What Not to Do If You Turn Invisible

We stare at each other in the doorway for a good few seconds.

If I wasn’t feeling so completely unnerved by what was going on inside my clothes, I could probably have said something smart like, ‘Sorry, I don’t take clothes advice from someone ejected from Disneyland for fashion crimes.’ But I don’t.

Instead I say, ‘It’s a sponsored thing. I’ve got to stay dressed up for a whole day to raise money for, erm …’

Quick, Ethel. Think of something. He’s waiting for you to finish the sentence.

‘… for your lighthouse thing.’

Why? Why that? It’s like there’s another me inside my head, yelling at me: ‘What did you say that for, you complete pinhead? Now he thinks you care about his stupid lighthouse obsession. You idiot!Why didn’t you just say famine relief or cancer research or climate change? Or anything else?’

And all I can do about the voice in my head is reply with another head-voice saying, ‘I know! I’m sorry! I’m just not thinking straight. I’ve got quite a lot on my mind at the moment in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Boyd has been talking.

‘… Terrific! Fanks a lot! Sponsored fancy dress? Brilliant idea! The whole day? Sweet! Anyway, I just got your text. Sorry, should have checked earlier. Just on your way out, are you? When are you back? I could wait for you, or, you know – let myself out?’

No. Definitely not. Instead, I tell him about Lady.

‘I saw her going down to the bottom of the backyard,’ I say to him. ‘I thought she was just going for a wee.’ That is less than entirely truthful. What I really thought was that Lady was utterly, totally freaked out by my invisibility and had legged it.

There’s a gap in the fence at the bottom of the yard that a dog could squeeze through, no bother. In fact, Lady did it once when she was a puppy, and we intended to get it fixed, but never got around to it, because she’s never tried to escape again.

Except … she’s not in the garden when we look.

So that’s how I find myself down on the beach, me in my ridiculous clown-and-gloves costume, Elliot Boyd in his comedy beach gear, calling for Lady.

Whitley Sands is easily my favourite walk with Lady, and we do it at least a couple of times a week. I throw her ball into the sea, and she leaps over the waves to retrieve it and then shakes herself, usually soaking me in the process, but I don’t really mind.

It’s hot under the mask. I check that Boyd is a little way ahead and I lift it up a bit to allow the sea air to cool my face, then I call for about the fiftieth time:

‘La-dy!’

I am trying to sound normal and happy. Have you ever lost a dog? It’s important not to sound angry when you call for it, whatever you’re feeling inside. What dog would return to an angry owner?

There are loads of dogs down here, but no Lady.

Soon we have got to the end of the beach and we are by the causeway that links the mainland to the island where the lighthouse looms, white and enormous.

‘Come on! Are you comin’ up?’ Boyd shouts.

Going to the top of the lighthouse is the last thing I want to do.

‘Come on,’ he repeats. ‘There’s somefing I wanna show you, now that you’re a proper part of it. It won’t take long. Besides, from the top you can get a view of the whole beach and you’ll be able to spot your dog.’

Once we are over the causeway and on the island itself we are pretty much the only ones there. It gets busier during the school holidays, but right now, the café is closed and the only thing open is the little museum and gift shop where you buy your ticket to walk up to the top of the lighthouse.

There are some steps leading up to the entrance and a path that goes round the back, which is where Boyd is heading. Two big refuse bins for the café are either side of a rusty door, which he prises open with his fingers before beckoning me in.

Inside, we’re in a cavernous chamber at the bottom of the lighthouse. There are one or two visitors looking at a big model of a lifeboat and some photographs on the wall, and our footsteps echo. One lady turns and raises her eyebrows, then nudges her friend, who looks at us too. I suppose that, dressed as we are, we’re worth at least a glance, but that’s all we get.

‘Come on,’ says Boyd, grinning. I can tell he’s really excited. ‘I’ve never shown anyone this!’

The narrow staircase hugs the circular walls and we climb up to the lantern room at the top, gripping the rusty rail all the way round.

Three hundred and twenty-eight steps later (I didn’t count them – Boyd told me), and I am panting like a racehorse. Boyd, for some reason, is not, in spite of the extra weight he carries. Perhaps it’s just enthusiasm.

Inside the circular lantern room, it’s like being in an enormous greenhouse: there are tall windows all round. In the centre, imagine a huge, upside-down tumbler, about a metre and a half high, made of glass lenses arranged in intricate concentric circles, its mouth about a metre from the floor – that’s the lantern.

‘See this?’ says Boyd, indicating the glass contraption, his face glowing. ‘It’s called a Fresnel lens. With a light inside, it reflects it and multiplies it so you don’t need all that much power to make it visible for miles. Except there’s no light in it now. Hasn’t been for years and years.’

I mean: OK. It is sort of interesting, but mainly I’m just being polite.

Then he takes me to a small hatch cut in the floor.

‘Check the stairs, Eff. Anyone comin’?’ He lifts up the hatch. ‘Come an’ look!’

Obediently, I shuffle round the room between the giant lens and the windows and look down the hatch. There’s a neatly coiled length of electrical cable – metres and metres of it – and a large light bulb on the other end, about the size and shape of a two-litre bottle of Coke.

‘I brought all this up a month ago,’ he says, pride seeming to ooze from every pore. ‘It’s the brightest light bulb you can buy – one thousand watts. When I’m ready, I’ll put the light in here,’ and he indicates the ‘mouth’ of the inverted glass tumbler, ‘and trail the cable out of this window here, down to the ground, where I’ll plug it in and switch it on and … Light The Light!’ He starts humming the song again.

I’m gazing at him through the eyeholes of my mask.

He is mad. Who would even think of such a thing? And why?

All I can say is: ‘I see.’

His face falls. ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you?’

‘Erm … no. It’s just quite an … ambitious plan, Elliot.’

‘You won’t tell anyone? It’s going to be a sort of secret operation. Like a ‘happening’ – you know, announced shortly before it happens, then boom! The lights are on! A flash mob with a proper flash!’

Boyd stands up and replaces the hatch lid softly.

I can see that I’ve hurt him by not being more enthusiastic.

‘Aren’t you scared?’ I ask.

He looks at me, puzzled. ‘Scared? What of? What crime will I have committed? Who will I have harmed? You could possibly charge me with trespass, but that’s not even a crime; I won’t ’ave damaged anything, and I’ll even use the money you raise by dressing like an idiot to leave some cash for the electricity, so I can’t be charged with theft!’

The grin on his face makes me smile too.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Course I’m sure! My dad’s a lawyer.’

This is the first time Boyd has ever mentioned his dad. Or his mum, for that matter. And as soon as the words are out of his mouth, it’s as if he wants to take them back. He starts saying something else, but I cut him off.