When I Was Invisible (3 page)

There were lots and lots of other children sitting in there but the beautiful teacher was talking so I couldn't look around to see if there was anyone I knew. I sat down and listened to her. And after I listened to her speak, I knew I was going to be a dancer.

I was eight years old and I was going to be a dancer. Not any type of dancer: a ballet dancer.

I wanted to be like the pretty lady in front of me. I loved her leotard and her floaty skirt, her tights and her shoes. Her shoes were the loveliest things I had
ever
seen. She was wearing black, but her shoes were as pink as candyfloss with shiny ribbons that tied up around her ankles and nearly up to her knees. She said they were
pointe
shoes and that you only ever wear them for exams or for dancing in shows. She had them on today to show us what we could wear if we decided to become ballet dancers, too.

I was going to be a dancer. I wanted to look like her, so I was going to grow my hair long and wind it up on top of my head into a bun, and I wanted to be able to do what she had shown us she could do. A few minutes ago, she'd stood on the toes of both feet, and then she'd stood on the toes of one foot –
en pointe
, she'd called it.
Then
she'd spun until she was a blur, her leg going up and up and up. She was amazing.
Amazing
. I wanted to be like that. I was going to be like that.

‘Some of you are going to make it as ballet dancers,' she said, smiling at all of us sitting in front of her. We could see ourselves in the mirror wall behind her, we could see what she saw. ‘Some of you are special, and I – we,' she pointed to the tall man standing by the piano who was holding a long black stick, ‘we will be able to bring that out in you, help you to become dancers who will dance on stages across the world, and will appear in films and on television. Others of you won't be able to become professional dancers, and that is OK because we can help you to dance, to nurture and grow a true love of dancing. You might not become a professional dancer, but you will be able to dance much, much better than most people and, most importantly, you will love it.' She smiled at us. Her face was bright and shiny, she looked excited to be here in the room with us, to be talking to us. ‘You need to decide now if you want to be a dancer. And when you've decided, don't tell anyone else, don't share your dream, don't dilute your dream by telling anyone else, just decide and let it be your little secret. We'll know, of course, so you don't need to tell us. But it's important to know what it is you want. And then, we will help you to get it.' She grinned at us again.

I'm going to be a dancer
, I thought to myself.
I want nothing else more in this world than to be a dancer.

I looked around to see if I could see what the others were thinking. If anyone else had made the same decision as me and I'd have someone to do this thing with. I saw
her
then. We both stared at each other at exactly the same time, and she had the exact same expression as me, and she was sitting upright like I was, and I could see the decision to be a dancer made her as happy as it made me. It was the other Veronika – Nika.

We kept on staring at each other. It was like we were made to be best friends. We sat next to each other at school, we had the same name and now we were both going to be ballet dancers. Suddenly she smiled at me and she looked so happy to see me and to know that I was going to be a ballet dancer like her. I smiled right back at her, just as happy as she was.

I'm still staring at my music player, working out if I can get my hands to reach out and make contact, when the door opens again. Two new officers enter the room. They have notepads, they have files, they have the exact same look on their faces: ‘Don't mess with us.' Anyone would think I was a criminal they'd dragged in to torture information out of, instead of someone who had voluntarily walked in with vital information.

DS Brennan had been trying to warn me, I think, that things were going to get tougher the moment he left the room. He had no idea, of course, what I know about ‘tough' and what usually comes with telling the truth.

‘Right, “Miss Carter”, we've heard much of what you told our colleague, shall we start again from the top?' The officer who hasn't spoken reaches out and presses the record button on his machine. I look at both their faces, slowly moving my gaze from one to the other.

‘What do you want to know?' I ask.

‘I don't want you to go home,' Todd said. He grabbed me back from opening his front door, and pulled me into his arms.

Todd wasn't a celebrity looky-likey, he
was
a celebrity. Not in the Hollywood megastar sense, but in the being paid a lot of money to play football sense, in the having a wonderful flat that had fancy gadgets and an amazing view over the River Thames sense. And me having to sneak out of his flat in the middle of the night and get a cab home from around the corner so no photographers would connect him and me sense.

I'd been doing that for four months. Sometimes, to throw people off the scent that I might be dating him and not any of the other mega-rich people in the building, he'd go out and I would arrive after the show and let myself in and sit in the dark so people would think he was still out. Then he would come back at least half an hour later, and turn the lights on, and we'd spend time together until I sneaked out in the small hours. We never had got around to going out on a proper date and I didn't really mind.

Todd had transformed my life. He made me fizz with excitement. He told me all the time how much he wanted me, how much he liked being with me; he even gave me a mobile phone so he wouldn't have to leave messages for me at the theatre, at the café I worked at or at my shared house. Now he was saying he didn't want me to leave. The excitement inside fizzed up so much I could hardly breathe. I never thought it'd be possible to feel like this. If he put his arms around me, my flinch would be momentary, my innate panic at having someone so close would last for seconds. Todd was incredible and he thought I was incredible, too.

‘What do you mean?' I asked him about him not wanting me to leave. Did he want me to stay all night? I held my breath, waited for him to say one day soon I'd be allowed to stay all night.
All
night.

He unhooked my bag from my shoulder, dropped it on to the ground by the front door. Then slowly tugged my leather jacket – another present from him I'd taken weeks to actually accept, and then a few more weeks to actually wear – off my shoulders. He moved closer to me, smiled before he pressed his lips against mine. ‘I mean.' He pressed another kiss against my lips. ‘I want.' Kiss. ‘You to.' Kiss. ‘Stay.' Long kiss. ‘For ever.'

For ever?
He really wanted me for ever? Not only one night –
for ever.
He, who could have anyone, looked at me and thought about for ever? ‘You really mean that?' I asked. That fizzing inside was bubbling up and up. If he meant it, I would be with him any time I wanted. We would be together. We would have so much time together, we'd have a home together. No more sneaking around, no more sharing the bathroom with four other people (Todd's flat had three loos, and two bathrooms) and no more labelling my food in the fridge. Todd and I could recline on the sofa together and watch television. Recline. On. The. Sofa.
Together
. Simply reclining on the sofa would be novel – since I'd stopped smoking, there seemed very little reason to leave my room nowadays. When I did venture into the shared living room, I would sit tensed up, trying to work out from the way conversations were going who had fallen out with who because they'd moved someone's yoghurt in the fridge, or had left hairs in the shower for the third time that week. All of that would be smooshed aside if Todd meant it.

Since I'd met him, since we'd started this thing between us, I hadn't been homesick, not once. I hadn't wanted to go home, fix things with my parents, tell them that I'd do better, I'd appreciate all the sacrifices they'd made for me if they'd just listen to me.
Believe me
. Since Todd, all I did was look forwards. The past was easier to walk away from, not run and run away from. Sometimes, when I was with Todd, I didn't feel like a runaway at all.

‘For ages I've been wanting to say that you can keep that key you've got. Murray keeps telling me that I shouldn't rush into this thing with you, especially since you're younger than me and no one in the press knows about you yet, and it's coming up to transfer time soon so I need to keep a low profile off the pitch while at the same time really up my game on the pitch. Murray's thinking I could make it into the Premier League if I box clever and I shouldn't let anything get in the way of that.'

My stomach did a little spin – I thought Murray, Todd's agent, liked me. He'd certainly been really nice to me every time I'd spoken to him on the phone.

‘But then, in the next breath, he's telling me not to let you go because since you've been around, happiness has made me play like a demon. No one can touch me when I'm playing and that's cos I'm so happy with you.'

I didn't understand. Was he saying to stay or not? I'd be happy either way, but I didn't know which way it was. I would happily put my ‘Recline. On. The. Sofa.
Together
' dreams on hold if it meant I was still with him.

‘I don't understand,' I confessed. I needed him to explain, to tell me outright what he wanted.

Todd hooked the tips of his fingers under my chin and raised my face a little to look at him. ‘I love you, Nikky Harper. Please move in with me.'

Who's Nikky?
I wondered. Then I remembered: me, I was Nikky to Todd. ‘Even if Murray doesn't approve?' I asked.

‘Murray will approve. Murray always approves of the things that make me happy.' He stared intently into my eyes, and I was lost for a moment in the depth of his, how green they were, how beautiful they were when they were focused on me. ‘What do you say? Are you going to stay?' Another sleepy, sexy smile. ‘For ever?'

My chest swelled with the huge breath that had filled me. I was so full at that moment. My heart, my head, my everything was full of Todd, full of the man who loved me and who I loved. At one time, my chest had been paralysed, incapable of letting love in or letting love out; at one time, my chest was barely able even to take in or let out air.

Before Todd, my life had seemed flat, one-dimensional; a bland peach that blanked everything out and made it indistinguishable from everything else in the world. In the four months we'd been together everything had changed. I had someone again to share things with, to talk to, who wanted to be with me all the time. When we weren't together he would call me and ask when we'd be together. He told me all the time how much he liked being with me. I'd never had so much attention in all my life. No one had ever taken so much interest in me – ever. I loved it. I loved him. Under the fizziness and excitement, there was the knowledge that my heart belonged to Todd.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes, I'll stay for ever.' I knew when I said that, that I'd taken a step closer to being part of the wonderful, multi-coloured world we lived in.

I stand at the bottom of the stone steps that lead into and out of the police station. There are marked and unmarked police cars parked on either side of the entrance and ahead of me there is a low, concrete wall with a wide gap for the pavement and the road in and out for cars.

From my place at the bottom of the steps, I slowly unwind the wires of my player, carefully push each little bud into their corresponding ‘R' and ‘L' ears.

It's a silky, black night, the sky is dusted with stars, a late-winter/early-spring coolness teasing the air. When I walked into the police station darkness was rolling in, inking the sky as it moved. I had walked here from the hospital, thinking about what I was about to do with every step, allowing myself the permission to not go in if I had changed my mind by the time I arrived at my destination. I'd needed that walking time to think and had used every step to remind myself what it would mean for my life, where it would lead to for ‘Grace Carter'.

I have spent so many hours in that building, talking and answering and listening, then talking again. They offered me coffee, they offered me food, they offered water and I had turned it all down. The only thing I had done was go to the toilet to take some time out, to centre myself and remind myself how to be Grace. I have talked so much I have begun to hate the sound of my own voice, to cringe at its intonations and phrasings and crazy, jumbled accent. I have told all that I know and now it's their turn to check things out, to join up dots, to make connections in all the right places. And to find out who I really am, of course. Who came before Grace ‘Ace' Carter, as everyone in Birmingham knows me.

With all my concentration, I scrawl through my music player's screen, searching for the right song. It's there, I know it is. My fingers work quickly; my brain works slowly as it mentally plays the songs, waiting for the right chords, for the correct words, for exactly what I need to hear right now. There it is. ‘Paris Nights/New York Mornings', Corinne Bailey Rae. My thumb hits the play button, and the intro begins. In my ears she sings about
breakfast at her favourite greasy spoon, wearing her make-up from the night before
; through my brain she croons to me with thoughts of:
dreaming of the night before in Paris, this morning in New York, remembering the fun she'd had
.

Her voice starts to smooth over the raw edges of the last few hours. DS Brennan's ‘colleagues' seemed to believe I am Grace Carter. No one asked me about it again, although they must have known she was only born ten or so years ago instead of the thirty-six I am. They were just interested in what I had to say, or so they led me to believe. I'm not stupid. I bet they were allowing me to relax, to talk, hoping I'd give away information about myself while I told them everything I knew.