Rupert Thomson - The Insult

But it hadn’t worked — or, rather, it had worked too well. It had created a kind of atmospheric disturbance. Hundreds of people had contacted the police, claiming to have ‘seen’ The Invisible Man. If a door slammed for no reason. If a picture changed its position on a wall. If leaves moved on a tree, but there wasn’t any wind. Even if things just somehow felt different, in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on. For instance: a couple in the western suburbs were convinced that The Invisible Man had gatecrashed one of their dinner parties — that was why the mood that night had been so awkward. And then there was the woman who insisted she’d been sleeping with The Invisible Man for the past four years. ‘It’s only weekends,’ she told a journalist. ‘Friday nights, I hear the key turn in the door. I don’t even have to switch the light on. I know it’s him.’ There were hoaxes, too. One man rang the radio station, saying that he was The Invisible Man and that he was calling from a phone-box on the street outside. ‘Which phone-box?’ the DJ asked. The caller laughed. ‘Which one do you think? The empty one, of course.’ The unexplainable was out there, part of everybody’s lives. All they needed was a hook to hang it on.

The taxi clattered over potholes. South central streets: a non-stop fun-fair ride. We were getting close now. Through the steamed-up window I saw a derelict factory, a junk yard, part of a canal.

At last we pulled up outside the club. It didn’t look like much. A one-storey building, the word ELITE in pink neon script above the entrance. Nothing too surprising there.

‘Careful when you get out,’ Millie said. ‘The kerb’s a high one.’

I thanked him, then opened the door. Maybe I’d been too hard on him before. I asked him if he could wait. He said he would.

A helicopter chattered in the sky. As it faded, I heard bass and drums. My stick was in my hand now. Scanning the ground in front of me. Making sweeps. There were times when I used my stick like worry-beads: it was just something to do.

‘What’s up, pal?’

That belligerence, that phoney cool. It snagged on something in me; I felt heat rise, collect in my titanium plate. They get to feel so fucking big, these bouncer types, just because they’re stuck outside some club in a tuxedo.

‘You deaf or something?’

I showed him my white stick. ‘Not deaf, no. Guess again.’

‘You threatening me?’ The bouncer laughed. It was four high-pitched sounds. Like a hinge.

‘I’m not deaf and I’m not threatening you. All right?’

‘So let’s hear it.’

‘I’m looking for Nina. Nina Salenko. She was working here tonight.’

‘Ain’t here now.’

‘Do you know where she went?’

‘Nope.’

‘Is Candy here?’

‘Now what would you be wanting Candy for? You got a sweet tooth or something?’ That laugh again. Bad joke, too.

I could have broken his nose with my stick. I could have got Nina to get her friend Robert Kolan to kill him. I could have reported him to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons’ Association. But I didn’t do any of that.

A breeze moved across my teeth. I must have been smiling.

Back in the car Millie turned to look at me. ‘Trouble?’

I shook my head. ‘Just drive me home, will you?’

What did I think I was doing, going to look for her like that? She’d be in the lobby of the Kosminsky, smoking a cigarette with Arnold (Nina was the one person who might get someone like Arnold to loosen up and talk). Or else she’d have gone home to her mysterious apartment and there’d be one small light flashing on her machine — my message. What had I been thinking of? I sank lower in my seat, moulding my shoulderblades into the upholstery.

I’d known her for three weeks. Three weeks since she appeared in that bar. Sat next to me, her elbow touching mine. Three weeks since that first kiss. Then we were in her car, we were driving …

An old mansion in the suburbs. We lay on a sofa talking, smoking joints, while someone I’d never met fucked someone else in the kitchen (we heard a saucepan crash). The club she worked in, she was a waitress. Some nights there were shows — exotic dancing, talent contests, cabaret. She lived near the flower market. She was twenty-two.

I remembered how I heard a clock chime five somewhere, how I got up and began to dress. I remembered that my jacket smelled of her perfume.

She shifted in the bed behind me. ‘What time is it?’

I told her.

‘Are you leaving?’

‘It’s easier now,’ I said, ‘while it’s still dark.’ She couldn’t have understood what I was saying, of course, but at least it had a kind of ambiguity. ‘Can I see you again?’ I asked her.

‘Something I should tell you,’ she murmured.

‘You’re married.’

She didn’t laugh. ‘I’m seeing someone else —’

There are people who unload their disappointments early. I stood in that bedroom, someone else’s bedroom. I stood quite still for a moment and told myself it didn’t make any difference. But there was an ache in my throat, as if I’d been crying.

‘Martin?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve been seeing him for a while.’

‘Can’t I see you as well?’

‘Maybe …’ She was asleep again before I’d finished dressing.

But it was those four words of hers that I was thinking of as Millie drove me home: ‘I’m seeing someone else.

I looked out of the window at the cold glare of the lights. The streets iced over, treacherous. It was strange. Though she kept saying that everything was temporary, unstable, she never seemed to want to bring things to an end. I had the feeling that maybe I could change her mind. There was room for hope. And this uncertainty produced a genuine erotic charge, a desperation, a kind of fever: each time we slept together could be the last. Sometimes I wondered if it was deliberate, simply her way of sustaining interest. Whose, though, hers or mine? (I didn’t think mine needed much sustaining.) I felt I was caught in a storm. I was clinging to a tree and waiting for the wind to drop. I had to cling so hard, my arms were numb. But I didn’t dare let go.

The man outside the club, the bouncer. He had shoulders like the slopes of a volcano and diamond studs in both his ears.

Or they could’ve been gold.

It was warm in the back of the car. I dozed off. Straight into the dream and running. I feel my fingers loosen at the knuckles. I start to come apart.

Then the driver’s shaking me. ‘Mr Blom? Mr Blom?’

‘OK,’ I mutter. ‘I’m awake.’

I lean forwards. And, just for a moment, as I reach for the door, I’ve got no hands.

It snowed that week. The powerlines were thick with it, the rooftops smooth and white. A hush to the traffic, people’s feet. I knew Nina had been home because there was a new message on her machine. No voice. Just a church bell tolling, then a beep. Was this the death of our relationship? Twice I put the phone down, trembling. The third time I left my name and number. I waited in my room till dawn. I didn’t eat. Outside, the snow kept coming down. You wouldn’t think the sky could hold so much of it. She never did call back.

The hotel was different, too. Quieter. Even on the second floor. I hadn’t forgotten Arnold’s lecture, but I found myself ignoring it. Night after night I walked the corridors. I sat on the black vinyl sofa by the lift. I was waiting for something to happen. Anything. Once I saw a man in a silk dressing-gown putting his shoes outside his room. I wished him a good evening. He looked at me sideways, as if I might be dangerous, then withdrew without a word. Otherwise it was silent, deserted. Unrecognisable. I could only think that the police had exposed the operation, closed it down.