When I Was Invisible (23 page)

‘Hi,' I say to her when I have opened the door and she is standing there, coat over her arm, ready to step inside. ‘I'm all good to go so I'm glad you arrived a bit early.'

She needs a second or two to rally and hide her disappointment. ‘Oh, right, great,' she replies. Her gaze darts inquisitively over my shoulder before I step over the threshold and shut the door behind myself. She won't have seen anything because I have very little on show.

Outside, it is spring. The clocks will go forward in a couple of weeks and the evenings will become even lighter, the days warmer and less gruelling on those who spend most of their day outside.

‘How was your day?' I ask her when we arrive on the pavement outside our building.

‘Fine,' she mumbles. She's still sulking. She has sulked the entire journey down to ground level because I thwarted her plans to come inside my flat. Today her perfume isn't as heavily applied and I'm grateful. ‘How was yours?' she adds grudgingly.

‘Good. Actually, great.' I have great days now. Great days where nothing out of the ordinary happens, where I don't have to worry about where I'll sleep, if I'll eat, if I'll find one of my friends in a heap and will need to call an ambulance. I think about Reese and the others every day, they are there, haunting my thoughts, but not being able to do anything is oddly liberating, too. When I was there, I knew I couldn't do anything, but was always trying to work out how to. It was a madness I couldn't break myself free from: powerless to change anything, desperate to change everything.

A man in a long wool overcoat, a body-warmer and with his hat pulled down to cover his ears is coming towards us, and the desperate ache of missing Reese takes over me. So strong is the missing him, my insides feel squeezed and I want to gasp, to stop at the agony of it. I don't; I walk on, I stare at the man, wondering about his story, where he's been, where he'll go.

‘You all right?' I say to him when we accidentally make eye contact.

He stares blankly at me, glances behind himself to see if I'm really talking to him, then glances back at me when he realises I am. I see him scouring his brain to see if he knows me from somewhere, if I am a woman from his former life who has recognised him. ‘Yeah, yeah,' he mumbles.

‘Did you know that man?' Eliza whispers when we are a few feet away from him.

‘No,' I say to her. ‘I was just being polite.'

‘Got any spare change, darlin'?' the man calls after us in the gap before Eliza speaks again.

I stop and turn around. While looking right at him, I shake my head. ‘No, sorry,' I say. ‘But I can go to the supermarket café down the road and get you a coffee or a tea?'

He laughs, the grey-white of his teeth breaking up the griminess of his face. Still with a cheeky grin he replies, ‘I'd rather have the money, to be honest.'

‘I'm sure you would, but that's not what's on offer,' I joke back. ‘Tea, coffee, hot chocolate – that's all I can stretch to.'

‘Thanks, but you're all right.'

‘Cool,' I reply. ‘Next time, maybe?'

‘Yeah, next time. Maybe.'

‘Are you sure you don't know him?' Eliza asks as we resume our journey to the bar/restaurant near the centre of Brighton.

‘Yeah, I'm sure.'

‘But you were talking to him like you knew him,' she says.

‘I'm talking to you like I know you,' I reply.

‘Yeah, suppose so,' she says.

I don't add that out of the two of them, I know which one is probably the most honest about their intentions towards me.

‘No chance of you going home, then?' Reese asked me.

We were in Bernie's at 1 a.m. We had an arrangement to meet every third night: if one of us didn't show up, the other one would go looking for them. I thought he'd set up the arrangement to look after me, but it was for his benefit, too, he'd confessed. ‘Everyone's got their demons, Ace – mine's smack.' He'd been matter-of-fact about it, so matter-of-fact I thought he'd been joking at first. His eyes fixed on me the whole time, he'd shoved up the multiple sleeve layers on his left arm to show me. His forearm was a dappled mess of healing needle punctures and short, scabbed-over lines. I had almost been able to see him, holding his needle in place, his finger pushing the plunger down, filling his veins with the liquid that would take him away from his everyday life.
At least
,
that's maybe why he does it
, I'd thought as he'd tugged his sleeves back down, his face suddenly shy and his gaze avoiding mine. It had been an assumption. Maybe Reese didn't do drugs because he needed to escape, maybe he had other reasons. Whatever they were, he'd been very forthright and honest with me early on about being an addict.

Reese had cleared his throat, sipped from his coffee and let us sit in silence for a while. I sensed he felt emotional about admitting that to me; doing that had maybe hit him again in a part of him that wasn't ready to face up to what he was. ‘At the moment, it's all good,' he'd said when he could face me again. ‘Don't need it, don't miss it.' He took another sip of his coffee. ‘Ain't going to lie to you, though, mate, don't know how long that'll last. But when I fall, it's a long way down and a long, long way to crawl back up. You look out for me, Ace, and I'll look out for you. That's how I've stayed safe out here – you hook up with someone who looks out for you. When I first ended up out here, cos of my stepdad beating the shit outta me every night, and my mum who looked the other way because he kept her in booze and fags, I had people who looked out for me. Some good, some bad, some really, really bad.'

‘How old are you?' I'd asked. I wanted to know how long he'd been out here, if he'd come for a short while and ended up staying here. If, like the stuff he shot into his body, being out here was an escape from the world he used to live in.

‘Twenty-seven,' he'd said.

‘Twenty-seven?' He was only three years older than me. He spoke like a person at least ten years older than that; he looked like someone even older.

‘Yeah, not much older than you, I know. I just look old, and I've been out here ten years or so, I forget how long, really. Just a long time, Ace. Meant to ask you, do you mind if I call you Ace, Grace?'

I'd shaken my head. I didn't, because he'd asked and would probably not do it if I'd said I did mind. ‘Call me Ace if you like,' I'd said.

‘So there's no chance of you going home?' He always asked me this. Usually I shook my head and changed the subject. But tonight, he'd given me a driver's licence with my new face and new name on it, and I felt I owed him a bit of an explanation, especially since he didn't want any money for the licence.

‘No,' I said. ‘I don't know where home is, for one. I left both of my last long-term “homes” under a cloud, shall we say. There really is nowhere to go back to.'

‘So, who was it, dad, stepdad or uncle?' Reese asked.

‘Who was what?'

‘Who was fiddling with ya? That's why most girls end up out here – someone molesting them or someone knocking them about. You don't look like you were being knocked about, you've got a different kind of jumpiness – so I'm guessing it's the other thing.'

‘You're Mr Sensitive sometimes, aren't you?'

‘Yeah, no, sorry, mate. That was a bit out of order. I kinda forget sometimes cos talking to you is like talking to myself. Those are the things I say to myself. The beatings I could take, mostly, ya know, but when he started fiddling with me, I had to get out of there. Was cutting myself to get the pain out. Then got into smack and had to leave cos I could see what would happen: smack makes me crazy sometimes. I don't just pass out and everything is good; sometimes it makes me rage. I knew one day I'd probably get out of it and end up knifing the bastard, then spend my life in prison. The street is better than prison, believe me.'

‘My dad wouldn't do something like that,' I said. I was staring at the photograph of myself, black and white and slightly out of focus from where it had been printed on to the pink, watermarked plastic of the driver's licence. I had cut off my hair to chin length, twisted it, and was going to leave it to turn into dreadlocks. Easier to care for, natural and, most importantly, how I wanted it to look. ‘I don't have a stepdad. And I hardly ever saw my uncles,' I told Reese while still staring at the plastic picture of me.

‘Family friend?'

In my head, the music for the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' began to play. The up-down, up-down, up-down, up-down beat, the movements of the child's toy the dancer was meant to mimic, the way my body could never forget that dance. Other dances and routines may fade, but every time I heard the music, I would be back there and I would remember. ‘Leave it, eh, Reese? Just leave it.'

‘Sorry, mate. Forget sometimes what it's like for people who had it worse.'

‘Where did you get the licence?' I asked him.

‘Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.' He grinned, flashing his grey teeth, some of them chipped, others stained brown over the grey. ‘It's not stolen or nothing like that. And it won't stand up to proper scrutiny, but it'll help you get into hostels, maybe get a job.'

‘Please tell me how much I owe you for it.'

‘No, no, I've paid for it now. I don't want your money. I feel bad, see, that I didn't stop that arsehole quick enough.' He hung his head, staring at his clean hands with their ragged nails, dried-out cuticles. ‘I wasn't paying attention. Was trying to score. I should have stopped him when he was making a move. Sorry, mate.'

‘It's not your fault,' I said to him. Gently, so as not to spook him, because he was often jumpy, I put my hand over his. ‘It was no one's fault but his. You saved me from … well, you know. That doesn't mean I shouldn't pay you for this.'

‘Yes it does. But listen, Ace, don't take anything from anyone else. No matter what's offered or how nicely it's offered. Not even from me after this. Not ever, mate, all right? Promise me.'

‘I promise,' I said. I wasn't the type to take things without paying for them. That's why I wanted to pay him for the licence. It didn't feel right, not paying my way.

‘Mate, I'm serious here. There are some bad people out there, they will do anything to get you hooked in then will do you serious harm to get you to pay them back. Don't take anything, ever. Not even from me, because after this, our debts are settled. If I fall down that hole again and you've taken something from me, I'll want it back. When I'm on that stuff, I have no friends, I owe no one and every single debt I'm owed I want paying back. Mate, when I'm down that hole, I'll do anything. And there are some bad, bad people out there who'll do anything, too. Just be careful, OK?'

‘Yeah,' I said.

I should have told him to be careful back. I didn't think he'd need those words from me, though. I was the new girl on the streets, I had no idea what was out there. No idea at all.

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. Eliza has talked non-stop about Marshall since we sat down. His whole body must be aflame, never mind his ears. At her insistence, we have come here to a corner pub on Western Road on the way into the centre of Brighton instead of walking along the seafront to the place I'd mentioned yesterday. I thought it was for a quick drink, but we are now four drinks in – that I have paid for – and she is showing no sign of moving, and she has talked non-stop about Marshall since we sat down.

I stopped listening a while back, now I simply study her. She is about my age, maybe slightly older if she's the same age as Marshall. She's nervous, with anxious little movements where she moves her glass, she straightens up her drinks mat, she moves her drinks mat back, she shifts in her seat, she fiddles with her hair, she plays with the stem of her glass. All the while talking about Marshall and his life, his work, his marriage, his divorce, his son. I feel I know Marshall, have had a bird's eye view into his life, even though I have only met him the once. I wonder what it's like to be the object of someone's obsession when you haven't actually slept with them? At least with Todd I had slept with him, lived with him, which must have fuelled his obsession. This behaviour from Eliza is unsettling.

‘Did you and Marshall have a thing?' I ask her, simply to confirm what I've already guessed about them: it has always been platonic.

Eliza, who has not sat still properly all evening, is suddenly motionless, except for her eyes, which narrow at me. ‘Why do you ask? Are you interested in him or something?'

‘Just curious. You've known him so long, as long as he was married, and before that, so I was just curious if your thing happened before or after that?'

‘He's not interested in dating right now,' she says. ‘There was a time when, you know, I thought … and I suppose he thought … but the timing was never right. We were never on the same page at the same time so it kind of never happened. Well, I say never, I mean it hasn't happened so far. You never know what the future might bring.'

‘True,' I say to her.

‘He's kind of special to me,' she says. Her voice is shy, hesitant when she says this while her demeanour tells me she will kill anyone who comes between the two of them. ‘I wouldn't want to see him being messed about, not by anyone. I wouldn't take very kindly to anyone who upset him in any way.'

The pub's door opens and a group of people come in, laughing, joking, enjoying a Friday night in Brighton. Friday and Saturday nights were dangerous times for those of us who slept rough. Boozed-up people looking for a fight would often suddenly see us as easy targets, would goad people into fights, would sometimes even take a piss on those they saw sleeping in doorways, because they could. The people who have just arrived seem happy, relaxed; friends who enjoy each other's company, hopefully not the sort to pick fights with those they think are beneath them. I'm envious of the people who have just come in. I used to have that sort of relaxed camaraderie with Reese and a couple of others. I used to belong with them and we'd have moments of sitting around, talking, laughing, being friends. Our times together weren't all bleak and hard and scrabbling around for money to score or to eat or to afford to sleep indoors. Sometimes we were just like the people who've just walked in the door, and I miss those times. I miss those people, I miss the ability to fit in. I must have been crazy when I agreed to come out with Eliza because a tiny part of me was hoping that there was something about her that I could connect with. When she first spoke to me at the meeting she'd seemed nice. I thought that maybe there was more niceness about her, but no. It was the familiarity of bad behaviour. It was recognising bits of her that I'd been attracted to in others and wanting to make it work.