Opportunity

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  When I got back from the school I went to my studio. I'd studied photography at art school, and I had ambitions. I wanted to publish a book of my work, to exhibit. In the meantime I did regular freelance work for magazines and papers. That morning I was going to pick the best from a series of pictures I'd taken of a writer, to go with an interview in a magazine.

  The doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang twice more. I went to the door.

  Gerald Francis was walking away from the door. He made a play of 'stopping in his tracks', his expression arch, faintly self-righteous. Telling me he'd known all the time I was inside.

  He was a wiry, grey man, aged about fifty. He had intent eyes behind tinted glasses, thin arms and hands all knotted with veins, and one of those beards that grow only around the chin, not on the cheeks. He lived alone in a big peach-coloured bungalow on the other side of our drive. I said hello to him on the street most days. I had the impression of someone heavily, secretly preoccupied. He was always looking beyond, around, checking for data. He noted number-plates of cars that came down the street. He had told me he kept an eye on things. I could be confident that if any burglars were around, he'd be on to them.

  I wasn't pleased to see him. I had things to do.

  'Hi, Gerald,' I said. I looked at the photograph I was holding in my hand.

  'You can shorten it to Gerry.'

  He said this mechanically, like something he'd learnt.

  'Gerry.'

  He was carrying a book. He thought for a moment, turning it over in his hands. He walked inside suddenly, without asking if he could. Taken by surprise, I stood aside, then followed him in. He put the book on the table.

  He pointed at it. 'I thought it was time I showed you.'

  It was a thick hard-cover journal, bound in dark green, with gold leaf.

  He jigged up and down, wringing his sinewy hands.

  'There are two of us in the street now,' he said quietly. He ducked to the window and looked out, then veered back to the table.

  'Two of us . . .'

  'Artists. You and me.'

  'Oh.' I stared. 'I'm a photographer.'

  'I've seen your work. Mine is in here.' He pointed to the book again.

  'Your work.'

  He nodded, squeezing his hands together. The veins stood out on his forearms. He swallowed, blinked, swallowed. He couldn't keep still.

  'I've put a collection together,' he said.

  'I can't really . . .' I protested. 'I haven't got . . .'

  He stopped moving. He looked at me.

  'Is it . . . are they photographs?' I tried to think of an excuse.

  'You'll see.'

  'Leave it with me,' I said. 'Leave it here and I'll have a good look at it.' It seemed necessary to say more. 'I'll study it.'

  His eyes, behind the tinted glasses, were fixed on me. 'Study it,' he repeated.

  I nodded.

  He smiled. There were gaps between his teeth. I looked at his wide, thin mouth, the damp lips above the straggly tufts of grey beard. There was something wrong with his smile.

  'Study,' he said. 'Collaborate.' He ducked to the window and looked out.

  'Right, Gerald. Gerry.'

  He jigged from one foot to the other, staring. He said rapidly, 'Your father is a well-known architect, Peter Davis. Your mother owns the furniture store at 4/38 Teed Street. Julie Davis. Your husband is the newsreader, Roysmith. Your sister is an English professor. Rachel. You have two daughters, aged five and three. You hold strong views, politically. What an interesting family.'

  A long, curly lock of his hair had come loose. He took hold of it and smoothed it down over his bald head.

  I looked at the floor. I said, with effort, 'Actually, Rachel's not a professor. She's a junior lecturer.'

  'Ah. Siblings!'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Ah.'

  'What do you mean about political views?'

  He looked sly. 'I heard you. Last night. On the deck.'

  'Oh, we had a little argument,' I said weakly.

  He stepped closer. I could hear the rasp of his skin as he rubbed his dry hands. He looked pious, crafty. 'My own family isn't nearly so interesting. Just ordinary, hard-working people. We've had a few minor successes. In the legal profession . . .'

  'I thought you were a photographer,' I said rudely.

  The phone rang.

  I went towards it. 'I've been waiting for this call; it's important.'

  Holding the cordless phone, I managed to waft him towards the door, frowning and nodding as if there was someone important on the line. I thought he was going to stand on the doorstep listening to me talk. I gave him a thumbs-up sign and, nodding, slowly closed the door.

  Rachel said, 'Are you there?'

  'Wait a minute.'

  I ran up to my room and looked out. He was standing by his car, writing in a notebook.

  'Sorry. The man from next door . . .'

  I told her. She laughed. 'What about last night? Will he ever speak to us again?'

  'Probably not.'

  'Oh well. Go and have a look at his book.'

  I went down and got it. I turned the pages. I was silent, looking at it.

  'What's it like?' she asked.

  'It's horrible,' I said.

  ***

  When I was a child I reacted strongly to visual things. I particularly hated clusters. There was a kind of sea-egg that got washed up on the beach: pods with bunched compartments like wasps' nests. I couldn't bear to look at them. I didn't like multiples. Even recently, when the children watched a movie called Monsters Inc, I turned away from it, disgusted by the cartoon monsters' multiple eyes.

  When I turned the pages of Gerald Francis's book I felt the same kind of revulsion. It was a very odd book he'd put together. There were about a hundred pages, which he'd had printed and elaborately bound. The first section was got up as a family history. There was a text, written by Gerald — odd, disjointed, full of non-sequiturs but more or less understandable. It started with the first Francis to come from England to New Zealand, and worked its way to the present day. There were photographs of early Francises, and of members of the families they'd married into. The tone was proud. 'Mr Justice Francis, recognised in the profession as an extraordinary intellect, was destined to marry a great beauty, Agnes, eldest daughter of the esteemed Ronald Rowntree, of brewery fame.'

  The Francises had made quite a mark. There were three Justice Francises of different generations, also barristers and businessmen. They seemed to have had, as the text tirelessly reiterated, the knack of marrying into families just as wealthy and accomplished as their own.

  On the last page of the first section Gerald had allowed space for himself. His biography and photograph were by way of introduction to the second half, which was a presentation of his 'artistic work'. It was the second section that I reacted badly to. It suggested things to me: unwholesomeness, madness.

  I read the biography. Gerald Arthur Francis was fifty-one. He was educated at King's School, then Auckland University, where he studied sciences. There was no mention of his having achieved any degree. There was a series of fudging sentences ('world travel', 'commercial ventures') before he turned up 'a partner in his father's shipping business'. He had, 'like many Francises, shown artistic talent from an early age', and, 'having retired from a successful life in the family firm, was able to answer his artistic calling'. There was a full-page black and white photograph of him, intensely smiling, a gleam of moisture on his lip.

  I turned to the photographs, which had been professionally reproduced, some in colour and some in black and white. They were accompanied by a text, stranger and more disorganised than that of the first section, in which Gerald detailed his preoccupations. As a boy he had been fascinated by the natural world. Insects were a great craze of his. There followed some arid portraits of unfortunate creatures. A fly on a leaf. A weta with a broken leg, as if he'd mangled it while trying to pose it. A splayed cicada on a white background
. He had been, according to his text, a youth with a love of poetry, 'aware of growing feelings for the ladies.' There was a picture of a girl standing by a tree, looking anxious. I wondered, with an uneasy snigger, whether he'd tied her to it. The picture was called Untamed. (I rolled my eyes.)

  Further on, he'd got more inventive. There were pictures of women's faces, distorted so that they appeared to have more than two eyes. Some had three eyes; some had six. There were bitter titles: Deception. Trickery. A stuffed toy sat on a chair in an empty room. (Loneliness.) There was a brief attempt at birds, unfocused, blurry, quickly abandoned, perhaps, because he couldn't catch them before photographing them. (Freedom. Flight.) The last untitled section was a long burst of walls, rooftops and gardens, the neighbourhood he would see from his own house. I recognised our roof and part of our bathroom skylight. There were some unfocused, neutral shots of women playing tennis on the courts below our house, and then there was a long series of windows.

  It was trite, and the text was mad. I didn't know which I disliked more, the manhandled insects or the distorted women's faces. Francis, I learned, had a 'growing reputation', both in New Zealand and overseas. At the end of the book was a page of endorsements. Boyce Drown, a 'well-known figure in the art world', praised the originality of Francis's work. His former art teacher, Mrs Craig Barrymore, was quoted as saying, 'Of all my pupils, Gerald Francis was the one with the spark.' And performance artist and poet Aslan D. Basmac praised 'Gerald Francis's absolute dedication to his craft'.

  It was sad; of his distinguished family, he was obviously the non-achiever, the oddball. With his 'book' he sought to include himself in the Francis pantheon, as a great artist.

  It was sad but it presented me with a problem: what was I to say when I gave the book back?

  'Just chuck it back, say, "Maarvellous", and dash off quick,' Scott said. 'Simple.' He never had a problem with that kind of thing.

  'What a nightmare,' Rachel had said, laughing on the phone.

  'I said I'd "study" it,' I said. 'Oh, God.'

  ***

  I put off having to meet him. I walked the girls down the side of the neighbours' tennis court on the way to school, to avoid his house. He would know I was evading him. I kept away from him for two days. Meanwhile the book lay, resplendent in its green and gold binding, on our coffee table.

  I was heading for the shortcut when I saw him standing by the wire fence. He was holding a camera. He saw me. I hesitated, but I couldn't turn away now he'd seen me. I hustled the girls on.

  I said, 'Hello! I must give you your book.'

  The girls looked up, surprised by my tone.

  'You've had a chance to . . .'

  'It's very interesting,' I said.

  He drew me aside, glancing at the girls. He put his head on one side and said, in a sanctimonious whisper, 'We're pretty straightforward, the Francises. Just an ordinary working family. Nothing fancy. Nowhere near as accomplished as your people.' He looked sideways.

  'We're not all that wonderful,' I said, edging away.

  'Thank you for taking the time . . .' he came closer, '. . . to study my work.'

  'It's a pleasure. I'll pop it in your letterbox.'

  He came closer still. 'Now that we understand each other . . .'

  I knew what he was going to say.

  'If you would just put pen to paper. Your thoughts on my work would be greatly appreciated.'

  'You mean to stick in the endorsements bit?' I couldn't hide how I felt.

  'We artists . . .'

  'I'm just a freelance photographer. I take pictures for the Listener. My opinion's not important.'

  'People know your work. And perhaps your husband might care to . . .'

  'We're running late for school.'

  I'd exhausted what little cool I had. I pushed the girls ahead. At the end of the path I turned. He was looking after us, lowering his camera, as if he'd just taken a picture of us hurrying away.

  I said to Scott, 'He wants you to put a word in too.'

  'Well, that's easy. I'll just tell him I've got no eye. I'm the visual equivalent of tone deaf.'

  'He's probably listened to you doing arts programmes on the radio.'

  'Don't worry about it. Don't complicate things. Just put the book in his box and if he asks for more go all vague.'

  The next day I put the book in an envelope and left it in Gerald's letterbox.

  It was Saturday. In the afternoon I was trying to free a kite that Sophie and Sarah had got tangled around the struts of the back deck. I had to hang off the deck to get at it. I ripped my fingernail on the nylon, and fell down onto the grass below. The nail was agony.

  'Oh, fuck fuck fuck.'

  Scott leaned out the top window. 'What are you doing?'

  'I've broken my bloody nail.'

  'Jesus!' Scott slammed the window. He was trying to work.

  I lay on the grass. I looked up. Gerald was standing on his balcony. He had his camera hung around his neck. He was standing very still.

  'There's no need for that kind of language,' he said. Gerald was sitting in his red hatchback at the top of the drive. I hurried, hoping to get by, but he got out of the car. He had his camera around his neck.

  He said, 'Have you seen the crime stats? There were two burglaries in this street last week.' He tapped the camera. 'Any strange cars that stop, I make a note. Any suspicious behaviour. Someone's got to keep an eye out.'

  'We're lucky we've got you to do it.' I looked away.

  'No one else is going to, are they?'

  I didn't say anything.

  He came closer. 'I like to help people. Most people don't help others. They can't be bothered.'

  'No.'

  'I'm not trying to save the world. Not like you and your sister. Goodness me. You've got some big ideas. Quite impressive. I hope I can play a small part. In a quiet way.' He jigged and stared, squeezing his hands together. 'They talk about community. But who cares any more?'

  He looked at Sophie and Sarah. 'Where are the values?' he said.

  I said goodbye. We walked away. I didn't turn around. I wondered whether he was taking our picture. When we were out of earshot I swung the girls' hands and laughed.

  ***

  Sarah had turned six. We had a birthday party with ten of her friends. It went well, but afterwards she was overwrought. She couldn't find one of her presents and she stood on the deck, screaming that we'd taken it away from her. Sophie was upset too, and set up a wail, then she fell and banged her head on the rail. We managed to soothe them both and get them into bed.

  That evening Scott and I sat on the deck drinking wine. We were tired and we ended up having an argument. It blew up out of nothing. I said something negative about his family. He said something bad about mine. I was angry; he marched upstairs shouting at me to 'Fuck off'. I swore back.

  The next morning we made it up and peace reigned until I discovered that Sarah had headlice, which she'd caught at school twice already. We had to go to the chemist for the special shampoo and wash her hair, which made her wail loudly, and comb her with the nit comb, which made her scream.

  I sat on the floor with her, soothing her.

  'God. It's a war zone,' Scott said. He smiled wearily, holding Sophie in his arms. He kissed the top of her head.

  We went to the beach. In a café the woman behind the counter said to Scott, 'Oh, hello!' Then she realised she only knew him from TV. She laughed and blushed. He was charming with her. He shook her hand, and showed off the girls. She praised their beauty and charm.

  'Lovely to meet you. Marvellous,' he told her as we left.

  It was a beautiful day, and we stayed on the beach most of the afternoon.

  When we got back Gerald was sitting in his car, writing in his notebook. Scott waved, but Gerald only stared.

  ***

  Gerald was bobbing about at the top of the drive. He came towards us. My car was at the garage. I was going to take Sophie to the doctor in Scott's car, then pick Sarah
up from school. I saw him point his camera.

  I was struggling to carry Sophie and my bag and some gear of Sarah's. 'Hello,' I said.

  He smiled. He hunched his shoulders. He looked as though he was bursting with a delicious secret.

  'Have you just taken my picture?' I sounded more aggressive than I'd intended. I was harassed. Sophie was feverish. She started to cry. She'd been throwing up all morning.

  He said, mechanically, 'Do you think the police come?'

  'What?'

  'If there's a burglary . . . They don't come. Someone has to collect the evidence.'

  'Why is a picture of me evidence?'

  He rocked with a sudden funny little laugh. 'Oh ho. You think people want to photograph you. Because your family's so interesting.'

  I felt ridiculous. 'Did you take my picture or not?'

  He looked beyond me. His expression changed. He began waving, robotically, like a man on the tarmac directing a plane. A council car stopped at the kerb. Behind it, a tow-truck pulled in and parked.

  Scott's car was where he'd left it the night before, parked crooked and partly blocking the drive, although there was room to come in and out. A company driver had picked him up that morning.

  Gerald frowned. He assumed an official, severe tone. 'This is the vehicle,' he said to the warden. He pointed at Scott's car. At the warden's signal the towie got out and began to fiddle with the car window.

  I hitched Sophie up on my hip and lumbered over. 'That's my car. What are you doing?'

  'It's an illegal park,' the warden said.

  I rounded on Gerald. 'Did you ring them? Why?'

  'Take your medication,' he said, looking slyly up at the sky.

  'I'll move the car.'

  The warden nodded and gestured at the towie, who got back in his truck and drove away.

  'I'll still have to write a ticket.'