Invisible (19 page)

Ultimately
though, the best advice is the simplest.

‘We’ve
just got to get through it,’ Kim always says. ‘In the story of our lives, this
is just a couple of pages, even though it feels huge right now.’

‘After
every rain storm there is sunshine,’ I add. And we both repeat it, then say
goodbye as the sky turns pre-dawn grey.

Saturday
22

More
good news (can you sense the sarcasm?). There’s a benefit available to help
people with the cost of visiting their loved ones in prison. I’m not eligible
for help though.

Daryl
being in prison is costing me a fortune – of all the problems involved with having
an imprisoned spouse that wasn’t one that ever occurred to me. But things are
tight enough paying all the usual bills on just my wage…then there’s the fact
that I send him £500 every month. I write a cheque for that amount making sure
to remember to write his prisoner number beneath his name.

Saturday 12

You know what? I’m sick of
feeling miserable and sorry for myself. I’m going to get through this and so is
Daryl. I’m going to channel all the energy I’ve been using to be a miserable
git into keeping everything going for Daryl. When he comes home everything will
be exactly the same, and we can pick up where we left off – only things will be
much better.

Sunday 20

I’m so annoyed with all my
so-called friends. How could they just abandon me like this? I feel like
phoning every single one of the buggers and giving them a piece of my mind.

Take Hannah; she’s meant to
be my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were knee high, been through
all sorts. I’ve supported her through all the problems with her asthma; and
when she dumped Karl but then changed her mind and he didn’t want anything to
do with her
any more
; and even when she had that
affair with the married man (which I didn’t actually approve of at all, but I
kept quiet because it’s none of my business, really, is it) and he wound up
choosing to stay with his wife.

All sorts of things I’ve
counselled her through, going way back to when she’d get detention at school
for not doing her homework, then sound off for hours about how unfair it was.
I’d nod, and agree with her, though technically it
was
fair because it was her fault.

Now, for the first time ever
I need her. And where is she? Nowhere to be seen, that’s
where
!

But they’re all as bad as
each other. I’ve helped all of them out in one way or another over the years,
and never asked for anything back. I’d been lucky, I’d had a nice,
smooth-running, straightforward life until now, although I reckon I’m now
paying for it by having more drama than most people can pack into one lifetime…
So the least I should expect right now is that my mates rally round me, right?
Wrong. It’s been ages since I’ve heard from any of them.

I got lonely the other
night, sitting watching telly all alone having spent an entire day at work
being ignored by everyone but Kim (even Kevin seems to avoid telling me what to
do if he can help it, and he’s my boss for goodness sake) and I found myself sending
a little text out to them all.
Just saying ‘
Hi, how you doing?
Been ages, hope all’s ok. Be great to hear
from you xx’

I thought that might open
the door a bit, if they were worried that they’d left it so long to contact me
that I now no longer wanted anything to do with them. I wanted to let them know
that if they made a move to get in touch, we could get past this silly blip
where they’d got all scared and judgemental (not that I’d ever have been able
to forget it, mind, but I’d have been the bigger person and forgiven them).

The message went out to each
of my so-called close friends:
Una
, Amy, Hannah,
Sarah. I didn’t receive a single reply. They all ignored me.

I found myself checking my
phone every hour over the following days; making excuses for them that perhaps
there had been a problem with the network and the message had only just been
delivered, or they were busy, or they were struggling to find the right words
to apologise to me for ignoring me for weeks on end…

But no, I haven’t had anything
back from them. They want nothing to do with me.
Gits.

How dare they sit in
judgement of Daryl and me? What do they know of the facts? They haven’t even
bothered asking me whether or not I think he’s guilty. Well, the smug smiles
will be wiped from their stupid faces after the trial when the truth comes out.
I will never, ever forgive them for what they’ve done – because I wouldn’t have
dreamed of treating any of them this way.

Thursday 15

Kim went to see Peter today
to get more advice on how to deal with Psycho Sam. The flipping weirdo keeps
stalking poor Kim. The wire to her phone and satellite TV were both cut the
other day when she got home, and though she has no proof, it doesn’t take a
genius to work out who is responsible. She’s only just replaced her car’s
windscreen too, after it was ‘mysteriously’ smashed one night.

I worry about her. And she
worries about me. In a weird way I think it helps us both, distracting us from
our own troubles. We still often call each other at obscene hours of the night,
when the rest of the world is asleep. Without her, I think I’d probably have
gone mad. I’m glad I’ve been able to help her in a practical way too, by
putting her in touch with Peter. He seems a really genuinely lovely man, always
willing to put himself out for people. Every time I meet him I find myself
warming to him more and more.

Wednesday 20

People in the office are
making plans for Christmas and getting excited. They all pointedly leave me out
of the conversation. Kim tries to make it up by asking me in a loud voice what
my plans are, or making a song and dance out of us going for lunch together,
but I’m afraid that all her efforts just mean she is ostracised too. Not to the
extent I am, as Kim is one of those lovely, smiley people everyone instantly
loves and warms to, but even so there is a lack of warmth sometimes in the way
they are with her, and a definite confusion in the glances thrown her way. They
don’t get why someone as nice as her would have anything to do with someone as
vile as me, presumably.

Mum and Dad are trying their
best to get enthusiastic about Christmas too, bless them. They’ve invited me
over to theirs and Mum’s planning on making all my favourite foods by the sound
of it. They keep saying that I’ve got to enjoy myself, ‘it’s what Daryl would
want’ (as though he is dead).

They’re right though, it is
what he wants. Even he has made encouraging noises about how I should be going
out and having fun. He has absolutely no idea how crap my life is, thinks I’m
just carrying on as normal. I can’t tell him the truth.

Monday 25

4am – Just got off the phone
from Kim. What a nightmare! She was woken at just gone midnight by the sound of
someone outside. She called the police immediately, and luckily they arrived
quickly because they know of her history of being stalked. Of course, they
found good old Sam outside, trying to break in again.

As he was arrested she
reckons he was moaning: ‘I love her! We’re meant to be together!’

Luckily Henry slept through
the whole thing, only waking once Psycho Sam had been taken away. Apparently
the little boy had been overjoyed to meet officers and try on their hats. But how
much longer can Kim hide the frightening truth from her son?

‘Why can’t Sam just leave me
alone?’ she sighed down the phone to me just now.

‘Are you scared of what he
might do next? Scared for you and Henry?’

‘I was that first time he
broke in, but not
any more
,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t
know what to expect that first time, seeing him standing there with a knife in
his hands. But he looked so pathetic when he stood there crying, with a couple
of scratches on his arms, that all the fear disappeared. So even this time, I
wasn’t afraid really, just…I don’t know, all I feel is pity for him; but not
the kind that will make me want him back or anything. He’s broken and needs to
be fixed by experts. There’s nothing I can do for him. There’s certainly
nothing to love about him.’

Although I can see what she
means, I can’t help admiring her because I just don’t think I’d react in the
same way at all. I wouldn’t feel pity, I’d be scared stiff.
Then
again…

‘It’s amazing what people
can cope with once life chucks horrible things at them,’ I pointed out. ‘I
never thought I’d get used to death threats and police officers outside my door
almost permanently, but somehow I barely give them a thought these days.’

‘You just have to get on
with life,’ agreed Kim. Then she repeated our little saying, ‘After every rain
storm there is sunshine.’

Yes, but when you’re in the
middle of the monsoon and it’s starting to cause a flood, it can be hard
sometimes to imagine the sun every coming out again.

Thursday 13

The smashing of glass,
instantly followed by shouting, sounds of running, pandemonium, had me wide-eyed
and out of bed in one movement. I was standing up, looking round the room,
heart pounding, before I was even awake properly.
Head
flashing this way and that trying to find the source of the chaos, taking
everything in in snapshots.

Bedroom
empty, still dark - this wasn’t another raid.
Hammering on the front door.
Someone
shouting my name.
Then a high-pitched screeching rent the
air,
and my heart hitched higher into my throat as I
realised: it was the smoke alarm.

Oh God, oh God, someone had
set fire to my home.

I still hadn’t switched a
light on, instead raced and stumbled blindly along the landing that I knew off
by heart.
Skittered down the stairs, almost missing steps in
my hurry.
Almost at the bottom a smell hit me, so thick and acrid it was
virtually a solid wall: petrol fumes and smoke. I coughed and wheezed as I
breathed it in, my eyes starting to sting.

Shivering fingers felt for
the hall light switch, and I blinked rapidly as my watering eyes adjusted,
expecting to be blinded for a second or so. I wasn’t though, instead I gazed
dumbly at black smoke rising taller than me and swaying lazily, and flames
eager to join in the dance were licking at the bottom of the front door.

Panic froze me until another
shout, more hammering, made me jump. ‘The back door,’ someone yelled. ‘Get to
the back door! Get out!’

Right, of course! My brain
was still unscrambling but my legs were already moving. Down the dimly-lit
hallway, past the lounge-come-dining-room door, plunging on into the kitchen,
almost ricocheting off the breakfast bar in my hurry, legs somehow
tangling
 
with the bar stools and
bringing me crashing to the floor.

Pain flared in my right hip
as I hit the ground, coughing still. More shouts from outside, hammering on the
door replaced suddenly with a loud thump that made the wood shudder. I lay on
the floor like an upturned beetle, kicking and kicking, finally extricating
myself.

Another
massive thump on the back door.

I jumped up, feeling blindly
for the key. Got it! Turned it with a click and flung the door open, just as PC
Yeoh
was about to take another kick at it and break
it down. We almost fell into each other, and he grabbed me, dragging me from
the house and into the garden.

His colleague,
Senga
, appeared round the corner, panting even harder than
we were, her face smudged with black. ‘Got the little
scrote
,’
she gasped.

‘Who…? My house, it’s on
fire,’ I screamed.

Senga
put
her hands on her hips, took a big breath,
then
smiled
reassuringly. ‘The
fire’s
out,’ pant, ‘I put it out,’
pant, ‘extinguisher in car.’ Another couple of big breaths, then: ‘Looks like
he chucked a homemade petrol bomb at your front door. Stupid sod didn’t seem to
realise we’re watching the place. I arrested him before he’d got more than a
few feet away, and Derek came round the back to make sure you were okay.’

I felt weak. Thank God
they’d been here. Thank God. I could have been killed!

Senga
stepped towards me, waving her hands in a placating manner. ‘It’s was just a
dumb teenager doing it for fun; it wasn’t a serious threat,’ she said. She was
trying to soothe me but that just made it worse. A kid with no grudge against
me at all, apart from what he’d read about or heard in the media, had decided
to try and burn my house down with me in it. If that’s not a serious threat
then I dread to think what someone who was serious would do to me.

Shakily, I made my way round
to the front of the house, not caring that I was in my pyjamas, or that my feet
were rapidly freezing on the icy path.

The front door was scorched
all over, and beneath the foam of the extinguisher I could make out black marks
radiating out from the centre where the petrol bomb had been lobbed with
unerring accuracy and shattered. The bottom of the door had borne the brunt of
the burning, of course, as the petrol had dripped down and taken the flames
with it.

I held my breath, peering at
it through the tears that were falling now adrenaline had abandoned me. Prodded
at the wood – ouch! Still hot!

From behind me I heard a
sigh. ‘You’d best get on to your insurance people,’ said PC
Yeoh
.

I shook my head. ‘No, it’s
fine. The door looks solid enough. I’ll just buy some paint and gloss over the
damage.’ After all, that’s what I do with my whole life these days, gloss over
the damage…

Friday 14

I’ve received a couple of
early Christmas presents as a result of last night. The police have fitted tiny
CCTV cameras at the front and back of the house, and the fire brigade have
fitted a lockable letterbox cover to my singed and blackened front door, along
with extra smoke alarms, in case someone else decided to kill me in the hope
I’ll burn in hell forever.

I’d almost got used to
living in a permanent state of terror that had become as mundane as sifting
through the post for death threats. Now it’s come into sharp focus again.

People want to kill me. They
don’t see me as a person, don’t think I deserve sympathy because my life’s been
torn apart for reasons I don’t understand.

So
much for peace and goodwill to all mankind, eh?

Tuesday 18

Today’s Daryl’s birthday. I
wanted to make it special, especially as I’m not allowed to visit today, so
sent him a big padded card with love hearts all over it…and got into trouble
with the prison because apparently that sort of thing is banned. They had to
rip into it to check nothing had been smuggled inside the padding - that news
made me cry quite a lot, in the privacy of the toilets at work.

I’ve got quite good at
crying in secret. Lock myself into the
cubicle,
sit
down on the toilet lid, then lean forward so that the tears drip straight down
my eyelashes and onto the floor, rather than down my face. It means my make-up
doesn’t get ruined, and helps stop my skin from going blotchy, so that once I
pull myself together I can return to my desk faster, and no one can tell what
I’ve been doing by looking at me. The only problem is my nose is often still
red and swollen, but hopefully people just think I have allergies.

I’m probably going to spend
quite a lot of time in the toilets tomorrow; it’s the works Christmas party.
I’d decided to defiantly go, just to show everyone that I don’t care what they
think, and that I have nothing to be ashamed of, but now the reality is getting
closer and I’m not sure I’ve the courage to go through with it. I wish Daryl
were here and we could march into the room arm in arm,

Thursday 20

Ah, the good old Christmas
party. What fun that was.

Mind you, any party staged
on a Wednesday is doomed to failure, in my opinion.

Because it’s a lunch that
carries on into the evening I find it weird at the best of times, walking into
the office on party day. It’s incongruous to see people sitting at their desks
or doing a spot of photocopying whilst in their best going out gear.

That wasn’t what really got
me this time though. It was more the scandalised looks on people’s faces when
they saw me in my red silk dress and realised I’d be joining them at the do. It
was like a scene from a movie the way quiet descended as every eye turned to
me. Inside I was a quivering jelly, but I wasn’t going to let them know it. I
smiled sweetly at them then pushed my chin up and walked proudly to my desk,
plonked down onto my chair, and flicked my computer on.

Only when I felt the glares
slide away and heard the noise levels rise as everyone hissed ‘how could she?’,
‘what’s she thinking’,
etc
, to one another did I
start to blink rapidly to clear the tears that threatened.

Minutes later Kim arrived
and made a beeline for me. Perched on my desk and bent forward so her glossy
black hair fell into a natural curtain between us and the rest of the world.

‘You look lovely,’ she
smiled but her eyes were worried. ‘Are you sure you want to come though? It’s
not going to be fun for you…’

‘Not about fun. I’m proving
a point,’ I said stubbornly, fiddling with some paperclips as distraction.
‘Anyway, any Psycho Sam news?’

‘He’s been quiet for the
last couple of weeks, ever since he was arrested a second time for trying to
break in,’ Kim confessed, her face a mixture of horror and relief. ‘Peter’s
been so fantastic sorting injunctions and keeping on at the police. He even
arranged for some CCTV to be fitted…’

‘Oh, snap, I’ve got some
too!’ I grinned. Inappropriate, but we couldn’t help giggling. What the hell
have our lives come to?!

The morning wore on and
people shot me evil looks more and more openly. I started to wonder exactly
what point I was trying to prove – and to whom. Sheer bloody-mindedness was the
only thing that kept me from running from the building to the safety of my
home.

At 12.30pm the stampede for
the loos started as the women went to fix their make-up and touch up their
hair. The fog of perfume and hairspray hit my nose like a punch,
then
slid down my throat, making me cough and splutter.
Lauren the office manager turned to me boldly.

 
‘Sounds like you should go home,’ she said
bitchily.

‘And miss the chance to
spread festive goodwill with all my favourite people? Never,’ I mock pouted,
even as my heart tried to batter through my ribcage. God, I hate confrontations.
Still, I felt proud of myself though because not so long ago I would have made
that remark in my head but not had the courage to say it out loud.

The atmosphere was even
worse when we arrived at the restaurant and people scurried to sit down so they
wouldn’t wind up stuck next to me. I finished up sandwiched between Kim
(hurray!) and Kevin (boo! Poor bloke; as boss, no one wants to sit beside him
either). Kim did her best to chat to me, but I found myself sinking into
depressed silence.

Thing is, it’s all well and
good being stubborn, but I was making myself as miserable as I was making
everyone else.

Finally the meal was over,
the tables cleared away, and it was time for the music to start. It was easier
to hide in the dim light of the dance floor. I felt more anonymous and at ease,
watching as everyone else had fun.

I even made myself have a
dance, all on my own, to Wham’s Last Christmas. Why shouldn’t I have fun? I
have as much right as the next person; I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.

And with that thought
ringing in my ears, I hurried home, frankly relieved. I reckon that was the
longest day of my entire life, and given I’ve spent time in a police cell
that’s saying something.

When Daryl called he asked
me all about the party, wanting to hear everything as if to live vicariously. I
made the whole thing up, right down to me and Keith doing a rousing rendition
of Slade’s Merry Christmas Everyone on the karaoke and me almost bursting a
blood vessel screaming ‘it’s
Chriiiistmaaaaaas
!’ Daryl
made me do an action replay of that bit.

I am a total fraud. I can
remember when I couldn’t tell a lie without stuttering, stammering and blushing
my way through it. Now they trip off the tongue. Still, they are in a good
cause. He doesn’t know anything about the fire either; I don’t want to worry
him.

Friday 21

Thank God it’s Friday.
Another week over.

The only thing keeping me going
is the thought of Daryl coming home, and that’s bloody months away.

Saturday 22

Today was my final chance to
see Daryl before Christmas. Nothing says festive like a prison visit… Instead
of a snog under the mistletoe, I had a security pat down from a total stranger.
Instead of the sound of carols, there were only barked orders.

Inside the visiting room the
only concession to the time of year that had been made in the horrible sombre
grey room was a paper chain across one wall, and the oldest, ugliest Christmas
lantern that hung rattily in the middle of the room, one side sagging, and a
couple of its dangling fronds missing.

Daryl didn’t seem to notice
though; he only had eyes for me. His arms wrapped all the way around me and he
held me so tight, flush against him for as long as we could get away with. God
that felt good. It’s been so long since we were together.

The guards seemed a bit
easier going, maybe because it’s Christmas, and let the embrace last for a
couple of seconds before we were told: ‘Come on, break it up, you know the
rules.’

We released each other
reluctantly, but I didn’t want to break physical contact. My hand slid down the
front of Daryl’s regulation blue cotton shirt, feeling his hard muscles
underneath, and then grabbed his hand, our fingers automatically twisting
together. Hand in hand, we slowly sank into our seats, gazing at each other.