When I Was Invisible

by Dorothy Koomson

  This is the first time I’ve had sex in my body. This is the first time I’ve realised I can experience pleasure from sex.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Marshall asks out of the blue. He pulls me into his arms, holds me close, kisses me on the forehead. He sounds concerned; his hold seems more comforting than post-coital closeness. ‘Was doing that what you wanted?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I reply.

  ‘I hope you didn’t feel pressured or anything like that,’ he says gently. ‘I didn’t mean for you to feel like we had to do that. I’d have been happy to wait, especially since we don’t know each other very well.’

  ‘I didn’t feel pressured.’ I’m confused now. This is the first time in so many years that I’ve wanted to have sex with someone and the first time ever that I’ve been present enough to enjoy it. Why would he think otherwise? ‘That was what I wanted, and I really, really enjoyed it. Couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but you’re crying.’

  I’m crying? I touch my face, touch the tears that have escaped my eyes, tears I didn’t even know had been shed. I wick them away, reach out and grab my glasses from the bedside table and fix them into place to hide any more of that. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say to him. ‘It’s not you, it’s me and my mixed-up mind.’ I sit up, safe enough to face him now I have my glasses on and my face obscured. He has a little frown crinkling his forehead as he stares up at me. ‘It was amazing.’ He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair away from my forehead, clearly not convinced. ‘I was a little overcome. Haven’t … Haven’t done that in a very long time and, like I say, mixed-up mind up here.’ Ostentatiously I lean forwards and press my lips on to his. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve freaked you out, that was all good.’

  ‘I just want to make sure that this is what you want.’

  ‘Well, I guess there is one way I can prove to you that it’s what I want.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  I climb on top of him and start to unzip my uniform. ‘We could do it all over again but with far fewer clothes.’

  ‘I like that idea. I like it a lot.’

  Birmingham, 2016

  I rubbed my aching fingers over my red, tired eyes as I left work, wandered down from the quiet side street where I’d just finished my cleaning shift and on to one of the larger main roads towards home.

  I was tired, bordering on exhausted, but I’d been working every shift I could to make enough money to get my music player back, which I had, last week. I also needed to save as much as I could to get enough to cover my rent and bills when the inevitable happened with Judge and I would be out of work for a while. I didn’t think he’d kill me, but he was going to hurt me very badly. I had, for the most part, squared that in my head. Accepted it as an inevitable consequence to getting involved with someone like him in the first place.

  I’d thought about running away, of course, but his reputation meant he’d have to hurt someone else in my place. I had done this. I would have to take it. As far as I knew, Lori was as safe as she could be. That night we’d given him his money, I’d taken my sleeping bag and we’d both slept out on the streets, not hidden like usual, but out in the open. I’d slept across the road from her, so I could see her, but she was on her own and when the charity officials who worked with the most vulnerable homeless people had seen how young she was, they had approached her. I’d seen them before, knew they were genuine, so when she had gone with them, I knew this was the best chance for help she was going to get.

  She’d waved at me as they’d walked away, and I had looked through her. I’d wanted to wave, I’d wanted to run up to her, hug her, tell her I hoped she went on to better things, but I couldn’t. She had to know there was no option of her coming back here, that we wouldn’t – couldn’t – help her out again. If she came back, she’d be on her own, she’d owe the people who had given her money, she would be in real trouble and I wouldn’t be able to help her. I wasn’t sure I’d be in any position to help anyone, least of all myself.

  I turned on to the main road, started down towards home, and as I hit the road, a play of light on the buildings opposite reminded me of the other Veronica.

  Roni. Everything about her was vivid in my mind: her features, our friendship, her betrayal, the relentlessness of missing her … all moved through me in one gush, like a ghost passing through a solid object.

  I stopped, almost winded by the thought of her. Why now? Why so powerfully? Had she died? Was this her coming through to me before she went on to wherever the dead go? Was this a warning that something awful was about to happen? On shaky legs I continued towards home, the fear of what that moment of Roni had meant spreading through me with each step.

  I didn’t notice the car at first. When I did notice it – black and shiny with blacked-out windows – I thought it was another kerb-crawler, mistaking me for a working girl. It kept pace with me a little too long to tell me it wasn’t a kerb-crawler, then when it had my attention, it drove on a little before stopping. The back door popped open, sat gaping wide, like the mouth of a monster, ready to gobble me up in one gulp.

  This was it, then. This was why Roni had come to mind. It wasn’t she who was about to die – it was me. Then there would be only one Veronica Harper who grew up in Chiselwick, whose talent meant she could have been a real ballerina, whose life had been for ever changed by that love of dance. Slowly, I went towards the waiting mouth, stooped a little to look in. Judge’s spot of ruby blood glinted at me as he grinned. ‘Hello, Ace,’ he said. ‘Let’s go for a little ride.’

  Brighton, 2016

  Marshall watches me getting dressed in the dark and doesn’t say anything. I know he wants to ask me to stay. But that would be silly when I’ve got my own bed, five floors up, and we really don’t know much about each other at all. Once I have everything on, I lean over the bed and kiss him. He doesn’t say anything when I pull away, and neither do I. He carefully brushes my hair away from my forehead and looks sad for a moment. If he asks me to stay, I probably will, but I hope he doesn’t. I hope he lets this thing develop naturally, slowly. I hope I do, too. Marshall lifts his hand in a wave and then rolls over, closes his eyes and pretends to go to sleep. And I let myself out of the flat, knowing that I’ll be back again tomorrow.

  Birmingham, 2016

  Toto’s ‘Africa’ played in my mind, over and over, as we drove out towards the derelict industrial area. They were redeveloping the area – it had been so barren and bleak most of the time I had lived here, but now it was being regenerated. The beauty that was always there, that was so clear and apparent in the city centre, was being remade out here. It would take years to complete, but when it was done, it would look spectacular.

  I tried not to worry about what Judge would do, if he would leave me alive, if it would be so hideous I wouldn’t be able to cope in the aftermath. Judge did not become who he was and did not control what he did without having the capability of doing things most people wouldn’t dream of. I could not try to second-guess what he had in store for me, that would add to my torture. Instead, I composed a letter in my head to my parents.

  Dear Mummy and Daddy,

  I’m writing to you because I am at a time in my life when I probably won’t see you again. I want to say I am sorry we never got to speak again. I wish things had been different. And I wish … I wish you had believed me. I know it was hard to hear, but I wish … But no matter, I suppose now. Please can you tell Marlon and Sasha that I wish I’d had the chance to get to know them properly.

  As I mentally wrote the goodbye letter, something that would never been seen by anyone, my words became mingled with the words to ‘Africa’ ringing in my ears: The need to hurry, how difficult it would be to keep the true loves apart, the feel of rain—

  The car came to a stop inside the shell of an old factory that had fallen out of use a long time ago. The roof was still on, but was punctuated by huge chunks of sky; the walls seemed strong and sturdy. No one would find me out here, of course. Not for a long w
hile. I thought of Reese. He hadn’t turned up for coffee last night or the night before and no one had seen him when I went looking. I wouldn’t see him again. He would go to meet me for coffee and I wouldn’t show up. And he would know that Judge had probably got me and that no one would find my body.

  I unclipped my seatbelt, as did Judge. The futility and sheer oddness that came from securing my seatbelt when I’d got into a car to be driven off to be killed almost made me smile. I’d made sure I was in good condition for what I was about to be subjected to.

  Judge had been staring at me the whole of the drive. We were the only people in the back of the car and his eyes, that intimidating blue gaze, had never left me the whole time. He probably expected me to try to talk him out of it, beg him, maybe. I hadn’t. I wouldn’t give him the additional pleasure of my begging then him hurting me anyway.

  Judge’s thick fingers ran carefully over his left eyebrow and he looked pained, genuinely agonised at having to do this. He had always seemed to me to be someone who liked the quiet control of the threat of violence, the power never having to carry out the threat brought him.

  ‘I could never work you out, Ace,’ he said. ‘Right in the beginning, I noticed you, but could never work out who you were. You weren’t a user, you didn’t drink, didn’t seem to want much of anything. You can’t get involved with someone who doesn’t want anything,’ he said.

  He was wrong, of course. I wanted lots of things, but those things I couldn’t buy, couldn’t trade for, couldn’t have. I wanted lots of things all the time, but they were things no one could give to me.

  ‘Part of the problem was that I could tell that you didn’t care about yourself enough.’ He opened his car door and got out. Slowly I did the same, for all the inevitability of this, I didn’t want to rush towards it.

  Once outside the car, I saw him: Reese.

  I swung towards Judge, then back to Reese. My friend was standing a few feet away, flanked by two men bigger than him, stronger than him. My stomach lurched, and I suddenly knew what it was to be afraid. I thought I had been afraid before, I thought I had been scared on the drive out here, but now I was terrified – for Reese. My whole body was burning with terror.

  Reese’s thick woolly jumper, his long winter coat and the padded body warmer over it did nothing to hide how thin and fragile he was. When I’d first met him, he’d been wiry-looking; over the past few years he’d just become thin and ravaged by his habit, by the way he lived. He was clean right now, had been slowly putting on weight and looking normal, but sandwiched between the two men he seemed slight, delicate.

  When he hadn’t turned up for coffee the last two nights I’d thought he’d fallen down the hole again, after being clean for so long I thought he’d given in and was back where he had started.

  ‘Do you know the day I knew I had you, Ace?’ Judge said. ‘When this one here came at you in the café, shouting and all sorts, and you just sat there and took it. Anyone else would have told him to fuck off, but not you, you sat there and took it because you cared about him. Caring about people is an admirable quality. Stupid, too. I knew I had you, then. All I had to do was talk to you when you were so shaken up by someone you cared about and you’d be working for me in no time.’

  Reese’s eyes were fixed on me, mine were fixed on him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mouthed at Reese.

  ‘You thought you were too good to work for me though, didn’t you, Ace?’ Judge continued. ‘I made sure you were fucked by six men in one night, really hurt by a couple of them, too, and still it didn’t turn you because you thought you were better than that. I let that slide. And then you take away Lori, my beautiful Little One. Do you know how many men I had lined up for her? How much someone so young could have made me? Punters pay through the nose for the virginal types. I had it all planned, laid all that groundwork, and you get involved with that.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mouthed again at my best friend.

  ‘And then I realised: hurting you won’t teach you a lesson in staying away from my stuff, will it, Ace? It might be momentarily satisfying, but you won’t learn anything from it, will you?’ He raised his whole arm to point his thick finger at Reese. ‘But I reckon making sure he can never eat solid food again, or walk without a limp again, and a few other things, will make sure you never play with my stuff again.’ He laughed; the sound was serrated, had a cutting edge that sliced through me like a buzz saw. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Judge. ‘I’m sorry, Judge. Please don’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’ll do anything, anything. You want me to work for you? I’ll do it, I’ll work for you and I’ll never complain. You don’t even have to pay me, I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t do this. Please. Please.’

  That was what he wanted. What Todd had wanted. Todd had never been happier than when I was begging him to love me again, saying sorry for upsetting him, trying to appease him by doing whatever unreasonable thing he wanted; all of it showing him that I knew my place and he was in absolute control. That was what Judge wanted, fundamentally. To know that he was in ultimate control, that no one thought they could go against him. If I had to do that – beg, lower myself, sleep with whoever he wanted – to save Reese I would. I absolutely would.

  ‘It’s good to see you finally know your place, Ace,’ Judge said. ‘But it’s come a little too late. I can’t let you get away with this. It’d make others think they can, too.’ He nodded at me. ‘Do you see? You’ve done this. You. You’ve done this to your friend, here. Not me, you.’

  ‘Oh please, oh please, oh please,’ I begged desperately. ‘Oh plea—’ The sound that came from Reese made me clamp my hands over my ears as it ripped though every fibre in my body. It kept coming, the sound, the agony, the sight of what was happening. Over it all were Judge’s words: ‘You’ve done this. You. You. You. You.’

  Roni

  London, 2016

  There’s something pleasant and unpleasant about Tube journeys. I am on my way back from confession at the north-west London church that has started to feel a bit like my parish church and the train is packed with shoppers on their way home, and partygoers on their way out. Between stations, while the train hurtles from one stop to another, I shut my eyes, try to find a state of mind where I won’t have the noise and voices of my past constantly screaming at me. I try to find some semblance of silence, try to remember why it was a good idea to leave the convent.

  I remember how much fun it was being among the Sisters. Every day was different, we would find so many things to laugh and joke about. At recreation, we would all be doing different things, sewing, knitting, reading, drawing, simply chatting, and it would be like how I imagined boarding school would be. We’d be all together, friends, spending time together, getting to know each other, chatting about our day and what was going on in the outside world. Those of us who actually went out – ministering with the homeless, women’s shelters, working in the hospitals attached to convents or, like me, teaching at convent schools – would sometimes share our observations with our Sisters, but we had to be careful not to bring outside burdens and miseries and frivolities with us. If something happened that added to our understanding of Scripture or prayer, or there were people we would like to pray for, we would share it, but nothing else.

  Recently, yes, it’d been harder to find the silence in the monastery, even in prayer, and the Great Silence was sometimes the start of the most difficult part of my day, but should I have left? Really?

  Yes, I wanted to find Nika, to quell the feeling inside that I am Judas, but really, what was it that stopped me from simply revealing all in confession and then moving on, having been absolved? The priest in the north London church said it the first time I spoke to him: I have been punishing myself all this time. Was it really necessary to do so?

  The train lurches to a noisy stop, jerking people forwards then back as it does so. The doors open, announcements fill the air, there is a
burst of noise as people enter and exit the carriage. The closer we get to Chiselwick, the more people leave and the fewer people get on to take their places. My carriage is practically empty now, no one is standing, I am alone on this bank of seats and only a couple of people occupy the seats opposite me in this section. The doors bleep then shut firmly together. I am about to close my eyes when I realise the person opposite is studiously staring away along the carriage, obviously trying to avoid being noticed by me.

  ‘Well, this is awkward,’ I say to him.

  He grins before he reluctantly looks in my direction. ‘Who for? Me, who has left more than a couple of messages for you, or you, who hasn’t returned any of them?’

  ‘Not sure, really,’ I say. Who knew London was so small you’d constantly be running into the same people? I pick up my bag and cross the aisle to sit next to Cliff. ‘I guess awkward kind of covers both of us in that scenario.’

  He smiles again. ‘Am I allowed to ask why you haven’t returned my calls, apart from the obvious?’

  ‘What’s the obvious?’

  ‘That you want nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s not that.’

  ‘You do want something to do with me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But you haven’t returned any of my calls because …?’

  ‘Truthfully, because there’s something I have to do and I don’t want to get distracted by anything while I try to do it.’

  ‘Ahhh, I see … so you’re on a mission from God.’