The Woman in the Photograph

by Stephanie Butland

  The picket-line women are in flat shoes and mini-dresses, arms bare to the sun, tiny and bright against the metal gates, the grimy brick of the factory building glowering over them. Vee wishes she hadn’t dressed the way she always does for work. Her knee-length skirt is sticky with static against her stockings. Her jacket, so handy with the pockets for film cases and spare lenses, is weighing her down, and she can’t take it off because she knows she has sweated through the blouse beneath it. She feels old-fashioned, out of touch. Why doesn’t she have a mini-dress? Why is she sleeping in rollers? And why on earth are hair and clothes what she is thinking of now?

  Maybe this is what the world changing looks like. It’s not as dramatic as what happened in Grosvenor Square or the protests in Paris, but it could still be part of a change. As her dad says, nothing lasts forever.

  She takes a closer look at the banners. They are painted or coloured in, made with careful attention to detail, letters equal height and the spacing of the wording considered. ‘No Deal Till You Recognise Our Skill’ reads one banner. ‘Unequal Pay Is Sex Discrimination’, reads another. ‘We Want Sexual Equality’ says a third. These women are organised and they mean what they say. Vee inhales and straightens her spine. This is change, all right. She needs to teach herself to see it.

  Behind the banners, women chatter and laugh. Someone is handing round sandwiches. Well, there isn’t really any reason why something like this shouldn’t feel like a picnic. However serious it is.

  She looks around, for a leader to introduce herself to. There’s no one obviously in charge; but then she recognises one of the women from the press coverage.

  ‘Hello,’ Vee says, ‘I’m Veronica Moon. I wonder if you’d mind if I took some photographs? Of the picket line?’

  ‘Be our guest,’ the woman says, ‘it’s nice of you to ask. The blokes don’t. Where you from?’

  Vee takes the lens cap off the Nikon F1 that she still can’t believe is hers, although technically, it isn’t, until she’s finished paying Dad back for it, out of her wages. ‘Colchester. The Echo. But I’m not here officially. It’s my day off. I came just to see, really.’

  The woman nods. ‘There’s been a few of those. Especially women. Do you get paid the same as the blokes?’

  Vee thinks about George, who behaves as though she should be paying him for the privilege of working under him, and the male journalists who barely tolerate her, the secretaries who’ve done their best to make her feel welcome. She’s a fish out of water, really. No, it’s not that. She’s a fish that the other fish refuse to make a space for. She would swim as fast, if she could. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says.

  ‘No surprises there,’ says someone else, and Vee nods – she doesn’t trust herself to speak, suddenly, feeling the enormity of what she is up against and, at the same time, the possibility that is offered here, for all women. She takes photographs of the gathered strikers, the banners; drops to her knee and changes to a wide-angle lens so that she can capture the size of the factory behind them, how it both dwarfs them and creates a dull background to their light and power.

  What if this isn’t as simple as another strike, interesting because it has women at its heart this time? What if what is happening here is – connected? Part of the same power in the world that means she has to be grateful for being ‘a woman in a man’s world’, that her married friends look down on her and talk about meals for their husbands as though housekeeping is a vocation? ‘Women’s lib’ is an easy joke in Vee’s world; she remembers Barry’s dad laughing about it getting out of hand, when he did the washing up at Christmas. Barry’s mum laughed back and said if that was the case she wouldn’t bother washing her hair. But what if women’s lib is more than men pulling their weight? What if it could be about genuine equality? What if Vee could be judged on her merit? What if no one cared whether she was a woman or a man and only cared about the work she did? The rhythm of her blood accelerates at the thought of it: she feels it in her temples and her wrists, at her throat. She nods her thanks to the women, stands, and takes a breath and she tells herself what she always tells herself when she feels overwhelmed or out of her depth: do your job, Veronica. Do your job and do your best.

  She’s changing back to a standard lens when she hears something behind her: a woman’s voice raised in a catcall, laughter. She turns to see a postman.

  ‘I go on holiday and miss all the action,’ he says, ‘this is the famous picket line, is it, girls?’

  ‘Equal pay for equal work,’ says a short, short-haired, bright-blonde woman, ‘you ain’t going to argue with that, are you?’

  ‘Definitely not. My Sheila would have my guts for garters,’ he says, to general laughter, and Vee, hardly realising she is doing so, raises the viewfinder to her eye and takes a photograph. She’s not sure why, because she shouldn’t be putting a man in the middle of this, really. Waste of a shot. Still, she’s caught the moment. She winds the film on. ‘Still not sorted, then?’ the postman continues.

  ‘Nah. They said we was irresponsible, and they said they’d have an inquiry. We said we’ll come back to work when we’re getting recognition for our skill.’

  ‘Well, good for you, girls,’ the postman says, ‘so this is an official picket?’

  ‘Course it is. We know how to do things proper. That’s why your car seat never comes apart at the seams.’ Everyone laughs at this, and Vee wants to drop her camera, to join in, but if there’s one useful thing she’s learned at the paper it’s if you want to get a decent photo, keep your distance. ‘You’re not here to be one of them,’ George, the senior photographer at the Echo, told her, the first time he took her out on a job, ‘you’re here to be the only one of you.’

  ‘In that case, my fellow workers,’ the postman says, ‘it looks like these here letters won’t be getting to your bosses today.’ And he returns the bundle of envelopes to his bag and turns away. Vee clicks the shutter. She’s got the shot that matters. It’s not always obvious to the eye, but she feels it in her gut. And even though, if this image is ever published, the quality of it will be terrible – nothing looks good on newsprint – she will know that it’s good. Really good.

  ‘Oi.’ It takes her a moment to realise that the woman striding along the road is calling to her. There is a solid fierceness in her walk that tells her to keep her camera lowered. Two other women are close behind.

  ‘Hello,’ Vee says, and holds out a hand. She’s surprised to see it isn’t shaking, ‘Veronica Moon.’

  The stranger’s hands are in her dungaree pockets, so Vee drops her arm. Dungarees! She’s never seen them in real life. Not on a woman, anyway. ‘Does that mean anything? Am I supposed to know who you are?’ Her voice has the confident sort of non-accent that Vee wishes for. It’s not as posh as the radio but there’s no trace of where she has come from in it. That has to be useful.

  ‘Probably not,’ Vee says. She’s torn between continuing to do what she was doing – she knows she’s within her rights, knows she has nothing to hide – and justifying herself. She’s outnumbered, so, ‘I’m a photographer with the Colchester Echo. But I’m really just here for my own’ – what’s the word? Not ‘amusement’, not ‘satisfaction’ – ‘it’s my day off, and I wanted to see for myself what was going on.’

  And now the woman offers a hand to shake. Vee takes it, suddenly self-conscious about her bubble-gum nail polish. She doesn’t wear her engagement ring to work, and she didn’t put it on this morning. She tells Barry it’s because she wouldn’t want to lose it but she’s not sure that’s really the reason. It feels awkward, still, like the word ‘fiancée’ does.

  ‘Leonie Barratt.’

  ‘Veronica Moon,’ Vee says again, ‘Vee, for short.’

  ‘Hello, Vee,’ Leonie says, letting go of her hand and smiling. ‘I’m writing this up for my column in This Month. Well, I might be. You came to have a look? What do you make of it?’ The woman has clear skin, brown eyes, and her face, bare of makeup, is dominated by a la
rge, bony nose. Vee becomes conscious of the half-hour she spent doing her hair and putting on foundation, blush and eyeshadow before she left the house. Putting a face on, her mum used to call it. Vee knows what she meant. She doesn’t always feel as though her own face is enough. This woman – Leonie’s not a name Vee has heard before – apparently has no such problem.

  ‘Well,’ Vee says, ‘I’m all for it. Obviously.’

  One of the women behind Leonie titters, but Leonie ignores her. ‘Striking? Or equal pay?’

  ‘Both.’ Vee replaces the lens cap, and starts to turn away. If none of the Ford workers are questioning her motives, she doesn’t really see why a journalist and her up-themselves mates should be. And she gets enough of that sort of thing at work, from the men.

  ‘Do you want me to introduce you to some people? So you can get some photos?’ Leonie asks.

  ‘No thank you,’ Vee says. She’s not sure what will happen if she starts to look official and it gets back to Bob. For fear of sounding rude, she adds, ‘I don’t want to get in the way. I’m not really supposed to be here.’

  The women with Leonie laugh, and one of them says, ‘You’re missing the point, sister,’ in a tone that makes Vee squirm. She hoists her bag on to her shoulder, ready to make a circuit of the action, shoot the last half-dozen frames on her film, and then head back to the car.

  Better to make a move, than stay to be laughed at.

  But Leonie puts a hand on her arm, and then turns to her friends with the fierceness that was in her stride as she walked over. She says, ‘Come on. We support our sisters. Everyone starts somewhere.’ Looking back at Vee, she smiles, and her brown eyes grow warm, ‘Why don’t we split, and have a drink? I’ll catch you up on a few things.’

  *

  Vee assumed that by ‘drink’ Leonie meant ‘tea’ – it was barely noon when they left the picket line – but ten minutes later she finds herself in the George and Dragon. One of the panes in the door is missing, the space covered with taped-on cardboard, and the carpet is tacky underfoot. The mirror behind the bar has a crack running down the centre, which warps the faces of people waiting to be served. Leonie’s friends, who are called Bea and something beginning with F that Vee didn’t quite catch, go to sit down. Vee follows Leonie to the bar.

  Before Leonie can order, the barman says, ‘We don’t serve ladies at the bar, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What?’ Leonie says, her voice loudening with incredulity. ‘Seriously, man? It’s 1968! Women earn their own bread, and they spend it how they want to. Christ knows, they could do with a drink in this bloody world, so your landlord needs to shape up.’

  If Vee ventured a ‘bloody’ at home, Dad would tell her off for bad language, but the barman shrugs. ‘Not my rules’ – he indicates two men sitting towards the other end of the horseshoe-shaped bar, one of whom is looking on with interest – ‘but I’m sure one of these gentlemen will oblige you.’

  ‘What if we don’t want to be obliged?’ Leonie asks. There’s an imperious tone to her voice, now: she means business. She might be what her dad calls ‘entitled’. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Or at least went to a posh school, the sort of place with a hat as part of the uniform, like they probably do in Epping. She’s not backwards in coming forwards, that’s for sure.

  ‘I’d be happy to help you ladies out,’ one of the men sitting at the bar says. ‘You go and have a seat with your friends. What are you drinking? I’ll bring them over.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Vee says, and she smiles towards the man who’s just spoken. She’s drowned out by Leonie.

  ‘Have none of you heard of equal rights for women? Liberation?’

  The barman has long hair, a lazy smile, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex T-shirt. He’s probably quite the local attraction. ‘Yeah, we have, but you’re in Essex now, love. Not your fancy bits of London.’

  Leonie stands up straighter. She’s not that tall, but she seems it, and she knows how to take up space. She looks the barman in the eye, and says, ‘It seems that a prick’s a prick wherever you go.’

  Vee hears her own intake of breath, and sees that Bea and someone-beginning-with-F have stopped talking and are getting to their feet, coming over to the bar. This could go either way. Vee has seen it before. She and Barry sometimes go for a bar meal at the King’s Arms on a Friday night. If an argument starts, it can either flare to fists or diffuse into laughter. She doesn’t think there’d be a fight here – men who won’t serve women in a bar aren’t going to hit them, not in public at least – but it’s not comfortable. So she catches the eye of the man who offered to buy their drinks, and smiles at him again. He laughs. The fine thin membrane of tension dissolves, and it’s an ordinary lunchtime once more. Ordinary if you go to the pub for lunch every day, anyway.

  ‘All right, then,’ says the barman. ‘Quick. What do you want?’

  Leonie looks at Vee, a question. ‘Sweet martini and lemonade, please.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I like it.’ At least Barry and her dad don’t tell her what to drink.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Leonie turns to the barman. ‘Sweet martini and lemonade, and three pints of cider. Please.’

  The barman’s hand hesitates over the pint glasses, but he thinks better of saying whatever he might have said, and pulls the pints.

  ‘There you go, ladies.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Vee says.

  At the same time, Leonie answers, ‘We’re not ladies, we’re women, but I really don’t have the time to go into that now.’

  When they get to their table and sit, Vee is more relieved than she would think it was possible to be, perched on a wobbly stool in a dingy pub with three strident women she barely knows. Then a gaggle of men arrives and fills the place with smoke and swearing, and attention moves away from the women. Vee feels herself exhale, long and slow, as though she’s just got away with something, though she honestly couldn’t say what.

  From the way that some of the men greet Leonie and the others, and from their not-from-round-here accents, Vee gathers that they must be journalists covering the strike. Covering the strike too, she tells herself. She is a professional photographer and she got a great shot back there. Come on, Vee.

  The others drink without comment; this must be normal for them. Leonie turns to Vee, and says, ‘You shouldn’t flirt men into buying drinks for you. You shouldn’t appease them when they’re being pricks like that. It doesn’t help any of us, in the long run.’

  Vee holds her gaze. She’s impressed by this woman – the unapologetic way she goes about what she sees as her business, her bravado – but she’s fought for her career, such as it is, and before that she fought for her place on a photography course where she was the only woman. ‘So what do I do? What you tell me?’

  Bea laughs, a wet splutter. ‘She’s got you there, Leonie.’ Then, to Vee, ‘You need to keep her in her place. Stand up for yourself. It’s not just the men who are the oppressors.’

  Leonie has the grace to laugh too, and then she looks at Bea, slides her hand under the table and squeezes her thigh. Vee feels herself blush as she realises what she’s seeing. It took her a moment to recognise flirting out of its usual context. And then Leonie turns back to her, ‘I didn’t mean to sound patronising. What I was trying to say was that women have learned to get what they want from men by wheedling around them. But actually, we have the right to ask.’

  Vee nods. ‘It’s easier, though. Ain’t it?’

  ‘It’s easier to work for seventy per cent of what men get paid than to strike,’ Leonie counters, ‘but if we’re satisfied with that – we’re never going to get anywhere, are we?’

  ‘No,’ Vee agrees, and then she thinks about her dad, how he would order a drink at the bar for a woman if those were the rules, ‘but those blokes just wanted to help us out, didn’t they?’ She’s drinking too quickly, and she didn’t have breakfast. The alcohol is going straight to her head. She feels as though this is an important conversation, but she
can’t hold on to the threads of it for long enough to work out why. It relates to the feeling she had, earlier, photographing the women on the picket line; that there’s something else going on in the world, that she has a job greater than trying to be taken seriously.

  Someone-beginning-with-F is tittering, saying something to Bea in a voice too low for Vee to catch. Leonie hears it, though. ‘Shut it, Fen. Everyone needs to learn. It’s hard to see how pervasive the patriarchy is when you’ve grown up in it.’

  ‘I’m not Eliza Doolittle, you know,’ Vee says. She wants to say, ‘I’m not sodding Eliza Doolittle’, but her dad doesn’t like her swearing. And though that’s probably patriarchist (that might not be the word, Vee thinks) of him, she loves him, and he’s all she’s got, apart from Barry. He might not be exactly on board with women’s lib but he’s always been on her side, always taught her things she wanted to know and encouraged her to follow her career.

  ‘Quite right,’ Bea says, ‘you tell her.’ Leonie and Bea grin and Fen gets up, returning a few minutes later with four pints of cider. By then Leonie’s told her about the magazines she writes for, the stories that are coming up, the groups that are forming and the way that women are starting to make change happen for themselves, to organise, and Vee feels a fizz inside, something more than the martini and the cider she’s adding to it.

  Fen and Bea leave after the second round; Vee and Leonie stay for another. As Bea and Leonie arrange to meet up later, they kiss, lip to lip, Bea’s hand, briefly, on Leonie’s throat.

  ‘You can stop staring,’ Leonie says.