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.