steering wheel when he’s driving?”

“You’re crazy, Niall!”

“No more than you are, Susan. We’re both mad. Make him understand that, and if he still wants you then maybe I’ll leave you alone.”

I sensed him move away from me, but I stayed huddled on the ground, terrified of more blows. Niall had often hit me in the past when he was angry, but never like this, never from within the cloud. I was still dazed from being hit on the head, and my leg and back were aching. I let more time pass and then sat up slowly, looking around for him. How close was he?

I was desperate to talk to you, wanted your comfort, but what would you say? Sitting on the ground I explored the damage to me: there was a sore area on my lower back and a bruised lump on my thigh. I had a grass graze on my elbow. The front of my blouse was hanging open, and two buttons were missing.

I wandered around on the hill for a while, but soon my need to be with you became all-important. I limped slowly down the road toward the hotel, holding my blouse together with my hand. It was uncanny how Niall could voice my worst fears: never before had he described invisibility as madness. It was as if he had read my mind.

I saw you the moment I entered the hotel grounds. You had opened the rear hatch of the car and were putting your suitcase inside. I called out to you, but you did not hear. Then I realized that in my misery I had slipped back into invisibility—another of Niall’s achievements. I forced myself out of the cloud and called to you again. This time you heard me, straightening by the car and turning toward me, and I ran sobbing into your arms.

XIII

You knew I had seen Niall; I could not conceal it from you. I tried to minimize what he had done, but I could not hide my torn clothes and bruises. In the end I admitted he had struck me in jealousy, and that the problem was not solved. I think I would have been ready for you too to have been angry, but you were as upset as I was. We stayed on all morning in the Malvern hotel discussing Niall—but always in your terms, not mine.

We left the hotel after an early lunch and drove into Wales. Niall was in the car, sitting behind us silently.

We stopped on the way to buy petrol, and for a few moments I was alone in the car with Niall.

I said, “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

Silence.

“Are you there, Niall?”

I had turned around to look back at the empty half of the rear seat, but again I was unable to see. Outside, the petrol pump whirred, electronic digits flickering orange in the sunlight. You were crouching over the filler, looking back at the pump, just a few inches behind Niall. You saw me apparently looking at you, and you smiled briefly.

When you turned away again I said, “It’s what you wanted … I’ll tell Richard tomorrow.”

Niall said nothing, but I knew he was there. His silence intimidated me, probably on purpose, so I opened the door and got Out of the car. I leaned on the front wing while you paid the cashier.

We arrived in the village of Little Haven, on the far westerly coast of Dyfed. It was a small and pretty place, not crowded with visitors, and had a long rocky shoreline. In the evening we walked on the beach to watch the sunset, then called in at the local pub before returning to the hotel.

There was now a distance between us. You could not understand why I had agreed to meet Niall, nor why, after he had beaten me up, I would not renounce him. I knew you were hurt, puzzled and angry. I was desperate to mend everything. Niall’s way, to tell you of my invisibility, was the probable solution: it would satisfy him, and explain myself to you.

But I was exhausted by the subject. I wanted time to sort things out, so that anything I said came from my needs, and was not simply a way of appeasing Niall. I resolved to tell you in the morning, but in the meantime I had other plans.

When we were back in our room, I slipped away to the bathroom. Although my period was continuing, I put in my diaphragm to halt the bleeding temporarily.

In bed, you wanted to talk about Niall again, but I deflected you. There was nothing I could say to make amends. I held you, kissed you, tried to arouse you. At first you resisted me, but I knew what I wanted. The evening was warm again and we were lying on top of the covers, the elderly double bed creaking as we moved around. You responded at last, and I felt my own arousal growing. I wanted to make love to you more excitingly than ever before, and I kissed and fondled you with great intimacy; I loved your body, the solidity of it and its hard curves.

We rolled over so that you were above me, and now you were caressing me with your hands and tongue. I raised my parted knees, ready for you—but you appeared to change your mind, and rolled to the side. I felt your hands pulling me around against you, pushing my shoulders down against your chest. I wanted you inside me, but your hands pulled my rear away from you, twisting my haunches awkwardly. We were kissing mouth to mouth, and I could not understand what you were wanting to do. Your fingers were digging into the flesh of my hips, thrusting me away. Then I realized that both your hands were on my breasts, lightly fingering my nipples. Other hands were reaching from behind, pulling at my hips! Suddenly, with a pushing intrusion, I was entered from behind. Pubic hair prickled against my buttocks. I gasped, turned my head, felt an unshaven chin beat into the curve of my neck, and knees kicked into the crook of mine. The weight of the man behind me thrust me forward against you, and one of your hands slipped down towards my crotch. I grabbed your wrist to stop you finding what was already there, and in desperation brought your hand up to my mouth to kiss it. Niall’s sexual pushing against me was violent, making me gasp in outrage. You were growing more excited, wanting to enter me. I had to stop you somehow, and so I curled away from the man behind me, pushing my backside more acutely against him in a desperate effort to twist free, and at the same time took you into my mouth to suck. Niall shifted position, moving forward so that he was kneeling between my legs, his hands under my belly and holding me while he rammed. His movements grew more urgent, and he put one of his hands on my head, taking a handful of my hair and wrenching it painfully, pushing my mouth farther down on you. I began gagging. You were lying back, your arms somewhere away from me, while the rape went on. I could barely breathe, but I was swinging my elbows upward and back, trying to beat Niall away from me. I managed to get you out of my mouth, but my face was still being pushed into your groin. I heard you groaning with pleasure, while Niall hammered unrelentingly at me. I felt him climaxing, and he grunted audibly, expelling breath noisily. You said my name, your voice full of desire for me. Niall slumped forward across my back, releasing my hair and playing his hands across my breasts. As he relaxed I was able to shift my weight, but I couldn’t wriggle him out of me. He was still there, monstrously possessing me, his weight forcing my face down against you. You said my name again, wanting to make love. I managed to turn my face to see you; your eyes were closed, your mouth was open. I had to get Niall out of me, but I was pinned beneath him. Jabs with my elbows had no effect; his frantic breathing was close by my ear. I could feel him softening inside me, so I made another effort to twist my hips, raising my body as I did so. This time I managed to slide away from him, but he was still there holding on to me. I elbowed him again, and he loosened his grip on me. As soon as I could I crawled across your body, hugging your chest, bringing my face to yours. You kissed me with great passion, and pulled me over you. I could feel Niall beside us on the bed, some part of him pressing against my side.

You entered me at last, and we made love. There was no pleasure in it for me, just relief that it was you, not Niall. Because I was squatting above you, we were looking at each other. I kept my face rigid, knowing that if I tried to respond to you my true feelings would be revealed. All I could do was move my body with yours, hoping it would be enough. Niall was still there; I could feel the warmth of his body against my lower leg.

How could you not be aware of him? Was Niall so profoundly invisible to you that you could not hear him, smell him, not feel his weight on the bed, not react to the violent contortions he had forced on me?

As soon as you had finished I lay beside you, and we pulled the sheet over us. I whispered that I was tired, and we lay in each other’s arms with the light out. I waited and waited as your breathing steadied and you fell into sleep. When I was sure I would not disturb you, I slipped out of the bed and went to the bathroom. I showered as quietly as I could, scrubbing myself clean.

When I returned, the room smelled of French tobacco smoke.

XIV

In the morning, I said to you, “Do you remember the puzzle that used to be printed in children’s books?”

I took a piece of paper, and made two marks:

X O

“If you close your left eye,” I said, “and look with your right eye at the cross, then move your face closer to the paper, the nought seems to vanish.”

You said, That’s a physical failure of the eye. The retina has only a limited amount of peripheral vision.

I said, “But the brain compensates for what the eye cannot see. It’s not as if the nought has actually been removed—there’s no hole in the paper. You think you can still see the paper where the nought was.”

You said, What are you getting at?

I said to you, “Imagine that you are invited to a party where almost everyone else is a stranger. You enter the room where they are standing around. The people are drinking, smoking, talking. No one greets you, and you feel self-conscious. Your main awareness is the sense of a crowd. No one person stands out from the others. You take a drink and stand at the edge of the room, looking at the people, hoping to see a familiar face. You see someone you recognize, and although he or she is talking to someone else and doesn’t come over to you, you notice them in preference to anyone else.

“You are still on your own, so you look at the other people. The ones you notice now are probably the women, making quick judgments of their appearance and whether or not they are alone. If they are with men, you will notice them too. Eventually someone speaks to you, and that person then becomes the center of your attention. Later on you will single out other people for closer notice, and then you will concentrate on each of them in turn. There might be a man who is very drunk, a girl in a sexy dress, someone who laughs too loudly. As you speak to other people, they enter your sphere of immediate awareness. The other people, the ones you have not yet spoken to or specifically noticed, will remain in your awareness, but only in a general or peripheral sense.

“During this, you will gradually become aware of other things in the room: the food and drink, obviously. There might be a domestic animal, which you see. You will notice houseplants. You will see the furniture and carpet. In the end, you might even notice how the room itself has been decorated.

“Every object and every person in the room is visible to you, but there is an unconscious order in which you become aware of them.

“Always, at every party, there will be someone you never notice.”

I said to you, “Now, suppose you are at another gathering of people you do not know. There are ten men and one woman. As you enter the room the woman, who is beautiful and voluptuous, starts to dance and remove her clothes. As soon as she is naked you leave the room. How many of the men would you be able to describe afterward? Would you even be sure there were ten of them, and not nine, or an eleventh you did not notice at all?”

I said to you, “Richard, suppose you are walking down a street and two women approach you. One of them is young and pretty and is wearing attractive clothes. The other is an older woman, perhaps the girl’s middleaged mother, and she is wearing a plain, shapeless coat. As you pass, they both smile at you. Which one do you notice first?”

You said, But these are sexual responses.

“Not always,” I said. “Suppose there is a group of ten people, five men and five women. A sixth woman approaches the group. What she will notice first is the other women, and will look at them in preference to the men. Women notice women, just as men notice women. A child will notice other children before seeing the adults. Women notice children before they notice adults. Men see women before they see children, and then they notice the other men.

“There is a hierarchy of visual interest. In any group of people there is always someone who is noticed last.”

I said to you, “You are walking down a busy shopping street, looking for someone you know. Let us assume it is a woman. Crowds of people, all of them strangers to you, are pushing past. You see them all, because you are searching for your friend. You constantly scan faces, looking for the one you recognize. You look at men as well as women. Some of the faces interest you, most of them do not. The time passes, and you begin to wonder if you might have missed seeing your friend. You know what she looks like, you saw her only yesterday, but you begin to wonder if you will be able to spot her in the crowd. Perhaps she is wearing different clothes? Or has done her hair differently? You continue to look at the people, more intently, no longer sure of what you are looking for. You notice one or two other women who look like your friend, and for a moment you wonder if you have found her. Then at last she appears, and the problem is over. She looks exactly like she did the last time you saw her, and all you are aware of is the relief of finding her. Now you notice no one else in the street, although the crowds continue to surge past.

“Afterward, if you think about it, you will be able to recall several of the faces you saw while you were searching. Yet in those few minutes you looked directly at possibly hundreds of faces, and were aware of thousands of others. You looked at most of them and you thought you saw them, but in fact they did not register on your mind.”

You said, But there’s nothing unusual in that.

I said to you, “The point I’m making is that it’s normal not to notice everything around you. What you see is what you choose to see, or what interests you, or anything that is drawn to your attention. What I’m trying to tell you is that there are some people whom you will never see. They are too low in the hierarchy. In any group, they are the ones who are noticed last. Ordinary people do not know how to see them. They are people who are naturally invisible, who do not know how to make themselves noticed.”

I said, “I am naturally invisible, Richard, and you only see me because I want you to see me.”

You said, That’s ridiculous.

I said, “Watch, Richard.”

And I stood before you and let myself slip into invisibility, and when you could not see me I hid from you until I saw how upset you were.

XV

I said to you, “Richard, you are naturally invisible too. You do not know it, but you have the power to make glamours around you. I can teach you how to use that power.”

You said, I can’t believe I’m hearing this.

I said, “Then you are halfway to invisibility, because disbelief is part of it. Let me show you how to intensify your cloud.”

We were sitting on the rocks of the shore near Little Haven. The sea was at low tide, and the sands were glistening in the sunlight. Holidaymakers were all around us, and far away a number of children were splashing in the shallows. I tried to explain the technique of intensifying the cloud, keeping away from the jargon used by the glams. For me, invisibility was a way of making myself see or not see, and in seeing or not seeing becoming unseen or seen.

I said, “You have to relax, develop a mental attitude of disbelief in yourself.”

You said, It’s impossible.

I thought about your story of filming the riot. I said, “Remember how you felt when you were filming. Imagine you have a camera here. Suppose you wanted to film some of these people, say those two girls sunbathing. If you walked up to them with a camera they would notice, they would become self-conscious, they would start seeing themselves through you. How would you avoid that?”

You said, I’d use a telephoto lens.

“No, go in close. Think of yourself crouching beside them, the camera right on them. How would you do it?”

You said, All right. I’ll try.

You walked across the beach, not directly toward the girls but seeming to amble accidentally in their direction. I saw you pause, look out to sea, stare down at the sand, thinking. The two girls were teenagers, spread out on towels, wearing chain-store bikinis. They had a transitor radio playing pop music. They looked very young, rather plump, not yet suntanned. When you turned back to them I saw you straighten your back, and you shrugged one shoulder, as if imagining the weight of a camera. As you walked toward them, more confidently than before, I saw your cloud intensifying. You stood beside them, crouched down. Neither of them noticed you. There was a pause, and then you moved to the radio and pushed it to one side; Still they showed no response. One of the girls turned over and lay in the sun with one knee raised. You walked around to look down at her, blocking the sun and throwing your shadow across her face.

When you came back to me you were still invisible, laughing and laughing. We held each other and kissed, and you said, Now what else can I do?

I said to you, “First I must tell you about Niall.”

XVI

We stayed in Little Haven for three days, then drove up the coast to St. David’s. We were torn about what to do; we both felt we would like to go back to London, and yet we were reluctant to finish the holiday. Everything that stood between us before had now been cleared up, and we were in love. The words were exchanged regularly, and the feeling was constant.

When we arrived in St. David’s, the little cathedral city was crowded with tourists and it was difficult to find somewhere to stay. The place we eventually found was in a narrow side street, with nowhere to park the car. I went up to the room while you took the car to a parking lot a short distance away.

As soon as I was inside the room Niall said, “You haven’t done what I told you to do.”

I turned around in horror; he was still invisible.

“Don’t come near me!” I said. “I’ll scream if you touch me.”

“You said you would tell Grey about me.”

“Where are you, Niall? Show yourself.”

“You know where I am. Why didn’t you tell him about me?”

“I did tell him. He knows everything now.”

“I heard what you said. I was there. He still doesn’t know about me, what I mean to you.”

“You don’t mean anything to me!” I said. “It’s finished for good. After what you did to me, I’m never having anything to do with you again!”

“I need you, Susan. I can’t let you go.”

“You’ll have to!” I went quickly across the room and opened the door. I wanted to find you quickly before Niall could say anything else. I heard him following me down the corridor, so I started to run. I hurried down the stairs and through the small hotel lounge, hoping desperately that you were returning. Outside in the narrow street, Niall caught my arm and turned me around. He had made himself visible to me at last.

I was shocked to see him. A week’s growth of beard shadowed his face, his hair was uncombed and his clothes were dirty. I had never seen him like this; Niall had always been dapper. His eyes had a wild, desperate look, and all the self-confidence had gone from him. Suddenly to see him again brought an abrupt change in me. While he lurked invisibly around me he was an unseen threat, an intruder, a rapist … but now he was here he looked young, frightened, rather pathetic.

He said, “Please, Susan, I must talk to you.”

“I can’t. There’s nothing more to say.”

“I’d just like to be alone with you for an hour. Can’t you manage that? Just for a while? I know you hate me now, but I’m desperate to be with you again.”

“Richard’s here, and I can’t leave him.”

“Tell him you want to be on your own for a while. He’ll understand.”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” I said.

“Please … just to say goodbye?”

I saw you then, walking back toward the hotel. You saw me, and waved. As you strode toward me I thought how lithe and fit you were, so full of confidence, so unlike Niall.

“He’ll see you!” I said to Niall.

“No, he won’t.”

You came up to us. “We’ve still got all afternoon. Why don’t we find a beach? I feel like a swim.”

“Tell him,” Niall said.

“I think I’ll walk around the shops for a while. You go on your own.”

“Something’s happened, Sue … what is it?”

“Nothing. I just don’t feel like being on a beach.”

“All right. We’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll come shopping with you.”

Niall was standing back from us, his shoulders hunched. I said, “I think I’d like to be on my own for a while.”

“What’s up, Sue?” you said. “You weren’t like this just now.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’d like to be by myself.”

You made an exasperated gesture. “If that’s how it is, I’ll find a beach and lie on it until you feel like being with me again.”

Niall was watching as I took your arm and kissed you affectionately on your cheek. “I won’t be long,” I said.

“See you back at the hotel, then.”

You stalked off quickly, obviously irritated with me. I stood with Niall until you had gone inside the hotel, then walked decisively away from him. Niall followed. I led the way out of the small town into the country lanes that surrounded it, and only then slowed the pace. I had been visible ever since Niall spoke to me in the room, and I was determined to stay that way. Niall too remained visible, if only to me.

I was with him for the rest of the afternoon, and into the early evening.

I heard him out. He said many of the same things I had already heard: that he still loved me, that he was lonely, that he was jealous of you. He said he was frightened on his own. I could harden myself against this, and nothing changed.

But we talked a long time. I began to learn things about him that made me realize I had been blocking him too long. He said that he was regretting his past, and, like me, wanted an end to the isolation of invisibility. He wanted somewhere permanent to live, an end to the constant petty crime and trespass. He said he was envious of the way I had been selling my drawings, and as a result had been writing more and more, trying to establish himself. His main problem was finding somewhere to work. Ironically, he was losing confidence in his invisibility and could never concentrate on his writing if he was in somebody else’s house with people there.

And he was convinced that no one read the manuscripts he sent off. He never used the post office, because of the fear most invisibles had that their mail would be overlooked or lost, and so he always delivered to the publishers by hand. Even so, he felt certain the manuscripts were not being read. They were rarely returned to him, and more often than not he had to break in to the offices to retrieve them. Sometimes, he said, the manuscripts were still lying where he had left them. He spoke cynically of his conviction that even if his work somehow overcame this obstacle and was actually published, the printed books would not be noticed or bought.

I tried drawing him out on what he had been writing, but he would only describe the work as stories. He had always been secretive about his writing, but I wished I could read some of it. He made a vague promise to show me a manuscript one day, but I didn’t press him.

Niall would not admit as much, but I interpreted his ambition to be a writer as a symptom of the larger problem. He repeatedly described himself as isolated or lost, comparing himself unfavorably with me. In the past he had usually treated my own wish for normality with contempt, but now he was different. He was frightened he would lose me. I was his link with the real world; he said I was like a guide dog for a blind person. He needed me to help him join the world. This was his real fear and dislike of you: that in losing me to you he would lose himself.

Niall was making a potent appeal to my loyalties. I knew the bitter truth of what he said, and I realized he was maturing at last. I could not harden myself against hearing this. I was not forgetting you, but I found myself forgiving him for the intrusions he had made on us, even apologizing to him for having been unsympathetic. I stayed silent when he tried to make me promise never to see you again, but later said I did not see why we couldn’t remain friends.

I was acutely aware of how long I had been away from you, so I headed back to the town. The sun was lowering and had lost most of its heat, and I knew you would no longer be on the beach. Niall walked with me, urging me to confront you the moment I saw you.

We came across you unexpectedly, walking around in the small square near the cathedral. You saw me before I saw you, and my first reaction was that you must have seen me with Niall. I felt confused, and acted guilty.

You said, “I’ve been looking for you. Where the hell have you been?”

“Walking around the shops,” I said, painfully aware of how few shops there were in the town. “What about you?”

“I lay on the beach for a while, then came looking for you.”

I had glanced at Niall, convinced you could see him.

Niall said, “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

You had an angry look, and what I wanted to do was put my arms around you and explain and try to put it right, but Niall was there.

“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing how feeble it must sound.

“What would you like to do?” you said.

“I don’t mind … anything you like.”

“All right. I’ll leave you to it. You obviously want to be left alone.”

“I didn’t say that.”

You walked away without looking back. I started to follow you, but your shoulders had a determined set to them, and I knew it would have to wait until later. I turned back to Niall, but he had disappeared.

“Niall! Are you there?”

“I’m here.” His voice was close beside me.

“Let me see you.”

“Not now. You want to be with him.”

“It’s not possible at the moment, thanks to you.” I looked around, realizing that to the other people in the street I would appear to be standing and talking to myself. I started walking, knowing that Niall would stay with me. I said, “Don’t you see what you’re doing to him?”

There was no reply. I carried on walking, thinking that Niall was just not answering, but after a few seconds I realized he had moved off and left me. I turned back. Why had he suddenly gone away from me? I went back to the place where he had last spoken to me, called his name. There was no sound of him.

One or two passers-by were glancing at me curiously, so I moved on. There was a small patch of grass in the center of the square, and I went over to it and sat down on a wooden bench. The air was still warm in the evening. I hated it when Niall suddenly left me. It confused me and made me feel uncertain, just as it had the time he hung up on me. It made me remember the awfulness of his intrusions, the neurotic state he could induce in me.

And worse than this, it made me question whether or not he had really been there. His sudden manifestations were those of a visitant, a voice striking out of the air, conscience of my past.

Until I met you, Niall had never used his profound invisibility against me. Why?

If he cannot be seen, is he really there?

When he materializes from nowhere, what is it I appear to see?

Such thoughts lay close to the madness I feared. To clear my mind of them I walked away from the center of the little town and headed for our hotel. I wanted to see you whatever the circumstances, and whatever the outcome might be. Only in you lay certainty and sanity.

XVII

You were sitting on the bed in the room, reading the morning’s newspaper, and you pretended not to notice me.

I said, “I’m hungry, Richard. Shall we find a restaurant?”

“All right.” Without another word you folded away the paper and stood up.

The only restaurant we liked the look of was crowded, and we had to share a small table with another couple. Conversation was impossible, beyond the barest exchange of formalities about ordering the food. We left as soon as we could, and returned to the hotel. I was feeling sweaty and dusty after my long afternoon, so I took a shower. When I came out you had undressed and were lying on top of the bed. I toweled my hair, then got in under the sheet.

I said: “I know you’re angry, but if I tell you the truth, will you listen?”

“It depends what it is.”

“It’s Niall. He’s here in town, and I saw him today.”

I thought you would have guessed somehow, but I saw the surprise register in your face.

“What the hell’s he doing here?” you said. “He was in Malvern. Is he following us around?”

“The only thing that matters is that he’s here.”

“Why should you want to see him? I’ve had enough of this. I’m going back to London tomorrow. If you want to be with your damned boyfriend, you can stay here.”

“I had to see him,” I said. “I wanted to tell him that everything between him and me is over.”

“You said that before.”

“Richard, I love you.”

“I don’t think that’s true any longer.”

“It is.”

It threw me aside from what I wanted to say. Everything was too complicated and charged with emotion. I wanted to simplify it, start again from what I saw as the central truth: that you were the only one I wanted to be with. But you threw it in my face, and that made me angry too. The arguing became illogical, until we both abandoned it. An irreparable change had taken place.

In a period of quiet I started thinking about what Niall had said in the afternoon, his need for me to tell you why he still mattered to me. In the desperation we had reached it felt as if it would be the only way to make you understand. You had left the bed, and were pacing about the room.

Then you said, “There’s something I want to know. Why did you come out with all that stuff about invisibility?”

“What do you mean? You know what happened.”

“I know what you said happened. What was it all about?”

“We’re both naturally invisible, Richard.”

“No we’re not. It’s a lot of bullshit.”

“It’s the single most important fact in my life.”

“All right—do it now. Make yourself invisible.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t believe you.” You were staring at me with cold dislike.

“I’m upset now. It’s difficult.”

“Then tell me why you came out with all that crap.”

“It’s not crap,” I said. I concentrated on intensifying the cloud, and after a few moments’ uncertainty felt myself slip into invisibility. “I’ve done it.”

You were staring directly at me. “Then why can I still see you?”

“I don’t know—can you?”

“Plain as daylight.”

“It’s because … you know how to look. You know where I am. And because you’re an invisible too.”

You shook your head.

I deepened the cloud, and within it I climbed out of bed and moved away to the side. It was a small room, but I stood as far away from the bed as I could go, pressing myself against the polished wood of the wardrobe door. You were looking at me.

“I can still see you,” you said.

“Richard, it’s because you know how! Don’t you understand that?”

“You’re no more invisible than I am.”

“I’m scared to go deeper.” But I tried again, staring back at your angry face from within my cloud, wondering how I could ever convince you. I was trying to remember the disciplines Mrs. Quayle had taught me. I knew how to intensify the cloud, but for many years my fear of the shadows had pushed me the other way. I always had the terror that once I entered the deepest levels of the glamour I would become, like Niall, stuck forever.

For a moment you frowned, looking away, as if watching me cross the room. I held my breath, knowing you had lost sight of me. But you looked back.

“I can still see you,” you said again, looking me in the eyes.

The cloud dispersed and I slumped on the bed. I began weeping. There was a pause, and then you were sitting beside me, your arm around my back. You held me close, and neither of us said anything. I let the tension drain out of me, and I sobbed against you.

We went to bed at last, but there was no lovemaking that night. We lay beside each other in the dark, and although I was exhausted I found it impossible to sleep. I knew that you too were awake. How much could I tell you about Niall? If you disbelieved my invisibility, what would you say about his?

Like you, I knew we could not go on like this, but I was scared that if you knew the truth I would lose you. Niall would then haunt me for the rest of my life.

Out of the dark, you said, “When I met you in the square this evening, what were you doing?”

“Trying to work things out.”

“You seemed to be acting strangely. Was Niall watching you?”

“I think so.”

“Where is he now?”

“I’m not sure … somewhere around.”

“I still don’t understand how he found us,” you said.

“When he wants something, he’s persistent.”

“He seems to have power over you. I wish to God I knew what it was.”

I lay there silently, wondering what to say. Nothing made sense that was not my sense, but you would not believe that.

“Sue?”

“It’s Niall,” I said. “I thought you would realize … he’s glamorous too.”

XVIII

We spent the whole of the next day driving back to London. There was a barrier of resentment and misunderstanding between us, and I had no idea what I could do or say to retrieve the situation. You seemed hurt and angry, unapproachable by reason or lovingness. I still wanted only you, but no longer knew how. I was losing you.

Niall traveled back with us, sitting invisibly in the rear seat of the car.

We came into London during the evening rush hour, and after leaving the motorway it was a slow and tiresome drive to Hornsey. You took me to my house, and parked the car outside. I could see the fatigue in your eyes.

“Would you like to come in for a few minutes?” I said.

“Yes, but I won’t stay long.”

We unloaded my stuff from the back of the car. I was watching to see some sign of Niall, but if he climbed out of the car he did so without my noticing. I let us into the house, closing the front door quickly, just in case. It was a senseless precaution, because he had had a key for years. I picked up the small stack of mail waiting for me on the hall table, then opened my room door. As soon as we were inside I closed the door quickly and bolted it, the only way I could be sure of keeping Niall out. You noticed this, but said nothing.

I opened a window at the top, and pulled back the half-drawn curtains. You sat down on the end of the bed.

You said, “Sue, we’ve got to sort this out. Are we going to go on seeing each other?”

“Do you want to?”

“I’d like to—but not with Niall hanging around.”

“It’s all over, I promise you.”

“You’ve said that before. How do I know he isn’t going to turn up again?”

“Because he told me that if I talked to you about him, so that you know what he thinks he’s losing, then he would accept that.”

“All right … what’s the great sacrifice?”

“I told you last night. Niall is an invisible too.”

“Not that again!” You stood up and moved away from me. “I’ll tell you what I think of all that. The only invisibility I’m aware of is this damned ex-boyfriend who follows you around. I’ve never met him, never seen him, and as far as I’m concerned he doesn’t exist! You’ve got to get rid of him, Sue!”

“Yes, I know.”

“All right, we’re both tired. I want to go back to my place and get some sleep. We’ll probably feel different in the morning. Shall we meet for dinner tomorrow evening?”

“Do you want to?”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t. I’ll telephone you in the morning.”

On that, after a brief kiss, we parted. I watched you drive away, and had a superstitious feeling I would not see you again. It felt as if we had reached a natural end, one which I had been incapable of preventing. I was helpless in the face of your doubts about invisibility. Niall had undermined everything.

I returned to my room and closed the door, bolting it behind me.

I said, “Niall, are you here?” A long silence followed. “If you’re here, please tell me.”

His absence unnerved me as much as his invisible presence. I walked around the room, thrashing my arms about, trying to find him in case he was staying silent to intimidate me, but at last I was sure I was alone. I opened my suitcase and hung up my clothes, making a heap on the floor of the ones that needed washing. There was no food in the place, but we had stopped for lunch on the way and I was not really hungry. I changed my clothes, putting on jeans and a clean shirt. Then I remembered the pile of mail, and sat on the bed to go through it.

In the middle of the stack of envelopes was a picture postcard.

XIX

The postcard was unsigned, but I knew the handwriting was Niall’s. The message simply read, “Wish you were here,” and underneath was an X. The picture was a modern reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph: a quayside in SaintTropez with a large warehouse in the background. I tried to decipher the postmark, but it was smudged and illegible. The postage stamp was French: the green head of a goddess, France Postes, f. 1.70.

It was undoubtedly from Niall. He never signed his name, and anyway I knew his handwriting. Even the X was flamboyant.

I opened the other letters, skimming through their contents, barely registering them. When I had finished I tipped the envelopes into the wastebasket. The picture postcard lay on the bed.

I still had the bruise on my thigh where Niall had kicked me; I was still slightly stiff from the blow on my back. I vividly remembered the rape, the car with the engine running, the unpacked clothes, the bar of soap dropped on me in the night. I had seen Niall, had spent most of the previous afternoon with him.

How could he have been in France?

The postcard with its derisive message, its showy anonymity, denied everything I had experienced in the last few days.

Either Niall had been following me on my holiday with you, or he had been in France, where he had claimed from the outset he was.

Was I imagining everything?

I remembered the decision I had taken: Niall had to be in France, otherwise I was accepting the madness of the invisible world. I had wanted to act on that, but Niall had appeared in England.

Throughout our trip I had felt the fear of madness, the uncertainty of his visitations. I looked to passers-by as if I were talking to myself; you never saw him; he could rape me while I made love to you and you never knew. He entered and left rooms without my seeing the door open, he was in the car and not in the car, sitting behind us, invisible to us both.

But there were odd and authentic details: his being out of breath after we climbed the hill behind Malvern, the rasp of his pubic hair as he raped me, the clarity of those suspiciously close phone calls, the smell of Gauloises cigarettes in the room and on his breath.

The postcard was an objective disproof of this. It was there, and it had been mailed. It arrived in the impartiality of a bundle of letters.

I tried to think of explanations for the card, however wild. He had bought the card in England, and talked one of his friends into posting it to me from France. But where would you come across a card like this in England? Perhaps he had found it in a shop somewhere, and thought of sending it to me as a way of disorienting me? Niall was capable of something like that, but it was overelaborate. Maybe he had indeed traveled to France when he said, sent the card, then returned? But why? It was implausible, too much trouble to go to when he had other ways of distracting me. And I was still sure those phone calls had come from London.

Anyway, I had seen him. He looked like someone who had been trailing us, unshaven, pale, wearing dirty clothes. He had seemed realistic in every way, bar the madness that kept him out of the real world.

Again the idea of madness. Was it me?

Had I imagined him into existence, an embodiment of guilt, or of my past, or of my conscience?

If I could make myself invisible to the world, was I equally capable of summoning another presence into visibility?

Had I produced Niall out of my unconscious, a visitation of what I wished on myself, what I expected, what I most dreaded?

As I sat there, these turbulent fears whirling through me, I realized I had slipped without noticing it into invisibility. My cloud had intensified because of my terror. I pushed the postcard under the covers of the bed, out of sight.

My invisibility-curse or talent, whichever it might be—was the only area of my life of which I was certain. I knew what I was, and what I could become. It might be my madness, but it was all mine.

I walked across the room and opened the long wardrobe door. I stared into the mirror inside. My reflection came back at me: my hair was untidy, my eyes were dilated. I swung the door to and fro, trying to confuse the image, trying to make myself not see—but I was always there. I remembered the trick Mrs. Quayle had played on me, concealing a mirror so that in my surprise I failed to see myself. Only Mrs. Quayle had believed in my talent more than I did.

Both Niall and you eroded my self-confidence, in different ways: Niall by his behavior, you by disbelieving. I had thought that by bringing you into the world of the invisibles you would see me as I really was, and by understanding would show me the way out of it. Niall, for converse reasons, held me back, or tried to. You were each the complement of the other, suspending me between you.

Whichever way I turned I seemed to be losing my mind.

I stared at the reflection of myself, knowing I could not trust even that. It made me look as if I were there, when I knew I was not.

You said you saw me, when I knew you could not.

Only Niall knew me for what I really was, and I could not trust him at all.

I ran out to the hall and picked up the telephone. I dialed your number and the ringing tone was sounding before I realized I had brought no coins. Anyway, there was no answer.

Back in my room, the postcard from Niall was still to be explained. I stared at it for a while, thinking of its consequences, then propped it up on the shelf over the gas fire. It was safest to treat it as just another postcard, sent by a friend on holiday.

I went through the rest of my mail again—one letter enclosed a much-needed check, and another a commission for some artwork—then I undressed and went to bed.

The first thing I did in the morning was to telephone you. After a few rings you answered, and I slipped in two coins before we spoke.

“Richard? It’s me … Sue.”

“I thought you might have called last night.” Your voice sounded husky, and I wondered if I had woken you up.

“I did try, but there was no answer.” You said nothing, and I couldn’t remember if we had made a firm arrangement that I would ring you. “How are you?” I said.

“Tired. What are you doing today?”

“I’m going in to visit the studio. There was a letter there’s a job for me. I can’t afford to let it go.”

“Will you be out all day?”

“Most of it,” I said.

“Shall we meet this evening? I’d like to see you and I’ve got some news.”

“News? What is it?”

“I’ve been offered some work. I’ll tell you about it this evening.”

We made arrangements about when and where to meet. Talking to you I had a mental image of you sitting on the floor by your phone. I imagined you with your hair mussed from the bed, your eyes still half closed; I wondered if you slept in pajamas when you were alone. The thought made me feel affectionate toward you, and I wished I could see you at once. I wanted to visit your flat again, be with you in your home, not always traveling around from one hotel to the next, never sure if Niall was watching. For some reason I thought of your flat as safe from Niall, although there was no reason why it should be.

Thinking of you there reminded me of the day of the storm, when we had planned our holiday. I remembered your collection of postcards.

I said, “While we were away, someone sent me a postcard. It wasn’t you, was it?”

“Postcard? Why should I do that?”

“Whoever sent it didn’t sign it.” I thought of Niall’s distinctive handwriting. “It was an old card … the sort you collect.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

I said, “When I see you this evening, would you bring some of your cards along? The places you wanted to visit, in France—I’d like to look at them again.”

XX

I visited the studio in town, and collected the work they wanted me to do. I made a start on it at home in the afternoon, but my mind was elsewhere. To meet you in the evening I had to take a bus across North London; when we had agreed on the place I had been thinking I would be coming straight from the West End. It was a tube station, fairly close to your apartment. I arrived before you, but as soon as I saw you, walking up from the direction of the flat, I was so glad and relieved to see you that all my worries vanished. I ran toward you, and we stood for a long time kissing and holding each other as the traffic went by.

We walked back to your flat, arm in arm, and we went to bed as soon as we were there. So much had happened since we last made love, but to be together again made everything right. Afterward we walked up the hill to Hampstead and found a restaurant.

Feeling relaxed with you, I talked about my day and the commission I had received. I deliberately did not think about or mention Niall.

Then you said, “Don’t you want to hear my news?”

“You said you’d been offered some work.”

“A camera job. I’m thinking of accepting it.”

“Why shouldn’t you?”

“Because it’ll mean going away for a while. Maybe as long as two weeks.” You explained about the political tension in Central America, the reason a British crew was wanted. You appeared to be doubtful about telling me this, and at first I assumed it was because the work would be dangerous.

“What about it, Sue? Should I accept?”

“Not if you think you might be killed.”

You made a dismissive gesture. “I’m thinking about you. If I go away for a couple of weeks, will you be here when I get back?”

“Of course I will!”

“What about Niall, Sue? Is that all over?”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Have you seen him today?”

“No, and I don’t even know where he is.”

“You’d better be sure of this. Niall and I don’t mix. Either you put the past behind you, or we’ve had it.”

I took your hand across the table. “Richard, I love you.”

I meant it then, as I had always done, but I knew in my heart that the problem of Niall was not yet solved. I changed the subject. I told you to take the job, to be careful, and to come back as soon as you could. With that I implied what you wanted to hear, and sincerely meant to do so. You talked a little more about the work—the other men you would be working with, where you would be going, the sort of stories you were supposed to be covering. I wished it were possible for me to go with you.

You had brought some of your postcards to the restaurant, and you gave them to me to look at. I glanced through them quickly, trying to give the impression that my curiosity was idle. There were pictures of Grenoble, Nice, Antibes, Cannes, Saint-Raphael, SaintTropez, Toulon, all of them depicting the places in their innocent past. There were only two of SaintTropez: one showed a beach near the village, the other was a view of one of the streets, with a glimpse of the harbor through the houses.

You said, “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing.” I stacked the cards together and passed them back to you.

“You said on the phone that someone had sent you an old card. Was it one like these?”

“No … I think it’s a modern reproduction.”

“Who sent it? Was it Niall?”

I tried to laugh lightly. “Of course not. You know where Niall has been for the last few days.”

“I know where you said he was. You also told me he was in France—that was why you didn’t want to go there.”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“Come on, let’s get the bill.” You turned your head away with a sharp movement and I saw your angry expression. The waitress came over and you paid the bill. Moments later we were in the street, retracing our steps toward your flat. This time I was not invited in. We went straight to your car, parked outside. I saw you toss the postcards onto the back seat before you unlocked the passenger door for me.

We drove in silence to Hornsey. Outside my house, I said, “Would you like to come in for a while?”

“I know you probably think I’m being unfair, but you’ve got to quit deceiving me about Niall.” I tried to say something, but you went on. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, but I’m damned if this is going to go on any longer. I’ll be away for a couple of weeks. That should give you enough time to make up your mind what it is you want.”

“You mean I have to choose between you and Niall.”

“You’ve hit it.”

“I’ve already chosen, Richard. It’s just that Niall won’t accept it.”

“Then you’ll have to make him.”

As soon as I was back in my room I took down Niall’s postcard and tore it into small pieces. I flushed the whole thing down the lavatory. The following day you telephoned to say you were flying out to Managua that evening, and promised you would get in touch as soon as you were home.

Two days after you left, Niall returned.

XXI

What then followed was my own doing, the result of a decision. You had given me an ultimatum, one that I knew you meant. You forced a choice between you and Niall, and I chose Niall.

I had been wrong to think I could start a new life and leave Niall behind me; the plain fact was that Niall was haunting me, and would go on doing so until he had his way. I could no longer stand the torment, the feeling of being torn between you. I had had enough.

Like you, Niall saw everything in terms of the other man. What I had to do was prove I had grown away from him, and to do that I had to be alone with him. I hoped all this could be accomplished before you returned, but if that was not to be, then I was prepared to lose you.

This was not a cold decision. When Niall turned up I was still holding on, waiting for you to come back, but as soon as I saw him I realized what I was going to have to do.

He arrived outside my door, having let himself into the house with his key. I slid back the bolts, and he walked in. He looked well. He was clean-shaven, wearing new clothes, and was exuding some of his old air of self-confidence. He was in good spirits, and when I told him you were away he said only that he knew it would never have worked out. He moved back in on me as if nothing had changed, and although I would not let him stay that first night, afterward we were sleeping together again.

Where had he been? I never asked him directly, nor did we refer to the afternoon in St. David’s. Nothing was certain: if he had been in the South of France he had none of the suntan I would expect, but I noticed that the Gauloises he was smoking did not have the UK government health warning, as if they had been bought from a duty-free shop. He had brought me a liter bottle of Côtes-de-Provence, describing it as “the local plonk,” but a few days later I noticed a local wine merchant was selling identical bottles.

I never asked him about the postcard, I never mentioned the intrusions, the beating he had given me, the rape. Frankly, I was scared of what he would say.

If he really had been in France, what had been happening to me while I was with you? If he had been following us around, who sent me the postcard?

I was glad of the mental respite, the freedom to concentrate on one problem which I knew could be solved in the end. I would convince him we were finished, and I would get him out of my life for good, but as the time passed I realized it was going to take longer than the few days remaining.

The worst possible thing happened. You returned from your trip two or three days earlier than I had thought, and came to the house without telephoning first. I was in bed with Niall when I heard the house bell ring. Someone else opened the door, and I heard your voice. In panic, I leaped out of bed and pulled on my dressing gown, remembering in time to make myself visible. Niall lay naked on the bed behind me, visible to me, invisible to you. As you knocked on my door I glanced back at him and saw how his expression had changed. Moments before, we had been lying sleepily together, chatting idly, Niall smoking a cigarette; now he looked alert and frightened.

He said, “If that’s who I think it is, get rid of him.”

“Don’t do anything, Niall,” I said quietly. “Please don’t let him know you’re here.”

I opened the door, and you were standing there. I was too shocked by your sudden arrival to know what to say, but backed guiltily into the room, clutching the untied dressing gown across my body.

“You’re still in bed!” you said, and glanced at your watch. You looked tired and confused.

“I was having a lie-in.”

“Are you on your own?”

“Can you see anyone?”

“Niall’s been here, hasn’t he?”

“Tell him I’m here now,” Niall said. I looked back at him, and he was standing by the bed; his moment of fright had been replaced by a hard, determined expression. Knowing the worst of him, what he was capable of, I stepped between the two of you. Niall’s temper was unpredictable.

“Richard, let me explain—”

“No, don’t say anything—you don’t have to. I suppose I asked for this. God, what’s the bloody time? My watch is wrong.”

“It’s half-past eleven,” Niall said, and took my clock from the shelf and shook it in front of your face. I moved again, trying to elbow Niall back.

“It’s late morning,” I said. “I was just about to get up.”

“I was just about to get up you again,” Niall said, crudely.

“But you have been seeing Niall again, haven’t you?”

“I had to. You forced me to make a choice, and that’s all there is to say.”

“Then it’s finished, Sue.”

“You know what annoys me most?” Niall said, moving again. “It’s when he calls you Sue. Get rid of him.”

“Well?” you said.

“All right. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I just wish to God I knew what it is that Niall has over you. Is he going to run your life forever?”

“I told you,” I said. “Niall’s glamorous too.”

You looked impatient. “Not that again!”

“What do you see in this cretin, Susan?” Niall said.

I could no longer attempt to control a three-way conversation. I retreated, and went to sit on the edge of the bed. I stared hopelessly at the floor.

“Sue, what has glamour to do with this?”

“Not glamour,” I said. “The glamour. Niall has the glamour.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“It’s the most important thing in my life, and in yours too if only you knew it. We’re all invisible, can’t you get that into your head?”

In my misery I knew I was sinking into invisibility. I no longer cared, no longer wanted anything but to be rid of you both. Niall was standing beside you, ludicrously naked, his face set in that unpleasant combination of arrogance and inadequacy that showed when he felt threatened. You had a stupid look, as you stared around the room.

You said, “Sue, I can’t see you! What’s happening?”

I said nothing, knowing that even if I spoke you would be unable to hear. You stepped back, placed your hand on the door and opened it a few inches.

“That’s right, Grey. Time to fuck off.”

I said, “Shut up, Niall!”

But you must have heard, because you looked sharply toward me.

“He’s here, isn’t he?” you said. “Niall’s here now!”

I said, “He’s been with us ever since I met you. If you had learned how to look when I tried to show you, you would have seen him.”

“Where is he?”

“I’m here, you stupid bastard!”

Niall’s voice was suddenly stronger than ever before, and I realized that for the last few seconds his cloud had been thinning. It was more dispersed than I had ever seen it.

“I’m here, Grey!” Niall said, waving his arms, moving around. He kicked out at you with his foot, catching you on the shin. You reacted in surprise, and looked intently at Niall. He was closer to visibility than I had thought was possible for him, and I knew you could see him, or something of him. You whirled around, shoving Niall out of the way, snatched the door open and went outside, slamming it behind you. Moments later the street door slammed too. I sprawled across the bed and started to cry. I could hear Niall moving around, but I closed my mind to him. When I next looked, he was standing with his peacock clothes on, looking both defiant and shaken.

“I’ll call in later, Susan,” he said.

“Don’t!” I cried. “I never want to see you again!”

“He won’t come back, you know.”

“I don’t care! I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want to see you! Now get out of here!”

“I’ll call you when you’ve calmed down.”

“I won’t answer. Just get to hell out of here, and don’t come back!”

“I’m going to fix Grey …”

“Get out!” I ran from the bed, opened the door and shoved him through, pushing it against his weight and then bolting it. He banged on the door and called something to me, but I didn’t listen. I lay on the bed and pressed the pillow over my ears. I was utterly sick of everything, blaming myself, blaming you, blaming Niall.

A long time later, when I dressed and went out for a walk, I discovered I had become visible.

I had grown used to being visible with you, and I was accustomed to the feeling, but now I was alone. There was no other cloud near me from which I could draw strength. My visibility had become my normal state. It felt odd, like new clothes.

When I was back in my room, I tried to make myself invisible. It was more difficult than I would have believed, a strain to sustain it. As soon as I relaxed, I slipped into visibility again.

By the time evening came I knew that everything I had sought was now mine. It seemed ironical, but deserved, that I had had to lose you to gain it.

That was the day of the car bomb, but I did not hear about it for some time. I had no television and read no newspapers, and anyway my interior preoccupations were flooding everything. I worked at my drawing board until late into the night.

I went into the West End the next day to visit the studio, and learned from newspaper placards and headlines that a bomb had been set off outside a police station in northwest London. Six people had been killed, and several more had been seriously injured. It did not occur to me that you might have been one of them.

I saw nothing of Niall for almost a week, then one day he turned up at the house. He rang the bell at the Street door, and when I went out I found him in a subdued, defensive mood. I felt no shock at seeing him.

He said, “I won’t come in, Susan. I wanted to see how you are.”

“I’m fine. You can come in for a few minutes if you like.”

“No. I was just passing.” He was acting guiltily, avoiding my eyes. “I suppose you’ve heard the news?”

I shook my head. “I don’t read the papers.”

“I thought not. You’d better read this one.” He passed me a copy of The Times, rolled up tightly. I started to unfurl it. “Don’t look at it now,” Niall said. “Read it inside.”

I said, “Is it about Richard?”

“You’ll see what it is. And there’s something else.

You said you wanted to read what I’ve been writing. I wrote this for you—I don’t want it back.”

He passed over a manila envelope sealed with transparent tape.

“What’s happened to Richard?” I said, the newspaper already half open.

“It’s all in there,” Niall said, and turned and walked quickly away.

I opened the newspaper as I stood in the doorway, and by reading the main story I found out at last about the car bomb, and what had happened to you. Most of the news was about the police hunt for the terrorists, with new security measures being introduced, but I learned that you and the other injured people were in intensive care, under police protection. It turned out that one of the terrorists had been injured in the blast, and the others had issued a macabre warning that “witnesses” would be eliminated. Even the hospital in which you were being treated was kept a secret.

I bought every newspaper I could find, and followed the story for as long as it was prominent. You were the worst injured of all the victims, and the last to be removed from the danger list. I know that if I had really tried I would have been allowed to visit you earlier, but I sincerely believed that seeing me might have done you more harm than good.

In the end only one newspaper carried occasional bulletins about your progress, following what they called your “story.” From this paper I learned that you had been moved to a convalescent hospital, and at long last I plucked up the courage to try to see you. I telephoned the newspaper, and they arranged everything.

As soon as I saw you, that morning with the reporter, the first thing I noticed was that you had lost your glamour.

This is what happened to you, Richard, in the weeks before the car bomb. Do you now remember?