by Exile
I stared at him, incredulous. The truth of it seemed to be what Arthur and my eyes were telling me, but nothing else about it made any sense. I cast about thinking what to make of it. Part of me wondered why. Why was it doing this? Why Arthur? And why was it making me so mad? Was I jealous? And what could I possibly have to be jealous about? I think my mind knew better than to try and settle the how of it. That, at least, seemed beyond the effort of thinking about.
For a minute Arthur stood there smiling at me, tossing the thing up in the air and catching it. It was as if he was at a loss himself to understand something, as if he was wondering how it was I could be so bewildered by the thing instead of simply standing there marvelling.
Eventually he put the compass back in his pocket and without a word we began to walk again.
I said, “We should change direction again, I think,” and Arthur drew the compass from his pocket and worked out our new heading. He pointed up along the west side of the valley and said, “How about that dead tree there? Just to the right?”
I nodded, but as he was about to return the compass to his pocket I said, “Throw it again.” By the look on his face it was as if I had said to him, “Yes. We are still friends. We will always be friends.”
He threw the thing a ways up the slope, to the left. I heard it clatter off something and a moment later he produced it from his pocket.
“Well, how about that,” I said, and we carried on making our way through the grass.
It was the little belt of saplings we had to walk through that undid us. I was walking in front, holding back the branches as we went so they wouldn’t snap back in Arthur’s face, but once or twice I miscalculated and he got lashed. I offered to let him take the lead again and he did. Almost immediately a large branch whipped back and caught me on the cheek, just below the eye. I’m sure now that he didn’t mean it but at the time I felt inclined to believe he did. Why we had bothered to walk that way at all, I don’t know. We weren’t counting our steps and were only loosely following my father’s design.
A little further ahead we hit open ground. We began walking side by side again, but weren’t talking. I didn’t see what it was, but Arthur stumbled on something and the compass leapt from his hand. I picked it up from the ground in front of me and held it out for him. He looked off and away, as if saying to me, “You have a turn. Throw it.” I did. I pulled back my arm and lobbed the compass like I was going for the record. I watched as it flipped about in the sky, then grew smaller and eventually came down in some bushes, somewhere just the other side of a split-rail fence.
Arthur’s hand immediately went to his shirt pocket and I knew at once something was wrong. Arthur patted himself all over, but it was no good. This time it had not come back.
I felt to blame, there was no question, and out of this grew the name-calling. On Arthur’s part, I’m sure it simply grew out of the unfairness, and I had been the vehicle. But once we got started things quickly got out of hand, and I know for a fact that I even repeated most of the mean things I’d heard said at recess, the very things about his mother that I had defended him against. I won’t put here what was said. I am forever ashamed.
When we got back to the blanket my mother had spread, it was clear to all my family that something was not right.
My mother said, “What happened?” and was told simply that the compass had been lost. Nothing else was said about it. My mother handed us some cookies, my father wore a look that said, “Gee, what tough luck,” and we climbed into the car.
The drive home was one of the last times I saw Arthur. In a matter of days he was gone, and I heard nothing from him till we had a Christmas card that told nothing more than the generic holiday wishes it claimed to share. There was an address on the envelope, but I could never bring myself to write.
It was in the car ride home that day that I discovered the compass had come to me. Idiot that I was, I hadn’t thought to check my own pockets. The shirt I wore hadn’t any, but at some point on the drive into town I realized I was sitting on something uncomfortable. I reached back to the seat of my pants and felt the shape of a small circle. At first I thought it was a Girl Guide cookie, but judged right away that it was too large and too firm to be that. I was too pigheaded to give it back.
When I finally reached the long-term care facility where Arthur was, I didn’t recognize the person in the bed. For several hours that afternoon I was alone with him in that dark impersonal space. He didn’t know who I was and barely acknowledged my presence. His eyes opened and he spoke a few words, none of which arranged themselves into any sense. He was pretty much gone already.
At some point I took the compass from my shirt pocket and folded it into his hand, but his grip was loose and he dropped it over the edge of the bed, where it landed on the floor with a clatter. I knew enough to look away, and when I checked, the compass had found its way into the pocket of his dressing gown.
I patted him on the shoulder and left.
HIDE AND SEEK
Catherine MacLeod
My father could have taught Leonard Porter quite a lot about making people invisible.
My mother could have taught him everything.
I could teach him myself, but offering advice he hasn’t asked for would be rude. I’ve been a guest in the Porters’ home for almost a year. Their hospitality has been flawless. The fact that they don’t actually know I’m in their house is no excuse for bad manners.
He’ll just have to do it the hard way.
All great scientists have their obsessions. Dr. Porter’s is cracking the secret of making people invisible. I don’t understand why he wants to do that, unless it’s simply to be the first, but he seems to have made a good start. His notes are very clear. To make an object invisible, he will have to bend light around it. If light never reflects off the object, it will never be seen. It will cast no shadow. There will be no sign that it ever existed.
That I understand perfectly.
Mother would have approved.
Mother believed that courtesy was next to godliness. Her bible was Modern Manners, by Miss Amelia Gray, copyright 1898. A little out of date in the age of the Internet, but as Miss Gray writes, “Good manners never go out of style.”
Mother quoted her until I had the book memorized.
She told me, “A good guest has no sense of self-importance.”
She told me, “Every child is a guest in his parents’ home.”
She told me, “Children should be seen and not heard.” Then she added, “And, in your case, unseen would be good, too.”
Who was I to argue with godliness? I was an obliging boy, eager to please. From that day on I stayed out of her sight, always quiet, keeping to the dark corners – behaviour my father had learned years before. Mother so thoroughly ignored us that being unseen became ordinary, like breathing.
Invisibility is easier when people don’t want to see you. Cooperation is appreciated. Mother took down the mirrors so we couldn’t even see ourselves. Going unseen required humility, I thought. Being invisible was an act of virtue.
It was also an asset on the rare times I ventured outside the house. I’d always loved playing hide-and-seek with the other neighbourhood children. I knew the rules of the game as well as I knew Mother’s; they were alike in many ways. I followed them to the letter. I was silent and still. I moved quietly into dark spaces, reminding myself that I was undeserving of notice, and changed hiding places after the seekers had passed.
Their glances slid past me, seeing only another shade of shadow.
The last game we played was memorable. When they ran home to their suppers, leaving me in the park, obviously forgotten, I knew I had won. I had become master of the game.
It would have been impolite to disturb Mother with the news, but surely she would have been pleased to see Miss Gray proven right.
After a time I truly believe she forgot I was in the house.
Certainly the people who bought it after her death didn’
t suspect.
They found me to be an excellent guest: they didn’t find me at all.
As far as I know, my father is still there. I can’t imagine him anywhere else. But then again, I can’t imagine him at all. To this day I have no idea what he looked like. I left a month after the new owners came, packing a few necessities and the indispensable Modern Manners. Its final chapter, “Manners on the Move,” would take me out into the world with confidence. In it, Miss Gray wrote of the professional houseguest, a visitor whose charm and comforting presence makes him welcome in home after home. After my mother’s intensive training I felt I was more than up to the task.
Indeed, I thought it quite possible that being a guest was my calling.
And so I went unnoticed in home after home, year after year. At first I preferred bigger houses. They have so many dark corners. If no light touches me, I remain unseen; if I’m in one shadow, I don’t cast another. Servants are paid not to see too much, and the hosts simply walk past me, daydreaming, or chatting on their cells, ignoring me wonderfully.
A rich host has so many things to think about that a few are bound to escape his attention. Like the sweater he looked for last night, today folded on the closet shelf where it’s supposed to be. The last slice of cake he doesn’t remember eating. Turning the television on to a channel he doesn’t usually watch.
The flicker of movement in his peripheral vision that he dismisses as tiredness.
That warm itch like a breath on the back of his neck.
I don’t mind that he ignores it. A good guest doesn’t wish to intrude.
He also doesn’t wish to criticize his hosts, so let me just whisper that mansions and whirlwind parties can become tiring after a while. That there’s a certain malaise that comes with being in perpetual transit. That perhaps it was homesickness that made me long for the intimacy of family life. For a place where the phrase, Make yourself at home goes without saying.
I think the Porters may be the hosts I’ve waited for all my life.
Denise Porter is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She has dark hair and darker eyes. She moves like a dancer. But she does very little to enhance her looks. At first I thought she was indifferent to her appearance, but have come to realize she simply doesn’t know how lovely she is.
Certainly her husband doesn’t seem to notice.
The vendor at the newsstand where I first saw her noticed, though. She returned his smile and answered her cell as she paid for the morning papers. She paid me no mind as I looked through the magazines. I was just one more face on a crowded street. I was the paradox of being invisible in plain sight.
“Hello? Hi, Marcy. Sure, I’m still up for dinner tomorrow night. Where do you want to meet this time? Oh, please, Leonard won’t even know I’m gone. It’s like we’re playing hide-and-seek and he can’t be bothered looking for me, even when I’m right in front of him.”
Her mention of hide-and-seek intrigued me. So few people reference the game anymore. Even fewer understand its complexities.
Curious, I followed her home, keeping a comfortable distance between us until she approached the house. Then I walked in the door behind her, stepped into the closet as she shook the wrinkles out of her coat, froze as she hung it in front of me. She walked away singing an old song that had been a favourite of Mother’s. I took it as a good sign.
Denise is a charming hostess. She has fresh flowers delivered every day, leaves snacks in the fridge, doesn’t notice extra towels in the wash. She’s an excellent cook. A good guest eats lightly, but can reasonably expect a well-prepared meal. Of course, he also washes his own dishes. Doing small household tasks to lighten his hosts’ workload is a must. A guest who doesn’t is simply a parasite.
I’m pleased to be of some small service to my hostess. I brush the dog, bring home fresh milk, take the garbage out – and always keep in mind that getting back in will require some care.
I have my own key – most people are surprisingly unconcerned when they lose theirs – but I’m still not sure of the security code. I’d hate to trouble the police unnecessarily. They tend to be blunt about the finer points of etiquette.
I always look forward to coming home. Denise is an avid reader, which pleases me to no end. The house has thousands of books, including many of the classics. Finally, I have a chance to read all of H.G. Wells. Along with other small comforts, a good host will always provide reading material to amuse his guest.
I especially enjoy Denise’s journal. Most entries focus on trivia, what she’s done that day, who she’s seen. But the entries about her husband are enlightening and poignant. She knows about his affair. Not the other woman’s name, or exactly when she became a problem, but she knows she’s out there. She surmises correctly that she’s one of his university students. Having once been one herself, she sees the possibilities.
A few entries are even thought-provoking. On a recent page she wrote, When we first met, Leonard said I had an elegant name, but I can’t remember the last time he used it.
That one gave me pause. It made me wonder if I have a name. I can’t remember Mother ever calling me by one. I must have wondered back then, too, but, no, I wouldn’t have asked. A good guest doesn’t ask too many questions.
Denise doesn’t ask many, either. But at odd moments she stops to draw a shuddering breath, as if some knowledge is choking her. She obviously has no wish to be invisible.
The professor obviously doesn’t care what she wishes. I’ve stood behind him in his workshop countless times as he told his girlfriend yes, he could see her tonight, his wife wouldn’t even know he was gone.
She knew. She knows he turns to her only when his pretty student is unavailable. She closes her eyes when they have sex, as if it hurts to look at him. She closes them even when she’s alone. She closes them with some frequency. I appreciate the effort.
A good guest can expect to be entertained.
I would never dream of opening the medicine chest or snooping through the safe. I would never sift through the software he installs every time he buys a new laptop. But it’s only polite to show an interest in something left in plain sight. Professor Porter’s invisibility device looks like a heavy gold bracelet, each link adorned with a control button made of garnet. It is an exquisite, and somewhat disturbing, combination of science and art.
I can’t comprehend his notes anymore, but I understand his journal only too well. He’s going to give the bracelet to Denise for her birthday, making her his test subject.
He’s not sure the effects can be reversed.
In his early notes he writes, A man who is invisible will also be blind. If light doesn’t reflect off him, it will never be absorbed by his retinas.
The way he does it, yes.
I see some irony here.
Leonard Porter, who expects his device to bring him worldwide notice, doesn’t see what’s been going on under his nose.
Last week, on the first anniversary on my arrival in the house, Denise finished reading a new mystery novel. I was sure she wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it. She closed the cover at midnight, dropped it on the floor, turned out the light. I listened to her breathing, an unexpectedly lonely sound. When it was deep and steady I picked up the book.
Her hand slipped off the mattress. Her knuckles tapped me on the head. She made nonsensical soothing sounds and scratched my scalp as I eased away.
“What?” her husband muttered.
“Dog’s unnera bed.”
“’Kay.”
I held my breath, my heart racing. Partly because being discovered would have been gauche. Mostly because I couldn’t remember ever having been touched before. It was… wonderful. The most beautiful burning. I stayed awake all night, staring at Denise’s pale hand where it rested on the edge of the blanket. Longing to feel her touch again, but not daring to reach out.
I slipped away at daybreak. Denise had forgotten to set the timer on the coffee maker again. I turned it on, and took a blueberry muffin bac
k to the guestroom as the smell of coffee woke them up. I sat, trembling and haunted, thinking of the hostess gifts I’d given her. The extra flowers tucked into the daily deliveries. The violet-scented soaps left in the back of her bureau drawers to be found accidentally. A box of her favourite tea, discovered in the cupboard when she thought she’d run out. I enjoyed her sweet, startled smiles. I wanted so desperately to make her happy.
As evening fell my thoughts put themselves in order.
When had good manners turned to courtship?
And when had I gone mad enough to even think about… ?
Before I could finish that thought I went down to the kitchen. I stood behind her as she peeled the vegetables for dinner. I was insane, I thought – and reached out to stroke her hair anyway. It was the softest thing I’d ever touched.
She tensed, but didn’t turn around. “Leonard, you scared me.”
I hummed a faint non-sound and brushed her hair aside to caress the back of her neck. She hummed back, then stepped away to check the roast in the oven. I faded out the door.
I know it’s a terrible breach of decorum to want what my host hasn’t offered.
But then again, he’s already thrown it away.
A good guest doesn’t interfere in his hosts’ personal affairs. Miss Amelia Gray is very clear on this point. But she could hardly expect me to stand back and watch my hostess come to harm.
Leonard and I wait until Denise leaves for her monthly dinner with Marcy. We wait for his girlfriend to arrive at the kitchen door, where she’ll be unseen from the street. We follow her downstairs and wait for her to finish admiring the bracelet.
She actually seems to understand some of the theory behind the device, which marks her as intelligent, if not necessarily smart. She’s clearly besotted with this man who wants to replace his wife with a newer model, the same way he updates his tech.
She clearly agrees it’s the right thing to do.