Invisible

by Jonathan Buckley

  ‘Might be.’

  ‘No, Kate. Is. Is about to change.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more. I have to think. I’ll call you back.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I’ll call you back. Soon.’

  ‘Call me at the weekend.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before Monday, OK?’

  ‘Yes. OK,’ she exhales.

  ‘Talk to her, Kate.’

  ‘Yes, Malcolm. I don’t need your advice.’

  ‘Talk to her and let me know what’s happening.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, and puts the phone down.

  In the beginning perhaps they had been drawn together by her discontent. He can still see her, in the dining room of the Zetland, standing amid a group of aunts and uncles, her eyes desperate and her smile frozen with boredom. A man with a bright red jacket and a paisley tie put his arm round her waist, and her neck stiffened as he kissed her on the cheek. She would have been fourteen then, or fifteen. He had often seen her walking with her friends, a demure little entourage that moved undisturbed through the mêlée of children around the gates, more like a gang of precocious office workers than schoolgirls. Waiting for the bus, she always stood extraordinarily straight, like a dancer, and she was standing that way at the Zetland, blinking at the cigar smoke that was being blown across her face. She turned and tapped his arm to ask if she could get a glass of water, then followed him to the kitchen. When she took the glass from him and sat down in the kitchen, her hair hid her face from him in a way that made her look more sophisticated than any of the adults. Lifting her head, she put a hand flat against her brow and sighed: ‘Jesus Christ, get me out of here.’ She’d drunk a glass of gin. She was three-quarters drunk, and she really didn’t like it, she said, looking at him, with her head resting on her arms. He told her she should eat something, and made an omelette for her, which she ate in about half a minute. His father called him back out to the party, and when he returned to the kitchen she had washed the plate and pan, and made two cups of coffee. And somehow, before the party was over, they came to be climbing up the spiral staircase to the roof of the turret. The weathervane creaked above their heads as they looked out at the sea, standing side by side, so close that her dress kept brushing the back of his legs. Kate surveyed the whole town in one continuous sweep. ‘What a dump,’ she said. ‘Just look at it. Death.’ She removed the pin that held the paper orchid to her dress and flung the flower upward. They watched it fly over the sea-coloured roofs and fall into the street. The skin on her arms had tightened with the cold. He took off his jacket and offered it to her, but she would not take it.

  Years later she finally escaped, with him, and they had lived abroad and been happy. For a long time they had been happy, most of the time. He knows this to be true, but at this moment, in the grey wake of their conversation, no instance of their happiness shows itself. What impresses itself upon him is that often, even during their first months in Amsterdam, he would see on Kate’s face a look like the expression he had seen that night in the Zetland, and it seems to him now that their marriage was like a path laid upon a marsh, and that the frigid ooze of boredom would well up through it, more and more frequently as the years passed. And boredom became bitterness, became something like contempt. He remembers one afternoon, on a bridge by a bookshop, when he explained why it would be best to stay a little longer in Amsterdam, as Mr Rijsbergen’s assistant. Just three or four months more, then they could go back to England. She listened, watching a police boat moving slowly down the canal. At last she spoke. ‘Whatever you say,’ she said, nothing more, tightening the straps on Stephanie’s pushchair. She walked off without saying another word, and that night, when he came home, he found in the kitchen bin a sheet of the hotel’s writing paper, on which she had written, in lipstick: ‘bored bored bored bored’. He remembers crushing the piece of paper into an empty tin and sitting in Stephanie’s room to watch his daughter while she slept. He fell asleep on the floor beside the cot. When he woke up he went into their bedroom. Kate lay curled on her side, with one hand under her cheek. He was no longer annoyed by the childish message she had left for him to find. Looking at her as she lay in their bed, turned away from him in sleep, in the shadows that the curtains cast like raindrops across the room, he felt something akin to the misery of bereavement, a misery that now, summoned by Kate’s voice, is returning to him, like an amnesiac’s interlude of clarity.

  He rummages through the relics on his desk, with no purpose other than to divert himself from the memory of Amsterdam. Taking up a sheaf of menus, he begins to plan the final night of the Oak. He makes notes on dishes that were prepared in Croombe’s kitchen, and drafts a letter to be sent to his most loyal guests, telling them of the special supper with which the Oak will be ending. He settles some bills, takes a call from Giles Harbison, goes down to the basement to check the gauges in the pump room. He continues down the passageway to the pool, but even the sight of the radiant blue walls, of the burnished pipes and the blooms of electric light within the water cannot bring him wholly into the present. As he stands by the water, breathing the sweetly stagnant air, it is as though he had recently arrived at the Oak, and Kate and Stephanie had departed merely weeks ago.

  Going home, he drives down the High Street instead of taking his customary route. It occurs to him, as he waits for the traffic lights to change, that he needs some cash for the morning. He parks outside the bank. Something here is unusual tonight, he is aware, as he jabs at the keyboard of the cash machine, but precisely what is unusual he does not know. The drums and cogs inside the machine start to turn; he puts out his hand to take the notes, glances to right and left, and then notices that several street lights in a row have failed. A pallid light lies over the dark bricks of the bank’s façade. The road has a complexion of indigo and the clouds around the moon are bordered with dark lavender. At a shriek of laughter he looks to his left. Three teenaged girls are sitting on the steps of the library, passing a cigarette around. They sprawl on the steps, one with a foot resting on another’s knee, the third girl sitting apart, higher up the steps, ruffling her tightly curled hair. The two girls sitting together turn to look at their friend. Taking a drag of the cigarette, she makes a remark, a sardonic aside that makes the other two howl and throw their arms round each other. This is what Stephanie will be like, he thinks, and finally, in the delight of the idea of his daughter, the mood of the afternoon is obliterated.

  In the alley opposite the library, Eloni drops a bag of stale buns into the bin. The pubs will be emptying soon, and the day’s last customers will arrive, some of them so drunk that they will vomit onto the pavement outside, and it will be her job to clear up the mess they make. She goes to the end of the alley; if nobody is coming she can stay outside for some fresh air. Three shrieking girls are walking down the street, veering across the pavement arm in arm. By the bank a man is getting into his car, and as they pass behind him one of them makes a remark that makes him turn and smile at them. Recognising Mr Caldecott, she steps back to avoid being seen, even though he knows she works here. In the shadows of the alley she watches his car go by, and her heart seems to clench, as though he had gone for ever and suddenly she is friendless and in danger. She returns to the kitchen. From the grills she scrapes the gritty pellets of meat and the slivers of onion that have shrivelled and hardened so they look like clippings from animals’ claws. She drains the dirty oil into a cut-down pop bottle. Out front, Charlie yells an order. She splays the grainy discs of meat onto the grill, and all the time the heavy small thing is tumbling in her chest.

  four

  At a quarter past one, hearing the front door close, Stephanie gets up from her bed to make sure that her mother is leaving. Pushing a hand into the slats of the blind, she sees her mother reach into her handbag for her sunglasses. It’s the round black-rimmed shades today, the Jackie Onassis pair. Post-workout chic is this afternoon’s look: strappy sandals to make the most of the coral-
pink toenails; freshly laundered skinny jeans; and the tight white T-shirt that Robert brought back from New York, which cost a sexily ludicrous amount of money and shows off the high-toned, caramel-coloured arms. It’s the look that suits her best and it’s obvious from her walk that she knows it, just as you can see in the springy movement of her wrist the pleasure she gets when she aims the key fob at the car and all the locks spring up obediently, like tiny servants standing to attention. With poise she steps up into the car, turning at the waist, twisting her hips, dipping her head, reaching for the door in one fluid sequence, like a piece of action that’s been rehearsed and rehearsed until it’s become instinctive. One peep in the mirror and the Jackies are raised upright and jammed into the hairband position. And then we’re off, off to the shops once again, to buy whatever’s needed for this evening’s meal and a bottle or two of whatever wine was the top tip in last Sunday’s supplement. After that, it’ll be a drive halfway across London to see Susie, who will tend her hair for the twentieth time this year. At five o’clock, if the traffic’s not too bad, she will be back, with an immaculate bob from which every strand of grey will have been eliminated by a dye the colour of plastic oak veneer, and an impulse buy on the passenger seat, a scented candle or an exquisite belt, in a tiny carrier bag that’s almost too nice to throw away.

  She turns off the radio and wanders across the landing. From the doorway she surveys her parents’ bedroom. The bed has been tightly made and the pillows heaped in two pairs of three, all perfectly aligned and perfectly white. The net curtains hang in waves as regular as corrugated fibreglass. The red digits of the alarm clock blink beside the white plastic lamp and a book from which a green leather bookmark protrudes. And on Robert’s side, underneath the matching white plastic lamp, lies a book with a red leather bookmark. On the dressing table, to the side of the mirror, half a dozen perfume bottles stand on a circle of white lace, none of them touching, all as shiny as new. There’s not a fingermark, not a grain of dust to mar the gleam of the mirror. She looks around, seeking a blemish, an irregularity, but there’s none: not one stray sock, a single dropped coin, a mislaid hair-clip, nothing. She opens her mother’s wardrobe, and it’s like opening the storeroom of a clothes shop. Packed closely on the rail, the dresses and jackets and shirts hang in sheaths of plastic and white paper above a low wall of shoe boxes. In the centre of the rail there’s a small gap between the hangers, where a fat grey satin pouch of pot-pourri dangles on a blue satin ribbon, like the body of a dead bird tangled in a branch. Indifferently, going through the motions of searching the room, she opens the drawers of the pine chest: the deepest is full of jeans, all as clean as the day they were bought, folded in two piles, one for him, one for her; another contains nothing but white shirts and white tops; the top drawer is a fragrant nest of underwear, bras to the left side, knickers to the right, with subtle hues of cream and pink amid the undimmed whiteness. She shoves a hand into a wad of silk, striking the packets of pills that are hidden underneath. If she were to throw the packets away, or just mess things up a bit, it would be no worse than opening the letter, she thinks, and then the notion vanishes, and she feels tired again, that’s all.

  Opening the kitchen door, she steps into warmth and brightness. Pouring through the wide glass doors, the sunlight makes the cork flooring look like untrodden sand. A luscious glow comes off a plywood chair, blurring the shape of it, and the empty glass vase by the draining board shines like a crystal block. Soaked in sunlight, the long zinc tabletop has the sheen of a dolphin’s wet flank. Sitting down at the table, she stares at the mottled skin of the metal, at the bright silver nicks and scratches, at the rings of wetness that have become blotches of variegated grey, like rain clouds. She forgets where she is, until the light suddenly goes and again she is in the kitchen of her father’s house. She unlocks the doors and slides them back. Standing on the terrace, she gasps the air in. She watches a plane as it traverses the whole span of the sky. A ring of red string has been strung around the relaid part of the lawn. In a corner of the garden a bank of new plants has appeared, hemmed by a crop of plastic identity tags, all of them perfectly upright.

  In the bread bin there are three types of bread. She takes the biggest loaf and saws off two thick wedges. Under a dish in the fridge she finds a drooping Camembert, an overripe Stilton and something the colour of a block of urine. Behind the dish, wrapped in a coat of foil, there’s a roasted chicken, which she might have been told to leave alone, but she’s not sure. It’s the only edible thing she can see, so she tears a few strips off the breast and lays them between the unbuttered slices. On the work surface, between the oven and the rack of spices, a cookery book lies open at a recipe for Fillet of Beef with Red Wine, Anchovies, Garlic & Thyme. Two postcards inserted between other pages seem to mark the other courses on tonight’s menu: Pea, Mint & Avocado Salad, with Strawberries in Dark Syrup to finish. ‘Dear K & R,’ she reads, on the back of a picture of a colossal gold Buddha, ‘This is the life!! Our room is ENORMOUS and the people here are so lovely and friendly they make you feel like you're one of the family. Weather is glorious and the beach is to die for! John went diving this morning and has really caught the bug – says he’s going to do it every day. Too much like hard work if you ask me! London seems a million miles away…’ Mixed in her mouth, the chicken and bread have formed a stringy paste that tastes of nothing but saliva. She lifts the top slice off the sandwich and examines the strips of flesh. They remind her of dead mice in the biology lab.

  She grabs the phone but puts it down before keying any numbers, because at the back of her mind there’s an incident involving her father, in a shop. She is walking behind him, carrying a wire basket with handles that are covered in red rubber that has split. He stops by a big freezer and opens the door, but he doesn’t take anything out for a long time, and then finally he holds out a big box of frozen fish fingers, for her to say yes or no. He rubbed her hair every time he put something into the basket. Holding the half-eaten sandwich in one hand, she stares at the floor, trying to remember more, but the sight of her lumpen feet prevents her from thinking. She throws the sandwich into the bin.

  On the low oak table in the living room this month’s magazines are stacked in a block, with Vogue at the top. She scans the tapes on the shelves behind the television: the tedious rugby games and tedious Grand Prix races, the Indiana Jones collection, the Humphrey Bogart collection, the Woody Allen collection, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, none of them watched since the day they were bought. Her father’s flat, she recalls, felt more like an office than a place where someone lived. The carpet was too thin for a living room, and he had a desk by the window, with a computer on it, and a pile of letters. He brought her meal out on a tray. She ate it on her knees, watching a cartoon on the television. The radiator in the bathroom was dusty. When she went to the toilet she ran her finger down one of the indentations in the radiator, and her fingertip came away black. The bookshelf at which she is looking is filled with autobiographies: the life stories of film stars, TV personalities, rugby players, mountain climbers, politicians, racing drivers, criminals, soldiers, cricket players, businessmen, nobodies. There is not a smudge of dirt anywhere on the carpet. It is like a pond of cream, and it makes her feel sick to look at it.

  In the bathroom mirror she looks at her face, a face in which she sees none of her mother’s features, except for the shape of the eyes, which are deeply set, like her mother’s, and quite wide apart, like hers, but darker. She looks into those eyes and they look without intent into hers. Discarding the shirt, she regards the protruberant collarbone, the scatter of moles below the neck, the heavy breasts, the swell of the belly. It is like looking through a window at somebody else. She turns her hands over, palms up, then back. The fingers do not taper like her mother’s and the knuckles are more bulbous. On her wrist hangs the bracelet that her father sent her. ‘Typical,’ her mother kept saying, appalled that he’d given his daughter something second-hand for
Christmas. Cheap and ugly and thoughtless, her mother said it was – worse than the tokens he usually sent. But she knew right away that it wasn’t cheap, even if it was ugly. She kept it in a box under the bed, and at night she would sometimes take it from its case and examine the waves that ran round it, and the things shaped like seeds of corn, and the weird little boggle-eyed man with the boxer’s broken nose, wondering what had made her father buy it for her, where he had bought it, what its story was. One day, at school, she saw a similar thing in a history book. Perhaps it was after seeing the picture that she began to look at the bracelet carefully and see that it wasn’t ugly. And the fact that her mother despised the thing had become part of its attraction. She smiles at the half-naked girl in the mirror, remembering the evening she had worn it, at a dinner for that boozy old bastard Mr Girtin and his pointless wife. She was thinner then, and could jam the bracelet nearly up to her elbow, but when she passed a bowl to Mrs Girtin it slipped out of her sleeve and her mother saw it before she could shove it back. From the look her mother gave her anyone would have thought she’d let rip with a fart. Buttoning the shirt, she goes back into her parents’ bedroom. She sits on the bed, pummels a pillow on her lap, deposits the phone on the pillow, and dials.

  Malcolm takes a call from reception, telling him that there’s a Stephanie Tindall for him on line two.

  ‘Hello?’ he says. ‘Stephanie?’ He hears a clumsiness in the pronunciation of her name, as though his mouth were recovering from an anaesthetic.

  ‘Hi,’ says his daughter.

  ‘My God,’ he responds, too theatrically. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says coolly, and pauses, as if he had been the one who had phoned and she is waiting to hear what he wants.

  ‘This is – I’m –’