Perfect Lives

by Polly Samson

  I looked at my watch. Simon would be at work. He was probably feeling silly for caring about something as daft as a birthday present. I thought again about how often he liked to splurge on those ridiculous things for me – the watch on my wrist, the shoes in their rigid cardboard boxes. To tell the truth his presents often made me feel awkward. It’s hard to remain thrilled for as long as I feel he’d like me to be, probably because I grew up in a house where above the kitchen table was a poster of a poor African child with a distended tummy and flies in his eyes. SAY NO TO WORLD POVERTY! I sometimes suspected that the better-dressed parents of my school friends, the ones with lots of scatter cushions, were the ones who said ‘Yes!’ to world poverty. All those wicked people with their pot-pourri and lovely soft sliced bread.

  I’m stuck with much of it: brown bread and not many puddings. I fold wrapping paper to use again. I can even darn socks, something that for some reason Simon finds funny. Not so unreasonable that he should assume I’d be happy enough pickling things and making jam when we moved out here.

  ‘Would you mind being so far from London?’ he said one night, his heart already set on the fields and the trees and this cottage where everything smells of honey all summer long. I don’t remember having feelings either way: as long as I was with him I would feel safe. Feeling safe was, before I met you, the only thing I’d ever wanted. A luxury I wasn’t used to growing up.

  ‘You wouldn’t mind staying at home?’

  I was as easy as thistledown on a summer breeze.

  Before I set eyes on you I don’t think I knew the meaning of true passion. One day I was quietly proofreading a book that Simon was editing, the next we were wed. Poor uncelebrated Simon, who grew up drowning in cushions and pot-pourri.

  The cries of the fledglings from the rafters grew almost deafening as the swallow returned with a beakful of worm. I thought again of Simon’s brave-little-soldier face this morning in the kitchen. It was an expression I knew from both Angus and Ivan. That face worked on me like the starving child of the poster.

  ‘It’s no use,’ I said, detaching myself from you before we got carried away. ‘I have to go.’

  I was running back up the path to the kitchen, the insistent squeaks of the baby swallows ringing in my ears and my heart still pounding just from the sight of you. This had to stop.

  I tipped some of the boys’ cereal into a bowl and added milk. The cereal appeared to have small jelly bears in it. The jelly bears were lovely and chewy and fruity in a chemical way. Nothing so lurid ever found its way on to the breakfast table of my childhood. There, apart from the starving child poster, were pine shelves with my mother’s screw-top jars with Dymo-ed labels: ‘Kidney Beans’, ‘Mung Beans’, ‘Split Peas’, ‘Oats’, row upon row of them; the world’s most disappointing sweet shop.

  It’s the thought that counts, I decided, as I sifted through the cereal packet in search of more gummy bears, but it would have to be a very cheap thought because there was little credit left on either of my cards.

  It’d be easy if I still had the money. Simon’s twin brother Tim had told me which guitar shop sold them. ‘The Baby Taylor.’ He had been strumming his own one, tapping his foot as he played, so anyone would think he was Paco de Lucía: ‘Koa wood,’ he said with a smirk, nicely settled into his bachelor’s throne of chrome and black leather. ‘Fits in the overhead locker of any airplane.’ I don’t know where he imagined Simon flying off to with this guitar. But it was too late for such fantasies now. My money was spent.

  It was just two days after Tilda had sent that picture that you fell into my life for real. It must have been fate. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you there on the other side of the glass.

  Barry beckoned for me to come in, though we’d never met before. It took him just five minutes to turn my fantasy to reality. I could tell by the way he spoke that he wanted us to click.

  ‘What have you got to lose?’ he said. ‘You’ll never get another chance.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if he hides a forked tail inside those unassuming jeans of his.

  I still can’t quite put my finger on what it was about you that did it: the smoothness of the Hermès brown leather calf has a lot to answer for because once I’d stroked that there was no settling for anything else. Barry felt it only fair to mention the plainer, less exclusive Leica cameras, but their bodies were rough and textured. I had eyes only for you.

  ‘A very special edition,’ he said, carefully unwinding the strap. ‘The Hermès Leica. Only five hundred ever made.’

  He showed me the two lenses. I had already studied so many photographs of them on the internet that it was like meeting old friends. The small one with a very pleasing fifties look and the longer smooth cylinder of brushed silver with grooved dials, and a cover that slid rather suggestively back and forth along the body of the lens.

  ‘90mm,’ Barry said. ‘Perfect for portraiture.’

  The strap of the camera was a double ribbon of soft brown calfskin edged on both sides by lines of straight white Hermès stitches and was as flexible as living skin.

  I don’t know how long I stood there just staring and stroking the silky brown leather of the strap. I longed to hold that strap to my face, to wind it in bracelets around my wrists, to inhale the scent of the leather, but I could feel Barry’s eyes on me. He spoke some more, about perfection.

  ‘Number fifty-two, that’s good,’ he said. ‘The earlier in the sequence the better.’

  He hinted at investment: ‘You’ll be able to leave it to your children.’

  There was really no need for him to say a word. My heart was beating ferociously.

  The price that I imagined turned out to be hundreds of pounds short of the mark.

  When I got home, trembling and slightly tearful, I didn’t immediately know what to do with the great big box. The potting shed in the orchard was very much on impulse. I wrapped everything carefully in some old polythene sheets, fully intending to return it to the devil at the camera shop in the morning.

  The boys both had homework that night and Tim was due for supper, which always whipped them into a bit of a froth. Later, if I hadn’t been so distracted, I think I might have been able to confess all to Simon, but then I heard raised voices at the front door, the twins squabbling.

  ‘Not Sadie.’ Simon sounded upset, possibly too upset. ‘Remember we all have to work together.’

  Tim’s voice was flustered too: ‘I only said I’d meet her for a quick drink after I left here.’ He cuffed Simon on the shoulder. ‘It’s not a date. I promised I’d help her with a bit of advice.’

  ‘You’d better not be thinking about giving her one.’ That was Simon. I shuddered and left them to it. I hated how easily Simon could zip himself back into his old bachelor-about-town skin whenever Tim was about, which was all the time at the Agency.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear,’ Tim said. ‘I wouldn’t shit on our own doorstep.’ And then the door banged.

  It wasn’t until the following evening that I finally got to slide your silver box out of its thick white cardboard slip case. Simon was working late and the boys were in bed.

  Inside was a second box of such understated elegance that I almost gasped anew. This fine box was upholstered in the sort of taupe linen that you usually only find in very smart hotels. I lifted the lid. You were nestled on your bed of pale primrose satin. I was struck by the contrast of the soft brown leather and the hard brushed silver edges that also framed the sweet O of battery cover and the larger O for your lenses.

  The lenses had their own puffy little primrose resting places beside you and there was a matching linen-covered hardback book with an embossed cover that would tell me everything I needed to know. There was a little draw-top bag of dormouse-coloured plush, a couple of zipped black leather tubes and a beige cloth as soft as a hamster’s tummy for cleaning your lenses. For this little lot I had parted with every penny I had, and run up an overdraft. It made no sense at all. For some reason some words of Mary McCart
hy’s floated into my head as I gazed guiltily into the pale silken folds of your boudoir: ‘It made no sense for me to sleep with him so I married him so it would make sense.’ And then I knew that there was really only one thing I could sensibly do: I had to take you by the strap and get you to show me a good time.

  Obviously it wasn’t easy. There’s a lot more to using a fully manual camera than meets the eye. At first the little linen book was enough but soon I was ushering the children out of the door and going online to the various photography sites and forums, some of which were helpful.

  I learned about light and dark, shadows and flares. I started buying films by the economy dozen and became on first-name terms with the entire staff of Snappy Snaps. I was careful to stash most of my pictures in the shed but Simon occasionally, like at breakfast this morning, came across a packet and assumed I was having fun with our old pocket-sized Olympus.

  I took pictures of cats for a while. I became quite a stalker of cats because we didn’t have our own yet. There was a sleek black fellow who slept on a wall in Marine Parade that I practically struck up a relationship with. My pictures of that cat are among the best I’ve ever done: I showed them to Barry and even he said they were good.

  For a couple of weeks I enjoyed taking pictures in the park, the cherry blossom was spectacular this year, but eventually I had to stop going with you there. There were too many men: on their way to work, eating sandwiches, walking dogs. ‘Is that a Leica?’ ‘Is it the MP?’ they’d ask. ‘How are you finding it?’ Or else they wanted to tell me about the Leicas in their lives. Some even wanted to deliver monologues about digital cameras versus film. One cheeky chap asked if he could ‘cop a hold’. I hadn’t realised what a man-magnet a camera could be: suddenly I understood what life must be like with a cleavage.

  A couple of times I had to ask Barry for help. Eventually, having sussed that portraits and still lifes were starting to be ‘my thing’, he introduced me to the joys of sensitive film: ‘See what you think,’ he said, and then with the sly reassurance of the serpent he was: ‘You’ll not look back.’

  I started shooting black and whites at 3200 ASA, colour at 1600. Until then most of my pictures had by necessity of light been out of doors. Being alone was the turning point. With fast film, even in failing light I could still keep my subject sharp. I could open up to a huge aperture and the tumble of books and old newspapers that I no longer quite found the time to clear up would become a background blur, a sort of Monet-esque colour wash. With nothing other than a bowl of apples between us, I started to think that every minute away from you was wasted time.

  Everywhere I looked there was a picture: the sleeping profiles of the boys against their pillows, the swallows in their nest; and the ones I couldn’t take, too: the dark curl of hair that escaped like a question mark where the ribbing at the neck of Simon’s T-shirt had become stretched, the way his face was lit one night by the campfire he’d made for the boys in the meadow. They cooked sausages on sticks and as he leaned over the fire with Ivan’s sausage the flames lit his face so he looked like James Dean and I longed for my camera to be out of the closet. I found myself working out the exposures even without the camera in my hands. How could I think about anything else? Barry, who by this point might as well have grown little red horns, had persuaded me to buy a tripod.

  The tripod meant that I no longer had to stack up piles of books to steady the camera. I was able to take pictures in practically any light.

  The photographs of the baby swallows came out even better than I’d expected. You could make out each individual strand of horsehair woven around their nest.

  I gulped the lump in my throat. Knowing what I was about to do, I tried not to think about the swallows or the cat on the wall or any of my better photographs. There were plenty of bad ones, especially in the beginning. I was practically in a frenzy looking for my keys when Simon called.

  ‘A babysitter?’ he said. ‘Do you think there’s a chance someone will be free?’

  Why hadn’t I thought of booking her already? Obviously he’d want to go out, why hadn’t I thought of it?

  ‘Tim’s reserved a table at L’Artichaut,’ he said. I hadn’t thought of that either. Hurrah for Tim.

  ‘I think it’s just us and Sadie and you.’ Hearing his voice stiffened my resolve. I was going to have to be quick in town. After that it was still going to be a rush into London for the guitar shop.

  Once I got to the camera shop, though, Barry had other ideas: ‘Your pictures are becoming too good,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how you could bear to part with it.’

  ‘I must,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve got an eye,’ he said. ‘You can trade it in if you insist but you’ll probably always regret it.’

  Ridiculous tears were welling up in my eyes. You were tucked among your sumptuous cushions, unbearably chic; there was the linen box, the silver box, the soft leather cases. I had stored everything so carefully beneath the polythene covers that even the white slip case was pristine as new chalk. Now, as it all lay open for Barry’s inspection, I had to be careful not to wet the pale primrose satin with my tears.

  ‘It’s not just what the camera’s worth,’ I said. ‘It’s the film processing. I must be up to ten a week. I can’t afford to do this any more.’

  ‘I can help you with that, at least,’ Barry said. ‘Where are you getting your films developed?’

  I told him.

  ‘Waste of money,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ I could’ve stamped my foot. ‘That’s why I need you to buy back this camera.’

  ‘You don’t have to pay for whole sets of prints, you know.’ He told me about a woman just down the road who could make me contact sheets. ‘She processes film for all the professionals; she’s very good.’

  I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of something like contact sheets myself. It wasn’t a service they offered on the high street.

  ‘She used to be married to a photographer but he’s left her,’ he said. ‘She’s been a bit distraught.’ He thought I might have heard of her: ‘Her name’s Morganna.’

  Then he lowered his voice: ‘Famous nude model in her day, Morganna. You might have seen some of them, probably before your time though don’t say that to her. There was a series that Carlos Clarke shot of her with a snake. Lovely detail of the scales and the patterns.’ Beelzebub flicked out his forked tongue, licked his lips. ‘That was Morganna.’

  All the time Barry was telling me this I was still holding on to the camera. I hardly noticed her come in, until she had passed the display cases and I could see that she had a kind face, with the right sort of lines around her eyes and lots of dark hair which was held back in loops and bunches by many small silk flowers pinned hither and thither.

  ‘Morganna, I was just talking about you.’ Barry kissed her on both cheeks and introduced me.

  ‘This one here,’ – he had rested a proprietorial hand on my shoulder and was slightly pushing me towards her – ‘this one’s taking pretty good shots with her Leica but is finding the developing a bit pricey,’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’ She glanced from me to the counter and perceptibly gasped: ‘What a beautiful camera.’ Morganna’s voice was deep like Eleanor Bron. For a moment I felt my grip tightening around your brown leather body. She was gazing at you with a look that I recognised as fervent as my own.

  ‘I imagine they’re quite rare,’ she said, and her voice seemed to have grown huskier.

  I imagined this Morganna writing me out the cheque. There’d be nothing to do but take it. She smelled expensively of rose oil and grapefruit.

  ‘This leather is so smooth,’ she said, stroking your contours with one finger. Barry coughed.

  ‘I think you should help her,’ he said, giving my shoulder another little shake towards her. ‘She’s got talent.’

  Barry slipped me a cable switch that had come in second-hand. ‘No charge,’ he whispered. ‘For such a good customer.’ I shook my head at him.
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  Morganna tore her gaze away from my camera. Her dark eyes were ringed with black kohl, precisely drawn. She studied me for a moment, unblinkingly like a cat.

  ‘Bring me your films and I’ll be happy to do contacts for you, any afternoon at three,’ she said. ‘Number 7 Marine Parade, at the seafront. If there’s anything you like I can help you print it yourself,’ she added. I felt suddenly quite thrilled at the thought of making my own prints.

  ‘There,’ said Barry, and I stopped gripping my camera so hard. ‘Morganna’s always been a great support to struggling artists. Now there’s no need to worry.’

  Morganna smiled at me like a true patron of the arts, her many bracelets jingling as she shook my hand.

  The little bubble of elation that carried me home, the camera smugly in its box and not in the shop as I’d intended, burst once I remembered that I still hadn’t managed a present for Simon. That morning’s Snappy Snaps lay on the table where he’d left them. I got them out of the packet. They were good, it was true: the colours and the composition of Ivan and the buttercups had something of an old master painting about it. What if Barry was right and I did have talent? The late sunlight suited both Ivan’s sweet, peachy-cheeked profile and the flowers in their jar at the window. The line of Ivan’s eyelashes was razor-sharp and each buttercup petal seemed individually lit.

  Poor Simon didn’t have a clue. I almost laughed as I thought of him pontificating this morning: ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to me to buy a proper film since I’ve been doing everything on the phone,’ he had said, looking at a picture where only Ivan was in focus, the jar of flowers an artful blur.