When I Was Invisible (49 page)

‘What have you done?' Nika says quietly. Her shock runs like a network of veins through every syllable. ‘What have you done?'

Without warning, Mrs Daneaux explodes. The beautiful, poised shell of a woman that she was, the one who I wanted to be like, who wears cashmere and pearls, and has her hair swept up in the most elegant of styles, disappears and a screaming monster takes her place. ‘YOU TOLD ME IT WAS ALL LIES!' she screams at her husband. ‘
That they didn't like how much you pushed them, so she had made it all up! You told me that once you offered her the role in
The Nutcracker
she would back off and it'd be clear that she had made the whole thing up to manipulate me, control you! And it wasn't lies, you were doing that to her! To them! You were doing that to them and all the others who have accused you!
' Her eyes are wild, her body is murderous, everything about her now is incensed.

In the background, I see her son, the carbon cut-out looks-wise of his father, calmly remove his mobile from his pocket and begin to dial. Press, press, press goes the index finger of his right hand. ‘Ambulance, please. And police,' he says in an undisturbed, even tone. All the while, his mother continues to scream.

‘You forced me to move here from London because those new girls didn't understand your methods, they were going to lie about you, too, and in this new climate a good man's reputation could be ruined by the simple allegation, you said! I left
everything
behind because of you and now I find out it was all true! You abused those girls! You raped them! And I believed you every time!'

The son's eyes seem glazed over as he speaks into the phone, as though he is in another world, one where the horror of what he is hearing is wiped away as soon as it reaches his ears in order for him to quietly, sedately call an ambulance, tell them his father has been stabbed by his mother.
That his mother is hysterical. No, he isn't in danger. Yes, he would like the police. Yes, he knows CPR and he will be administering it as soon as he puts down the phone if he needs it but his father doesn't seem that bad right now. No, he's fine, he really is, he doesn't need them to hold on the line until the ambulance arrives.
‘Yes, please hurry,' he says to end the call.

When his son hangs up the phone, he doesn't move to his father, to comfort him, to administer CPR, to even acknowledge him. He stands still, his eyes still wide, his face now a deathly white oval against his thick black hair. He looks from Nika to me to Nika again.

I can't look at Nika because I do not know how to face her after what I have just revealed. I can't look for too long at the man bleeding on the floor in front of me. He is oddly, eerily silent but his eyes are open, sweat is pouring from him, and he has his hand over the knife wound, so I know he isn't dead. Every time I glance briefly in his direction, I see his eyes are unfocused, as though seeing something that isn't there. I suspect I know what he is looking at, what it is he is probably seeing as his life force drains away. Which is why I can't look at him for too long because I know what I should be doing: offering comfort. I should be holding his hand, offering him the only version of Last Rites I can perform as a former nun – being a comfort to him in what could be his final minutes. But that is not in me. I simply can't do it.

Suddenly, the son seems to snap back into himself, the shock of what has happened gone. He moves towards his mother and I expect him to open his arms, to draw her close, to comfort her and tell her, in whispers we aren't privy to, that he understands and would have done the same if it was him. Instead, he reaches around his mother, snatches up the cloth napkins from the table, and suddenly, he is on his knees, beside his father. He carefully takes away his father's hand, briefly examines his wound before he pushes the napkin over it to stem the flow of blood. He is so tender with him, so caring and worried, I'm stopped short.
Where is my humanity, my forgiveness, my compassion as a woman who once devoted her whole life to the Lord?
I ask myself.
Where is my compassion as a human being?

This is why I could never have stayed in the monastery
, I remind myself.
I could never have this amount of forgiveness in my heart. And forgiveness, true forgiveness, is about this ability to move beyond your personal hurt and do the right thing, even if it does not directly benefit you. This moment, all the moments leading up to it, have shown me that.

‘You need to live,' he says to his father, calmly. ‘You need to live so you can face this. You don't deserve to die without facing up to what you have done.' He then looks at his mother, who has finally stopped shouting and ranting and is staring at her son. ‘And I hope there's a special place in hell for you for looking the other way all these years.' After his quiet, damning words, he seems to glaze over again while he stems the flow of blood from his father's wound and waits with the rest of us for help to arrive.

The sirens arrive first, then the heavy, hurried footsteps of people trying to help. There is shouting and there are orders, the house is intermittently lit with the flashes of the blue-light-topped vehicles outside, we are moved aside, then moved apart; many people are talking at once. I finally look at Nika, try to see what she is thinking, feeling, what she wants us to do from now on. Whatever she wants I will do, whatever she needs I will provide for her. My whole life will be about her and how to make it up to her now.

She stares through me, does not seem to notice I am there. She seems to not notice anyone is there. She moves where she is prodded to, but doesn't respond to even the simplest questions.

Is this it? Is it all over now, or is it just beginning?

My parents' house is in chaos when I arrive.

The front door stands wide open. Outside, there is a parked white van with its side door open, and it is partially stacked with brown cardboard boxes. Boxes line the corridor, leading to the back room. Some boxes sit at the bottom of the stairs. All sealed up and ready to be stacked into the van. I bet Sasha and Ralph had no idea they had so much stuff crammed into my parents' house.

I go up to the front door, and walk in. I probably should knock – I am a stranger after all – but it'd also feel odd to do that. This was my home, the place I should have been able to come to when I was homeless, after all. That was what was so odd about being known as ‘homeless'. It was as though being called that means you are merely without a roof over your head. What if you're without all the other things that make up a home: love, acceptance, attention and caring? A sense of belonging? Aren't you homeless then? Aren't you without a home? What I had with Todd wasn't a home. What I had on the street was all of those things.

‘Nika! Oh my God!' Sasha says when I enter the back room.

She steps around the items littering the floor and comes to me, throws her arms around my neck. It's still a little jolting to see how much my sister loves me, how pleased she is to see me after so many years of feeling she didn't notice me at all. ‘I'm so glad to see you. How did you know we were moving today?'

‘I didn't,' I reply, hugging her back. I cling to her for a few seconds: she probably won't be hugging me again when she hears what I have to say. She'll probably want me nowhere near her when she hears me speak. I have to do this, though. No matter who it hurts, I have to do this and lay it to rest. Roni would have wanted to come with me, but the police kept her for longer because they were talking to her about her uncle.

Besides, how can I trust her ever again? She lied to me. Even that night in my flat in Brighton, when she acted as though she had told me everything, she was still lying, still holding something back.

Both my parents are sitting in the chairs they've always sat in. I'm glad, in a way, that they're in this back room, the room for everyday use, which is right next to the kitchen. Even before I left I avoided the front room, which was mainly for posh visitors. I always associate that room with the day Mr Daneaux came to convince my parents that the way he was touching me, the things he was making me do to him, were perfectly normal and I had got it wrong. Every part of that room reminds me of him drinking tea, eating biscuits and telling my parents I had the lead role in
The Nutcracker
. He fully raped me for the first time the very next day and told me he could do whatever he wanted to me because he now knew no one would ever believe a word I said.

‘Ralph! Babe!' Sasha screams, most of the sound travelling straight down my ear. ‘Babe! Nika's here!'

‘Nika?' Ralph says. I hear him moving around upstairs, then he picks his way across the room and comes hurtling down the stairs. He moves quickly down the hall and comes to me, scoops me up into a hug. ‘Nika! My God, how wonderful to see you!' he exclaims. ‘Sash has been over the moon since you got back in touch. Over the moon. And I am, too, obviously. Tracy-Dee can't wait to meet you. She's at school now, obviously, but later, you know?'

I don't remember Ralph being so talkative, ever.
Ever
. Or ever being so pleased that I'm around. I try to scroll through my memory like I would with my music player, trying to locate a time when Sasha and Ralph cared so much about me. But Sasha was hardly ever around. She was out a lot with Ralph because she was mainly trying to avoid being home in the atmosphere we lived with.

‘Now if that doesn't tell you how excited we are to see you, nothing will,' Sasha says. ‘In case you'd forgotten, Ralph hardly ever speaks so much.'

My parents haven't spoken. They're probably in shock, to be honest. I'm still in shock, being back here, seeing this place, seeing them. Nothing has changed in all the time I've been away. Nothing fundamental, anyway. The carpets look newer but they're a similar pattern to the old ones, the wallpaper is newer but it has the same flock look as before. The furniture is tired, and old, but it still reminds me of the furniture they had when I lived here, when this was ‘home'.

They look the same. My mother is perfect, as she has always been: she is very poised, her clothes always pristine, make-up carefully applied. I think Mrs Daneaux reminded me of her, when I first met her – a beautiful woman who held herself well, and always looked good no matter what. My father is comfortable, as he has always been: whenever he came through the door from work, he would change out of his suit into casual slacks and long-sleeved T-shirt. I guess for my father to be here he must have retired. I haven't asked Sasha much about them; I haven't had the heart.

‘You do realise the van is wide open out there, don't you?' I say to Sasha and Ralph.

‘What?' Ralph says, trying to look at Sasha and out the door to where the van is parked at the same time. ‘
Sasha!
'

‘Don't blame me, you're the one filling the thing,' she snipes back. ‘Well, don't just stand there, let's go and see if anything's missing. Pillock.'

‘You're the pillock!'

‘No,
you
are.'

‘No,
you
are!'

They squabble all the way out of the house and leave me alone with my silent, wary parents.

‘Veronika,' my father says first.

‘Hello, Daddy,' I reply. ‘Hello, Mummy.'

She remains silent, removed and aloof. I imagine I hurt her very badly when I left. She would have had to explain my absences at family gatherings; she would have had to explain away why I was all over the print media, famous for taking drugs and flashing my knickers, calling myself Nikky and doing nothing good with my life. My father would have found it easy to rise above it all, to ignore it – after all, he had a son who was important and worked in the City. No, the daughter was the mother's responsibility. It was the mother who was meant to show her what it was like to be a woman, how to be good at what she does, by modelling modesty and dignity, decorum and intelligence. The younger daughter should be married with children by now. If she wasn't, that was down to the mother. My mother. Everything I ever did was a reflection on her mothering abilities. I understand that now. I understand why she couldn't accept what I was saying about Mr Daneaux – that would have meant she had failed. If what I was saying was true, then she had raised a daughter who didn't know how to say no, she was raising a slut. It didn't matter that he was forcing me; she didn't want to be the mother of a daughter that anyone – and there would be more than one – who would question the girl's role in the dynamic of her being repeatedly raped by a man who taught her ballet. All those years of going to the library in Birmingham taught me a lot. I read and reread every book I could find on what had happened to me, first as a child, as a teenager, then as a woman living with a man who slowly took her soul apart.

I read the different theories, the various thoughts, the myriad explanations. I know those theories so well and I can see why they are right and true, and how they could sometimes fit neatly over my life and experience like a snug cover. But after the thoughts, the intellectual understanding, there is this: my parents didn't believe me. They believed a man who was working up to raping their daughter instead of listening to that very daughter they had brought up to tell the truth. They were convinced that it was a problem they could ignore away.

My parents didn't believe me.

My mother returns to looking at my father. ‘As I was saying, I don't think they will fit all those things into that one van. But, ah, what do I know? No one wants to listen to me about anything.'

I'm here for my mum's sake, more than mine.

‘Why are you here, Veronika?' my father asks.

In the background, I hear Sasha and Ralph's footsteps as they approach. Good, good. I can tell them all in one go and they can all then take a moment to digest the news and then all decide how much I have disgraced the family name – again.