The Invitation(102)

At one point I catch sight of myself in the glass of a shop window and am surprised. I do not look the eccentric figure I had guessed I would make. I look, simply, poor. In a place like this it is the best possible disguise. The poor are invisible.

I have not seen myself like this for a long time. And for the first time, I see not a suit of armour, but myself. Or, at least, someone that I recognize.

The important thing is to move quickly, and not draw attention to myself. Luckily, there is no one about at this hour, and dawn is not yet beginning to show on the horizon. I am making for what I guess to be the outskirts of town, for the poorer neighbourhoods, where I can blend in and disappear.

I take my jewellery into the least salubrious pawnshop I can find, deciding that the proprietor of a place like this will no doubt have things to hide. I know as soon as I push at the door and find the place open that I am right. No normal business would be open at this hour.

There is a small, handmade sign advertising ‘passeports – tous les pays.’

‘How much?’ I ask, pointing to the sign. My French feels thick, clumsy.

‘What nationality?’

This gives me pause.

‘Spanish,’ I say, eventually.

He gives me a sum – it is surprisingly little. I wonder if an American or English passport would be more.

‘How long will it take?’

‘If you use one of the photographs in here,’ he says, ‘one hour, at maximum.’ I look into the drawer that he has opened. In it are perhaps two hundred photographs: subjects of every conceivable nationality and age. There is something uncanny about them. Where do they come from, these blank, unsmiling faces? Where are these people now?

I think. Will he talk, this man? If he hears of the disappearance of a blonde woman, and remembers the one that came into his shop, and asked to have a passport made? If so, it is already too late – the damage has been done. But I think not. I suspect he is a man who would have as little contact as possible with the authorities.

‘All right,’ I say. I peer into the drawer. Together we find someone with a not dissimilar likeness. She isn’t my twin, but she could at a squint be my sister. Dark hair, but that is soon to be rectified. It will do.

This is what Hal had meant to do for both of us.

When I hand him the jewellery, the man looks at me as though he is trying to decide if I have stolen it. I can only imagine what his reaction would have been if I had handed over some of the finer jewels. But I was careful to wear only the simplest and most anonymous pieces. Nothing newsworthy, nothing recognizable, unless one knew exactly what one was searching for. After I’ve purchased the passport, I haven’t got as much left over from the sale as I’d hoped. I am fairly sure that he has short-changed me, but I am not in a position to bargain with him. Besides, the necklace, which would have fetched the most, detached itself as I swam and sunk. I had tried to grasp for it but it had been lost to the black water before I could catch it. Perhaps it is for the best. Of all the pieces it would have been the most recognizable.

In a public bathroom I dye my hair black. A transformation. I look a little ghoulish – the dark colour makes my skin pale by comparison – but I also look absolutely unlike myself, which is perfect. They will be looking for a blonde.

At the train station, I will myself invisible. As I hand over my new passport my heart beats so hard in my chest that I am sure it must be audible to the man behind the glass. But – thank God – he barely glances at it, or at me. I am so confused by this that I almost volunteer my false reasons for travelling, anyway – visiting my cousins in Geneva – and manage to stop myself in time.

In the reflection of the train’s window I am reminded of how different I appear, with the headscarf, and my face leached of make-up, wan with exertion and cold. But it is more than that: I look changeable, unfixed, like someone in a state of metamorphosis. And for the first time, I feel a certain confidence in my plan. I am already someone other than the woman my husband will be looking for.

In the quiet of the carriage there is too much space for thought. I think of Hal, of how I have deceived him.

When I thought about that night in Rome, I had convinced myself that I had been overtaken by a brief fantasy, a sudden rebellion. I had known him for an outsider as soon as I looked at him, with his beautiful face and his worn suit, and I knew that it had to be him. But it had started then – something over which I had no control. And then something that came very close to happiness.

Could it have become love? I think so, if it had been given its proper chance. I believe it could have been there, waiting for us. Handing over that jewellery in the pawnshop – understanding as I did that it represented the renouncement of my old life with all its wealth and comfort – was surprisingly easy. Relinquishing the possibility of that new life with him … that was the wrench, the thing that sits inside me now like grief.

But I need to be someone who can survive on her own. I don’t know exactly when I decided it had to be just me. Certainly it helped my decision, when he struck Earl Morgan, and I realized how reckless he might be. But I think it was even before that, when he first suggested it. I knew how I would do it, too. I’d use the pills I was meant to take, to help me sleep. They would knock him out for the right period of time, prevent him from coming under suspicion.

I tried to explain it in the note I wrote him, in the back of his notepad. But once it was done I knew I couldn’t leave it. I couldn’t risk my husband finding it, and understanding what I had done. I ripped it out and took it with me, to dispose of in the water.