The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  Whichever it is, she decides that she doesn’t much like it. She gives up on there ever being a pause in their argument and holds the coffee cup out in front of him. “Here, Tony,” she says, loudly. “I made you this.”

  Tony falters momentarily but quickly returns to his monologue, saying, “And... and... anyway, Atlee isn’t a communist, so whether things got better or worse when he got in is neither here nor there. You’re comparing oranges and lemons, Hugh.”

  “Apples and oranges,” Hugh says. “It’s apples and oranges, my friend.”

  “Is it?” Tony asks, finally turning to face Barbara.

  “I don’t think it matters,” she says. “Here.” She waves the coffee cup in front of his nose again.

  Tony wobbles his head slightly and then, with apparent difficulty, focusses on the cup. “I don’t want coffee, woman,” he says. “Why would I want coffee?”

  “I thought it might sober you up a bit,” Barbara says softly. “I think you’ve maybe had enough to drink, sweetheart.”

  Tony raises his eyebrows almost to his hairline in an exaggerated grimace of surprise, then turns to face Hugh, who grins broadly in reply. “She thinks I’ve had too much to drink,” Tony slurrs.

  Hugh pulls a funny, confused face and looks at Barbara. “But your husband’s never had too much to drink,” he laughs. “Didn’t you know that?”

  “That’s right!” Tony says, now pointing an oscillating finger at Hugh. “Now take that horrid stuff away,” he tells Barbara, “and bring me a beer!”

  As he says this, he gives her a push. The gesture, she understands, is meant to be comic, but because he is so very drunk, he miscalculates and his hand collides with her elbow. Coffee slops out of the cup and down the front of her dress. “Oh!” Barbara gasps. “No!”

  She runs through to the kitchen, places the dripping cup on the drainer and grabs a tea-towel and then a dish-cloth as she attempts to remove the coffee stain from her chest. But the stain just seems to deepen and spread. “Oh God, no! Please, not now, not today,” she mutters.

  “Is that wool or synthetic?”

  Barbara turns to see Tony’s mother standing in the doorway. “Yes,” she replies. “Yes, it’s brushed wool.”

  “Then you need to rinse it out right now if you don’t want it to stain.”

  “It’s only coffee,” Barbara says.

  “Yes. It’ll stain if you don’t wash it right now.”

  “But it’s my wedding dress.”

  “Wedding dress or not, it’ll still stain, love,” Joan tells her. “I had a woollen dress like that once and I spilt wine on it. I never got to wear it again. And I always wished I had been quick–”

  “But it’s my wedding day,” Barbara interrupts.

  “I can lend you a cardie or a shawl to hide it, or you can take it off and wash it. But it’ll stain. Believe me. I know, because, as I said, I had a woollen top like that once, and once the stain dries in, you’ll never get it out.”

  Barbara bites her tongue and squeezes her eyes to hold back a sudden and unexpected urge to cry. This is the nicest item of clothing she has ever had. It’s made from the most expensive material she has ever bought.

  “Wash it quickly is my advice,” Joan repeats.

  “Perhaps... Can you lend me something?”

  Joan nods. “Of course I can, love. Come upstairs and–”

  “Something nice? Can we find something nice? I can’t look awful, not today.”

  “Yes. Come upstairs,” she says. “We’ll see what we can find.”

  Joan is not a wealthy woman and neither is she of a frivolous or a spendthrift nature. Nowhere is this more evident than in her wardrobe which contains a series of sturdy, practical dresses, a number of easy-to-launder housecoats, and a few once-pretty, now hopelessly outdated forties’ frocks.

  Barbara’s heart sinks the second Joan opens the door. “They’re lovely,” she lies, fingering a pink, floral frock, “But maybe I will just keep this on after all.”

  “Don’t be silly, love,” Joan says. ‘You’re family now. There’s no need to be shy. Just choose whichever one suits you best. What about this?” She grabs the hem of a vamp-cuffed Rayon crepe dress and pulls it forwards so that Barbara can see it in all its splendour.

  “No... really...”

  “Or that?” Joan says, pointing at a flouncy number with a yoked bodice and a pleated skirt. “That’s lovely, that is. It’s made of parachute silk.” She starts to reach for the hanger.

  “No... um... how about that one?” Barbara splutters, desperately pointing at the only non-floral, non-lacy, non-pleated item visible.

  “This?” Joan says, sliding hangers along the rail until she can get to the blue trimmed white dress in the corner.

  And only now, only as she pulls it from the rack, does Barbara understand what she has chosen; only now does she understand the full horror of an outfit that is more fancy dress than fashion statement.

  “I haven’t worn this since I was a girl,” Joan says. “But you’re right, it’s younger. It’s probably more your size too.” She thrusts the sailor dress against Barbara and it fills the air with the scent of naphthalene mothballs.

  “Oh, maybe not,” Barbara says softly, turning back to the wardrobe disconsolately.

  “Try it on,” Joan insists. “Come on. I bet you’ll look smashing.” She pushes the dress into Barbara’s arms. “I’ve got the matching sailor hat somewhere too,” she says.

  “I don’t want it,” Barbara says.

  “I’m sure it’s here.”

  “I don’t want it!” Barbara repeats more loudly, shocking even herself with her abrupt tone. “I’ll ask Glenda for something.”

  Joan freezes and glares at her. “If you don’t like my clothes, then…” She looks wounded. She looks upset. She looks angry, in fact.

  Barbara capitulates. “Actually this is fine,” she says. “This is, um, lovely. I just meant that I don’t want the hat. That’s all. I never wear hats.”

  Joan chews the inside of her mouth and looks at Barbara doubtfully.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit upset about this coffee stain,” Barbara offers.

  “Of course you are,” Joan says, her features softening. “Your lovely dress. You poor thing. So slip it off quick and I’ll get it soaking for you.”

  The sailor dress, to Barbara’s horror, fits. It’s rigid and scratchy and a tiny bit too short. She’s not actually showing yet but she’s been thinner, so it’s a little tight across the chest too. But basically, undeniably, sadly, it fits. Dressed as a sailor girl, Barbara feels absurd, but with her own dress whisked away and, within seconds, soaking in a bucket of water, there’s truly no going back.

  As she edges to the bottom of the stairs in her new outfit, she sees that Tony, Diane, James and Hugh are now dancing the Conga around the dining room table. The room seems somehow to be too full of noise and music and drunken laughter to still contain any air and she fears, irrationally, that she will suffocate if she enters, so she heads through to the kitchen instead, where Glenda is as ever smoking, whilst picking at the remains of the food.

  “What on earth are you wearing?” Glenda says the second she looks up.

  “Please don’t,” Barbara says. “This is all I could find. You haven’t got a spare dress with you, have you? Tony spilt coffee over me.”

  Glenda shakes her head. “Sorry sis,” she says. “I haven’t. But that’s really not a good look for you. You look like a port-side tart. She must have something better than that.”

  Finding herself unable to breathe even here in the kitchen, Barbara turns and runs for the front door. Scrunching up her features to avoid tears, she steps outside and slams the door behind her. A woman and child, walking past, turn to look at her (of course, there are people outside the house too, of course there are!) and she feels so self conscious, here, now, in Eastbourne, in this stupid sailor dress, that she can barely walk. She reaches down to pull the hem lower and begins to march down
the street, watched, she can sense it, by the woman and the child behind her.

  It is dusk, and seagulls are circling overhead. The air is fresh and smells of iodine and she suddenly remembers that she is at the seaside and, despite it all, her panic lifts a little, due to the simple fact that at least she now knows where to go. She turns into Beach Road and heads towards the seafront.

  A man, busy squeegeeing the windows of a pub, whistles at her as she approaches and calls out, “Hello Sailor!”

  “Oh... sod off!” Barbara mutters, her voice wobbling. The man freezes and his squeegee drips, and his cheeky grin fades and is replaced by an expression of concern. “You alright, darlin’?” he asks as she stomps on by.

  When she reaches the beach, the sun is setting, shifting orange, then red as it slides into the sea. A young man gives her the once-over as he walks past and she thinks about the fact that there will be even more people on the pier than anywhere else, that on the pier she’ll look like some kind of prop – like some kind of tourist attraction – so she turns to walk the other way instead. But then realising that the young man might think she’s following him, she stops and sits on a bench instead. She wrings her hands, stares at her feet and tries to calm her racing heart – tries, quite simply, to breathe.

  “Babs?”

  She looks up to see Minnie standing over her.

  “What are you doing here on your own?” her mother asks, concernedly.

  “Oh Mum!” Barbara says. Never has she been so happy to see her mother.

  As Barbara’s features crumple, her mother hitches up her coat and slides onto the bench beside her. “Oh love,” Minnie says, putting her arm around her. “Whatever has happened? And what on earth are you wearing?”

  Barbara takes a deep gulp of the sea air and then the words come tumbling out. “Tony’s drunk and dancing with Diane and he spilt coffee all down my dress and so now I have to wear this stupid thing and I feel utterly, utterly stupid in it and I wish I’d never...” She stops short. She can hear herself sounding like a five year old and she knows Minnie doesn’t react well to such displays of immaturity.

  Minnie tips her head from side to side as she appraises her. “You don’t look ridiculous, love,” she tells her. “It’s just a bit surprising, is all.”

  Barbara looks at her mother from the corner of one eye. “I look ridiculous,” she repeats.

  Minnie sighs. “Actually, you know who you do look like? Lucy Loop!”

  Barbara smiles a little despite herself.

  “You do! Really,” Minnie says, encouraged.

  “But I don’t want to spend my wedding day looking like Lucy Loop,” Barbara moans.

  “No, I’m sure. I had a bloody awful old thing on my wedding day,” Minnie tells her daughter, a confession specifically designed to calm her down. “It was my aunt’s old wedding dress, horrid old-fashioned thing it was. Looked like it was from a museum or something, all lace and frills. And, you know, yellow. You know the way lace goes yellow with age? Well it was yellow like that. I hated that bleedin’ dress.”

  Barbara sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, prompting Minnie to pull a handkerchief from her pocket. “I didn’t know that,” Barbara says. “You never told me about your wedding day.”

  “It was rotten, really,” Minnie says. “That’s the trouble with weddings. All that expectation, ain’t it? It rained like in the Bible and that horrid dress went all see-through and I was convinced everyone could see me knickerbockers underneath. And then Dad had a bust up with Pop – that’s Seamus’ father – and then Seamus punched him out.”

  “Really?”

  Minnie nods. “Even though he was a boxer, he just punched him out.”

  “He hit your dad?”

  “No, he hit Pop. His own father. Knocked him out cold.”

  “God, Mum. That must have been awful.”

  “Pop was too drunk to stand anyway. He didn’t even hurt himself I don’t think. Fell over like a feather. They never hurt themselves when they’re drunk. More’s the pity.”

  “Tony’s drunk too,” Barbara confides. “I tried to make him coffee like you said but he didn’t want it.”

  Minnie sighs again and squeezes her daughter’s shoulder. “It’s what men do. It’s what they do at weddings, love. He’ll pay for it tomorrow. Just be really chirpy in the morning. It drives them mad, that does.”

  “Why didn’t Dad come back?” Barbara suddenly asks, aware only once the words have left her lips that she has spoken the forbidden question.

  “You don’t want to be talking about that today,” Minnie says quietly.

  “But he’s OK, isn’t he? He didn’t get hurt or anything?”

  Minnie shakes her head. “He met some strumpet, love,” she says. “A nurse, I heard. An RAF nurse.”

  “And he just set up home with her instead?” Barbara asks.

  Minnie pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and then opens them again before saying, “Look, you really don’t wanna be thinking about that on yer wedding day.”

  Barbara nods thoughtfully. “No. I suppose not. But you’ll tell me another time?”

  “I’ll tell you another time,” Minnie says.

  “Do you think we’ll be alright?”

  “You and Tony?”

  Barbara nods.

  “I should bloody hope so,” Minnie says. “Of course you will. You just have get those fairy tales out of that dreamy head of yours. Dreams are like butterflies, love. If you catch ‘em, they die. And a marriage is hard work. It’s not like in the films. It’s not all flowers and chocolates. It’s more like... like a job of work maybe, or, no, maybe more like a roller coaster. You just have to hold on tight. You have to hold on really tight through all the ups and downs. But you’ll be alright. You’ve got the Blitz spirit, girl.”

  Barbara smiles weakly and Minnie squeezes her shoulder again, then says, “Now, you’d better get back to your new husband. He’ll be wondering where you are.”

  “Are you going to walk back with me?”

  Minnie shakes her head. “I’m too old for all that drinkin’ and jumpin’ about,” she says. “I’m gonna walk once around that pier and buy myself an ice cream, is what I’m gonna do. And then I’m going to go back and turn in.”

  “Can I walk with you around the pier?”

  Minnie stands and holds out one hand to her daughter. “Of course you can.”

  Barbara takes her mother’s hand and stands, then, as Minnie’s eyes scan her from head to toe, Barbara says, “You see. I do look ridiculous.”

  “Not ridiculous,” Minnie says. “But you’d better put this on.” She wriggles out of her overcoat, then holds it out for Barbara to step into.

  “I’m not cold at all, Mum,” Barbara says. “Keep it.”

  “It’s not the cold I’m worried about,” Minnie says. “It’s all the wanton attentions you’re going to get if you walk round the pier in that dress.”

  “Wanton attentions?” Barbara laughs.

  Minnie nods seriously. “Trust me,” she says. “Put this on.”

  Between the coconut shy and the tarot-card clairvoyant, Minnie buys them both ’99 ice creams, then mother and daughter begin to head along the pier.

  The daylight has almost vanished now and the sea beneath them has shifted from a powdery green colour to a seething, vaguely sinister blackness. In stark contrast, the lights of the pier make the bold colours of the kiosks shimmer and shine.

  “I love the seaside,” Barbara says, unexpectedly euphoric to find herself enjoying a moment of leisure with her mother – a surprisingly novel experience. “I love all the fresh air and the seagulls, and the lights and the smell of doughnuts, I love all of it.”

  “I do too,” Minnie says. “I always wanted to live by the sea.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Seamus’ job was in London,” Minnie says. “And nowadays, my job’s in London, ain’t it?”

  “You could sti
ll move,” Barbara says. “If you wanted to.”

  “I can’t afford to. You know that,” Minnie says, licking away a dribble from the cone of her ice cream.

  “Maybe one day we’ll have a big place like Donnybrook,” Barbara says. “Then you could come and stay with us anytime you wanted.”

  “Maybe,” Minnie says. “With Tony being an only child, you might end up in Donnybrook if you play yer cards right. Just make sure you hang onto him.”

  “Of course I’ll hang onto him,” Barbara says.

  “Marriage ain’t easy,” Minnie tells her, again. “But even at its worst, it’s the better of two evils. And you can trust me on that one.”

  The tour of the pier completed, Barbara accompanies Minnie to Donnybrook. By the time they get there, the party is over. Everyone has left and only Joan, who is clearing up, is visible.

  “Hello,” Joan says, looking up from the plate upon which she is uniting all the uneaten food. “I thought you was with Tony.”

  “No, Mum and me walked round the pier,” Barbara tells her. “Do you know where he is?”

  Joan shakes her head. “They all left together,” she says. “Like I say, I thought you was with ‘em. Have you had enough to eat? Because I’m in the process of putting all this away.”

  “Yes thanks,” Barbara says. “I’m fine.”

  “Me too,” Minnie agrees. “It was a lovely ‘do’, Joan. As for Tony, I expect he’s at Beach Cottage, ain’t he? I expect he’s waiting for her there.”

  Joan nods. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I expect that’s where he is.”

  Still wearing Minnie’s coat, (so large, so cosy, so reassuring, like being wrapped in mother) Barbara heads back through the dimly lit streets towards Beach Cottage where they will be spending their wedding night. Joan knows Mrs Pie, the owner. Mrs Pie owes her a favour, apparently.

  On the seafront, couples are walking hand in hand, exuding that special kind of contentment that only couples on a sea-front promenade at nightfall can. Is Barbara like them now? she wonders. And if so, where is her husband? Where is the arm she is supposed to be clinging on to?