When I Was Invisible

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Can you explain why?’ Mrs Nasir asks. I think she was expecting me to jump in after her statement and I haven’t.

  In response, I sit up straight in my seat, pull back my shoulders, and tuck the strand of hair that has escaped from behind my left ear back where it belongs. From the waist-length dreadlocks that I’ve had these past few years, I have had my hair cropped to just above my ears, and straightened. Even now, nearly three weeks later, it’s still a mini shock when I move not to feel the comforting weight of my dreadlocks twisted into a low bun at the back of my head, or hanging down to the middle of my back when loosened to hide my face. (The Brighton-based hairdresser had asked for reassurances several times that I knew what I was doing with this extreme cut and I wouldn’t come back and sue her when I realised what I had asked for.) But this is who I am now. Grace ‘Ace’ Carter had long dreadlocks grown over ten years; Nika Harper has short, straight hair, and she wears rectangular tortoiseshell glasses. When I had my eye examination, the optician didn’t want to give me any sort of glasses, because the prescription was so weak it was hardly worth her time writing it up. I’d insisted; they were the perfect way to cover my face, they would allow me to hide and they would distinguish me from all the different names I’ve had. Now, they feel a part of my face whenever I leave my flat.

  Slowly I push my glasses back up my nose, buying myself time. Nika Harper has a lot of explaining to do and I’m not sure how I do that. If I couldn’t tell a police officer even the half of it, how am I going to tell this immaculate-looking woman who has a neat, orderly desk, flawless make-up, and wears a hijab that is the exact same colour as her suit? She is beautifully presented, has a gentle manner and runs the HR department of a large hotel – she won’t be able to comprehend what the last ten years of my working life have entailed. Nor the five years before that when I was with Todd.

  ‘The thing of it is …’ I begin, and the shame of it, of what my life has been like, bubbles right up to my throat, it chokes the words and I am mute, suddenly, tearful, as well. I am scared, too. I’m not sure why, since danger is so many miles away and all I have to do is perform well in this interview and I may have a job and I can move on. But suddenly, I am scared. I want someone to come and hold my hand, help me through the hard bits. I think, then, of the other Veronica. She was always wanting to hold my hand, trying to connect us with that touch.

  ‘I see,’ Mrs Nasir says when my muteness extends beyond the acceptable time limit of starting a sentence, pausing, then finishing it. She sits forward in her seat, knits her fingers together over the papers on her desk. She sighs heavily, and fixes me with her large, maple-brown eyes. ‘What were you convicted of and how long were you in for?’

  That sweeps away my muteness. ‘I’m sorry, pardon me?’ I ask.

  ‘We do have ex-offenders working here, but it is wise to be honest about these things and state them clearly on your CV. Most people will give you a chance if you are honest.’

  ‘No, no,’ I say, shaking my head. Where’s my hair? I wonder for a few seconds before I speak again: ‘I wasn’t in prison. I’ve never been in trouble with the law. You can run all the checks on me you want and you’ll find nothing. No, I fell on hard times and I had to do a lot of cash-in-hand work, mostly cleaning. I like cleaning, making things right again. I’m efficient at it; I can do things properly but quickly. I’m discreet, which I’d imagine is helpful for a hotel. I’m also available to work as many shifts as you need, especially unsociable hours because I’m new to the city and I don’t know many people. Well, actually, I don’t know anyone.’ I stop speaking.

  Mrs Nasir listens to me with a slightly puzzled expression – she clearly doesn’t know what to make of me: am I a bit crazy or am I simply odd? Now that I have stopped talking, she opens her mouth to speak and I interject with: ‘Sorry, and I meant to add that I’m a fast learner. If you give me a trial of one shift, after someone shows me the ropes, I’ll prove to you that I can do the job and do it well. Sorry, sorry to interrupt you there. But I thought it was a good idea to mention that in case it in any way influenced what you were about to say next or whether you’d give me a chance or not.’

  She doesn’t speak this time, doesn’t move to speak; instead she looks down at my sparse, one-page CV. Not even the most creative writing and rewriting could have made me sound desirable. I’d been tempted to use forty-eight point for the section heads and twenty-four point for everything else, just to fill the page a bit.

  ‘Nika Harper,’ she murmurs, staring hard at my name in capitals at the top of the page. I had written Veronika but told her when I sat down to call me Nika. That was probably a mistake since it is so very close to Nikky Harper, and now she is dragging through her memory, trying to remember where she has heard that name before. Wondering if I am telling the truth about not having been in prison, not having been in trouble with the law. Thinking that even if I am being honest about prison, maybe she’s heard that name for another reason and not a good one, since anything good of note that I have done would surely be there on my flimsy-as-tissue-paper CV.

  If I want this job, which I do, I can’t risk her connecting me to that other life, that other time.

  ‘Mrs Nasir?’ I say gently, tugging her away from the words on the page. ‘If you were possibly considering offering me the job, I could start straight away. I could even do the trial shift this afternoon if you want?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ She lifts her gaze to me. Frowns. ‘No, no, that won’t be necessary. I’m a little torn right now, Miss Harper, to be honest. It is not our policy to offer positions in our hotel to people without experience or references or who have been working – as you have admitted – cash in hand.’

  My heart sinks. So much for being honest and from that people will give you a chance.

  ‘However, if there’s anything I know about jobs that are cash in hand, it’s that there are so many people queuing up for that type of work, if you don’t work hard enough you have no work. Which does tell me you’re a hard worker. Can you see where I am conflicted?’

  I nod. She seems a fair woman, not someone overly given to being nice or doing people favours, but not one to dismiss people out of hand, either.

  ‘I suppose the best thing I can do, to be fair to my head of housekeeping, who is desperate for good cleaning staff, and to yourself, is to give you a one-week trial.’

  Without meaning to, I gasp. I’m finally being given a break. Another one, actually, if I count having enough money in my semi-defunct bank account to find somewhere temporary to stay and get my hair cut properly and buy a decent second-hand interview suit and glasses. But this break is huge. This break could change everything.

  ‘May I remind you, it is only a trial. If the head of housekeeping doesn’t think you are up to the position, I will be forced to terminate your employment. Does that sound fair to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I have to stop myself reaching across the table and grabbing her hand to shake it vigorously, and I put my hands on the arms of my chair to physically stop myself climbing over the desk and throwing my arms around her. ‘That sounds so fair, I can’t even begin to tell you.’

  ‘Very well. If you will kindly wait outside for a few minutes, I will contact the head of housekeeping to let her know to expect us and I will show you around the hotel and introduce you to her. Since you said you could start immediately, shall we say six o’clock tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s brilliant. I can’t even begin to tell you how much … Thank you. Just thank you.’

  ‘This is your chance to show us what you’re made of, Miss Harper. Please don’t let us down.’

  ‘I won’t let you or myself down,’ I say. I promise.

  Roni

  London, 2016

  I am starting at the very beginning. And yes, that thought has triggered the song from that movie to play in my mind. I have tried to push it to one side, but it’s there. ‘Veronika Harper.’ I type the words into the Internet page on my par
ents’ computer, hit the return button and pages and pages come up. Some have photos, some are links to the glossy magazines and a woman who spells her name the same way that Veronika did. I was supposed to start looking for a job today. I woke up at 5 a.m. like I do every morning, and when both my parents left the house, I came down to their computer to start my job search. Instead, I became distracted by the search for my former best friend.

  Tomorrow I will look for a job. This is more important. I have to know where she is, what is going on with her. She left home at seventeen and as far as I know, she never came back.

  London, 1989

  Of the thirty-five children who had come to the taster sessions at Daneaux Dance Studios, a year ago, only fifteen of us were left, and Nika and I were the only ones who came every single week to the lessons.

  This lesson, Monsieur Armand asked us to stay after class. Everyone looked at us like we had done something wrong, and Nika seemed terrified. I was, too. We sat cross-legged on the floor by the mirrors while everyone else picked up their bags, coats and shoes from along the back wall, and then waited for their parents to come and collect them. They were all still watching us, feeling sorry for us, because we were probably going to be asked to leave the ballet school and then that would be the end of our dreams of being dancers.

  It was all Nika and I talked about at school. We would discuss the different ways you could move from first position to third without going through second. We would talk about which ballets we would like to dance in. We would sometimes have everyone staring at us in the playground as we practised what we had learnt the week before. I loved to watch Nika dance, she was so good at holding herself upright, looking as professional as Madame Brigitte – like she was born to dance. She often told me that when she watched me dance she couldn’t breathe because she thought I looked so beautiful, that I was Odette in Swan Lake.

  Once we were alone with our dancing teachers, I took Nika’s hand and found it was cold and sweaty. She was really scared. I was really scared. There were other ballet schools, of course, but we loved Monsieur Armand and Madame Brigitte. He seemed to know so much about dance – he had worked with so many famous ballet dancers, or premiers danseurs, as he called them. Some of them danced on stages all over the world and he said he had followed the career of Sylvie Guillem very closely and would one day tell any of us who were interested all about her. Madame Brigitte was the most beautiful dancer we had ever seen. She was my real-life Sylvie (apart from Nika) and I wanted to be like her in every way possible. I knew Nika felt the same. The thought that we wouldn’t be allowed to come any more made me feel sick. I knew I was going to throw up right there and then if they made us leave.

  ‘Do not look so worried,’ Monsieur Armand said. He had a strong French accent, even though he had lived in London for several years, his wife had told us.

  ‘Yes, this is a good thing,’ Madame Brigitte said with a big smile and a really kind voice. She wasn’t French. ‘We have seen real talent and passion and drive in you two. More than anyone I think we’ve ever had in this school. And we would like to extend an invitation for you both to be taught individual lessons on Monday evenings by Monsieur Armand.’

  Wow, I thought. I was holding my breath and couldn’t quite believe what she was saying to me, to us. They thought we had shown the promise that they had talked about in the very first lesson. I looked at Nika to find she was looking at me. I wanted to do it, I so wanted to do it.

  ‘For the first three months it would be free of charge,’ Monsieur Armand said. ‘That way we would be able to assess whether the individual lessons are of true benefit to you or not.’

  ‘Would it be just the two of us?’ Nika asked. I was glad she asked because I wasn’t sure if it meant lessons just taught by him or if it meant one lesson each.

  ‘Non, non, it would be me and you, Veronique, and then me and the other Veronique.’ You could always tell which one of us he was talking about because he emphasised our names in different ways. ‘Whoever went second would wait outside for the first to finish, that way you can walk here after school together and your parents will only need to make one trip. Simple, non? Your parents are outside, so we will talk to them and provide them with a form to sign, but we wanted to know if you were interested first?’

  ‘Yes!’ I blurted out.

  ‘Yes!’ Nika blurted out at the same time.

  ‘Bon.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ Madame Brigitte’s grin made me smile even wider. I was going to be a ballet dancer. It was really going to happen.

  London, 2016

  ‘Veronika Harper’ produces no results that are of any use to me. Which should I try next? ‘Nika Harper’ or ‘Nikky Harper’? I suppose Nikky Harper because that is the name she is most famous for. I often wondered, when I saw her on the front of the magazines and in the gossip columns in newspapers, why she hadn’t used Grace, like she’d always planned to. ‘Nikky Harper.’ I type. Press: enter.

  London, 1991

  I wanted to tell Nika. I knew she’d understand. She would hold my hand and tell me it would all be all right. I was waiting outside the ballet studio because Nika was second today, and I was sitting there, wishing she would come back. I missed her when she wasn’t with me. Monsieur Armand had extended the lessons today for both of us. I was meant to be doing my homework, but I couldn’t concentrate on it, I couldn’t think about anything. I felt odd, in my body. Monsieur Armand said I was stiff and moving like an elephant riding a donkey, but I felt so strange. I wanted to tell Nika about it. Mum had said to Dad she thought it was growing pains that I was complaining about, that my body was growing much faster than the rest of me could keep up with. I knew it wasn’t that, but I didn’t tell Mum because she would think I was causing a fuss and I wasn’t.

  The door to the studio opened and Nika walked out. She had a funny look on her face. Sometimes Monsieur Armand would get cross with us. He would say he was frustrated because we weren’t concentrating, we weren’t being as good as he knew we could be. Nika and I would compare notes afterwards, we would ask each other if he had commented on our pirouettes, on our positioning, our landing. Sometimes he said the same things to us, sometimes it was completely different. He made us cry sometimes, and we would comfort each other. It was hard work, but both of us knew if we wanted to be professional dancers, it was necessary. Madame Brigitte had told us that. Nika was odd today, though. She came out, cradling her ballet shoes, with her chin on her chest. She sat down on the floor beside her school bag and pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at the floor in front of her.

  ‘Veronique?’ Monsieur Armand said. ‘Why don’t you come back in for a few minutes before your parents arrive?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said and jumped to my feet. I kept looking at Nika but she wouldn’t look at me. She wouldn’t look at anything except the floor. Usually she’d give me a look to let me know what sort of a mood he was in, if I should brace myself for a telling off or if he would be over-brimming with compliments.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked Nika.

  ‘She is fine,’ Monsieur Armand replied for her. ‘We covered new material and new ground today and she is unsure if she can do it. I know she will be fine.’

  ‘Last night I asked my mum if I could give up ballet,’ Nika told me.

  ‘But you love ballet,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I do,’ she said sadly. ‘But I don’t want to do it any more. It doesn’t matter anyway because Mummy said I wasn’t allowed to give up. She said everyone knew I was doing it and they were all so impressed that only one other person – you – had been asked to have private lessons too, and I wasn’t stopping on a whim.’

  ‘Do you really want to stop ballet?’ I asked her.

  ‘Don’t you?’ she asked me.

  I shook my head. I never wanted to stop ballet. It was my one escape. The only time I felt right was when I was dancing. I could never give up ballet, even if I wanted to.

  Three
weeks later, Monsieur Armand introduced me to the new material and the new moves. They weren’t so hard, weren’t so bad. But I understood why she wanted to give up ballet.

  London, 2016

  ‘Nikky Harper’ is more fruitful, but not that much. There are a few articles from that time when she was everywhere, a few more where they mention Todd Chambers, the man she was with, some talking about her drugs problem. But all of them end the same way: she simply disappeared. One day she was with him, the next she was gone and no one had heard from her since.

  ‘Nika Harper’ next.

  London, 1993

  Monsieur Armand called us all to attention before the class began. He always wore all black – poloneck and tight trousers – and he always carried a long black stick with a brass top. He didn’t need it for walking, he used it to correct you if you were in the wrong position. Sometimes, if you got it wrong too many times, he would bang it on the ground and shout at you. It was awful when he shouted. The sound of it would go right through you. I always felt bad, too, because you could tell he didn’t like shouting. He seemed to shout more at Nika these days, I could hear it when I sat outside during her individual lessons.

  ‘Ladies, we will soon be starting the audition process for our Christmas show. This is the first show we have ever held, but I feel so many of you are capable and talented enough to be able to handle the process. The ballet will be our version of Le Nutcracker. Everyone will have a role, but the lead role will be that of the Sugar Plum Fairy. She will have the longest solo dance and then a pas de deux. A duet. I have already decided that one of the Veroniques will dance this part. I am telling you all now so you are not disappointed. You will all work hard, I believe, no matter what your role.’