The Invisible Ones

ALSO BY STEF PENNEY

The Tenderness of Wolves

Stef Penney

VIKING CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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Published in Hamish Hamilton hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2012.

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Copyright © Stef Penney, 2012

Book design by Meighan Cavanaugh

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Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Penney, Stef

The invisible ones / Stef Penney.

ISBN 978-0-670-06631-5

I. Title.

PR6116.E58I58 2011    823’.92    C2011-906182-1

American Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data available

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For M

GLOSSARY

1.

St. Luke’s Hospital

When I woke up, I remembered nothing—apart from one thing. And little enough of that: I remember that I was lying on my back while the woman was straddling me, grinding her hips against mine. I have a feeling it was embarrassingly quick; but then, it had been a while. The thing is, I remember how it felt, but not what anything looked like. When I try to picture her face, I can’t. When I try to picture the surroundings, I can’t. I can’t picture anything at all. I try; I try really hard, because I’m worried.

After some time, one thing comes back to me: the taste of ashes.

As it turns out, the memory loss may be the least of my problems. Technically, I am in a state of “diminished responsibility.” That is what the police conclude after paying me a visit in my hospital bed. What I had done was drive my car through a fence and into a tree in a place called Downham Wood, near the border between Hampshire and Surrey. I had no idea where Downham Wood was, nor what I was doing there. I don’t remember driving through any fences, into any trees. Why would I—why would anyone—do that?

One of the nurses tells me that the police aren’t going to pursue the matter, under the circumstances.

“What circumstances?”

This is what I try to say, but my speech isn’t too clear. My tongue feels

thick and listless. The nurse seems used to it.

“I’m sure it’ll come back to you, Ray.”

She picks up the right arm that lies like a lump of meat on the bed beside me, and smoothes the sheet before putting it back.

Apparently, what happened was this:

A jogger was beating his regular morning path through the wood, when he saw a car that had run off the road and come to a stop against a tree several yards in. Then he realized there was someone in the car. He ran to the nearest house and called the police. They arrived with an ambulance, a fire engine, and cutting equipment. To their surprise, the person inside the car didn’t have a scratch on him. At first they assumed he was drunk, then they decided he must be on drugs. The person in the car—me—was in the driver’s seat but could not speak or—apart from a convulsive twitching—move.

It was the first day of August, which went on to develop into a breathless day of milky, inky blue, like August days are supposed to be but so rarely are.

This much was relayed to me by someone I don’t remember, as I lay in my hospital bed. Whoever it was told me that for the first twenty-four hours I was unable to speak at all—a paralysis locked my tongue and throat muscles, as well as the rest of me. My pupils were dilated, my pulse raced. I was burning hot. When I tried to talk, I could produce only a gurgling series of unintelligible sounds. In the absence of external injuries, they were waiting for the test results that would tell them whether I had suffered a stroke, or had a brain tumor, or was indeed the casualty of a drug overdose.

I couldn’t close my eyes, even for a second.

During that time I don’t think I was particularly bothered by what had caused this—confused, delirious, immobile, I was plagued by a night-marish vision that I couldn’t pin down. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to pin it down. It disturbed me because it felt like a memory, but that cannot be the case, because a woman, however mysterious, is not a dog or a cat. A woman does not have claws, or fangs. A woman does not inspire horror. I keep telling myself this. I am not responsible. With any luck, the whole thing was—like that series
Dallas
—all a dream.

Now, someone looms over me, her face dominated by heavy black-rimmed glasses; blond hair scraped back off a high, rounded forehead. She reminds me of a seal. She’s holding a clipboard in front of her.

“Well, Ray, how are you feeling? The good news is you haven’t had a stroke.”

She seems to know who I am. And I know her from somewhere, so perhaps she has been here every day. She’s speaking rather loudly. I’m not deaf. I try to say so, but nothing very recognizable comes out.

“. . . and there’s no sign of a tumor, either. We still don’t know what’s causing the paralysis. But it’s improving, isn’t it? You have a bit more control today, don’t you? Still nothing in the right arm? No?”

I try to nod and say yes and no.

“The scan shows no indication of brain damage, which is great. We’re waiting for the results of the toxicology tests. You seem to have ingested some sort of neurotoxin. It could be an overdose of drugs. Did you take drugs, Ray? Or you might have eaten something poisonous. Like wild mushrooms, perhaps . . . Did you eat any wild mushrooms? Or berries? Anything like that?”

I try to think back, to those slippery, treacherous images. I ate something, but I don’t think there were mushrooms in it. And I’m pretty sure drugs weren’t involved. Not any I was responsible for, anyway.

“Don’t think so.”

It comes out sounding more like: “Duh . . . n-sah.”

“Have you seen anything strange this morning? Do you remember? Has the dog been back?”

The dog . . . ? Have I talked about her? I’m sure I never called her a dog.

The name on the badge pinned to the front of her white coat appears to begin with a
Z
. Her accent is crisp and loud—East European, of some description. But she and her clipboard sweep off before I can puzzle out the collection of consonants.

I think about brain damage. I have a lot of time to think, lying here—I can’t really do anything else. It gets dark and it gets light again. My eyes burn with lack of sleep, but when I close them, that’s when I see things, creeping toward me, stealing out of corners, lurking just beyond my field of vision, so on the whole I’m grateful to whatever is keeping me awake. The slightest muscular effort leaves me gasping and exhausted; my right arm is numb and useless.