When I Was Invisible (28 page)

‘She's not a junkie.'

‘Yes she is. I've known loads of drug users and drug addicts, and the addicts are all pretty much like Eliza, even if they don't have homes and jobs like she does.'

‘I'd know if she was an addict,' he says sternly.

‘You'd like to think you would,' I say to him. ‘Look, Marshall …' I lay a hand on his forearm and speak gently, like I would to anyone who has just had a huge shock. He immediately steps away from me, stops me from touching him. ‘Look, Marshall,' I say again. I try to keep my voice as gentle as before, but his rejection of me and what I am saying after the moment we shared, stings; is like a poison-tipped arrow stuck fast in my most tender, vulnerable part. Even after everything, I am still desperate for someone to believe me first time. ‘I understand how much of a shock this must be for you. I'm not saying she's a bad person but she does need help and she's unlikely to get any lasting help if she doesn't acknowledge that she has a problem. And I think she's got a long, long way to go until she even recognises she's got a problem.' I scrunch up my bag of chips, my appetite gone. ‘I'm going to head home. I'll see you around.'

‘Nika,' Marshall calls at me when I am less than six feet away.

I rotate on the spot, knowing exactly what he's going to ask.

‘What is it you think she's addicted to?'

I inhale. ‘I can't be sure, but from the way she behaves and the deep paranoia, I think she's got a pretty serious coke habit, she does a huge amount of skunk – hence the heavy perfume to try to mask it – and she possibly does speed.'

He shakes his head. ‘I really think you're wrong about this.'

I nod at him and turn for home.

‘I really, really think you're wrong about this,' he calls again.

Yeah
, I think as I walk,
that's what my parents said, too, the first time I told them the truth about something they didn't want to hear.

Things got better. After that night that Judge had set up, which had been painful and degrading and humiliating, things got a lot better, for years.

I got a proper job and I worked set hours cleaning offices and I was happy. I met a man in a pub when I was out with some work friends and we started dating. It was almost like I was being paid back for all that had gone before. I moved in with him after three months. By the time I brought my rucksack and guitar to his house to move in, I'd been sleeping in a car I'd bought. I sold the car and saved the money for a rainy day. I moved in with Vinnie with my eyes wide open, I had my own life, my own money, my own control over my body.

We weren't the next great love affair, Vinnie and I, but we got on. If we went out it was to the local pub and our restaurant meals were takeaways. We mostly watched television together and I could sit on his sofa and look out at the rain teeming down, knowing I didn't have to be out in that, looking for shelter. Every night I thought of Reese, of all the others out there, and I said what I felt was a prayer for them: hoping they would be OK, that they would somehow stay dry, get some sleep, wake up to a better day in the morning.

Vinnie cheated on me in the end. I came home early one day due to a gas leak outside the building where I worked and sat quietly on the sofa, listening to him screwing her in the bedroom, sounding like he was having much more fun with her than he ever had with me. I knew I should either walk in there and confront him, screaming like a banshee, or walk away with my head held high and my dignity intact, but I was tired. I simply sat and waited for them to finish and smiled at the woman when she nipped out to get a glass of water wearing nothing but a post-coital glow.

‘We gave it a good go, didn't we, Ace?' Vinnie said after he'd shown his red-faced companion out.

‘Yup, so we did,' I agreed. There was no malice there, no anger or hurt. Our relationship had never been that intense or that involved, if both of us were honest. We'd liked each other a hell of a lot at the start and it had sort of dwindled then limped along. Maybe because I knew what would happen when we stopped – I would be out on the street again. I would have to reapply for a long-term homeless hostel, the rain would be falling on me, I would be moving things from locker to locker at Birmingham New Street, I would be meeting Reese more often and sobbing inside for what he was going through. I would probably also see Judge, who was still smarting at me not taking his money. He had a long memory and all the time in the world to hold a grudge, I knew this. When it was over with Vinnie I knew where I would be again, and I accepted it.

It'd been a good three-and-a-half years. They were worth it. All those years of sleeping in a bed, eating regular meals, going to the dentist, not having to find a way to make tampons last for as long as possible because I wasn't sure if I could afford to buy another box. I'd had the good life with Vinnie, I couldn't hate him if I tried.

I am getting nowhere with finding Nika. Absolutely nowhere. I have searched the Internet as much as is possible. I have signed up for all those social media things that I had no need for before, and they have yielded no results. Even the electoral roll still has her living at her parents' address here in Chiselwick. I am torn over the thought of visiting them and asking if they've seen her. They were the main reason why she left. Them, and me and what I did.

I am starting to think it will take some kind of miracle to find her. Without the order of convent life, my insomnia is creeping back in, the noise in my head is slowly being edged up. I'm sure if I find Nika things will become quieter, there might even be a chance to find the silence.

It is Easter Sunday and I am at morning Mass. Yesterday, Mum said at dinner (I had made) that she was going to come with me as she missed Good Friday Mass. I knew she wouldn't. She said it as though she thought that was what I expected of her. Dad lowered his fork and stared long and hard at her. She pretended that she didn't know Dad was wondering if she'd had another knock on the head, and carried on eating slowly and deliberately. ‘Shall I wait for you to come down ready to go or shall I meet you there if you're not ready?' I asked.

‘I will be ready,' she replied tartly.

‘Great. It'll be nice to have some company. I might go and talk to Father Emanuel after Mass. He was so helpful to me when I was considering becoming a nun. It will be nice to see him again.'

‘Perfect.'

This morning I didn't bother to wait until the very last minute to leave – I knew she wasn't going to come. Mum likes to mess with me sometimes; I am never sure why, but she does. The church is at the top of a large hill, which is why I didn't want to wait for Mum. I wanted to arrive calm and ready, not puffed and out of breath. Churches have fallen out of favour in recent years, with people's busy, secular lives, with the scandals still attached to the Church, but I love Church buildings. I adore the smell, the pervading atmosphere, the constant move towards silence and serenity.

Father Emanuel stands to one side, smiling at the purple-and-gold-robed choir as they sing. Their voices fill the space; each word of the Latin version of ‘Ave Maria' is perfectly delivered. I close my eyes as they reach for the second verse, unwrap it and offer it to the congregation, to the church, to the priest, to God.

With my eyes open again, I briefly cast my gaze around the church, searching for familiar faces. Nika might even be here. My eyes search a little harder, scanning the faces of those seated in the pews I can see from here. She may look different now. She probably will look different now. And maybe she is in here, has been in here since I arrived home all those weeks ago, and I missed her.

Fifth pew from the front on the opposite side of the church to me, I spot Gail Frost, my gentle nemesis from Chiselwick High. All the time I have worked there so far she has found ingenious ways to make digs at me about religion and God and my former life as a nun, all so quiet and understated that it is hard to get annoyed with her. I had to remind myself to tell her off, to threaten her with sanctions, to send her to the headteacher
every
time she crossed the line from funny to rude or nasty. It is difficult because she is so likeable.

She sits beside a woman who is the living image of her as a grown-up. Gail is a chameleon. On a night out, she is skimpily dressed with her swathes of black, natural hair, slicked into a side bun while she aims for the older-than-her-years sophistication. At school she is smartly dressed in full uniform with her tie worn low and top button open, while her hair is worn in large, childish Afro twists with coloured ties at the tops and ends. In church she is sober, almost sombre in a plain, navy-blue dress and her hair pulled back into a low ponytail. There are large hoops on nights out, tiny studs at school, pearl earrings at church.

I stare at her for too long, of course, and she moves her head in my direction to find the source of scrutiny. I offer her a smile of hello and in return she subtly rolls her eyes and turns back to the front, refocuses on the beautiful, ethereal sound the choir make.

I was searching for silence.

The noise in my head was raging all the time, I couldn't ever find peace. What I needed was silence so I could disappear from who I was meant to be for a while. Nika hadn't turned up for school five months ago, and the rumour was that she'd disappeared. Some (stupid) people were talking alien abduction. Other people said it was a kidnapping. Someone said they'd seen her walking towards the bus stop that went towards West Chiselwick Tube station with a bag and a suitcase.

I'd listened to them talking, speculating about how she'd gone, why she'd gone, where she'd gone, and I knew the why. It was because of me. Because of what I had done to her.

Everything had changed that day Nika simply didn't show up for school: my sleep, always erratic and broken, like the lines in a cracked ceramic plate, had fallen apart altogether and was full of jagged hours of nightmare-filled slumber while the loudness in my head got worse. I'd stopped the ballet lessons. Dad had wanted to know why, Mum hadn't wanted a fuss and they'd both told me I should go back after a rest. When Mr Daneaux had turned up at our house – like he had at Nika's – they'd piled on the pressure. He'd offered free lessons, the lead role in every show, anything I wanted if I'd reconsider. He had told them he'd never had pupils as gifted as Nika and me, and it would be a crime for me to give up. I'd heard it all from them, many, many times, but Nika's disappearance had given me courage. I'd kept saying no, even when Mum had lost her cool for the first time ever, and had screamed that this was why she had never wanted a girl. Girls caused a fuss, they caused drama, and they didn't know a good thing when it was offered to them. Dad had stepped in then and said it was enough, to never speak to me like that again, and that while he was disappointed, if I didn't want to go they couldn't make me.

I'd thought the noise would stop, after that. That once I didn't see him every week, the silence would come and I would be free.

I wanted Nika back so desperately. I felt hideously sick, a very real pain in the middle of my stomach, whenever I thought about life without her. But those were childish wishes, a young mind's fancy. I couldn't have her back, that was the long and the short of it, the truth writ large in my mind. She was gone because of me and there was nothing I could do about it.

In the park, where we would sometimes walk on our convoluted route home from school, I sat on a bench. I did not know what to do. I'd silenced her with what I'd done and I'd basically silenced myself as well. Now she was gone, inside, in those tiny quiet cracks inside my mind, I knew she wouldn't ever come back. Under all the noise in my head, the raging in my chest, there was one voice, whispering. It spoke to me constantly, promised me all sorts of pain. I had taken to walking around at night – the noise in my head was particularly bad in night-time hours – and I would often find myself in the park, sitting on different benches for hours until I was too exhausted to do anything but sleep when I got home.

Sitting on this particular bench, in the middle of this particular night, I held in my hand a bottle of my mother's sleeping pills and I had beside me a screw-top bottle of wine. I knew I would find the silence at the bottom of those bottles. There was so much confusion, so little sleep, nothing that could make it stop. I didn't want to do it, not really, but it seemed the only way to make it all – the pain of missing Nika, the agony of being me who had done this terrible thing, the constant loudness in my head – stop.

‘I don't know what to do.' I said those words out loud. They echoed in my ears. They danced around my heart. Nika had found her exit, her silence, and this was probably the only way to find mine. Wherever I went, the noise would follow me and I couldn't take it any more.

‘You look so lost,' she said.

She was pretty, from what I could see of her. Most of her was draped in black robes, a strip of white across her forehead. She smiled at me and I stared at her, wondering if she was real and why she was there.

‘I don't usually speak to people who don't speak to me first. But I was out ministering with some of the men who live in the park and you looked lost and I wanted to help.'

I was not lost. For the first time since I was eight years old I knew where I would find perfect silence.

‘How about we swap?' she said. She held her hand out for the bottle in my hands; she wanted to replace it with a book.

No.
I shook my head. I didn't want to swap. I wanted silence. I wanted escape. I wanted out but I wasn't like Nika, I couldn't simply walk away to try to start again somewhere else. It would be like this wherever I went. This was the only way to make it stop.