Roar. Cecelia Ahern
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quickly figured out that the more cluttered and busily decorated the room was, the easier it was for her to be seen. She was practically invisible in front of a plain wall. She sought out patterned wallpaper as her canvas, decorative chair fabrics to sit on; that way, her figure blurred the patterns, gave people cause to squint and take a second look. Even when practically invisible, she was still fighting to be seen.
Scientists and doctors have examined her for months, journalists have interviewed her, photographers have done their best to light and capture her, but none of them were necessarily trying to help her recover. In fact, as caring and sweet as some of them have been, the worse her predicament has grown, the more excited they’ve become. She’s fading away and nobody, not even the world’s best experts, knows why.
‘A letter arrived for you,’ Rada says, stealing her from her thoughts. ‘I think you’ll want to read this one straight away.’
Curiosity piqued, the woman abandons her thoughts. ‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ she says quietly, as she has been instructed to do. Rada follows the sound of her voice, crisp envelope in her extended hand. She holds it out to the air.
‘Thank you,’ the woman says, taking the envelope from her and studying it. Though it’s a sophisticated shade of dusty pink, it reminds her of a child’s birthday party invitation and she feels the same lift of excitement. Rada is eager, which makes the woman curious. Receiving mail is not unusual – she receives dozens of letters every week from all around the world; experts selling themselves, sycophants wanting to befriend her, religious fundamentalists wishing to banish her, sleazy men pleading to indulge every kind of corrupt desire on a woman they can feel but can’t see. Though she’ll admit this envelope does feel different to the rest, with her name written grandly in calligraphy.
‘I recognize the envelope,’ Rada replies, excited, sitting beside her.
She is careful in opening the expensive envelope. It has a luxurious feel, and there’s something deeply promising and comforting about it. She slides the handwritten notecard from the envelope.
‘Professor Elizabeth Montgomery,’ they read in unison.
‘I knew it. This is it!’ Rada says, reaching for the woman’s hand that holds the note, and squeezing.
2
‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ the woman repeats, as the medical team assist her with her move to the new facility that will be her home for who knows how long. Rada and the few nurses she has grown close to accompany her from her bedroom to the awaiting limousine that Professor Elizabeth Montgomery has sent for her. Not all the consultants have gathered to say goodbye; the absences are a protest against her leaving after all of their work and dedication to her cause.
‘I’m in,’ she says quietly, and the door closes.
3
There is no physical pain in disappearing. Emotionally, it’s another matter.
The emotional feeling of vanishing began in her early fifties, but she only became aware of the physical dissipation three years ago. The process was slow but steady. She would hear, ‘I didn’t see you there,’ or ‘I didn’t hear you sneak in,’ or a colleague would stop a conversation to fill her in on the beginning of a story that she’d already heard because she’d been there the entire time. She became tired of reminding them she was there from the start, and the frequency of those comments worried her. She started wearing brighter clothes, she highlighted her hair, she spoke more loudly, airing her opinions, she stomped as she walked; anything to stand out from the crowd. She wanted to physically take hold of people’s cheeks and turn them in her direction, to force eye contact. She wanted to yell, Look at me!
On the worst days she would go home feeling completely overwhelmed and desperate. She would look in the mirror just to make sure she was still there, to keep reminding herself of that fact; she even took to carrying a pocket mirror for those moments on the subway when she was sure she had vanished.
She grew up in Boston then moved to New York City. She’d thought that a city of eight million people would be an ideal place to find friendship, love, relationships, start a life. And for a long time she was right, but in recent years she’d learned that the more people there were, the lonelier she felt. Because her loneliness was amplified. She’s on leave now, but before that she worked for a global financial services company with 150,000 employees spread over 156 countries. Her office building on Park Avenue had almost three thousand employees and yet as the years went by she increasingly felt overlooked and unseen.
At thirty-eight she entered premature menopause. It was intense, sweat saturating the bed, often to the point she’d have to change the sheets twice a night. Inside, she felt an explosive anger and frustration. She wanted to be alone during those years. Certain fabrics irritated her skin and flared her hot flushes, which in turn flared her temper. In two years she gained twenty pounds. She purchased new clothes but nothing felt right or fit right. She was uncomfortable in her own skin, felt insecure at male-dominated meetings that she’d previously felt at home in. It seemed to her that every man in the room knew, that everyone could see the sudden whoosh as her neck reddened and her face perspired, as her clothes stuck to her skin in the middle of a presentation or on a business lunch. She didn’t want anybody to look at her during that period. She didn’t want anyone to see her.
When out at night she would see the beautiful young bodies in tiny dresses and ridiculously high-heeled shoes, writhing to songs that she knew and could sing along to because she still lived on this planet even though it was no longer tailored to her, while men her own age paid more attention to the young women on the dance floor than to her.
Even now, she is still a valid person with something to offer the world, yet she doesn’t feel it.
‘Diminishing Woman’ and ‘Disappearing Woman’ the newspaper reports have labelled her; at fifty-eight years old she has made headlines worldwide. Specialists have flown in from around the world to probe her body and mind, only to go away again, unable to come to any conclusions. Despite this, many papers have been written, awards bestowed, plaudits given to the masters of their specialized fields.
It has been six months since her last fade. She is merely a shimmer now, and she is exhausted. She knows that they can’t fix her; she watches each specialist arrive with enthusiasm, examine her with excitement, and then leave weary. Each time she witnesses the loss of their hope, it erodes her own.
4
As she approaches Provincetown, Cape Cod, her new destination, uncertainty and fear make way for hope at the sight before her. Professor Elizabeth Montgomery waits at the door of her practice; once an abandoned lighthouse, it now stands as a grand beacon of hope.
The driver opens the door. The woman steps out.
‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,’ the woman says, making her way up the path to meet her.
‘What on earth are you saying?’ Professor Montgomery asks, frowning.
‘I was told to say that, at the hospital,’ she says, quietly. ‘So people know where I am.’
‘No, no, no, you don’t speak like that here,’ the professor says, her tone brusque.
The woman feels scolded at first, and upset she has put a foot wrong in her first minute upon arriving, but then she realizes that Professor Montgomery has looked her directly in the eye, has wrapped a welcoming cashmere blanket around her shoulders and is walking her up the steps to the lighthouse while the driver takes the bags. It is the first eye contact she has had with somebody, other than the campus cat, for quite some time.
‘Welcome to the Montgomery Lighthouse Advance for Women,’ Professor Montgomery begins, leading her into the building. ‘It’s a little wordy, and narcissistic, but it has stuck. At the beginning we called it the “Montgomery Retreat