By the time he returned to his car Grey had resolved not to see Sue again. They had an arrangement to meet in the evening, but he decided to call her as soon as he was home and cancel it. He drove back to his flat, thinking of what he would say to her. She was waiting for him, though, sitting on the steps of the small porch outside his front door.
VIII
In spite of his decision there was a part of him that remained pleased to see her. She kissed him warmly before they went inside, but Grey felt cool and resistant to her. Reluctantly he took her up to his flat, wondering how to broach the subject. He felt like a drink, so he took a can of lager from the refrigerator, but made some tea for Sue. He could hear her moving about restlessly in the front room as he drank some of the beer and waited for the kettle to boil.
When he took her the tea she was standing by the window, looking down into the street.
“You don’t want me here, do you?” she said.
“I was just about to give you a ring. I’ve been thinking—”
“I’ve come about something very important, Richard.”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“It’s about Niall.”
He put down her cup by the spare chair, noticing that she had brought with her a large manila envelope stuffed with papers. It was lying on the cushion of the chair. Outside in the street someone was trying to get a car going, the starter motor making a repeated nagging, whining sound. The noise always made Grey think of a sick animal, flogged endlessly by its unforgiving driver.
“There’s nothing else I want to know about Niall,” Grey said. He felt remote from her, the distance between them lengthening.
“I’ve come to tell you that Niall’s left me for good.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday. Anyway, I don’t care. Niall’s not the problem any more.”
“Then what is?”
“Everything that happened last night, everything you’ve ever said. I’ve had enough.”
“Richard, what I’ve come to say is there’s nothing left to come between us. It’s all over. Niall’s gone, I’ve lost the glamour. What more do you want?”
She stared at him across the room, looking helpless. Grey remembered suddenly how it had felt to love her, and he wished it were possible again. Outside, the irritating sound of the fruitless attempts to start the car came to an end. For the last minute or so the car battery had been running flat, the starter motor grinding with a pathetic, hopeless sound. Grey walked across to where Sue was standing and looked down into the street. He was always distracted by the sound of a car being started, because it crossed his mind that somebody might be interfering with his. He could see no one around, and his car was standing where he had parked it.
Sue took his hand. “What are you looking for?”
“That car being started … where is it?”
“Haven’t you been listening to me?”
“Yes, of course I have.”
She released his hand and went to sit down, moving the envelope to her lap. After looking up and down the street once more, Grey went to his chair.
Sue said, “Last night was a mistake, we both know that. It’ll never happen again. It can’t happen again. I’ve got to explain… . While I believed Niall was somewhere around I could still feel able to make myself invisible. But last night was wrong, something failed. I thought I was trying to prove invisibility to you, but really I was trying to prove to myself that Niall’s influence had left me. Now I’m sure of it.”
She held up the envelope for him to see.
“What’s that?” Grey said.
“It’s something Niall gave me, the last time I saw him.” She drew a breath, watching him. “He came to see me, gave me a newspaper which listed the names of the people injured by the car bomb. This was a few days afterward, long before you were transferred to Devon. At the same time he gave me this envelope. I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t care. I never even opened it. I knew it was something of Niall’s, but by that time I was sick to death of him. But this morning I was thinking about last night, why it went wrong, and I knew Niall was somehow responsible. It felt, well, it was as if that part of my life no longer made sense without him. I remembered him giving me this, and I searched through my stuff until I found it. You ought to know what it is.”
“Sue, I’m just not interested in Niall.”
“Please at least look at it. It’s important.”
He took the envelope from her and pulled out what was inside. It was a sheaf of papers, handwritten, torn from the sort of writing pad found in any stationery shop; the left-hand side of each sheet was slightly corrugated where it had been ripped off. The top page was a brief note, written in the same hand as the rest. It said: Susan— Read this and try to understand. Goodbye—N.
The handwriting was legible, but it was distracting to look at because of the use of extravagant loops and curls. Periods and the dot above the letter “i” were drawn as minute circles. On most of the pages the color of the ink changed intermittently as different pens were used, but the most favored colors were green and radiant blue. Grey had no knowledge of graphology, but everything about the handwriting bespoke self-consciousness and a wish to seem prestigious.
“What is this? Did Niall write it all?”
“Yes … you ought to read it.”
“Now? While you’re sitting there?”
“At least look through it long enough to realize what it is.”
Grey set the note aside and read the first few lines at the top of the next page. They said:
The house had been built so that it overlooked the sea. Since its conversion to a convalescent hospital, two large wings had been added in the original style, and the gardens had been relandscaped so that patients wishing to move around were never faced with steep inclines.
“I don’t understand,” Grey said. “What’s this all about?”
“Look at it further on,” Sue said.
Grey put several of the pages on one side and read at random:
She tossed her hair back with a light shaking motion of her head and looked straight at him. He regarded her, trying to remember or see her as he might have done before. She held his gaze for a few moments, then cast her eyes downward once more.
“Don’t stare at me,” she said.
Grey said, beginning to feel confused, “This is a description of you, I think.”
“Yes, there’s some of that. Read more of it.”
He started turning the pages, picking out odd sentences to be read, constantly dazzled by the extraordinary handwriting and its elaborate curlicues. It was easier to skim than to read, but at another random he found:
Grey felt comfortable and relaxed and drowsy, but was still aware of all that was around him. He had his eyes closed and was listening to Dr. Hurdis, but he could also sense further. Outside in the hall two people walked past, talking to each other, and somewhere in the room Alexandra Gowers had made a clicking noise with a ballpoint pen, and rustled some paper.
Saying nothing to Sue, Grey turned the rest of the pages quickly. He knew what the writing said; the sense came through to him without having to read, because it was all familiar to him. There was not much farther to go. The text ended with the words: