I smiled.
‘I’m going to get some sleep,’ Loots said. ‘I’m really tired.’
‘Does the TV bother you?’
He said it didn’t. Springs winced as he climbed into bed and drew the blankets over him. He was asleep in minutes.
I sat on my chair by the window. The aliens were going to lose. They always lost. There was always something on earth which they just happened to be allergic to, something ridiculous like toothpaste or concrete. I dialled Nina’s number, expecting her machine. I didn’t mind if I got the machine; at least I’d hear her voice before I went to sleep — or maybe there’d be another sound-effect intended specifically for me. But she answered and, for a moment, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then I remembered how she liked to start conversations in the middle.
‘Do you think he saw us?’ I whispered.
‘Who?’
‘The man with the tattoo on his neck.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’
‘Do you think he liked it?’
She laughed softly, but didn’t answer.
‘I liked it,’ I whispered. ‘All of it.’
‘Why are you whispering?’
‘Loots is asleep.’
I told her where we were. She didn’t ask what we were doing. She didn’t even sound surprised. Sometimes it bewildered me, this utter lack of curiosity. It made me feel irrelevant, disposable. I didn’t think it was intentional. She had her own world, that was all. But still. I changed the subject. I talked about the house that Loots had mentioned earlier, the house by the lake. I said she was invited, too.
‘You should see the clouds tonight,’ she said. ‘Orange and grey, and swirling round and round, like someone’s stirring them …’
‘It’s raining here.’
‘Do you remember clouds? From before you were blind?’
‘I’ve got memories,’ I said. ‘You go blind, you don’t lose everything.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘I was with Greersen,’ she said.
I didn’t follow.
‘The night I didn’t show up. I was at Greersen’s place.’
‘Oh.’
Greersen ran the Elite. That was all I knew about him. ‘I was there all night,’ she said.
I walked to the window. The phone was in my hand. For a few seconds it had the feeling of a weapon.
‘Quick,’ said someone on TV. ‘Get down.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I never promised —’
‘I know.’
‘Does it matter?’
I parted the brown curtains. The rain was still falling. In the building opposite, there was a man sitting on a chair. The room was pale-green. He was alone.
‘Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘It doesn’t mean —’
‘It doesn’t mean what?’
There was another silence, then she sighed.
‘I think I’d better go,’ I said.
I waited.
As I took the receiver from my ear, she said something. I only caught a fraction of it, her tone of voice rather than the words themselves; I thought she sounded anxious. I tried to call her back, but the line was busy. I stood by the window with the phone in my hand, watching the rain fall on a town I didn’t know.
By late afternoon I was in a multi-storey car-park, waiting for Loots. It had been a wasted day. We’d got nowhere. That farmer in his kitchen, the empty shopping precinct, Nina’s confession on the phone. I felt tired and desolate. I didn’t like standing in car-parks either, no matter how many storeys there were. I started imagining men with T-shirts on. I started imagining tomatoes.
At last I heard footsteps approaching. I didn’t hear any keys, though. Loots had this habit of bouncing keys on his hand as he walked towards his car. A lot of people do it. It’s slightly irritating, actually. It’s like people who shake the ice-cubes in a drink just before they finish it. I listened to the sounds surrounding the footsteps. I listened hard. No keys.
‘Loots?’ I called out. ‘Is that you?’
The footsteps stopped. A voice said, ‘Mr Blom?’
‘Yes?’
‘You were on TV last night.’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘It seems you’ve been looking for me.’
I turned to face the voice. ‘The Invisible Man!’
‘Used to be.’
It was still daylight and I had no vision, so I did the only thing I could think of: I held out my hand.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.
And I shook hands with The Invisible Man. It was the most curious feeling. The hand was there — but, at the same time, it was not. It was recognisable as a hand and yet it was absent, somehow. Recognisable by its absence. Maybe that was the best way of describing it. Absence of hand — or, maybe, hand-shaped air. In any case, an unforgettable sensation.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I liked the poster.’
One light laugh, and the hand withdrew. He was gone.
Then I heard Loots’ footsteps. He was whistling. The car keys tingled on his palm.
‘Did you see him, Loots?’ I called out.
‘Who?’
‘The Invisible Man.’
‘You’re joking. He was here?’
I talked all the way back to the capital. I’d formed a theory; it was based on that one phrase: used to be. The Invisible Man was tired of being different, special. Tired of living up to expectations. He wasn’t interested in being THE INVISIBLE MAN! He wanted to be ordinary, with no exclamation mark after his name — invisible in the way that normal people are. So that was what he’d done. Become invisible, with a small i. Or, more appropriately, visible. With an ordinary v. You could be sitting next to him on a bus or a train, in a restaurant or bar, at home on the sofa, you could be sitting next to him right now and there’d be nothing invisible about him, nothing invisible at all. That was what had happened, I was sure of it. And that, I told Loots, was what he should say to Anton when he saw him again.
The city seemed to welcome us as we drove in — green lights all the way and rockets exploding in the bright, snow-heavy sky above the Metropole. We’d done the impossible. We’d found The Invisible Man. I wanted to tell everyone I met. I suddenly wished I had more friends. Well, at least there was Gregory. I dropped in at Leon’s and there he was in his donkey jacket, white hair rising off his head like steam, his shiny hands wrapped round a cup of coffee.
‘I haven’t seen you for ages,’ he said. ‘Where’ve you been?’ His head was lowered, bull-like, and he was glowering at me through a kind of undergrowth: his eyebrows.
‘Smoke,’ I said, ‘you won’t believe what happened.’
I told him the story of the last twenty-four hours. As I reached the end I saw that he’d forgiven me. I bought him a dessert, just to make sure: Leon’s famous blackcurrant jelly, with a dome of whipped cream the size of the Kremlin.
When I unlocked the door of my room just after two o’clock, the phone was ringing. I snatched it up.
‘Blom.’
Never had my name sounded less gloomy. The m hummed happily, like bees in summer.
‘It’s me.’
Nina!
‘I have to see you, Martin. Right away.’
What she was saying seemed to prove the theory I had about her, that there was always room for hope. I’d already decided Greersen didn’t mean anything to her. It had been a whim, an aberration (she probably regretted it now). There was no reason why I couldn’t go on seeing her. Who knows, maybe we could even get married. It would have to be a night wedding, of course. I’d invite Gregory, Victor, Leon. I’d invite The Invisible Man, too. Loots could dance with Nina in that quaint, old-fashioned style of his.
‘Will you meet me somewhere?’ she was saying.