Rupert Thomson - The Insult

‘How much?’

She said the first amount that came to mind. He didn’t understand her. She had to draw the number on the outside of his windscreen, in mirror-writing. She didn’t know whether it was a little or a lot; she didn’t have any idea of the prices. He looked at the number and smiled faintly. Reaching across, he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

‘Your coffee.’ A waitress had appeared at our table. Late forties, with a moustache. As she set the coffee down in front of me, it slopped over, spilled into the saucer. She shrugged her shoulders, walked away.

I turned back to Nina. ‘Then what?’

‘We drove,’ she said.

Through the city and out into the country. Women were sitting under umbrellas along the roadside, selling apples out of wooden boxes. The land was black and white, the sky a heavy, even grey. She saw three deer cross a rising, snow-covered field.

They arrived at a small house on the edge of a village. It had mustard-yellow shutters and a dark, thatched roof. When they were standing inside, he held her gently by the shoulders and said something which she took to mean, Stay here. Then he drove away. She made herself a cup of hot chocolate. Through the kitchen window she watched two children skating on a pond. In the afternoon she went to bed and slept.

That evening he returned. He cooked supper for her, then they spent the night together. In the morning he drove her back to the city. When he let her out of the car, he handed her an envelope. She didn’t open it until he’d gone. There was money inside, almost twice the amount she’d asked for. She bought a coat with it, and two pairs of woollen tights, and she still had enough to catch a train home.

I watched her light a cigarette and sit back in her chair.

At first I thought she might have made the whole thing up. But then it seemed so like her — drawing an amount of money on a stranger’s windscreen, drinking hot chocolate in a stranger’s house — that I decided it had to be true. I still wasn’t sure what it meant to her, though. Was she proud of her resourcefulness, her spontaneity, the fact that she could make her own luck? Or was it some kind of talisman in itself, proof that the world could treat her well?

‘So,’ she said eventually, tapping her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, ‘that’s the coldest I’ve ever been.’ She paused and looked round, then she said, ‘Though I have to admit, this comes pretty close.’

Smiling, I asked our waitress for the bill.

Afterwards Nina took me to a bar she knew. We both drank whisky, to warm up.

‘I hear you’re seeing someone,’ Gregory said.

I looked across at him. ‘No smoke without a fire, Smoke.’

Loots chuckled.

We were in Leon’s, the three of us. It was early December, and the walls were covered with shiny paper decorations, red and green and gold, many of them already curling in the humid atmosphere. Bunches of balloons clustered in the top corners of the room. Above the counter, suspended from the ceiling, was a sign: SEASON’S GREETINGS TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS.

‘So it’s true,’ Gregory said.

I nodded.

‘So who is she?’ He was like an old dog who was trying to gnaw on a bone, but couldn’t seem to get it into the right position between his paws.

‘Her name’s Nina.’

‘Because you know Inge liked you …’

‘What is it about you?’ Loots said. ‘What’s the secret?’

‘I’m a cripple,’ I said. ‘They feel sorry for me.’

‘They feel —’ Gregory almost choked. ‘Did you hear that, Loots? They feel sorry for him.’

‘I don’t feel sorry for him,’ Loots said, ‘do you?’

‘Well,’ Gregory said, sounding thoughtful, ‘it can’t be easy.’

He missed the point completely. As usual.

‘She takes me to motels,’ I said. ‘We always go to motels. The Cherry, the Nero, the Astra — I know them all now. Or we sleep in other people’s houses, friends of hers.’

‘Where does she live?’ Loots asked.

‘That’s just it. I’ve no idea.’ I stirred some sugar into my coffee. ‘I think she likes being anonymous,’ I said. ‘This whole thing with me, it’s not because she’s sorry for me, but it is because I’m blind. Because I can’t see her. That’s what she likes — being invisible. It makes her feel less pressured. More free. It’s kind of a fantasy for her.’

‘Did I tell you about Anton?’ Loots said.

‘Anton?’ I shook my head.

It was a week ago, Loots said. There had been a knock on the door of his apartment and when he opened it his old friend Anton was standing there. Anton was a clown. He belonged to a circus that toured the provinces, playing to small towns and villages. They talked about the old days for a while, but Anton became increasingly restless and distracted. In the end Loots had to ask him if there was something wrong.

‘This is going to sound strange.’ The clown coughed nervously into his fist. ‘It’s The Invisible Man. He’s disappeared.’

Loots stared at his friend.

‘He just vanished,’ Anton said, ‘into thin air.’

‘The Invisible Man?’ Loots said.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s disappeared?’

‘I told you it would sound strange,’ Anton said.

He told Loots that The Invisible Man was the best act in the circus, the act people came to see. It always began in the same way. The Invisible Man walked into the ring and started telling a funny story. He looked funny, too: short, with bright-red hair and a scar on his chin. Soon everyone was laughing. They forgot he was supposed to be, you know, Invisible. Then, suddenly, halfway through the story, he vanished. Just by turning round.

‘It’s like he hasn’t got a back,’ Anton explained. ‘It’s like there’s only one side to him.’

Without him, Anton continued, they would probably be ruined. They’d have to look for other work. And how could they do that? The circus was all they knew. The circus was their life. Anton’s voice was cracking and his eyes had filled with tears.

‘And you think he might be here,’ Loots said, ‘in the city?’

Anton nodded. ‘Someone heard him talking about it. I’ve been sent up here, to find him.’

He needed help, though — Loots’ help; there was nobody else he could ask.

I sipped my coffee, imagining a clown in Loots’ apartment. His voice would probably be thin and quaint, like the high notes on a mouth organ. I saw tears dropping on to the toes of an enormous pair of shoes.

‘So,’ I said, ‘you’re helping him?’

‘I’m trying to,’ Loots said.

He’d tracked down a woman who used to work with The Invisible Man. Her name was Madame Fugazi. She lived in a basement somewhere in the 7th district. But she hadn’t seen The Invisible Man for fifteen years. ‘Yeah, it must’ve been fifteen years, at least,’ she told Loots. ‘He weren’t much good in them days.’ Madame Fugazi had dyed black hair that was flat at the back where she had slept on it. ‘He used to bow and wave his arms about and do all that stuff they do,’ she said, ‘and then he’d kind of spin round fast and he was supposed to be, you know, gone, and I’d have to yell out, “I can still see you.” He really hated it when I did that.’

Loots asked her if she had any idea where he might be now.

‘I told you, love. It was fifteen years ago.’

But as he turned to leave she spoke again: ‘You’d have found him easy in them days. He couldn’t have disappeared, even if he’d wanted to.’ She licked her finger and rubbed at a stain on her leopardskin print dress. ‘Now I’m not so sure. People say he got better at it.’

‘Three steak,’ Leon shouted from behind the counter.