Invisible

by Barbara Copperthwaite

  Invisible

  About the Author

  Barbara Copperthwaite is a journalist with 20 years experience, who has been editor of a number of national magazines in the UK. She was raised in Skegness , Lincolnshire, and now lives in Birmingham with her dog, Scamp.

  Invisible

  Copyright 2014 by Barbara Copperthwaite

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Invisible

  For Paul, whose generous spirit changed my life

  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger;

  Thanks to everyone who has made me stronger.

  Invisible

  JANUARY

  Tues 15

  There really isn’t a thing to say. A year ago I’d have tried to say something. I’d have wracked my brain to find some inane comment to make. Probably about the programme we were watching. We’re both sitting here watching the news, maybe I could say something about one of the stories…another soldier killed in Afghanistan, a big company announcing job cuts, the Prime Minister visiting a school somewhere or other… Not exactly light, chatty topics.

  The newsreader’s voice drones on, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. I wonder if Daryl will get curious about this diary and decide to have a sneaky read. I hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me; he hates secrets, likes to know everything that’s going on in my head. Just the thought of him reading this though…damn, I’ve crinkled the paper, my hand clenching at the corner just at the thought of what he’d say. He’d be furious. But I’ve got to get my thoughts out somewhere, haven’t I? I can’t, simply can’t face talking to him about this. Not yet.

  From the corner of my eye I can see Daryl glancing at his mobile, thinking I won’t notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care any more whether I noticed or not, in the same way that I’ve stopped caring about filling the silence between us. So, is it just me he doesn’t have anything to say to any more? Are there other people out there that he actually bothers communicating with properly?

  Funny how I have so much to say to myself. In my head I can’t shut my internal monologue off. Is this what happens to all marriages? Slowly but surely you just run out of interesting stuff to say and slide into the mundane, and finally into total silence. Like those couples in restaurants, who are clearly only there because the woman has insisted on a romantic night out or she’ll kick off, so the bloke’s given in for a quiet life. And they sit there, opposite each other, one more dressed up than the other because the evening means more to them, and each making polite conversation.

  ‘How’s your food?’

  ‘Great, very nice. The sauce is just right. How’s yours? Looks nice…’

  ‘Mmmm, lovely…’

  Then silence. An awkward glance around the room, trying to find something to comment on. The waiter surreptitiously looking over, fighting a smirk at the desperate atmosphere at the table. The clink of cutlery on plates filling the pause that grows longer and longer. A throat clearing. ‘It really is very nice food…’

  So I’ve started this diary, just so I have somewhere I can air my thoughts. Then I realised I’d nothing to put in it but the humdrum. Still, maybe that will galvanise me to actually do something to change my life, because on the very first, pristine page I wrote a little something, a sort of mantra I suppose, to try to focus myself.

  If you’re not happy with something, change it; if it won’t change, get rid of it.

  Doubt I will though– haven’t so far have I? Let’s face it, the vast majority of us start off in life thinking that we’re going to do something amazing with our time on this planet – didn’t Shakespeare or Oliver Wendell Holmes or someone say something about how ‘nothing is so commonplace as the wish to be remarkable’. Life kind of sucks you dry of those feelings though.

  Actually it’s not even that dramatic, it’s just that all the other stuff of life gets in the way of really living; you know, the falling in love, getting a job to pay the bills, even watching telly, it all just conspires to stop you thinking about the big picture, and before you know it you’re married to a man you barely say two words to, in a house that’s all right but nothing special, in a job that’s…beige. Bland, nothing special or inspiring about it. That’s what happened to me anyway. Sometimes I think if something exciting doesn’t happen to me soon I’ll go mad.

  Beside me, Daryl grabs the remote and switches over without even asking me after a report about some horrible rape up in Manchester pops up on the news. Sounds like she only just got away with her life. Do I pipe up, say something to Daryl about turning over, given that I was watching that? No, of course not. I can’t be bothered. How am I going to motivate myself to do the extraordinary when I can’t even be bothered to speak to someone sitting right beside me?

  What is it with men and remote controls anyway? Why do they feel the need to keep hold of them? He’s sat there now, holding it, finger running over the buttons absently. I wonder if cavemen only had clubs because they were remote control substitutes?

  Sat 19

  The highlight of my weekend so far has been nipping to the supermarket for an hour or so. Daryl was too exhausted to come; he didn’t arrive until the wee small hours of last night having spent most of the week driving his truck on the continent. When I got back, he was up though, watching football on telly.

  ‘Your mates came round,’ he said, eyes never leaving the match.

  ‘Which mates?’ I groaned with the effort of lifting onto the kitchen counter a bag that was threatening to burst with shopping – not that my husband seemed to notice.

  ‘Don’t remember their names. Saggy tits, crazy hair – that was one of them. Yes! Did you see that?!’ This last comment was about a goal. No, I hadn’t seen it. No, I wouldn’t have cared even if I had. As for the ‘saggy tits’ comment, sadly this is about par for the course. Daryl’s not great at remembering the names of any of my friends (to his mind they aren’t important enough to make that kind of effort) so instead they are described as a list of mainly unattractive attributes.

  There is nothing even remotely saggy about Amy’s boobs, they are just really rather big. As for her hair, she has fantastic shoulder-length pre-Raphaelite-type curls. Yet my man always, always refers to her as ‘saggy tits’ with the sometimes added extra of ‘crazy hair’. She probably came round with Hannah, aka Bossy Cow, or sometimes Lesbian-Haired School Mate (we used to go to school together, and she currently sports an Audrey Heburn-esque crop).

  ‘Did they leave a message or anything?’ I asked tentatively. He held his hand up to silence me because something interesting was presumably happening on the box. I hate it when he does that.

  Giving up on a reply, I went out to the car again and fetched another bag then struggled back into the kitchen, leaning to one side at a dangerous angle to compensate for the weight.

  ‘Jesus, sorry, I’ll help you,’ said Daryl, finally jumping up, a gent at last. He brought the rest of the shopping in for me, bless him, but don’t think I didn’t notice that it was because it was half time.

  Weds 30

  I’m so very, very tired of being alone. I love Daryl but I have serious doubts about his love for me. Or at least, I know he lo
ves me but I wonder what that love actually adds up to. I have a problem trusting him, but there’s absolutely no reason why I feel like that. He’s never cheated on me. So maybe that’s just my problem: that I’m somehow always vaguely suspicious of him. It’s because he’s never around. He does so many hours, driving his lorry all round the country and Europe that he’s often away all week and some weekends too. Sometimes I feel like I barely see him. Maybe we’ve just grown apart.

  He just doesn’t seem very interested in me. When I speak he doesn’t bother listening half the time. Even today, we were talking over dinner and he asked what I’d been up to.

  ‘Well, work was just work, you know… But I went jogging this morning, and it’s starting to go really well. I’ve built up to fifteen minutes non-stop, and did that twice, with just a three minute walk in between to catch my breath! And you know what? It felt good!’

  ‘Oh don’t worry, you’ll get there,’ he said, glued to the news on telly.

  I felt like screaming, ‘Yes, if you’d been listening properly you’d know I’m already getting there!!!!’ He quite clearly hadn’t been listening to a word I’d said, the goings on of Manchester police were far more riveting.

  Maybe my jogging isn’t interesting to him, but he knows how hard I’ve been working on it and that it means a lot to me. I’ve always been a lard arse and now I’m finally making an effort to get fit. Because if I’m overweight, it’ll be harder to get pregnant… not that we’re trying at the moment because he doesn’t feel ready.

  I just feel so desperately lonely. I’m 31 years old and have spent most of my adult life alone, because Daryl is never here. His work doesn’t allow him home much, he sells days off and refuses to book holiday in advance most of the time because he never knows when he’ll get a last minute trucking job.

  Worse though, I feel lonely sometimes when I’m with him. Like at dinner just now. Like watching telly yesterday.

  I want a husband who is a partner, someone who is there for me through the tough times, who likes listening to me witter on, who wants to spend time with me, and have kids. I don’t want to be alone any more.

  Even if Daryl desperately wants to be with me, his job will never allow it. If I don’t have children I’ll blame it on him and resent him, and I don’t want that to happen. For all those reasons I don’t see how Daryl and I can go on.

  I know we made a commitment to one another when we married but…I feel lost. And I want a child so much! My clock is ticking so loud I think the alarm’s about to go off. Life is slipping away, I feel as though I’m trapped in the top bulb of a huge egg-timer and each hour is a grain of sand slipping away beneath me, each day makes my footing more treacherous. Life is escaping, my chances of having a child are dissipating, and I’m not doing anything about it!

  One day soon I’ll wake up old, alone, no kids, a shitty career, and a relationship where I spend 60 per cent of my time alone – in fact, no, closer to 80 per cent, or even 90 per cent of my spare time.

  Would things be any better if we had a child? I don’t know. I’ve a horrible feeling the answer is no though, because it wouldn’t change the fundamental problem – the amount and quality of time we spend together.

  For all those reasons I don’t see what future we can have together – or at least what happy future we can have. Bugger. Am I really thinking of ending my marriage?

  Thurs 31

  I can’t do it. I know as soon as I see his face I’ll crumble because, sensible or not, I love him. Oh bloody hell.

  This is just a blip. We just have to try harder.

  FEBRUARY

  Sun 3

  I’m really bored. Daryl had said he might be able to come home and see me, but I’ve heard no word. It probably means he won’t be coming over, but I’ve still made no plans, just in case – I so rarely get to see my husband these days, so I don’t want to mess up any chance I have by arranging to see someone else. Not now I’ve decided that I need to make more effort. That we need to make more effort if we’re to keep the marriage together.

  I wonder if he even realises how close we are to the edge? I wonder if, if he did realise, he would want to pull us back from it or simply give us a nudge so that we plummet into freefall?

  But I have decided freefall is not for me. It’s an exhilarating theory, hurtling through life with nothing but the sound of the air rushing past to distract me, nothing to stop me or get in my way. Freedom. But the reality of freefall is that the ground is waiting below you, hard, unforgiving, and it’s going to bloody hurt when you hit it. That’s what life outside of marriage would be: a great theory but in practise it would be hard and horrible and I’d suddenly realise how much better off I was in it. Nope, I’m clinging on to my marriage, teetering back from the brink.

  It all sounds very dramatic but practically speaking it just consists of me hanging around, waiting to spend time with Daryl. But, after lurking round the house all day like some kind of lost soul haunting the fridge (my favourite place to hover when bored. No matter how many times I peer inside it or the surrounding cupboards, I always hope there’ll suddenly be something tasty and wonderful in there that I’ve somehow missed all the other times I’ve peered in. Shockingly there never is) I decided to call Amy yesterday afternoon.

  It was actually good fun. Went shopping then to the pictures to see that rom com with whatsherface in it – can’t remember her name but she’s always in that type of thing. Then we ended up coming back here and eating pizza, listening to music and watching classic Moulin Rouge, and drinking vodka until 5am… See, not having kids does have some advantages!

  So now I’m that lost soul again, lurking round the house, waiting. I don’t mind so much, not really, because I’m so tired from all that drinking. I haven’t had an all-nighter like that in ages! Too long really. There’s not enough fun in my life.

  Tomorrow I’m going to get up extra early before work and do my exercise dvd. And hope Daryl will call.

  Wonder if there are any nice treats hiding in the fridge… No, stuff it; I’m off to the corner shop. Ric, the owner, is always only too happy to sell me emergency chocolate. Just going there makes me happy; he’s always got such a big smile on his face, and calls all the women ‘lady’ and all the men ‘sir’. ‘Thank you, lady, have a wonderful day,’ he always smiles at me, it’s so sweet.

  Mon 4

  At 2am the phone rang. I must have sounded very unattractive, all gravelly-voice and confused from being shocked from sleep, trying to stop my heart from pounding through my chest. Still, Daryl had sounded happy to hear my voice.

  ‘Hello gorgeous,’ he exclaimed, and I’d known at once two things. One: he was in a really good mood; the kind of mood that’s contagious. Honestly, when he’s like that being near him is like being near the sun. And two: he wasn’t going to be coming over.

  My head slumped back into the pillow, too disappointed and tired to be bothered with the faff of attempting to sit up.

  ‘Sorry Gorgeous, I’ve been delayed, there’s no way I’ll make it home,’ he said. Didn’t even have the decency to sound upset, Mr bloody Chipper.

  Still, I swallowed down my annoyance. If I’d let it show it only would have led to an argument and him huffing something like: ‘See, this is why I never normally bother phoning you. Cos when I make the effort you have a go!’ And then he’d slam the phone down and switch it off, which he knows drives me mental.

  So, instead I blinked my eyes several times so I’d sound more awake than I felt, and made myself smile because, well, I know it might be daft but I always think you can hear a smile. Seriously, I think it makes a difference to the way people sound.

  And then I made myself say, ‘It doesn’t matter, babe. It would have been lovely to see you, but I know you tried your best.’ For good measure, I added, ‘And I really appreciate you calling me to tell me.’

  I added that because I’d read an article about training puppies and about how they need praise when they do well. And the bad st
uff? You ignore it rather than shout, because shouting is giving them attention; apparently, for them any attention is better than nothing. That had struck a chord with me, and made total sense. Maybe because I crave attention, any kind of attention, from Daryl. I’d rather be shouted at than ignored. Sometimes I feel like I’m disappearing, like I’m becoming invisible in this relationship. Barely talking, barely existing, barely being listened to.

  But it will change. Things will get better.

  Anyway, why I’d remembered this article in the middle of the night when Daryl called is beyond me, but I figured a bit of praise for the fact he’d actually listened to me and bothered calling for once to let me know what was going on would go a long way. Maybe he’d realise it really was good to call home and keep me informed, instead of simply avoiding giving me information in case I got angry with him if he gave me bad news.

  Of course the real irony – and this didn’t escape me even as I turned my too hot pillow over to its cooler side and tried to get back to sleep again – was that he always says he doesn’t tell me because I’ll get annoyed with him. He always makes out like I have a bad temper. Yet whenever I run our arguments back in my mind it’s always him who is angry. Maybe I’m going mad, but sometimes I wonder if I’m being manipulated a bit.

  No, that’s just silly, middle-of-the-night thoughts. Funny how you always get silly thoughts in the middle of the night – good job people sleep then!

  Really did appreciate the call though. Maybe he’s finally listening to me and realising that what I ask from him really isn’t much; just a little courtesy, a little respect, a little love and consideration.

  Weds 6