The Invisible Ones

by Stef Penney

  “It’s inherited, yeah.”

  She makes a face. I wonder if she’s been tested for it, or if that’s even possible.

  “How are you getting on, all of you? You’re settling down now, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. We’ve got our house—we’ve moved out from Lulu’s, finally.”

  “Oh. Right . . . How is she?”

  Sandra looks sidelong at me, a little sly. I wonder how much she knows. “She’s all right. She’s got a new job.”

  I feel my heart knock against my ribs.

  “She rather liked . . . that other one, didn’t she?”

  Sandra doesn’t react, so I assume she wasn’t privy to the ins and outs of the job in Richmond.

  “Where’s she working now?”

  “In an old people’s home in Sutton.”

  “Ah.”

  We stare ahead in silence for a few moments.

  “Could I get you a coffee, Mrs. . . . er, Mrs. Smith?”

  I get drinks from the machine in the lobby and go back to my post. Sandra smiles as she takes the cup.

  “My son’s very interested in what you do.”

  “Oh? Well, he’s a bright kid. I’m sure he could do all sorts of things.”

  “He keeps talking about you. It would be really nice if you could talk to him one day. Tell him about your schooling and stuff, you know. He’s got to make all these decisions about exams and things. I don’t know what to say to him.”

  “Of course. Happy to.”

  “I didn’t have much schooling myself.”

  She sips her chocolate.

  “Ow. They’re always too hot, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, they are . . . Would you tell me about Christina?”

  “Christina? My cousin? God, why?”

  “Because she . . . seems such a mystery. There wasn’t a funeral, is that right?”

  “It’s not a mystery. She died abroad. And Tene was on his own with Ivo. You know . . .”

  She shrugs: What can you do? These things happen.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Must have been before I had JJ. We were good pals, when we were little. Even though she was younger than me, she was braver. Fearless, you know. But then Tene took them all off on the road—we didn’t see much of them after that.”

  “How old were you then?”

  “When we were friends? Oh, about eight.”

  “What happened?”

  She shrugs.

  “Were you friends with Ivo, too, when you were little?”

  “Yeah, but he was younger, and poorly, and he always had to stay at home. And when Christina passed . . . Tene and Ivo just vanished. He couldn’t bear to see anyone, I think. I didn’t see them again until the wedding . . . I mean, it was years.”

  “Years since you’d seen Tene and Ivo?”

  “Since anyone had.”

  “Even Kath—even your mum? She didn’t see them, either?”

  “No. I don’t know if they fell out or something . . .”

  “What year did Christina die?”

  “In 1974. JJ was nearly two. It was then Mum and Dad got in touch with me again. I think it gave them a shock—you know, we were all sort of used to the disease, but it made them see that people die of other things, too.”

  “So . . . you and Ivo became close friends, when you lived together?”

  “We were We were cousins.”

  She sounds defensive.

  “Were you surprised he didn’t marry again?”

  I know I’m getting near the knuckle. She won’t look at me.

  “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  “I suppose I want to understand him.”

  She lets out a snort of contempt.

  “Forget it! No one understood Ivo when he was here!”

  “Not even you?”

  “’Specially not me.”

  Her voice has dropped to nothing. She’s picking at her empty cup, tearing the edge and bending the strips into tiny battlements.

  “You were fond of him.”

  I try to say it as gently as possible. Still, I think I’ve gone too far, and she isn’t going to reply.

  Then, at length, she says, very quietly, “He wasn’t interested. When you said he had a girlfriend, I thought . . . maybe that’s why.”

  “Do you think he could have kept that a secret from you all?”

  She sighs and leans back in her chair.

  “Why not? That’s what he was like, you know . . .” She holds up her hand, palm outward. “Wouldn’t let you in.”

  She glances at me, her face weary. The look of one dupe to another. It sounds like Rose, all over again. Ivo and his secrets.

  “Anyway, he’s gone now. End of story.”

  She gets up, rather heavily, and throws her empty cup into the bin.

  60.

  Ray

  Autumn is starting to bite. The belated, short-lived warmth has fled; the trees have begun to turn in the park outside the hospital. I cross the road and notice the first fallen leaves, pressed into the tarmac under my feet.

  As usual, it’s early in the morning when I arrive. I don’t want there to be any chance of missing him—although it’s a while before appointments begin. Today, for the first time, it’s Lulu who brings Christo to the hospital. I haven’t seen her since the funeral, not because I didn’t want to but because my lack of answers demonstrates an unbearable—to me— incompetence. She looks just the same . . . No, she looks better. She doesn’t seem surprised to see me. I imagine that Sandra told her about my being here. I allow myself, just briefly, to wonder if that’s why she’s come.

  After leaving Christo with the therapist, she walks back into the reception area. She seems tense, I think. But then so must I.

  “Hello, Ray,” she says.

  “Hello. How are you?”

  “All right, yeah . . . You?”

  “Can’t complain. How’s Christo?”

  “Good. They seem pleased with him. He says things now and again, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah? That’s good. And they’ve made a diagnosis, Sandra told me.”

  “Yeah. Although it’s not too bright.”

  “At least you know what it is. It’s always better to know what you’re dealing with, isn’t it?”

  Lulu thinks for a minute, and then says, “I suppose so.”

  She’s sitting beside me, so I can’t get a proper look at her. She keeps her eyes on the middle distance, watching two kids eye each other up across the climbing frame.

  “How’s your work—you busy?” she says.

  “Yes . . . You?”

  “Very. Actually . . . I’ve left the job in Richmond. I’m working in a home again.”

  Her voice changes, takes on a slightly higher note.

  “Oh . . . How’s that going?”

  “It’s okay.”

  I wait for her to say something else about it.

  “How’s your hand?”

  “All right. Still a bit numb. But I can do most things.” I waggle it about, to demonstrate that I can waggle it.

  “Must be a relief.”

  “Yeah, being able to drive, especially. And type . . . dial phone numbers—amazing what you take for granted . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  She gives me a brief smile. The blood is beating in my ears. I wonder whether to take the smile as encouragement.

  “So . . . are you . . . ? Your job, I mean . . . Are you, um, what sort of home is it?”

  “Old people. They’re not too bad, most of them. Not senile or anything, I mean. It’s quite a nice place. Not too far away.”

  “Good. Makes a change, anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sit in silence for a minute. I’m going to shoot myself if I don’t ask, I think.

  “Do you still see him?”

  She goes still, and instantly I regret it.

  “Sorry, it’s none of my business. Forget I . . .”

  “No
, it isn’t. No.”

  She takes a deep breath and looks at the mural on the wall opposite. At the top is a bright yellow sun. The unlikely birds fly in a circle around it. She smiles a little.

  “It’s quite funny, really. He met someone. Someone more like him.”

  “In a wheelchair?”

  It pops out before I think about what I’m saying.

  “No! Some posh gorjio woman.”

  “Oh. I see . . . Right. Yes, I suppose . . . Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Got to be, haven’t I? Least I’ve got another job.”

  Her voice sounds strained. Maybe she really did care for him. I wonder what to say next. It feels vital that I get it right. She checks her watch.

  “I should probably go and see what he’s up to.”

  Then she looks up, looks past me, and freezes.

  I look at her face, then follow her eyes to the double doors. My first thought is: it must be David from Richmond. The doors have opened automatically, because a young woman is standing behind them, but instead of walking through, she shrinks back, her eyes darting over the room, wary.

  I relax: at first I think she looks vaguely familiar, but she’s not someone I know.

  It’s not until her eyes meet mine that I realize. It is the reaction I see there that convinces me I am not dreaming. The terror in the eyes. The guilt. In a second, or less than a second, the doorway is empty.

  Lulu has clutched my arm.

  “Fucking hell!”

  Her voice is a strangled rasp.

  I jump up and run through the doors, Lulu beside me, and, maddeningly, we have to wait for the doors to slowly, gently, automatically, swing open again; we run down the corridor, out into the brightness outside. The staff car park. The pavement. Not there. Not there.

  Lulu goes left; I go right.

  Ivo—wearing a printed cotton dress and baggy sweater—could have come out only this way, but he’s not there, and there’s no crowd to hide among. An empty pavement. No cars pulling away.

  I run down the street, checking doorways, turning my head—the park gates? No, it’s open, no sign of him. He could have gone into a shop, I suppose, any shop, an office . . . A couple walking on the pavement opposite: I chase after them, ask them if they saw someone—a woman— a minute ago.

  “He just came out a few seconds before me, black hair, blue cotton dress—I mean, she came out . . . You didn’t see anyone like that . . . ?”

  The couple—tourists, burdened with maps and rain jackets and cameras—stares at me dumbly, shaking their heads. They seem frightened of me.

  I jog on, come to a crossroads. I can’t see him. No reason to turn left rather than right. Take one course and you miss another. Get it wrong, you lose your chance. I turn right. I end up half jogging, half running, taking one random turn after another. My thighs burn, my lungs start to complain. I’m out of condition, since hospital. Kidding myself. When was I last in condition? I run back to the first turn and go the other way. I don’t see Ivo anywhere.

  At length, I find myself leaning, hands on my knees, pulling great tearing breaths into aching lungs, staring at a woman pushing a child on a little wooden horse with wheels. They stop at a zebra crossing. The child’s blond head turns this way and that. I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl. The mother sees me watching and hurries them across the road with an alarmed, hostile look.

  When I finally get back to the hospital’s reception area, Lulu is already there, talking to a member of the staff. She rushes over to me, questioning.

  I shake my head. I have walked back slowly, to let my breathing return to normal and the heat leave my face. And to think.

  “You didn’t see him at all?” She sounds anguished as well as furious. “I didn’t see anything, but . . . the way I went, there were loads of shops, so . . .” She lifts her hands in frustration. “Oh . . . what the fuck?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t see anything. But there weren’t that many places he could have gone. He must have had a car.”

  “I can’t believe this. The fucking perverted little . . . fucker. How dare he . . . I’m going to fucking kill him!”

  Her voice trembles with rage. Tears are threatening, glittering in her eyes.

  I shake my head again. She isn’t going to kill him. I am beginning to suspect that would be impossible.

  61.

  Ray

  When I get home, I decide to have a stiff drink. I pour myself a vodka and tonic. I need it, even if I haven’t earned it. I sit for a long time, not turning the light on, watching trains pass, their lights getting brighter as the day fades, hearing planes lumber overhead: monotonous, strident rhythms that I thought I would never get used to but now, when I spend any length of time elsewhere, I find I miss.

  I switch on the answerphone. Andrea rings me on the days I spend at the hospital, to give me an update. Hen told me I should wait until morning, for all the good it’s going to do anyone. But she still does it. Dear Andrea—on her message I can hear her pencil striking through the items as she says them.

  “Hi, Ray. Nothing much to report today. Hen has been checking on the Porter money; nothing so far. Couple of inquiries on maritals. And a DI Considine called. Could you give him a ring when you’ve got a minute.”

  Thoughtfully, she has left a number. A home number.

  When I say my name, I can tell from his voice that something has happened.

  “You’ve got news.”

  “Yeah . . . of a sort.”

  “You’ve got an ID?”

  “No. But Hutchins rang me today. Back from her holidays.”

  He sounds oddly hesitant.

  “And?”

  “Well, she’s saying now that the body belongs to a young male, probably fifteen, sixteen years old but markedly underdeveloped.”

  “This is the Black Patch body?”

  “Yeah.”

  “With the wooden flowers.”

  “That’s the only one I know about.”

  “The body in the Black Patch is a boy?”

  “Yeah. Bit of a turnup, isn’t it? Apparently, it’s pretty conclusive.

  Hutchins says there is about a three percent room for error.”

  I switch the phone from one ear to the other to give myself time, thinking, That’s very precise, as well as very small.

  The feeling that goes with this thought is, strangely, one of happiness.

  “Ray? You there?”

  “Yeah. But with young skeletons, I thought you couldn’t be sure. I thought they were difficult.”

  “Well, she seems sure now. They found the pelvic bones and put them back together. Skull, too.”

  “Did she say what she meant by ‘underdeveloped’?”

  “She says he would have appeared younger than his age. Small and slight, you know. He might have been suffering from some sort of disease that retards development. And the other thing—there’s no obvious cause of death.”

  “Right.”

  I wait. For what, I don’t know.

  “Sorry, mate.”

  I put the phone down. I drain the vodka in one go. My next call is to Gavin. It takes ages to get hold of him—the babysitter informs me he’s out, so I have to wait until he comes back. He’s not best pleased to hear from me at half past eleven, but, bless him, he is willing to talk.

  When I hang up twenty minutes later, I know I’m not going to sleep.

  She sounds suspicious and irritable.

  “God, it’s after midnight!”

  “Were you asleep?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you wouldn’t be. I’ve been thinking about what happened today. And I’ve . . . Can I come over and see you? I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Now? It’s the middle of the night!”

  “I know. Maybe there’s somewhere that would be open—a caff or something? Anything like that near you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I suppose it can wait. Sorry to disturb you.” />
  A sigh.

  “It’s okay. I can’t sleep, anyway. My address is 24 Tennyson Way . . . Oh, you already know, don’t you?”

  Lulu has made a pot of tea and put it on a tray in the sitting room. The room is small but very neat. She is dressed as she was earlier. I have changed. I had a shower, too.

  “So what’s so important, then?”

  I spent the journey over here trying to think of the best way to tell her. I still haven’t reached a conclusion.

  “This is going to sound crazy . . .”

  She leans back in her armchair and lights a cigarette. She sends a stream of smoke in my direction. Already, she looks skeptical.

  “Remember I told you about the human remains at the Black Patch?”

  “The ones that aren’t Rose.”

  “Yes. But there were wooden flowers in the grave, so it seemed likely that it was a Traveler Gypsy.”

  She stares at me.

  “I was sure that Tene and Ivo had some connection with the . . . person there. I thought it could be Christo’s mother, whoever that was. But tonight I found out—the remains are those of a boy, not a girl. A boy of about sixteen. He was small for his age, and weak. The pathologist said it was probably due to a developmental disease. That’s what Christo has.”

  Lulu looks at me. Then she doesn’t look at me.

  “So?”

  “I’m saying that . . .” I take a deep breath. “What if Ivo died at the Black Patch, twelve years ago. Ivo is dead; like his brothers, like his uncles. He had Barth syndrome. He didn’t get better. There was no miracle.”

  She stares at me; she looks concerned, slightly pitying.

  “We saw Ivo today!”

  “The other thing I found out is that Barth syndrome can only be passed down through the mother. Christo had to have a carrier mother— he had to have a Janko mother, not a Janko father.”

  “But Ivo isn’t dead! We saw him. You saw him.”

  Lulu stares. She is deciding, sadly, that I am out of my mind.

  I take another deep breath.

  “What if Christina didn’t die?”

  Her eyes bore into me. That’s what it feels like: her eyes are hurting me. I wish I didn’t have to do this. She shakes her head slightly, stares at the ground.

  “That’s insane.”