A Division of the Light

by Christopher Burns

  “Wouldn’t we?” he asked.

  Thomas lay with his feet up on the sofa and a book open in front of him. Apparently absorbed, he was surreptitiously watching Alice. All was quiet but for the sound of her shoes on the floor. She paced the confines of the flat as though forbidden to leave.

  The book was a gazetteer of European archaeological sites, its text liberally illustrated with maps, plans and photographs. On the previous night Thomas had returned to the flat to discover Alice examining its images of tilted monoliths, collapsed tombs, and half-robbed mounds of stone. When he asked if she wanted to know more about the sites she had shaken her head and not looked up. But she had carried on turning the pages, apparently at random.

  Thomas was puzzled. Some time ago Alice had insisted that she had lost interest in the technicalities of archaeology, but now she appeared to be discovering something unexpected in bleak images of deserted remains. He was not to know that it was not historical data that intrigued her, but composition, lighting, and atmosphere. It was as if Alice wished the sites to be stripped of all investigation, to become once again unknowable, and to exist purely as mysteries or symbols.

  Thomas felt an ache of regret. In their early days together he had enjoyed telling his lover about the evidence of lost worlds that was still scattered across the European landscape. Even the names were evocative—Los Millares, Long Meg and Her Daughters, Rocha dos Enamorados, Grime’s Graves. For Alice this knowledge was intriguingly arcane, and she had always been attracted to people who were experts on subjects about which she knew little. What had been especially appealing about Thomas’s expertise was that within it she could always read an inference of development, of improvement, of ascent. No matter how much he insisted that such a model of progress had been discredited, to Alice it still seemed as if the world had been programmed to improve.

  Now, alive with nervous energy, Alice prowled the flat while Thomas eyed her like a keeper. She checked the contents of drawers, moved ornaments fractionally, touched the corners of a framed poster to make sure that it hung straight on the wall. Then she stared out of the window at the busy street below for several minutes, all the time swaying almost imperceptibly from side to side. Thomas recognized that these were displacement activities. Alice had begun to exhibit them with increased frequency; often they led to distressing scenes.

  When she left the room and went into the tiny kitchen he waited for a few moments, put down his book, and then followed her. Alice was kneeling in front of the refrigerator making a silent inventory of its contents. Her blouse with the vertical blue stripes was open one button too far and the sleeves were pushed up to her elbows.

  When he told her that there was no shortage of food, her distracted expression made him think that she had not heard.

  “There’s something on your mind,” he said. “Why don’t you come back and sit down and we can talk about it. Or maybe we could go out for a few hours. We could go anywhere you want.”

  “I’m just making sure nothing has been forgotten. Someone has to keep on top of these things. Who else is going to make sure that everything runs smoothly?”

  Alice closed the fridge door, stood up and folded her arms. Her fingers tapped against her own skin with the rapidity of a Morse signaler. When she next spoke she did not look at Thomas but to one side, as if a third person stood within the room, invisible and silent. He thought it best not to break the spell.

  “I may as well tell you,” she said at last.

  Whenever she made a comment like that, a tide of panic rose within him.

  “Tell me what?”

  “What I’ve decided to do. You see, I found out something from Gregory Pharaoh.”

  “There’s something in those photographs?”

  Alice was silent. She did not seem to have listened.

  “You could identify the people who robbed you?” Thomas suggested.

  She shook her head in dismissal. “No, it’s not that. That doesn’t matter any more. Those two men were just means to an end.”

  Thomas waited. He could hear traffic noise filtering up from the street.

  “He told me that I have a certain . . . quality.”

  “Quality,” he repeated flatly.

  “He told me that I’m photogenic. I didn’t expect that.”

  Thomas felt a surge of relief. All that had happened was that Alice had been flattered. A photographer such as Pharaoh would be prone to exaggeration; sooner or later Alice would realize it. There was no cause for Thomas to worry.

  But she acted as if the word had set a seal on her uniqueness, and when she continued she spoke like an advocate.

  “It’s a professional judgment made from experience. Made by an expert. I hadn’t thought it, but that’s what he says.”

  Thomas considered how he should answer.

  Although his feelings for Alice were what he classed as love, sometimes—too often—he was unequal to the demands that coursed through her life. But Thomas had never doubted his own emotions. He knew that it was impossible for him not to love her, as it would be impossible for him to leave. If anyone were capable of turning away brutally and forever, it was Alice.

  And if that happened, he suspected that he would never be able to deal with the consequences. Thomas would always love Alice: he was certain of that. But aside from the emotions of loss and grief that would forever needle and bleed him, there would be everyday practical problems that he was not sure he would be able to solve. One of these would be where he could live. This was Alice’s flat, and Thomas made no financial contribution to it. He had an older brother, Richard, whom he hardly ever met, so it was doubtful if he would be able to stay with him for more than just a couple of days. Thomas was unsettlingly aware that it was not only his heart that was vulnerable.

  His response had to be tactful. If he offered too much praise, Alice would accuse him of cynical embellishment. He cleared his throat.

  “I think you’re very attractive.”

  It was not enough. He had to say more.

  “You know that’s true.” Even as he spoke Thomas recognized the weakness and miscalculation of his words.

  Alice appeared to be brooding on an approach, a suggestion, about which she was not yet able to speak.

  “But do you think I look good in photographs?” she demanded. “Has the word photogenic ever crossed your mind?”

  “I’ve often asked to take your photo. Usually you refuse. The only ones we have of each other were taken on holidays.”

  “Maybe that’s because you don’t ask in the right way.”

  “What do you mean—the right way? There’s only one way to ask and that’s what I do. It’s not my fault when you say no.”

  Alice shook her head in disbelief.

  “Thomas, you never make me feel that you want to photograph me. You just want me to be part of an arrangement. Like posing against a view to give it scale. I always feel that I’m just a kind of ornament. Or, even worse, a measure, like a surveying pole. I may as well be divided horizontally into black-and-white sections.”

  “How can you say that?” he asked, the timbre of his voice shifting as he sensed control slipping from him. When Alice descended into doubt her behavior was unpredictable and sometimes intolerable.

  “Once I allow myself to think it, then saying it is easy. Telling the truth isn’t difficult once you’ve thought everything through.”

  Her fingers had stopped tapping her skin, and now they dug into the flesh. He could see the force in her grip. Without relenting, Alice went on.

  “In fact, telling the truth becomes a necessity. It’s something to do with ethics, about being honest with yourself and those around you.” She waited a moment and then spoke again. “And you know about being honest with yourself, don’t you?”

  Thomas stepped away, put his hands behind his back, and leaned against the wall. His palms were flattened against the vertical, fingers pointing down, and he pressed hard against them as if they had to be kept un
der control. The texture of the wall was slightly uneven and he could feel its blemishes against his skin.

  It was unreasonable of Alice to suggest that he could not face the truth, because she had always avoided candor about her own past. Thomas knew that she had had several lovers before they had met, but he knew little of their names or their personalities. Retorting that she had always been silent on such matters would, he knew, only make things worse.

  “Alice, I know why you’re acting like this. By chance you met a man with a camera and he’s been fabricating some tale or other—”

  “I told you. He’s a professional. His latest work is printed in next Sunday’s—”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “You’ll see it all right. I’ll make sure I buy a copy.”

  Thomas waited for a few moments. “You can’t believe a person like that.”

  “He sees things in me that you can’t. And I know they’re there, even if I’m not sure exactly what they are. That’s why I believe him.”

  “He’s trying it on. Can’t you see that? He thinks that compliments will work because he assumes you’re either vain or vulnerable.”

  “Is that what you think about me?”

  “You know it isn’t.”

  “Then why should Gregory Pharaoh? He wants to take my portrait, that’s all. At first I said no, but then I thought—why not? He can make his choice from hundreds of women. Hundreds. Maybe that should tell you something about me.”

  To Thomas, it seemed absurd that they should be arguing. The kitchen flattened and degraded their voices so that both he and Alice seemed like immature versions of themselves. Even the words they used did not sound fully formed.

  “Let’s go and sit down and talk this through,” he suggested again.

  “No, Thomas, let’s stand here. There’s nothing to discuss. I’m going to sit for a portrait. That’s my decision. I’m just telling you what it is.”

  He nodded mutely. Her next question was put like a demand.

  “Are you angry?”

  “No. No, I’m not angry.”

  “Jealous, then?”

  Thomas denied it with a shake of his head, but he was acutely aware that jealousy was a constant measure in his life.

  Everyone else seemed to have been given opportunities that Thomas had been denied. For years he had remained at the shadowy periphery of research, excavations and lectureships. Not for him the glamorous finds that so excited the media; he could only imagine what it must be like to be wooed by television producers. In acceptance of his lowly status, Thomas had even begun to consider investigating sites that, if they had been examined at all, had only been dug by wealthy Victorian amateurs who had never unearthed enough to satisfy their curiosity.

  That, he thought, was burden enough, but he was also obsessively jealous of Alice. Until he had met her, his sexual life had been unimaginative. Plainly hers had not, for she had awoken responses in him whose existence he had always doubted. Now, when he lay with her in bed, or when she evaded questions about her earlier life, or simply when he watched her walk across a room, Thomas wondered if other men had made more proficient, inflamed and sensual love to Alice than he had ever been able to do. And all the time, in a drumbeat forever sounding in his imagination, he wondered if she had been closer and more comfortable with those lovers than she had ever been with him.

  He had never dared admit any of these fears.

  “You’re jealous,” Alice said with grim triumph. “I can tell.”

  “What do you expect me to say? What do you want me to say? I’m doing my best to keep things calm.”

  “Maybe it would be best if we weren’t calm. Is that what you secretly think? You think you’ve got a good reason to feel agitated, don’t you—and we both know why. It’s because you’ve failed. And because every now and then you come face to face with the truth. That’s why.”

  The sound of their breathing filled the room like that of animals within a cage.

  “Alice,” he said wearily, “don’t let’s fight each other. I don’t know why you feel a need to argue. You’re always the one who starts it.”

  “I don’t start it. It happens because of who we are and what we do. Do you think I enjoy being so upset? Don’t you realize how often I’ve been reduced to tears because of what we are?”

  Thomas was silent. A few nights ago, after they had made love, Alice had begun to weep. Naked, inconsolable, she had trembled helplessly within his arms and refused to explain why.

  “The other week, when I had my bag stolen,” she continued, “I told the people at work I was going to take a walk rather than eat lunch. They must have seen how near the edge I was. I started to cry before I even got out of the building. I remember keeping my head down in the lift in case anyone else got in. I knew my eyes would be so ugly and puffed up that I would have to wear dark glasses as camouflage. That’s what I was doing when I was robbed. Just walking aimlessly, but fast, as if I knew where I was going. And covering my eyes in case anyone noticed how distressed I was. I thought Gregory Pharaoh hadn’t spotted that. But he had. He notices everything.”

  “Pharaoh.” The name tasted bitter in Thomas’s mouth, so bitter that he spoke it again. “Pharaoh the expert. I don’t even believe that’s his real name. Why do I feel I’m being compared to this man? You don’t even know him. Not really.”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  There was another pause in their confrontation, like an unexpected lull in battle. Alice’s face had tightened, her breathing rose and fell, and the skin shone at the base of her throat. And then she went on.

  “I don’t really want to know him. I’d have told you that before, if you’d been concerned enough to ask. But it never occurred to you to ask, did it? You were too busy daydreaming to think about me; too busy fantasizing about schemes that never work out and contracts that are always short-term and plans that always fail.”

  It was a familiar accusation, but one that always hit home. Even as he answered, Thomas knew that his voice was dulled, like that of a man interrogated for hours who finally confesses.

  “I’m not a failure. It’s just that success hasn’t happened yet.”

  “And until it does? Until then I work at jobs that I don’t particularly like and sometimes hate. You should try lowering your standards like I have to do—it gives you real insight into how things are.”

  Thomas turned away.

  “Don’t turn your back on me,” Alice shouted.

  He was sure she had become so strident that she would be heard in the neighboring flats. There was a self-serving streak of drama in Alice. He decided he must say this, and turned back to face her, but then he stopped.

  Thomas thought that he simply did not care any more. His apparent resolve was as false as it was momentary; he knew it was impossible for him to walk out on Alice. Just as he knew that he would always be hopelessly, helplessly in love with her.

  He forced himself into extending the confrontation. “Why shouldn’t I turn my back? You’re not worth listening to.”

  “Bastard,” she said, and clenched her hand into a fist.

  “If you hit me,” Thomas said, “I’ll not respond. I’ve done enough of that.”

  Alice seemed poised on the edge of striking him. He could see the strain in her face, the dilation of her eyes, the slight trembling of her arm.

  He had to do something.

  Suddenly confident, Thomas reached out and put his hand round her fist as a restraint. Alice turned her head to one side, either in acknowledgment that the instant had passed or because she could no longer bear to look at him. He was momentarily lost between rage and appeasement, but then he forced himself to calm down.

  “This is crazy,” he said.

  Alice did not answer, but stood still before him: a frightened yet stubborn captive.

  “After all this time, we should learn not to tear each other apart,” Thomas continued. “We should know each other’s personality
well enough by now.”

  Her lips moved, but he could not hear what she said.

  “What?”

  “But you don’t. That’s the trouble.”

  He was puzzled. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t know me.”

  It was the kind of complaint she made often. Thomas would have liked to consider it worthless, but he knew that it was true.

  “Of course I do,” he told her, but he knew his confidence was hollow.

  “It’s not a failing,” Alice answered. “Often I think I don’t even know myself.”

  Thomas waited for a second, and then impulsively became more conciliatory and put his arms round Alice. Like a third invisible figure, a sense of desperation embraced them both. Alice did not move away but she was rigid and unyielding, and even when Thomas hugged her tighter she would not raise her face to look into his eyes.

  Alice thought of the men who had loved her as rungs on a ladder whose top could still not be seen. When each relationship was over, she felt that she had moved higher. Anger, distress and recrimination were consequences she knew how to deal with. They were transitory and left no wounds. The next affair was always more exciting than the last.

  She could never see where she was going, but she always knew that she was climbing.

  5

  At first Alice Fell is able to reject the lens, to nullify its inquisition, so that the earlier portraits will reveal almost nothing of her personality.

  She has chosen sensible clothes—a black blouse, gray trousers with a subdued fleck, little black boots with side zips and wedge heels. Gregory has asked her to take off her watch and bracelets. A high-backed wooden chair is placed in the center of the studio with a neutral backdrop of very pale blue. Natural light enters from windows and skylight, tall lamps with adjustable panels provide additional illumination, and circular reflectors are stationed just outside viewfinder range.

  As Gregory checks the light meter he mentions that his daughter helped with the set-up. He believes that Alice will find this information reassuring, but when she was admitted to the building the two women were immediately cool with each other. Alice thought that Cassie’s greeting was reserved and possibly resentful, and she wondered if a daughter’s natural jealousy had worked its way into her demeanor.