The Woman in the Photograph

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘Could I have a look around?’ she asks.

  ‘Be my guest.’ He follows her down the hall of his Pimlico flat. There’s a balcony, overlooking the river. If she positions him right, London will swell and fade behind him; nothing too dominant, but a sense of the city he has, apparently, won over. She’s pulled her hair back in a bandanna, seeing as Thatcher has her scarf. It could be that a crew-cut is the way to go. Or something a bit less extreme. Chrissie Hynde, who she photographed for Melody Maker not so long ago, had something good going on – gamine and unfussy.

  He’s still right behind her. ‘You’ve a great view here,’ she says. ‘Shall we make the most of it?’

  ‘Is that what your boyfriends say?’ Vee turns away, pretending not to hear – Leonie is good at confrontation, at flicking over pints and giving fingers, but Vee can never quite dare and anyway, she’s at work and she has a job to do. She gets out her camera, removes the lens cap, palms it into the back pocket of her jeans.

  ‘Could you stand with your back to the river, and square on to the door?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and moves onto the balcony, sliding his arms along the top rail behind him, shoulders back, pelvis out. Vee retreats into the doorway, drops to one knee – she’s expecting a blow-job joke, is already braced to not react, but he surprises her by keeping his mouth shut. When she looks through the viewfinder she sees why. He’s nailed a smile to his face, a toothy and meant-to-be-seductive leer which he’s clearly going to hold until he hears the shutter click. She takes the shot. The difficulty here is going to be getting him not to pose.

  She takes half a dozen frames to let him get it out of his system, and then she really gets to work. She asks him about the view and he explains what’s visible; every time he glances towards her, to see that she’s listening, she takes another photograph, catches his face both animated and relaxed. She thinks the finished shots will have him looking like the sort of person he probably was, once, before he found the persona he’s living. He’ll almost certainly complain when he sees the magazine cover.

  She shoots a film, then they move into his living room, where she needs to stand on a dining chair so that she can tuck the dark velvet curtains up and out of the way. Under the pretence of steadying her – ‘Be careful, darling, you’ve got precious equipment there and I couldn’t stand for it to be damaged!’ – he holds her by the hips, hard, then, when she’s stepped down from the chair, puts one of his hands on her buttocks. She steps, forward, away, and asks him to sit down; stands on a chair above him, looking down, and shoots a few more frames. There’s nothing good about these photographs – he looks terrible, squat and leeringly foreshortened, but that’s precisely why she enjoys taking them. A couple of seated shots – he opens his shirt a little more, and she realises it’s because he has a nipple pierced, and wants it to be noticed, recorded. And suddenly she’s sick of him, of this whole stupid game, but still she thanks him and compliments him on being a good sitter, because she needs to keep the calls from the picture editors coming in.

  She drops the films at the lab. And then she goes home, takes a good, hot shower, and thinks about calling Leonie. But she doesn’t have the energy, tonight; and if she tells her about the DJ, although Leonie will make no excuses for him, she’ll have no patience with Vee’s behaviour, either. Plus, Vee is totally out of her depth with the pregnancy and the adoption. She’s certain that she did the right thing. Being a parent feels like too important a job to take place on the fly, around the edges, although of course every parent had a life before. Vee is not a person who is capable of that.

  She’ll leave it for another couple of days to call. Just until she’s got a little more to give. Just until she’s sure she’s thought everything through, and there’s nothing else she can suggest.

  Just in case she changes her mind, and decides she does want Leonie’s baby, after all.

  June 1979

  This Month magazine

  Leonie Barratt: Letters from a Feminist

  Our monthly column from the front line of the Battle of the Sexes

  Dear John,

  I know what you’re thinking.

  And not because I’m a witch, or have that ‘feminine intuition’ that is one of the many crocks of crap that is talked about women, who have been socialised to notice everything in order to be compliant and stay out of trouble.

  I know what you’re thinking because you and I have been in touch for many years, now, and I know how your mind works.

  You’re thinking: ‘A female prime minister! Finally, something that will please Leonie Barratt! She’s been nagging and moaning about equality of opportunity for all these years and now she’s got it. Even Leonie cannot argue with a female prime minister.’

  Well, John, you’re wrong. You don’t know my mind as well as I know yours.

  I’m not pleased.

  Except in one respect. We do have a woman representing the country. That’s a good thing, even if it is way overdue.

  But really, that’s all I can get excited about.

  Let’s put aside the fact that this is worthy of comment – that ‘female PM’ is being trumpeted left, right and centre, because it’s an exception (a first in Europe, too), and that’s the opposite of how it should be. Prime Minister is a job in which what you’re keeping in your underwear is irrelevant.

  Let’s ignore the symbolism and talk about the person.

  We already know the cut of Mrs Thatcher’s jib. We know she is a Milk Snatcher. (Although I do wonder, if she was a man, whether she would have a more manly soubriquet. Plot Hatcher? Cash Catcher?) She talks about economics in the guise of a humble housewife. I’ve heard she flirts her way to getting what she wants. She can only be a female PM by making sure no one forgets she’s a woman. And that’s the opposite of equality.

  I’m seeing magazine articles about her being a mother and ‘juggling’ career and family life. I’m seeing questions in interviews about the dynamics of her marriage. Did we have those articles about Ted Heath? Funnily enough, we didn’t. I’m going to stick my neck out and guess that, if the next PM is a man, he won’t be bothered by these questions, either.

  So although a female prime minister may, at first sight, be a good thing, John, let’s not forget: while we spend time talking about what she wears, how she manages her family, and any other damn thing we did not discuss about Heath and don’t consider when it comes to Jimmy Carter, we do not have equality.

  While a woman in power has to coerce, cajole and flirt behind the scenes to get her way, we do not have equality.

  While women are expected to show their power by behaving like men in public, we do not have equality.

  And while we’re on the subject of how men behave, John – do you never get tired of all of the things your conditioning compels you to do? I know, individually, men can be respectful and human, and not feel they have to swing their balls round everywhere. But put you together, or put you on the TV or the radio, or put you in any position of authority, and you cannot help yourselves.

  In the last week I’ve had meetings with a doctor (male), an MP (male), and a solicitor (male). Every one of them has interrupted me or talked over the top of me. I’ve been to a family meal at which two men and three women were present. Guess whose voices dominated the conversation. Do you never think: I might listen, for a change? Do you never wonder why it is that you discount what a woman is saying before she’s even finished saying it?

  I’m going to empathise, now, John, even though I don’t see why I should have to. Women only need empathy because it’s the only weapon they have for staying out of the way of fists and fury, or getting what they want from men who don’t think they need to pay attention to her indoors.

  If I were you, I might not always enjoy the way I’m expected to be. I might not want to cry only at sporting events; I might be anxious about neighbours assuming I know how to help them jump-start their cars. There could be mornings when a day of shouting my opinions louder than o
ther men’s opinions might not be what I want to do.

  But if I were you, I’d probably think that was a price worth paying for all the other advantages I get from having a penis in a patriarchal society. I’d square my shoulders, clear my throat, and wiggle my Adam’s apple around for the sake of the extra wages and the right to be deferred to in most situations.

  I can’t blame you, although it drives me crazy – sometimes, I think, literally insane. I feel like the only person who sees not only the mountain of bullshit but the fact that it is being produced by a great big bull. My sisters shovel the bullshit out of their way, valiantly, every damn day, and I feel as though I am the only one who sees the bull and thinks we should deal with that. No bull, no shit. That’s what I’m trying so hard to make you see.

  Our problem is: there’s no reason for you to change, because life is pretty sweet for you.

  And it just got sweeter, because the next time a woman talks to you about our sexist society (you will probably think she is complaining, and if you have had a very hard day of shouting and swinging your balls around, you might even accuse her of nagging – in which case, shame on you, John), you have a new card to play.

  You can say, ‘What are you talking about? We have a woman prime minister.’

  And actually, Margaret Thatcher has done nothing to make things better for women, and there’s no sign that she will.

  So no, I’m not pleased that we have a female PM. She does nothing for feminism. But she is probably going to do quite a lot for you.

  Until next time,

  Leonie

  29 March 2018

  It’s ten days since Mississippi introduced the US’s strictest abortion laws: no termination after fifteen weeks.

  Four weeks until exhibition opening

  ‘I’ve packed Tom’s bag,’ Marcus says, ‘I think everything he needs is in there.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Erica smiles, but she won’t thank him, won’t praise him. Why should she? They have agreed to be equal.

  But Marcus looks hurt. Erica’s determination to be a more active feminist has, in the weeks since the march, and despite her best intentions, involved a lot of carping at him. She needs time. Time and space to think. And the weeks are going by and she still she has neither, because she is so busy marking, writing and rewriting exhibition notes, and enabling other people to look after her child. And reassuring Marcus. Change takes time, she reminds herself.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Marcus asks, and his tone tells her that he’s finding this shift in the balance of their marriage as hard as she is. ‘You have to talk to me.’

  Erica takes a breath. ‘I thought I could be a mother without having to be’ – she gestures around her, at the endlessly messy kitchen and the failings she cannot help but feel it implies – ‘all this. I thought it would be . . . different.’

  ‘Are you ready for today? Is there anything I can do for you?’ He’s working from home, once he’s handed Tom over to his mother. Erica knows that he’ll disappear into the den with his laptop without giving the washing a thought. She envies him as much as it makes her angry.

  ‘I’m set,’ she says.

  ‘But?’

  ‘I keep thinking, the day of the march, Vee had a headache before we went, and she asked me to bring her some painkillers. They were fairly serious prescription drugs. I want to ask her about them.’ Erica has tried to remember the name on the box so she could look them up, but so much happened that day – the last time she saw Vee – that she can’t recall it.

  ‘She’s old, though, isn’t she?’

  ‘Well, yes—’

  ‘So something’s got to give at some point. It’s probably nothing major.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Marcus takes breakfast dishes from the table and starts to load them into the dishwasher. Erica would have rinsed them first. She doesn’t say so.

  It seems to Erica, more and more, that while for her, little Tom has made her think of all the places life is vulnerable, all the ways she is dying, Marc seems to have taken fatherhood and used it to make himself taller, straighter, more sure of himself.

  He looks up, smiles. ‘If you go now, you’ll catch the 9.15.’

  29 March 2018

  THERE ISN’T A HEADACHE TODAY. Not much of one, anyway. The medication that Vee is on isn’t pleasant, but the reflexology she had yesterday brought her some rest. She is looking forward to Erica’s arrival. She’s been through all of the photographs now, everything either passed onto Erica, filed with her agency, or thrown away. Everything except the most private photographs, anyway. There are two boxes of documents but she can’t face them: small type, faded printing, make her worry that she will use up her eyes, somehow.

  So she goes to her bookshelves. She’ll divide the contents into piles for the charity shop, Erica, and – well, maybe the university where she used to teach might want some of her books.

  When she takes Fear of Flying from the shelf she feels instantly vertiginous. She would have put her reaction down to the power of suggestion, had she not loved every single plane journey that she ever took, nose to glass like a child. So that can’t be why Jong’s novel is making her queasy. Strange. She can’t remember whether she ever read it. On the inside front cover, in Leonie’s neat, sloping hand, is written ‘To V, from L, with love’. Leonie gave her so many books. Leonie gave her so much. She thought she was grateful at the time, but she is so much more grateful now that she looks back on her life and sees Leonie so large in it. Oh, everything is sad.

  And then Erica knocks.

  She is so nearly the image of Leonie. Remembering hurts, but it’s different to the griping, unsettled ache of the medication. This is a blazing pain, as though Leonie had died yesterday, as though Vee had been the one who killed her. She hears herself inhale, the noise a warm rush in her head, and then she opens the door.

  Erica looks up, waves her phone: ‘I’ve been re-reading my aunt’s “Dear John” columns,’ she says.

  Vee smiles. ‘Come in. What do you think of them?’

  Erica walks through to the living room, puts a folder on the table, and turns to look at Vee. Her face says she’s filtering through words, finding the best one. Vee always liked this, about academics. ‘She’s quite – brutal.’

  That’s disappointing. ‘Really? She was sharp, which is different. We said what we meant, in those days.’

  Erica laughs – Leonie’s laugh, from the days before she only laughed in sarcasm or in spite – and the pain of loss crackles bright in Vee again. ‘And you don’t say what you mean now?’

  And now there is a sudden jab in Vee’s head, a reminder maybe. ‘Not always.’ She adds, ‘Thank you for taking care of me, before the march. I appreciate it.’

  There’s the slightest flicker of shock in the muscles in Erica’s face. Her eyebrows rise and fall, her head moves backwards, just a fraction, and Vee thinks: when did I become the person who shocks people when she thanks them? This change could be due to the tumour, of course, but her heart – and she has always trusted her heart, and has no reason not to now – says, quietly, that she became rude long before she became ill. ‘Manners and a smile cost nothing’, her dad used to say. He’d be unimpressed by what she has become, retrospective exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery or not. She closes her eyes, sees him loading her possessions into a borrowed van to help her move to London, even though he would rather she stay in Colchester with him. She needs to do better by Erica. That will be something.

  ‘I was glad I could help,’ Erica says.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, at the march.’ She’d watched as Erica was taken away, but experience told her that there was nothing to be done but wait for news. She’d emailed Erica that evening, saying she hoped that she was OK, and then she’d gone to bed, unable to do anything else with her worn-out body and the steadily expanding pain in her head. The distance from action to consequence is ever shortening. The march was too much for her, and she paid for it, th
e next day lost in painkillers and half-sleep, cold rum and hot toast. But she didn’t care. It was worth it, to be back on the battleground. And to take someone to their first march.

  ‘It sounds selfish, but I quite enjoyed being arrested. Well, detained. Marcus wasn’t impressed.’

  Vee is seeing her mind as a roll of film, full of a lifetime’s worth of photographs, now overexposed to light, the images it held eaten away. And yet, however much of her brain the disease has destroyed, there are things that she is still sure of. And one of them is that Erica is not happy. There’s something brittle about the way she talks about her family, and her emails arrive late at night, when any sane person would be asleep, or with their loved ones, if their loved ones are nearby. Help a sister out, Leonie says, as clearly as if she was here. Vee will try to be kind.

  Erica puts her hand on the file. ‘These are the latest versions of the introductory texts for the exhibition sections, and the updated layout. I’ve got a week before they are submitted to the gallery for sign-off, and at that point we won’t be able to make any more changes, so I thought we should go through, and—’ She looks tired, the skin under her eyes a little blue, the way a child’s would be.

  ‘Or,’ Vee interrupts, ‘I could sign them off right now, and we could go and have a coffee.’

  ‘You want to read them now? There’s quite a lot—’

  ‘No, Erica, I don’t want to read them. I’ve seen enough of what you’ve already done with them. You ask intelligent questions and you listen to the answers. I—’ She hesitates before the next word, because she’s not sure that she’s ever said it, to anyone, before. ‘I trust you.’

  Erica nods then exhales. ‘But – don’t you care?’

  ‘I don’t matter,’ Vee says. She realises as soon as the words are out that it’s the wrong way to put it, because Erica looks crushed. ‘I mean . . . the point of photography isn’t that the camera tells the truth, but that people look at images and interpret them. You’ve looked at me and you’ve interpreted me. You’ve done a good job.’