I am also fretting about the diplomacy issue. The truth is I’m painfully honest and when I say painful I really mean it. If he turns up in an orange shirt and asks me if it looks good I’m going to tell him straight up he resembles a shrink-wrapped chorizo. I am extremely liable to tell the unwashed that they need to shower down because their hair is starting to resemble seaweed. Worse, I may ask a man with halitosis to open wide so the coroner can back his van in to remove whatever’s decomposing. I am hoping against hope that he has none of these issues or myriad others that could lead me to say something massively offensive on my mission to change his world. That would be bad.
I also find I really want to help these men. Having been on my own for almost three years I know how it feels to be crushed by loneliness. I have spent my fair share of days in my pyjamas and onesie (sexy I know) crying into a carton of Ben and Jerry’s (even sexier – snot is SUCH a good look on me...) because I miss being held. Of all the things I missed most about having a guy in my life it wasn’t the talking or the company, it was that quiet hour when you’re lying in bed, halfway between waking and sleeping, when the world is hushed and dark and your man has his arms around you and right then, right there, it’s the safest and warmest place on earth. I firmly believe it’s intrinsically tied in to a woman’s self-worth. Being held as though you are a precious item, a porcelain doll, an unwrapped Easter egg...it makes you FEEL precious.
I assume (possibly wrongly) that the reverse is true for men. I wonder if holding a woman in their arms makes them feel they have something of worth in their life and therefore they are worthy by default? I suspect it makes them feel manly. This here is my woman and I will defend her against all takers because I AM MAN, hear me roar. Cue gorilla-like beating of chests and the firm belief that a spray of Lynx will indeed be the siren call to all those beauties. To not have a woman, then, does this make men feel lonely and emasculated? Would they admit it if it did? How deep do I need to dig into the psychology of this to help these guys? Are we talking just the 6 feet required to exhume and resurrect their mojo or are we going all the way to China to turn their worlds upside down?
Only one way to find out. Roll on tomorrow and Project 1.
Elise spent a few moments tidying up the grammar and editing some of the sentences before spending a subsequent half hour agonising over every word in case they thought it was too crazy or totally unfunny. She went and had a long lunch and then came back to it but there was nothing else to write at this early stage so eventually she bit the bullet and attached it to an email, pressing send before she could change her mind and screw herself up about it anymore.
She tried to watch some tv while she waited for a response but was too nervous and ended up pacing restlessly about the apartment. Her inbox finally pinged at half past six and she rushed to the computer to open the email. It was from Taylor and all it had was two words: “It’s fine.”
She slumped in her chair deflated. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting but at the very least it had involved constructive criticism. And ‘fine’ wasn’t exactly a resounding endorsement of her work. Her cursor hovered over the reply button but she didn’t know what to say or even where to start. He was totally different here to how he was in Scotland and, even given her reservations about his reasons for apologising, she just couldn’t believe he could be such a totally different person. Her phone rang and, looking at the caller ID, she felt her worries melting away. Nathan was obviously home from work and as she answered the phone she shut her lap top and ignored the email from her boss. Life was too short to worry about someone so obviously shallow.
The following morning she got up bright and early and chose her outfit carefully. Nothing too casual but nothing too business-like either. She wanted this man to be relaxed in her company so he would open up to her. They met at mid-morning in a coffee shop not far from his house and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as she had been expecting.
Sure he wasn’t all that in the looks department but he was wearing a very dapper and plainly expensive business suit that made the most of what he had. Unfortunately that was where the positives ended. It seemed his internet dating experiences had made him eminently bitter.
“I’m tired of it.” He complained. “I’m tired of the rejections and the snooty girls who send you one email and then you never hear from them again. It’s plain rude. I keep meaning to delete my profile but then they called me about you and I figured it couldn’t be any worse than what I’ve already been through. But this is it. Once I’ve done this I am through with internet dating.”
He continued in the same vein for the entire duration of their coffee house visit and, despite her best attempts to get him to open up about himself, Elise left the cafe with him knowing nothing more than she had when they’d arrived. She had discovered he was in banking but although it made him a lot of money it wasn’t a job he was happy in. He just did it to pay the bills. To hear him talk about it he didn’t do anything with his free time and his group of friends was limited to other wealthy bachelors who spent a lot of time drinking and playing poker. It was depressing.
In an effort to learn more about him Elise asked if she could visit his home. He agreed and they walked up the street and round the corner into a leafy suburb with large townhouses set back from the road.
“This is a beautiful area.” She commented politely as he pushed through a gate and walked up a pathway through a very bland front garden. To her astonishment he actually showed some enthusiasm.
“It is and it changes every season. In autumn the leaves go the most amazing colours and sometimes in the winter when we get snow it’s like going back in time. Check out that old Victorian lamppost!” He let them in the front door and went to hang his jacket up. “Go take a look around.” He called back to her. “Would you like a drink?”
“A glass of water would be lovely thanks!” She called back and wandered from the hallway through into a beautifully appointed living room. It was tastefully decorated in shades of grey and it should have been cold but it wasn’t. A massive bay window at one end of the room filled it with light and the colours totally complimented a range of black and white photographs that were displayed all around the walls.
Stepping up for a closer look Elise was impressed – they had clearly been chosen by someone with an interest in art and humanity. “These are beautiful!” She told him when he came back into the room with her water. “Where did you get them from?”
He suddenly looked awkward. “Well, that one I took in Thailand...”
For a brief moment yesterday morning I thought I was doomed to fail. I met Mark, my Project 1, for coffee and for a whole hour I battered pointlessly at his barriers, trying to get through to see the man underneath. I failed. I was torn between a mildly misplaced anger at him for refusing to help himself and a weird kind of sad rage at the people who had made him so. He was so down on himself I almost suggested that counselling might be more appropriate than dating. Almost.
In a last ditch attempt to find out something about him I suggested he take me to see his house. It made me realise even more why he has been such a failure on the dating front. No sane or self-respecting woman would take on such a monstrous mothering project by doing something so utterly unsafe as visiting a total stranger’s home on the first date unless she was having a moment of madness. Or she was doing a feature on it. I didn’t have any choice but to persist.
Imagine my astonishment when I walk through the front door and everywhere in the house are these incredible photographs. I instantly assume that he has purchased National Geographic prints or they are from some famous photographer and he is amassing an heirloom collection. More out of fascination than politeness (because I just knew I wouldn’t be able to afford them) I asked him where he got them from and just about died of shock when he admitted he had taken them. These incredible photographs...every one of them was his and each came with a story.
I was utterly floored. I didn’t know whether t
o sing the Hallelujah chorus, weep for joy that there was finally something I could use or lambast him for being such an idiot. In that moment he was transformed in my eyes into one of the most astonishing people I have ever met.
I look at him and it makes my heart swell. I firmly believe that anyone who can see such beauty in the ordinary, who can look at the heart of a thing and see how extraordinary it is, no matter how ugly on the outside, must have such a well of beauty within themselves that to see the world through their eyes must be both dazzling and humbling. I found my mind whispering poetry within itself about seeing the world in a grain of sand. If I were a religious person I would say that he showed me the hand of God moving in all His creations. His pictures are taken with a sweet innocence that strips down everything he photographs to its soul and leaves the viewer’s heart aching with awe. It was an incredible experience.
When I asked him why he had not mentioned his photography in his profile, or indeed his far-reaching and extensive passion for travelling, he looked around at the pictures and his shoulders slumped. He said he’d been told they weren’t very good. It turns out that he has never had training and in the hopes of achieving some constructive criticism he had put one or two of his favourite pictures onto an online photography forum. They had been roundly and thoroughly rubbished by a group of snobbish, perfectionist and soulless idiots interested in nothing but preserving their own careers and reputations. It seemed to me that in looking for the minutiae they had totally missed the raw and breathtaking power of the whole.
I was raging and in that moment I realised that I wanted to defend this man. I wanted to promote him, befriend him, be there for him and find him happiness because some deep part of me was inspired by him. He has shown me, in more ways than one, that a book should never be judged by its cover. I am ashamed now of the time I spent thinking him bland and a failure and I have learned a valuable lesson today. For that I will always be grateful.
So I have my starting point for reconstruction – I am taking a real photographer with nothing to lose to his house to see his pictures and who can give him an honest opinion of his works. I have also allocated him homework – he has to write me a list of his top ten favourite countries to visit and why. He has to give me opinions on the languages and foods as well as the culture and history. It’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with. I suspect I may be surprised.
If I can get him to have some faith in himself then, ladies and gents, I believe we are onto a winner.
Elise typed the last line, read it through once and then attached it to an email, sending it off without a second thought. As it vanished from her outbox she called the office directly and requested to speak to the photography department. After almost half an hour of transferred calls and negotiations she had herself a professional photographer who had been in the field for years who was prepared to take some time out of his day the next day to come with her to Mark’s house to appraise his photographs.
That settled she was wondering what to do next when the buzzer rang. Picking up the phone by the door she said hello and burst out laughing when she discovered it was Nathan pretending to be a pizza delivery guy. She let him up and they sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen demolishing pizza with a couple of glasses of red wine.
He told her about his day at the library, which had been surprisingly action-packed, and then asked how her day had gone. She told him all about Mark, all about the pictures and how she planned to try and make him have a little more faith in himself. He made her read him her blog entry and then he took her to bed.
After they had made love he held her in his arms, stroking her hair absently with one hand as they lay in the darkness and silence. When his hand stilled she thought he had gone to sleep but then he let out a deep breath.
“You’re a dangerous woman Elise Waterford.” He said softly. “You were right about how being able to see something beautiful in the ordinary makes you beautiful within yourself but I don’t think you realise how the same applies to you.”
The next day Elise turned up on Mark’s doorstep with the photographer at 10am. He was home having taken the week off work for the feature and he looked nervous as he invited them in. Elise was hoping and praying that her gamble was going to pay off and wouldn’t push him even further into his pit of self-hatred but she needn’t have worried.
The photographer, confusingly also called Mark, stopped dead in the middle of the living room and his eyes widened as he turned on the spot, scanning the walls as he took in the pictures. Elise touched a finger to her lips and pulled Project 1 out of the way so the photographer could absorb the full effect. Project 1 clearly had no idea how spectacular the impact of his pictures as a collection was and he watched in confusion as the photographer turned on the spot gazing at each picture in turn. He did a full three rounds of the room before he turned back to them. His face was a little pale.
“You took all of these yourself?” He asked faintly and Project 1 nodded.
“Not all with the same camera or in the same country but yeah, they’re all mine.”
“And you’ve had no training?” There was an element of disbelief in the photographer’s voice and Elise could see project 1 was getting defensive.
“Only a few things I read on the internet. I know I’ve got to improve but-“
“They’re incredible.” The photographer shook his head and project 1 was, for the moment, shocked into silence. “Journalists win Pulitzers with photographs like these.” He gaped at Elise’s favourite picture of a young boy emerging from the sea. Small droplets of water rested on his eye lashes like tiny jewels and the water streaming on his skin gave him a weirdly ethereal luminescent look. “I’ve seen National Geographic pictures that aren’t this good.” They waited in silence while he did another full turn of the room and then Elise took control.
“If he wanted to learn more about the technique where would he go and what would he do?” She asked and the photographer focused on her slowly.
“I can recommend some excellent technical courses but the truth is I think we should pitch to a gallery.” He looked at Mark. “Would you like to come visit my studio?”
“What do you mean pitch to a gallery?” Elise asked before Project 1 could answer.
“He’s got a gift.” The photographer shrugged. “It’s not just the taking of the pictures or the pictures themselves...it’s the collection, the way they’re presented, the way they take your breath away when you walk into the room. Couldn’t you see an exhibition of these in a gallery?” His face lit up with enthusiasm. “Imagine a series of smaller ones like these and maybe a couple blown up onto canvas sized glossy.” Elise struggled to picture it in her head and the photographer sighed. “Have you ever bought a professional photograph?” He asked, clearly trying a different tack, and she shook her head. “Okay, if you had to guess, how much would you pay for one of these pictures?”
At that Elise had to grin. “That was one of the first things I thought when I saw them yesterday, that I wouldn’t be able to afford them.”
“Well there you are.” He turned to project 1. “How many pictures do you have? Have you got a portfolio?”
Project 1 looked embarrassed. “No I haven’t. I’ve got lots more though. These are my favourites but I have a few up in every room.” That took them on a tour of the house. They looked at photographs for almost an hour and Elise didn’t even get bored. Each room was like a new adventure.
When they finally made it back to the living room the photographer turned to project 1. “How do you store these? Are they digital or old-school?”
“A mix of both.” Project 1 shrugged. “When I started I was using film. Now I mostly go digital unless it’s for a special project.”
The photographer scratched his head and shook his shoulders out. “Look, this might seem a little presumptuous of me but my studio does consulting in various photographical fields. If you were prepared to pay us a consultancy fee and bring everything you have i
n we’ll help you get set up with a proper portfolio of your work and then our agents can work on pitching them to galleries and publications. Is that something you’d be interested in?”
Project 1 was astonished. “I’d love to! Obviously we’d have to figure out details and costs but yes...that’s definitely something I’d be interested in.”
“Great.” The photographer pulled a business card out of his pocket, scribbled his mobile number on the back and handed it to project 1. “I’m out all afternoon but I’ll be in the studio tomorrow. Call me first thing on any of these numbers to work out the small print and I might be able to fit you in for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon.”
“I will.” Project 1 accepted the business card and the photographer left. When the door was closed, Mark turned to Elise with the hugest grin on his face and she pointed at it.
“You see this face? This is what I want to see more of, you hear me? Now, go and get the homework I set you and the proper work will begin...”
Summer Loving Page 6
