She Is Not Invisible Read online

“Yes, that’s right. He died in Baltimore, but he was only visiting there at the time. This cottage was where he was living up to his death.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Listen, do you think I could ask you something?”

  “Yes, miss?”

  “Laureth. My name’s Laureth. This is Benjamin.”

  “Hello,” said Benjamin. “And this is Stan.”

  Valerie laughed.

  “What a nice blackbird,” she said.

  Before Benjamin, or Stan, could object to that, I asked Valerie a favor.

  “If Dad shows up, could you get him to ring me? Could you tell him we’re at the hotel. And we’re waiting for him? Could you do that? Please?”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?” asked Valerie, her voice soft and kind.

  “No,” I said. “No, nothing like that. We’re fine. Aren’t we, Benjamin?”

  “Yes, Laureth. But Stan says he’s hot.”

  “That’s that fur coat he’s wearing,” said Valerie, laughing at her own joke.

  When we didn’t join in, she said, “Yes. I’ll get your dad to call you. Maybe he got the day wrong. We’re open tomorrow, too, from—”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you very much. Come on, Benjamin.”

  I hesitated.

  “Just one other thing,” I said to Valerie. “Did Edgar Allan Poe ever write about coincidences?”

  “Coincidences?” she said slowly. “Not that I can think of. Of course there is the famous Richard Parker story. You might like to hear—”

  “Thank you,” I said, quickly, trying not to sound rude. “We know that one.”

  We left the little museum, and I could feel panic rising in my stomach and my chest.

  “Is there somewhere to sit down?” I asked Benjamin.

  “What are we going to do now?” he asked.

  “We’re going to sit down. I want…” I tried to keep calm. “I need to sit down, Benjamin. I just need to think for a minute. Is there somewhere to sit down? In the shade?”

  “There’s a bench under a tree over there.”

  “Is it away from the cottage?”

  I didn’t want Valerie to leave work and see us. She’d start thinking we were lost again, with nowhere to go and without a clue. She’d have been right.

  “What are we going to do now?” Benjamin asked again, as we sat down.

  “Do you have any of your water left?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m hungry, too. And Stan says he’s starving.”

  “We’ll get something to eat. And a drink.”

  “Laureth,” said Benjamin. “You don’t know where Dad is, do you?”

  “Yes, I do. He’s … We’re going to see him later, at the hotel. He—”

  “Laureth!” Benjamin said. I could hear that he was crying. “You don’t know where he is. He’s gone missing, hasn’t he?”

  “No, no,” I said. “He’s just…”

  I put my arms around Benjamin and held him while he cried.

  “You don’t know where he is,” he wailed.

  “I do. Well, we know he’s at the hotel. He’ll be back later and I’m sure we’ll see him. Everything’s fine. We should have waited there for him. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Laureth, I don’t believe you!” Benjamin said. “I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been pretending this is a game, but it’s not! Dad’s missing and you don’t know how to find him. I want Mummy! I want Mum! I want Mum.”

  I held him for a long time. I didn’t like to think about Mum, because I didn’t like to think about how she didn’t seem to care that Dad was missing. If I thought about that, I felt too much on my own, so much it terrified me.

  “I’m sorry, Benjamin,” I said quietly. “I shouldn’t have brought you. But I couldn’t have done this by myself. You know I couldn’t. I just wanted to find Dad. I was silly. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  He seemed to calm down, and I knew I should have told him the truth from the start. Even though he’s small, I should have asked him what he thought, and what he wanted to do, not played this dangerous game.

  I held Benjamin until he stopped sobbing, and I told myself I wasn’t alone. We weren’t alone. I told myself that again and again. I had Benjamin with me, and Stan. We’d find Dad. We had to.

  “I’m scared, Laureth,” Benjamin said. “I’m scared. I want Mum. Aren’t you scared?”

  And then, that was it, I was crying, too.

  Because, yes, I was. I am scared, almost all the time. But I never tell anyone. I can’t afford to. I have to go on pretending I’m this confident person, because if I don’t, if I’m quiet, I become invisible. People treat me as if I’m not there. I remember being tiny, about Benjamin’s age, standing in the sweet shop, and the woman behind the counter asking Mum, “What does she want? Does she like chocolates? Or something else? How do you manage with her? It must be very hard…”

  She kept on and on, as if I wasn’t there. As if I were invisible. But I’m not.

  The woman kept on and on, and Mum didn’t know what to say, and I just stood there, feeling more and more upset, and as she went on, I suddenly thought it was as if she were the one who was blind, and couldn’t see me, not the other way around.

  So then I learned to speak up for myself. I learned to turn my head toward whoever is speaking; I learned to hold my hand out to greet people. I learned not to rock when I was nervous, or to touch my eyes, and I learned to do a thousand things to help sighted people simply talk to me. I made myself seem how I seem now; confident, outgoing, probably a bit cocky.

  People think I have so much faith in myself, but I have none. I have no faith in myself, or in what I can do, and yet people think I can do anything I want.

  That’s how I seem, but it’s an illusion. It’s an act, nothing more.

  * * *

  When we’d finished crying, I sat back, but kept hold of Benjamin’s hand.

  “Listen, Benjamin. I’ve got it wrong. I did a stupid thing. And if you want, we’ll go right back to the airport now and fly home to Mum.”

  Benjamin nearly knocked me off the bench as he threw his arms around me again. He held me for a long time.

  “Laureth,” he said. “I think we should stay. Stay and find Dad.”

  “Is that what you really think?” I asked. I was trying not to cry again.

  “Yes,” said Benjamin. “And Laureth?”

  “What?”

  “Stan thinks the same.”

  I laughed.

  “Good. So that makes three of us, yes?”

  “Yes, Laureth.”

  THE PIOUS POEM

  Sight must have its advantages. Like, I’m never going to drive a car, well not on public roads at least. But I can live with that. I’ve never wanted to be able to see, not really, but right then I knew that if I could see, I wouldn’t have had to bring Benjamin with me, and then, I felt awful.

  What I’d done had made him upset, and I knew I had to put it right.

  Frail as I felt right then, I felt better.

  “You know, I am scared,” I told Benjamin, but I was totally calm as I said it.

  “You don’t seem scared,” he said.

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” I said.

  “You’re not a book.”

  “No,” I said, but talking about books, I knew we only had one asset at our disposal. “Maybe not. Listen, get Dad’s notebook out for me, will you? We need another clue. Can you flick through? There must be something else. See what you can find. I trust you. Like you said, you’re not stupid.”

  “Okay,” said Benjamin.

  He began to read.

  I waited, listening to the sounds around us.

  From across the park was the roar of the big road we’d come on earlier, the Grand Concourse, I supposed. It was quieter in the park, but people came and went, cycles whished by. I heard an argument a way off, or it might just have been guys messing around.

  It was still unbelievably hot, and barely a
breath of wind, so that even in the shade of the tree, we were baking. I knew I had to get us something to eat, or at least another cold drink, and if Benjamin couldn’t find anything, we’d have to go back to the hotel, and pray Dad came back before nighttime.

  I began to think about Dad and coincidence again, and about his book. Maybe Mum was right, maybe it was fair enough that she was angry with him. He was obsessed, it seemed to have taken over his life, as if he couldn’t let it go, like an alcoholic can’t let drink go. And after all these years, he had almost nothing to show for it, except a notebook of weird ideas and a title.

  He’d had a title for that book for a long time. When he started out, the book had what you call a working title; something you’re going to change to something better just as soon as you think of it.

  His working title was 354, which everyone hated, and then Dad would get upset and defensive and tell us yet again that it was only a working title. But secretly I think he liked that title a lot. It was odd, and Dad likes odd things, though you’ve probably worked that out by now.

  Then one day, he said he had the real title of the book, which was this: The Hound of Heaven.

  He really liked it, and was happy for about a day, until he Googled it and found that there was already something called that—a strange, old poem.

  Grumpily, he read the poem to us one night after dinner. It’s very, very long, and was full of words that no one uses anymore, like casement and quaffing, and a few that I’m not even sure ever existed in the first place, like dravest and vistaed.

  It’s a pious poem about God. It’s about how, although you might try and ignore Him, and turn from Him and even flee Him, He will keep following you, faithfully, like a faithful hound follows its master, all your life. So that finally, you will realize the power of God’s love and He will have been there, just behind you, all the time. Waiting for you.

  It’s a bit creepy if you ask me, but that’s what it’s about. So The Hound of Heaven is a metaphor; it means God’s love.

  Dad sulked for a couple of weeks, and then, one evening, he said he was going to use it as the title anyway.

  “I like it,” he said. “And you know, I think the Hound of Heaven could have a different meaning. It could mean coincidence, too.”

  “Co-inky-dinks?” said Benjamin, who was only about five at the time, and thereby coining a new word forever.

  Dad laughed.

  “Yes, co-inky-dinks. Because when one happens to you, it feels like it means something. And I think what it means is that the universe is trying to tell you something, like a guide dog. Or a dog that’s close to you, unseen, guiding your way through life, giving you little clues, clues in the form of coincidences. You have to work out what they mean, these clues from the universe, from the Hound of Heaven.”

  “I like that idea,” I said, because it reminded me of when Harry had a trial to see if he might be suitable for a guide dog. The dog came to school and we all pounced on it, but it didn’t seem to mind.

  “You like it?” said Dad. He sounded happier. “You know, all through my life, when I’ve been in an important time, I mean, when big things were happening, I’ve seen lots of coincidences. I think they’re put there for us to see, to work out what they mean. To guide us.”

  So that’s how Dad saw it, and that’s all he has to show of his book so far. Four words. And he didn’t even write those himself.

  AND THIRD LONG

  That boy on the plane, Sam, had offered me his number. I was sitting with Benjamin on the bench, melting in the heat, wishing I’d taken it after all. I was just thinking that maybe he could have come and rescued us, when my thoughts were broken as someone called out, not far away.

  “Girl, what you doing there?”

  “Is he talking to us?” I whispered to Benjamin, without looking up.

  Someone, a man, was calling to us, to me, from a little way off. His voice sounded old, but I wasn’t sure how old.

  “What you doing?”

  He was coming closer.

  We’d been sitting on the bench for ages, trying to make Dad’s notebook give us another clue, and failing.

  Benjamin kept reading pieces aloud and stopping every other sentence to ask me if I thought it meant anything.

  “Keep reading,” I said, again, and again.

  We had nothing.

  I was trying to think about it logically. Something had brought Dad to New York. Something other than Edgar Allan Poe, I was sure. Yes, he wanted to come to the cottage, but if he’d wanted that so badly, he’d have kept his appointment. Unless …

  Something had brought him here, something else, and I felt sure it was to do with his number. And if Dad was right about the Hound of Heaven, about how it guided people through life, then maybe it sent this old guy to us, right then.

  “What you doing there? You reading?”

  Now he was close, he smelled terrible, and I guessed he must be homeless, you could smell him a mile away. You didn’t need blind superhero powers to detect that. I tried to breathe through my mouth.

  “Er, yes, sort of.”

  “You sort of reading? What you sort of reading?”

  “Er, a notebook.”

  “A notebook?”

  He seemed to have to repeat everything I said.

  “What kind of notebook?” he added.

  Benjamin had gone very quiet. I wondered if he was frightened. And that made me wonder if I should be frightened.

  “Oh,” I said, trying to work out how to get out of this conversation and get him to go away. “Oh, well, it’s Dad’s notebook.”

  “Your pappy’s?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Benjamin, and that made me relax slightly, because if he’d been scared he’d have kept quiet.

  “Why? What you reading it for?”

  “We just are,” I said, and then I thought, well, if this guy is going to pester us, he might at least be useful.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said.

  “Sure you can.”

  “Are you from around here?”

  “You mean the Bronx?”

  “Well, New York. The Bronx. Wherever we are.”

  “Sure am. Why’d you wanna know?”

  “Does the number 354 mean anything to you?”

  “Does the number 354 mean anything to me?” he repeated.

  “Yes, 354.”

  “Listen, numbers are everything in this town, see? You know that? You’re not from here, right? Where you from?”

  “We’re from London. From England.”

  “London, England? I always wanted to go there. What’s it like?”

  “It’s cold and wet. Listen, does the number 354 mean anything, anything special? In New York, I mean.”

  “Well, sure. Numbers is how we get around. You know that? Like to tell someone where to meet, you say the numbers; like the corner of Eighty-Fifth and Third. Or Sixteenth and First. Right?”

  Despite the heat, I felt a chilly fingertip slide its way up my neck. Or rather, I could hear the pounding of dog’s feet right behind us; because this was the Hound. The Hound had come for us.

  “Could you say that again?”

  But Benjamin was way ahead of me.

  “That’s it!” he said. “Thirty-Fifth and Fourth.”

  “Right!” said the man. “Excepting. There ain’t no Fourth Avenue.”

  My heart sank.

  “There isn’t,” I said. I felt sick.

  “Nope. Well, there’s a little bit of it. Most of it these days is called Park Avenue. Just the bit below Fifteenth is called Fourth. And everything above that is Park. So there ain’t no Thirty-Fifth and Fourth.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “But that ain’t the only way about,” the man went on. “354? So that’s Third and Fifty-Fourth Street. Right?”

  “Right!” I said. I stood up, pulling Benjamin to his feet.

  “Where you going? You in a hurry?”

  “Yes, we are. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you
so much.”

  “You’re welcome. You say hello to London for me, yeah? Tell it I’m coming to see it. One of these days, real soon.”

  “We will,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I got Benjamin to get us back to the Grand Concourse and tell me when he saw a taxi coming, which didn’t take long, and we set off for Third and Fifty-Fourth Street.

  It took much longer to get to the junction than it had to get a taxi, and it was gone five by the time we got there. We were both exhausted, and hungry, but we didn’t want to give up. I was doing my best not to think how long we’d been up for. I was doing my best not to think about how hungry and thirsty I was, and presumably Benjamin was, too. I knew we had to keep going, because the only other choice was to stop, and then we’d be done for.

  We got out at Third and Fifty-Fourth.

  “What do you see?” I asked Benjamin.

  He didn’t reply for a moment. I felt him twisting around, looking each way.

  “What am I looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Just tell me what’s on each corner.”

  “Okay,” said Benjamin. “There’s a clothes shop, with clothes in it. There’s a sports shop. There’s a big building with nothing on it. I think it’s houses. And there’s a bar.”

  “A bar? What’s it called.”

  “It’s funny. Third and Long, I think. Well, that’s what’s on the sign on the front, anyway.”

  I thought for a moment.

  Third and Long. At Third and Fifty-Fourth .

  There were five letters in Third. Three in and, and four in Long. It wasn’t quite right, but it was very close. It should have been called And Third Long. But it wasn’t.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Dad’s in the bar?” Benjamin asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  We crossed the street and headed inside.

  It was noisy. It sounded loud, and it sounded rough. There was a sports game playing on a TV or a radio, and there was the noise of lots of men shouting and joking.

  A noise that died a little as we walked in.

  Someone whistled, a wolf whistle.

  “Laureth?” Benjamin said quietly. He was holding my hand very tightly.

  “Just see if you can see Dad,” I said.