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.