“Find what you wanted?” she asked as we left. As if we were friends on a spree together.

“I wasn’t actually looking for anything,” I hissed.

I popped into the butcher’s to buy the sausages the boys like so much, and then wandered round the next-door antique shop. I had my eye on a mirror there, with a gilt frame. It cost £375, but I thought I might be able to get it for less. It would go perfectly in the hall, once we had it painted.

I had arranged to meet Laura for lunch, so after I had picked up Christopher’s name tags for all his Lascelles school clothes, I drove down the hill, Lynne’s car in my rearview mirror. Laura was already waiting. It should have been fun, but it wasn’t. Lynne sat in the car outside eating a sandwich. I could see her as I fiddled with my arugula and roasted red pepper salad. She was reading a paperback. If an axman came into the room she probably wouldn’t even look up. I couldn’t quite concentrate on anything Laura was saying to me. I cut the lunch short, saying that I had to dash.

Next stop, Tony in Primrose Hill. Normally I love having my hair done. It makes me feel cosseted sitting in the little room full of mirrors and steel, trolleys laden with colored lotions, the smell of steam and perfume, the lovely crisp sound of scissors cutting through locks of hair.

But today nothing worked. I felt hot, cross, out of sorts. My head banged and my clothes stuck to me. I didn’t like the way I looked after the cut. The new shape of my hair had a peculiar optical effect that made my nose too big and my face too bony. In the traffic on the way home a kind of road rage engulfed me, so that I revved impatiently at traffic lights. Lynne kept patiently behind me. Sometimes she was so close that I could see her freckles in the mirror. I stuck out my tongue in the mirror, knowing she couldn’t see it.

For the rest of the day, she followed me like a faithful dog-the kind you want to kick. She followed me when I took Chris to play with a chum of his down the road, a scrawny little boy called Todd. What kind of parent calls her child that? Then I had to collect the boys, because it was Lena’s night off. Wednesdays are always a nightmare. Josh was at the school after-hours computer club, which was always held in a trailer that stank of boys’ sweaty feet. Usually when I come to collect him he is paired with another boy called Scorpion or Spyder or whatever stupid nickname they’ve chosen. Josh used to call himself Ganymede, but last week he decided that was too effeminate and changed it to Eclipse. That’s his password. His best friend is called Freak, spelled with a Ph: Phreek. They’re all madly serious about it.

But this evening Josh was sitting slumped in a chair and the rather sweet young man who came in to teach them every week was crouched down beside him, talking to him intently. I remember that when I’d first met him a few weeks earlier, he told me that everybody in the club called him Hacker. I think I’d pulled a face and he’d said that that wasn’t his real name and I could call him Hack. “Is that your name?” I’d asked, but he only laughed.

All the boys were still in their uniforms but Hack was wearing ancient torn jeans and a T-shirt with lots of writing in Japanese on it. He was pretty young himself, with long, curly dark hair. He could almost have been one of the sixth-formers. At first I thought Josh must have had an accident, or a nosebleed, but as I drew nearer they both looked up and I saw that he had been crying. His eyes were red-rimmed. This startled me. I couldn’t remember when I last saw Josh actually cry. It made him look much younger and more vulnerable. How bony and pale he was, I thought, with his bumpy forehead and his protruding Adam’s apple.

“Josh! Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” The tone was cross rather than miserable. He stood up abruptly. “I’ll see you next term, in September, Hack.”

Hack. Honestly. No wonder Josh was such a mess.

“Or lose you. To a summer love,” said Hack.

“What?” I said.

“It’s a song,” he said.

“Is everything all right?”

“What, that?” he said, gesturing at Josh. “It’s no big deal, Mrs. Hintlesham.”

“Jenny,” I corrected him, as I do every week. “Call me Jenny.”

“Sorry. Jenny.”

“He seemed upset.”

Hack looked unconcerned.

“It’s probably school, summer, all that stuff. Plus he just got whipped on-screen.”

“Maybe his blood sugar’s low.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Give him some sugar. Jenny.”

I looked at Hack. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me.

Harry was round the other side of the school, in the large and drafty hall that doubled as the theater once a year for the school play. When Josh and I went in, he was standing by the side of the stage with a yellow dress over his trousers and a feather boa round his neck. His face was scarlet. The sight of him seemed to cheer Josh up considerably. Up on the stage was a motley crew of boys, a couple of whom were also wearing frocks.

“Harry,” called a man with a small mustache and a bullet-shaped head with hair cut brutally short. Probably gay. “Harry Hintlesham, it’s your entrance. Come on! ‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.’ You should be walking on as Roley says that.”

Harry struggled onto the stage, tripping over the dress. “ ‘What jealous Oberon,’ ” he muttered under his breath. His hair looked sticky with sweat. “ ‘Fairies, skip off, I have long-’ ”

“ ‘Skip hence,’ ” roared the mustache-man. “Not ‘off,’ boy, ‘hence’-and speak louder for goodness’ sake. Rehearsal’s over anyway, can’t have parents seeing it in this state. It won’t be ready till Christmas. And speaking of parents, your lovely lady mother has arrived, Titania. Skip hence. Good evening, Mrs. Hintlesham. You light up our dingy hall.”

“Jenny. Good evening.”

“Try and get your son to learn his lines.”

“I’ll try.”

“And get him to wear deodorant, will you?”

She’s dead. Of course. As I wanted. Of course. And I feel cheated of her. Of course. Forget it. Another one. Another she.

She wears too much makeup. It is like a mask, smoothed over her face. Everything about her face is glossy and cared for-shining lips, dark lashes, creamy skin, neat and glossy hair. She is a picture that is constantly being touched up and polished. An image presented to the world. She can’t hide from me. I imagine her face stripped down. There would be lines round her eyes, her nostrils, her mouth; her lips would be pale, soft, nervous.

Walking down a street, she glances constantly at her reflection in the shop windows, checking that everything is still in place. And it always is. Her clothes are ironed, her hair fits her like a cap. Her nails are manicured and painted a pale pink; her toenails are pink too, in their expensive sandals. Her legs are smooth. She holds herself straight, shoulders back and chin up. She is clean, neat, bright with energy and purpose.

Yet I have watched her. I see beyond her smile that is not a real smile, and her laugh that, if you listen carefully, very carefully, is forced and brittle. She is like a string on a violin that has been tightened to the thin screeching point. She is not happy. If she was happy, or wild with fear, or with desire, she would become beautiful. She would be liberated from her shell and become her true self. She does not realize she is not happy. Only I realize. Only I can see inside her and release her. She is waiting for me, sealed up inside herself, still untouched by the world.

Fate smiles on me. I see that now. At first I did not understand that I had become invisible. Nobody can see me. I can go on and on.