When I Was Invisible Read Online Free Page B

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.
    Nothing is going to happen immediately, which is why I am standing here, with my headphones in, listening to Corinne, allowing myself to believe I could be the woman she is singing about. I could walk down towards Birmingham New Street, to Bernie’s, the greasy spoon that stays open all night, sit in there and pretend I’m the woman from the song – that I’ve just had an amazing night in one city, an excellent day in another, and now I’m kicking back with a coffee and a cigarette.
    I’m sure Lou (who runs the place for Bernie) would spot me a cigarette, I’ve enough money in my pocket for a coffee and I’ve enough energy left to get me there. I can rest for a few hours before I crawl home.
    All the while I’ve been listening and living out my woman-from-the-song fantasy, I’ve been watching the policeman from earlier, DS Brennan, stare at me from the driver’s seat of his blue Volvo. He is sitting next to someone I assume is another police officer, and they have been studying me since I walked out of the station’s doors. Now he lowers the driver’s window and mouths at me as he leans his head and torso out.
    I don’t remove my earbuds right away because I don’t want to know what he’s saying. I’m enjoying being the woman in the song. I’m enjoying being able to forget everything for these precious seconds.
    He continues to speak to me, and I can make out a few of the words from the shapes they form on his lips: ‘
Drive
’. ‘
Waiting
’. ‘
Treat
’. I squint at him. ‘
Home
’. Did he say ‘home’?
    Reluctantly I take out my earphones and wait for him to repeat himself. ‘Get in, we’ll drive you home,’ DS Brennan says.
    I shake my head. I’m going to come back tomorrow. I’ve started down this road, there is no way for me to back out now, so it isn’t necessary for him to take me home and impress upon me the importance of following through. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I don’t need a lift. I just want to sleep. I will come back tomorrow – I’ve said I would and I will.’
    He opens his car door and climbs out. He then opens his back door. ‘We insist,’ he says.
    â€˜Right,’ I say quietly. ‘Course you do.’
London, 2000
    I arrived home to Todd’s flat from one of the technical rehearsals at the theatre up in the West End to low lighting and candles flickering from around various points of the room. The blinds were rolled back and the buildings dotted along the opposite riverbank were twinkling at me. There was the glug of champagne filling and foaming in a