AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s all been a bit overwhelming. I expected to still have the handcuffs on but they took them off at some point, before they brought me here. Actually, I’m wearing fresh clothes. They’re mine but I can’t think when I… Hang on, no, I think I slept here. I did, of course I did. Did I bring an overnight bag, or what? No, of course not. They led me out of the house in handcuffs. Not like I could have said, hang on a minute while I grab my toothbrush, is it? They must have brought me these clothes at some point, brought me here. My jeans are too big for me now; they fall down when I walk. But that’s not important. She seems happy to let me waffle on. I know she’s thinking she’ll get more out of me if she lets me take the road less travelled. It might take longer but there’ll be less traffic, less risk of a standstill. We’ll always be moving forward.
Blue Eyes coughs into her hand. ‘Mrs Edwards—’
‘Rachel. Call me Rachel. Can’t be doing with Mrs, and to be honest, Edwards is Mark’s name, isn’t it? I was Ryder originally. Rachel Clarissa Ryder. Think my mother had delusions of grandeur, bless her.’
‘All right. Rachel.’ She smooths her hand across my notes, as if to flatten them, and presses her lips together. Same shade of lippy as yesterday – must be her favourite. ‘You realised you were invisible. That came as a big shock, which is understandable. Then what happened?’
‘Blood everywhere, that’s what happened.’
‘Blood?’ The eyes widen, sparkle like crystals.
‘First nosebleed in thirty years or more. Used to get them when I was a teenager in moments of stress. I can remember apologising to Mark as I dashed in front of the telly on my way out. Needn’t have worried, when you think about it. He should have been able to see right through me.’
I meet her eyes again but my smile dies on my lips. She’s right to look at me like that. There’s nothing to joke about. And why I said sorry to Mark for having a nosebleed, I can’t fathom, but as I keep saying, this is where I’d got to in life – apologising for myself while doing everyone else’s bidding. It’s no wonder I was invisible. I’d done that to myself. I didn’t realise it then, obviously. But I do now. I’d done it to myself.
‘So, you left the room?’ The eyes flicker with… is that frustration? Was I talking out loud or have I been sitting here catching flies?
Actually, there’s a fly in the room. I can’t see it but I can hear it buzzing and tapping against the window pane. It’s fallen quiet now. Must have given up. What did Blue Eyes say her name was? Angela. Andrea. Alison. Something that starts with an A.
I try and think what I last told her. I’d run out with my nose bleeding, hadn’t I? Yes, yes, I had. I carry on from there, tell her how I sat on the edge of the bath and held a tissue to my nose. So far, so normal. I held up my hands one at a time and turned them over and over to check that I could see them – not so normal. They were definitely there, my hands. I was there too, in the bathroom mirror: straggly grey hair badly in need of a cut and colour, glasses in need of a clean, flab pooling over my elastic waistband and a face full of bloody tissues. I was shaking. I looked knackered, as in literally fit for the knacker’s yard. Gaze off-focus, like an NHS poster for the devastating effects of… oh, something bad.
All of that, yes – but not invisible, surely?Icould see me. Iexisted. I blew onto the palm of my hand. My breath was hot, which meant I was alive. Another trickle ran from my nose. I thought it had started bleeding again, but it hadn’t – it was running clear. As were my eyes.
‘At least I was in the bathroom,’ I say to Blue Eyes, tears running in the then and the now. ‘Plenty of loo roll and I wasn’t bothering anyone.’
She passes me a tissue from the box on the table. ‘It sounds like you were very sad.’
Her kindness is confusing under the circumstances.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ve not cried in front of another person in a very long time.’
That night, Mark switched the bedside lamp off, muttered goodnight and rolled away from me as per. I lay there blinking, making stars. Can’t remember what I was thinking about. Composing a shopping list, probably. A list of some sort, anyway. Actually, no, I was thinking about how Mark and me first got together. How he walked me home from the community centre disco one night because Lisa had gone home with another lad. We’d stopped at the end of my mum and dad’s driveway, unable to say goodnight, and just stood there in the dark, talking and talking about our dreams, life, God, the universe and all that stuff you talk about when you’re in those fragile years between youth and adulthood and you’re figuring everything out: who you are, what you want, what you don’t. Even though we’d known each other as kids, that night it was as if I saw him for the first time. It was the first time I realised that a proper conversation that runs true and deep is one of the most intimate things there is. We carried on talking like that through our first date, when I bought a can of Bass shandy from the Spar and we sat on a bench and ate Hula Hoops and it seemed like our conversation would never end. By the time there was anything physical between us, I thought I was going to pass out with excitement. It was just a kiss, that first time, his hand resting softly on my waist. And just like a conversation, when a kiss is deep and true, it can change the course of your whole life.
I must have dropped off eventually, because I woke at quarter to five, which you could attribute to stress but actually it wasn’t unusual. I’d been waking up with the covers thrown off for a year or two, limbs like gravestones, legs and cleavage sticky-salty with dried sweat. But it wasn’t the sweats that had woken me; it was a nightmare, which came back to me as I hauled my heavy bones out of the sour sheets.
I’m running down the high street. It’s daytime. In front of the Co-op, five or six turquoise buses rattle in the depot. Shoppers crowd the pavement. And here comes me, naked, completely naked, running, trying to hold my hands over my bits while my stomach wobbles like raw bread in a gale. That’s when I realise to my sweating horror that I know everyone, absolutely everyone.
But no one is taking any notice…
I can’t catch my breath. Heat flares up in my chest and my forehead pricks with sweat. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Just let me…’
Blue Eyes is holding out my glass of water. ‘It’s OK, Rachel. Don’t rush. Would you like a cup of tea? Should I open a window?’
I shake my head. The glass smells of dust but the water’s wet and it soothes me. With my tissue I dab at my forehead, focus on breathing myself cooler.
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘It’s OK. No need to apologise. Tell me what happened after that.’
‘I went downstairs,’ I say after a minute or two. ‘I made a cup of tea and ran my usual checks on the iPad.’
A glance at her notes. ‘Checks?’
‘For violent crime. Regional and national news. I do that every day. Well, I did. I started it last year. I was building up evidence to take to my MP. I mean, it’s an epidemic, isn’t it, this knife crime? Who’d be a parent of young adults now? I tell you, it’s terrifying.’
That has her scribbling with that lovely silver fountain pen of hers. Her nails are short and painted dark grey. I suppose I didn’t mention my clip file in my statement. But they didn’t ask. They’ll have found it by now, I expect. That and the knife. And that poor lad’s clothes would still have been in the washing machine.
My eyes fill. She hasn’t replied, and for the umpteenth time I’ve no idea whether I said that last bit out loud or what. She’s still writing me up, anyway. Writing me up before they lock me up. They’ve brought in the big guns with this one: Blue Eyes, big boss, top dog. Her hair is short. Trendy, you’d say. I thought it was white, but it’s more of a pale lilac. Rainbow colours glint in it from time to time, like petrol caught in the sun. What must she make of me? I wonder.
