The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  Diane and Richard do not stay late. By ten, unconvincingly feigning early starts the next morning, they are pulling on their coats and waving goodbyes and, arm-in-arm, heading down the path.

  “Well, that was nice,” Barbara says, once the front door has closed behind them.

  “Was it?” Tony, who is barely on the right side of sober replies.

  Barbara shrugs. So they’re playing this honestly. “No, not really,” she admits. “It was awful.”

  “I can’t stand those Fancy Nancy types,” Tony says.

  “I thought you liked him,” Barbara says. After watching Tony attempt to ingratiate himself to Richard all night, she’s a little confused.

  “Bloody architects,” Tony says. “Did you see what he was like when I said I do deliveries? Oh it must be so interesting being out and about like that.”

  “I think he was just trying to be nice,” Barbara says.

  “Thinks he’s the bees knees, that’s his trouble.”

  “Oh, he’s OK, I think.”

  “I think that Diane could do much better than tricky Dicky there.”

  “She seems to like him,” Barbara says. She almost adds, “and he’s a good looking man,” but luckily restrains herself. That wouldn’t have gone down well. She has to tread carefully when the beer has been flowing. “They sort of look right together,” she says instead, her tone of voice thoughtful.

  “Huh,” Tony says, cracking another beer and heading through to the lounge.

  “You’re jealous,” Barbara whispers, behind him.

  “You what?” Tony calls back.

  “Nothing,” Barbara says. “I just said I might turn in. Jonathan had me awake early this morning.”

  “Sure,” Tony replies. “I’m just going to finish off these beers.”

  ***

  Barbara is sitting on a cushion in the corner of the room. Cold air from the draughty sash windows is drifting down her back but she won’t move just yet. She’s determined not to make a sound. Between her legs, her son is playing with a bright yellow submarine, driving it along the lines of the rug making spluttering, farty engine noises through pursed lips.

  The purple sofa, a recent (second-hand) acquisition via a work colleague of Tony’s, is occupied by four tightly-packed friends from his new photography class. They are, from left to right, dark-haired Dave – in a thick, off-white, Arran jumper – pretty, hippy Alison, quiet-as-a-mouse Wendy, and sensible Malcolm.

  Tony is offering them nibbles on sticks – cocktail sausages and pineapple and cheese cubes – which Barbara prepared earlier.

  “The thing about cameras,” Dave is saying, “is the way they make people look at things they wouldn’t otherwise notice. All the little details.”

  “A camera is kind of like a butter knife,” Alison says, wide-eyed.

  “A butter knife?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “A hot butter knife just, you know, slicing through reality and saving it for later.”

  “Gosh, I like that,” Malcolm says. “A hot knife through reality.”

  “How do you feel about the still-lives next week?” Alison asks. She always looks a little astonished at the sound of her own voice. Barbara wonders if it’s because she’s surprised that suddenly, unexpectedly, a woman is allowed to express such complex thoughts. None of them really expected that, and some, through luck, are better prepared than others.

  “I think I prefer photographing people and places,” Tony says. “I’m not so sure about bowls of fruit.”

  “Do you really think that’s what it will be?” Dave asks, picking at his teeth with the now-empty toothpick. “Bowls of fruit?”

  Tony shrugs. “That’s what still-lives usually are, aren’t they?”

  “Hey, bowls of fruit have rights too,” Alison says.

  “Fruits have rights too!” Malcolm agrees, and everyone laughs, and though she doesn’t get it, Barbara fakes a smile too and turns her attention to her son. “Are you pleased with your new submarine?” she whispers.

  Jonathan looks up at her and beams and nods ecstatically, and momentarily there is just Barbara and Jonathan, Jonathan and Barbara, and all is right with the world. “That’s Ringo,” he says, pointing at one of the people in the submarine and emulating her whispered tone.

  “That’s right,” Barbara says. “Well done.”

  “...looking forward to the darkroom sessions,” Tony is saying when she tunes in again. “I’ve mucked around developing with a friend of mine – her dad has a photo shop. But it will be good to learn all the techniques properly.”

  Malcolm is studying a duplicated sheet of paper covered in purple text. “It says we’re studying dodging and burning,” he says. “Whatever that means.”

  “It’s about changing the exposure for different parts of the print,” Tony tells him. “Dodging is when you use something opaque to reduce the exposure, and burning is the other way around. I think that’s it anyway.”

  Jonathan crashes the submarine into Barbara’s foot and makes a loud “pow” noise and everyone turns to face them.

  “How are you over there, Barbara?” Alison asks, now the submarine explosion has pierced Barbara’s cloak of invisibility. “Are you sure you don’t want your turn on the settee?”

  Barbara smiles and shakes her head. “I’m fine here with Jonathan,” she says, her heart starting to speed up as the attention of the room turns on her.

  “Tony told me that you make your own clothes,” Alison says earnestly.

  Barbara nods and swallows. Her throat is dry. “Yes,” she croaks. “Sometimes.”

  “That’s really cool,” Alison declares. “I’d love to know how to do something practical like that. I can’t even sew a button on. I have to get my mum to do it.”

  “I... I think I’ll go see how that quiche is going,” Barbara says, now standing and pulling down her very-ordinary, shop-bought skirt.

  “She cooks too, then!” Malcolm comments.

  “She sure does,” Tony says. “Barbara’s a great cook, aren’t you?”

  Barbara runs her hand over Jonathan’s head and the gesture calms her nerves momentarily, and allows her to take one almost normal breath which she uses, smiling demurely, to sidle past Tony’s clever friends. Alone in the kitchen, she grips the cold hard edge of the sink and stares out at the yard, damp from recent rain. She tries to take deep breaths. She struggles to still her racing heart. She’s having one of her “turns” but she got away with it. She doesn’t think anyone noticed.

  As the conversation next door continues, she takes a tea-towel, dampens it beneath the tap and dabs at her forehead. Tony is changing before her eyes and she can sense herself being left behind, can hear him learning to have new kinds of conversations. Right now, she can hear him saying, “The thing about the camera is the way it democratises image-making. And that’s going to change the way we record history.”

  She runs the phrase through her head repeatedly, until, on the fourth pass, she works out what it actually means. And then she manages a series of jerky, difficult breaths and crouches down to pull the quiche from the oven. It’s so perfect, so symmetrical, so smooth and glossy, that it looks like a quiche from a recipe book. “I can do this,” she says out loud. “I’m fine.”

  2012 - Brighton, East Sussex.

  As the restaurant comes into view, Sophie releases Brett’s hand. She’s nervous about presenting him to her mother and wants to be able to carefully choose the moment when she’ll explain just who he is. Had Brett’s editor not told her that it was “essential” to have “the wife” – her mother – on-board, she would have been happy to put this meeting off forever. But essential, it is. So here, they are.

  Brett, who has been watching the waves, now turns and spots the Regency. “Gee, Sophe!” he exclaims. “Is that it?”

  “It is, I’m afraid,” Sophie says. “It’s supposed to be good though. It’s got great reviews on Trip Advisor.”

  “Huh?” Brett says.

  “Huh
! Don’t get snobby on me now.”

  “I just thought you might wanna take your ma somewhere a bit special, is all.”

  “Mum’s weird about restaurants,” Sophie says. “She’ll like this. This is perfect. You’ll see.”

  “And you’re sure she’s gonna be OK travelling all the way here on her own?” Brett asks.

  Sophie nods towards the restaurant, where, seated in the window, her mother is waving. “Look. She’s already there,” she says, waving back.

  “Nice!” Brett says, as he pushes against the door.

  “Just shhh!” Sophie admonishes, following him in and crossing the spartan interior to her mother. “Hi Mum! You made it!”

  “Of course I made it!”

  “This is my journalist friend, Brett.”

  Barbara looks up at Brett and Sophie sees her give him the once-over. Her regard gives nothing away. “Hello Brett,” she says flatly.

  “Hello Mrs Marsden.”

  “You’d better tell me your surname if we’re going that way,” Barbara says.

  “I’m sorry?” Brett asks, as he slides into a chair, then wriggles out of his jacket and hangs it over the seat-back.

  “Mum just means you should call her Barbara,” Sophie explains, sitting herself. “Brett’s American, Mum. They don’t do sarcasm.”

  “Um, hello?” Brett says. “We so do.”

  “Well, that wasn’t sarcasm,” Barbara says.

  “OK. It wasn’t. So how was the trip to Brighton, Mum?”

  “Slow.”

  “Slow?”

  “I never understood why old people have to be so old,” she says. “That bus stopped every one hundred yards and at every single stop some pensioner got on, and not one of them had thought to fish out their purse or their travel-card before the conductor asked for it. So every stop took ten minutes and the whole trip, just over two hours.”

  “I said we could come to Eastbourne. I did offer, Mum.”

  “No,” Barbara says, now picking up the menu. “This is good. I don’t come to Brighton enough these days. It’s a change. And you know what they say...”

  “What do they say?” Brett asks, looking vaguely distracted as he searches his pockets for a handkerchief with which to clean his glasses.

  Barbara glances at Sophie and pulls a face – a suppressed smile. It looks like, is this the best you could do, dear?

  “He’s American, Mum,” Sophie says again. “And what they say,” she tells Brett, “is that a change is as good as a rest.”

  “Oh, OK then,” Brett says, nodding blankly. Sophie’s pretty sure he has no idea what’s going on here at all.

  “This is much more expensive than Qualisea,” Barbara announces, peering over the menu.

  Sophie struggles to repress a smile. “Six quid? For cod and chips? Are you joking? We pay that for coffee in London.”

  “It’s four-fifty in Qualisea. That’s... um...”

  “Twenty-five percent less,” Brett says, clearly having decided to demonstrate that he’s not so stupid. “Or a third more, depending on how you wanna look at it.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Barbara says. “A third more.”

  “This is Brighton. And we do have a sea view.”

  “I suppose,” Barbara concedes, and Sophie watches the effort it takes her to be positive. She sees the struggle taking place behind her frozen features until finally she vanquishes the demon, licks her lips and says, “Yes, well, it’s lovely. It’s worth a bit extra to be able to sit and watch the ships, don’t you think?”

  The meal is nice enough – simple fare, competently cooked – but the conversation does not go to plan. Barbara seems happy enough to discuss Brett’s American origins, or his job at the Times, or his taste in clothes (she approves and wishes more men would dress appropriately, she tells him.) But every attempt at guiding the conversation towards Sophie’s father, or his work, or the retrospective, is quickly closed down, either through a discreet change of subject, or, when that fails, by a downright refusal to discuss the matter.

  “I don’t know, now let’s talk about something else,” Barbara says, when asked which images she’d personally like to see included.

  “I’d really rather not think about it,” she says, when asked who, from Tony’s entourage, they could invite to a potential private view. “So many of them have passed away. That’s the thing.”

  After a walk through the centre of town and a coffee at Costa, they walk Barbara back to the seafront and wave as the departing number twelve bus forces its way into the weekend traffic.

  “Huh!” Brett says, his universal exclamation.

  “I told you she wasn’t keen,” Sophie says.

  “Not keen?” Brett laughs. “That, babe, is what they call stonewalling.”

  “I thought she’d be better with you, but if anything she was worse.”

  “Sometimes even my charms fail to sway the ladies. What can I say?” Brett says, taking Sophie’s arm and giving it a squeeze. They turn and start to walk back towards the Lanes, where their chic little hotel is situated. Sophie blows through her lips and asks, doubtfully, “I can do it without her, can’t I?”

  Brett shrugs. “It’s like my editor said. You can. But at least half of the PR opportunities come through exploiting the ‘Woman Who Knew Him Best.’” Brett raises his fingers to indicate the quotes around the headline.

  “Exploiting...” Sophie repeats, pulling a face.

  “Babe, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. I do. So anyway, what now?”

  “What now, as in...?”

  “What now. As in today. More coffee? Back to the hotel?”

  “I saw a store I’d like to go back to,” Brett says. “Just off the Lanes.”

  “OK. What sort of store?”

  Brett takes Sophie’s hand. “You’ll see.”

  “Oh, do tell me it’s not that sordid little sex shop with all the dildos in the window?”

  “I said,” Brett tells her. “You’ll see!”

  Sophie hardens her features but then a few minutes later softens them again as Brett pauses outside a tiny jewellery shop. “Oh!” she says.

  “Don’t be disappointed,” Brett mugs. “We can still do the sex shop afterwards.”

  Once Brett has bought Sophie an inexpensive-yet-pretty turquoise necklace and a pair of cufflinks for himself, and has teased Sophie a little with empty threats of oversized dildos, they head back to the hotel. Because they are unable to pick up the WiFi in their room, Brett heads downstairs with his laptop to check his email, while Sophie lies on the bed and attempts to think about strategies for motivating her mother but instead falls asleep.

  When she wakes up, the laptop has returned but Brett is still elsewhere, so she sends him a text asking where he is and then phones her mother.

  “Hello Sophie,” Barbara answers. “I’ve only just got in. Are you missing me already?”

  “I just wanted to check that you got home alright.”

  “I did. As you can see.”

  “Did you have an OK time today?”

  “I did. It was a lovely change, actually. I always liked Brighton.”

  “And what about Brett? Did you like him?”

  A ghastly silence ensues until eventually Sophie says, “God! I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then, shall I?” She can hear her mother working her mouth at the other end of the line, almost literally mincing her words. “Come on then, spit it out.”

  “It’s just...” Barbara says. “Look... He seems nice enough.”

  “But?”

  “But I think you should keep him at arm’s length.”

  Sophie pulls the phone from her ear and frowns at it before resuming the conversation by asking, “What do you mean, keep him at arm’s length?”

  “Why do you need a journalist anyway?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know what they’re like. They’re only ever interested in digging up dirt. And if you are going to do this silly retrospective thin
g, then I think you need to keep Brett away from it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Various thoughts compete for Sophie’s attention, including but not limited to: What Dirt? and, My mother doesn’t trust Brett and, Do I trust Brett? And, with a little rush of adrenaline, she also realises that most importantly of all, her mother has for the first time ever admitted the idea that the exhibition might actually take place. And that’s one hell of a victory.

  “Brett’s not really got anything to do with the exhibition,” she finally says, a comment chosen to cement this new acceptance that the exhibition is a reality. “I mean, other than the fact that he’s put me in touch with a few people in the business... But that’s about it.”

  “That’s not what it sounded like,” Barbara says. “He sounded like he was running the whole caboodle.”

  “He really isn’t.”

  Another silence.

  “Mum?”

  “Then I don’t see why you brought him along.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Why bring a journalist to meet me if he’s got nothing to do with it all?”

  “Oh!” Sophie laughs. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “He’s my boyfriend, Mum. I’m sorry. I should have said... I just thought you’d got it.”

  “Brett’s your boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since... a while now. That’s why I brought him to meet you.”

  “I see,” Barbara says. “Actually, I have to go now,” she adds, sounding embarrassed.

  “I’m ever so sorry Mum,” Sophie says. “It’s not your fault. I should have explained.”

  “Of course it’s not my fault. But there’s someone at the door. I have to go.”