Page 26 of Can You See Her?

‘Oh, Jo.’ I sobbed for her there on the pavement. ‘Jo, my love, what happened to you?’

I must have got up eventually. It took me forty-five minutes to reach home, so I was probably on my knees for ten, fifteen. I can remember running, the horrible thought that Jo might have died making me race back. Once I was in the door, I peeled off my cagoule in the hallway and carried it carefully into the downstairs loo, where I hung it over the tap so it would drip into the sink. There didn’t seem to be anyone home. The iPad was on the worktop, so I checked theWeekly Newsstraight away. There were no updates. My breath left me in a long, heavy blast of relief. If she were dead, they would have reported it. If she’d woken up, they would have reported that too.

‘Hello?’ I called out, wandering back into the hall. No answer. ‘Hello?’ I shouted, leaning my head into the stairwell. ‘Katie? Mark? Anybody in?’

‘In here.’ Mark. Lounge.

I put my head around the door. I must have looked a state, hair plastered to my head with a mixture of sweat and rain, and flushed from exertion. But he didn’t look at me so I don’t suppose it mattered. He was reading the paper. The telly was on.The One Show, I think it was, not that I could swear under oath or anything – one grinning idiot presenter is much the same as another in my book.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said. I checked my watch and saw it was after seven. No way we could have cottage pie now, not if we wanted to eat before nine.

‘Have you had any tea?’ I asked him, even though I knew he wouldn’t have.

He cleared his throat. ‘I was waiting for you. Didn’t know what you’d want.’

Didn’t know what you’d want. As if I’d say,Pasta bake, are you joking?As if someone cooking a meal and setting it before me without me asking wouldn’t be enough to send me into tears of gratitude.

‘Our Katie in?’

He raised his eyebrows, but I couldn’t tell if it was a response or whether he’d read something that had mildly surprised him. Or whether his gall bladder was playing up again.

‘Watching something on her laptop, I think.’

I hesitated. ‘Mark?’

‘Hmm?’

I wondered if he’d even noticed I was late. ‘My car wouldn’t start, love. That’s why I’m so late. It’s the battery. I think the rain flattened it. I couldn’t get hold of you or Katie. I’ve had to walk home.’

And then, hallelujah, he looked at me. I watched him take in my bedraggled appearance, my grey work trousers black with water from mid-thigh down, the expression of defeat I felt sure I was wearing. His eyes creased at the edges in dismay or disbelief or something. He was staring at me, really staring, as if I’d materialised from the plug-in air freshener.

‘You’re joking?’ he said.

I think it was at that point that I realised something else. I’d already got as far as knowing that I wasn’t invisible like air is invisible. Or carbon monoxide or whatever. I knew that if you looked at me you couldn’t see through me or anything like that. I was invisible the way that household objects are invisible, like the hoover or the dishwasher or the kettle, in the sense that yes, they’re solid objects, but you don’t really see them, do you? Or notice them or whatever. But now it dawned on me that the one time you do notice the hoover or the dishwasher or the kettle is when they go wrong. My husband was looking right at me. I knew he could see me, could feel his eyes on my face. He wasn’t gazing at me with love, obviously; he was looking at me because it was nearly seven and there was no dinner. I had malfunctioned. I was a hoover that had stopped picking up, a dishwasher that didn’t get the plates clean, a kettle with a dodgy element.

And actually, I started to feel exactly like a kettle in that moment. I was full of water, the liquid insides of me heating around a red-hot element at the core of my being, tiny bubbles rising.

‘I’m just…’ I muttered.

I left Mark in the lounge and went to sit in the kitchen with my head in my hands. Sweat ran down my back, prickled on my forehead. I felt like I was going to be sick, had the impression I was going to slide off my chair. My head throbbed and I closed my eyes to try and calm everything down. Another second and I was wrestling myself out of my cardie. I pulled my work T-shirt over my head. I was down to my bra with a vest on top, knew I should get out of my wet trousers, but I couldn’t move. I was panting, trying to suck in air in small swallowed breaths, trying to get oxygen into my lungs. My eyelids were sweating, for crying out loud; my armpits sent more perspiration trickling down my sides, into my waistband. I kept my eyes closed, focused on bringing my temperature down, and all the while I was thinking, I’m a kettle, I’m a kettle, I’m a kettle. I’m a kettle with a dodgy element. I’m going to explode. And when I do, I will rain boiling water down on everyone.

The kitchen door squeaked. I opened one eye a crack and saw the tip of Mark’s slippers.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. Just hot, that’s all.’

A heavy sigh. ‘I suppose we’d better go and get the bloody car then.’

We drove there in Mark’s Astra. It only took ten minutes or so, but from the vice-like set of his jaw, you’d think I’d asked him to drive me to France. At least he let me have his cagoule, which was dry and, being menswear, actually covered my bottom, and it’s got the big hood and the big pockets – which was where I put the jump leads.

I close my eyes and I’m there. It’s cold despite it being early July. The rain has started again and it’s heavy: glass javelins spearing the canal. Mark is grunting like an old fella, propping open both bonnets while I hold his golfing umbrella over his head. I know how to attach jump leads to batteries and it was my car, but he’s done it, mood filthy as the night, before I have a chance to open my mouth. He gets into my car to start it, which I also know how to do, obviously. But I let him get on with it; I’m grateful for the help.

The heat inside me has died down. I’m clammy and washed out, but nothing more.

The Twingo starts more or less straight off.

‘May as well drive this one now I’ve got it going,’ he shouts through the window. ‘No sense both of us getting wet. You take mine.’

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