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.