“Yes, but it’s just as likely that they did see him. It doesn’t prove anything one way or the other.”
“Why do you need proof of all this?”
“Because it’s what is coming between us. First it’s Niall, now it’s this. I want to believe you, and I do believe you, but everything you tell me can be explained two ways.”
Throughout all this they had been in her room, Sue squatting cross-legged on her bed, Grey sitting in the chair by her desk. Now she left the bed and paced about the room.
“All right,” Sue said. “While you were away I gave this a lot of thought. If you’re right, and this is what’s standing between us, I want to put it right. We’re drifting apart, Richard, and I don’t like that. If you want proof, I think I can provide it.”
“How?”
“There are two ways. The first is simple—it’s Niall. He is the proof. He’s influenced us from the moment we met, and he’s actually been with us, physically been present, yet you’ve been totally unaware of him.”
“You see, that’s not proof to me,” Grey said. “It works either way. He’s here and with us, as you say, lurking around invisibly … or he’s never been near me and I haven’t met him. Just because I haven’t seen him doesn’t mean he’s invisible.”
“I thought you’d say that.” She was combing through her hair with her fingers as she paced about the room. She looked agitated, but determined too.
“I believe Niall really exists,” Grey said. “But try to see it from my point of view. You’ve only told me about Niall, and since I left the hospital you’ve only told me about him in the past tense. Even you haven’t seen him for a long time.”
“That’s true.”
“What’s the other proof?”
She halted her prowling. “That’s more complicated. I’m hungry now. I’ve bought some food to cook. I can’t afford to keep eating out.”
Grey said, “Let’s go to a restaurant. I’ll pay.”
“No, the food will waste.” She had already produced a grocery bag and taken down a couple of saucepans.
“Tell me while you’re cooking,” he said.
“It’s something I have to show you. Sit there, and keep out of the way.”
Grey did as he was told, swiveling to and fro in her office chair. She had only cooked for him once or twice, but he liked how she went about it. She had a casual way of tossing rice and meat and vegetables into pans and coming up with something delicious. It was pleasant to watch her doing something ordinary; they spent so much of their time obsessed with themselves.
But while she was cooking Grey said, “As a matter of interest, where is Niall these days?”
“I was wondering when you would ask me that.” She had not turned to look at him. “It doesn’t matter any more, does it?”
“I suppose not. But from everything you said, he was never going to leave you alone.”
“Nor will he.” She was chopping vegetables, scooping them a few at a time into the steaming saucepan. “He could be here in the room with us now, for all I know. Because he can make himself completely invisible, there’s nothing much I can do about it. But what I can do, and have done, is change myself. I finally worked out what I was doing wrong. I was letting Niall make it matter to me. Now … I don’t care. Niall is everywhere. He can go anywhere it’s possible to be, and almost nothing can stop him. He can do anything he likes. But the point is, if that’s so then it doesn’t matter whether he’s actually there or not—the knowledge that he has that ability is the same as him actually using it. These days I assume he’s everywhere I go; I take it for granted he’s watching me, listening to me. It makes no difference to me whether he’s really there or that I’m imagining it: the effect is that he leaves me alone and that’s what I wanted all along.” She turned down the cooking rings to their lowest setting and put the lids on the pans. “Right—the food will be ready in ten minutes, and after that we’re going out for a walk.”
VI
It had been raining earlier, but now the night was clear. Traffic went by, the engines loud against the shiny wetness of the streets. They passed several pubs, a late-opening newsagent, an Indian restaurant with a blue neon sign. Soon they were walking down a wide residential road that ran along the side of Crouch Hill; the lights of north London glittered before them. Overhead, an airliner with brilliant strobe lights crossed the sky, heading down toward Heathrow, miles to the west.
“Are we going anywhere particular?” Grey said.
“No, you can choose.”
“What about: around the block, then back to your place?”
Sue came to a halt beneath one of the streetlights. “You want proof, and I’m going to give it to you. After that, will you accept it for what it is?”
“If it’s proof.”
“It will be, I promise you. Look at me, Richard … do I seem any different?”
He looked at her in the orange glow from the sodium lamp. “The light doesn’t do anything for you.”
“I’ve been invisible ever since we left home.”
“Sue, I can still see you.”
“No one else can. What I’m going to do is make you invisible too, and then we’re going to go into one of these houses.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right, but the problem is me.”
“No, it isn’t.” She stretched out a hand and took his. “You’re invisible now. Anything I choose to touch becomes invisible.”
He could not help but glance down at himself: chest and legs, solidly there. A car went past, its flasher indicating a left turn. Spray flew briefly around them.
Sue said: “No one can see us. The only thing you must do is hold my hand, and whatever happens don’t let go.” She tightened her grip. “Now, pick a house.”
Her voice had taken on an earnest note, a charge of excitement, and Grey felt a tingle of the same.
“What about this one here?”
They both looked at it. Most of the windows were dark, but a pale red glow came through curtains on the top floor.
“It looks as if it’s been converted into flats,” Sue said. “Let’s find another.”
They walked along, holding hands, staring at the houses. They went to a few front doors, but where there were several bell pushes and a list of names Sue suggested finding somewhere else. Too many locked doors inside. At the end of the row the house had a darkened porch, and a single bell. Behind the curtains of the front room they could see the glow of a television screen.
“This will do,” Sue said. “Now let’s hope there’s a door open.”
“I thought you would break a window.”
“We can do anything we like, but I’d rather not cause damage.”
They went through the garden and along a narrow passage, pressing past rain-damp trees and bushes. The room at the back was brightly lit with a fluorescent tube, and when Sue tried the door it opened easily.
“We won’t stay long,” she said. “Don’t let go of my hand.”
She pushed open the door and they went inside. Grey closed the door behind them. They were in a kitchen. Two women stood with their backs against a work surface, one of them holding a sleeping baby. On the table in front of them were two cheap tumblers containing beer, and an ashtray with a cigarette smoldering. An older child, wearing a soiled romper suit, was playing on the vinyl-tiled floor with a plastic car and some wooden blocks. The woman with the baby was saying, “… but when you get in there they treat you like rubbish, so I said to him don’t you go talking to me like that, and he just looked at me like I was dirt, and you know what, I’d paid thirty pounds to get in and they look at you like you was rubbish… .” Grey felt huge and self-conscious in the cramped room and wanted to edge past the two women, but Sue led him to the sink where she turned on the cold tap. The water splashed down noisily onto the unwashed crockery stacked below, several large droplets spraying up and falling on the floor. Listening to her friend, the woman walked around the table and turned it off. On her way back she picked up the cigarette and put it in her mouth.