When he took the pants and shook them out, a small piece of paper fell from them and fluttered to the floor. Puzzled, he picked it up. He recognized it instantly. It was a list, written in Sarah’s handwriting and done soon after their wedding. Numbered ‘1’ at the top, it listed things they would do together. He read down it slowly. ‘Bird watching’ it began – she had loved birds – ‘buying Gilbert presents, eating in restaurants, making lists of things to do, walking on a beach, looking after G, walking by the river, like the thought of being healthy, buying nice clothes and looking nice, spending time with G, laughing, making love, reading, dressing up to go out, exploring’.
Gilbert sat down on the bed and cried and cried and cried.
8
Because he didn’t know what would happen if he were to enlist in the militia, Gilbert put off any decision until the exhibition was over. It had been a reasonable success. He had sold four paintings and made nearly a hundred and forty dollars. The timing, however, had been a disaster. Virginia had seceded. There were rumors that a Virginian army was marching on Washington. Militiamen could be seen on the streets moving to their posts. Carts laden with iron jars of cartridges and grapeshot were distributing ammunition. Riders galloped through the streets, their blue capes flying. There were artillery pieces on the Virginia end of the Long Bridge. Men with muskets on their shoulders patrolled the streets at night. Getting their photographs taken was the last thing on anybody’s mind.
In the midst of all this, Gilbert wondered whether Miss Reynolds would risk coming across town from wherever it was she lived. By the time the exhibition was due to close, he fully expected her to send somebody in her place. Either that or a note asking to have the painting delivered. He felt a tinge of regret that he would not see her again.
Saturday came. Gilbert stood in the doorway of the studio watching the bustle on the street. A boy ran past and gave him a handbill saying that the band of the Seventh New York regiment would play a concert on the lawn south of the White House later on today. For more than a week now troops had been arriving in the city from up north. Gilbert wondered again about enlisting – momentous events were passing him by as he sat here in this dull shop. Monotonous. Momentous. The two words buzzed around in his head like two flies circling. He had come to Washington for a new life but in reality it had become something of a rut. Maybe now was the time to make another move. Perhaps Gilbert Owens Photographic Studio had been just a way station; maybe the real door to the future was only now opening.
He had gone back inside and was mixing some collodion in back of the studio when he heard the bell on the door jingle. He emerged to find Miss Reynolds walking across the floor towards him. It was hot outside so she wore a large black hat, white blouse and a deep red skirt with a Greek key design in black on it. The red set off her dark hair and pale skin.
‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Mister Owens.’
She extended her hand. He took it and held it a moment.
‘The pleasure is all mine, Miss Reynolds. May I say, you’re a brave woman to come across the city in these unsettled times. And alone too.’
She smiled, her face shaded by the brim of the hat.
‘Perhaps with all these soldiers on the streets we are safer than we have ever been, Mister Owens. Anyway, I took a cab and nobody bothered me. And may I ask, how has your exhibition gone?’
‘A financial success and a timing disaster, I think would be the way to describe it,’ he said.
‘Well I can’t do much about the politics, Mister Owen but I can help on the financial side. There’s another painting that took my fancy – I believe it’s of Bull Run. Can you tell me if that one is sold?’
It was the painting that he had done last February when he had the idea of the exhibition. It wasn’t sold and so she bought that one as well.
Suddenly Gilbert had an idea. He had been intending to stay here until six o’clock in case anybody came in, but now something else occurred to him.
‘May I ask – do you like music, Miss Reynolds?’
‘I do indeed,’ she said. ‘All kinds.’
‘Well, there’s a concert of military music near the White House this afternoon. I wonder – if you’re not doing anything else – if you’d care to go along?’
He expected her to say no. He was sure she had a million and one other things to do. He assumed she would be returning home to whoever it was she lived with. But he had asked anyway and the reply when it came, was a pleasant shock.
‘Why I’d like that very much, Mister Owens.’
He would remember afterwards that he definitely wasn’t in love with her then. He just saw her as agreeable company and the concert a chance to break from the monotonous routine he had created for himself. They spent a pleasant time listening to tunes like ‘Yankee Doodle’, ‘Upidee’ and ‘The Girl I Left behind Me’. Gilbert found that he kept glancing at her. Initially, it may have been to see if she was enjoying herself. After a while he realized it was because he loved looking at her face. When the band began to play the introduction to ‘Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean’, the piccolo skipping lightly over the ocean before the tubas came up from the deep, he saw that she was nodding gently in time to the music. She must have become aware of him because she turned, saw him looking at her and smiled. Their eyes held for a moment or two and then she returned to the band.
When the concert was finished and the crowd was dispersing she said, ‘Are you thinking of joining the army, Mister Owens?’
‘I guess I am, ma’am. I guess we all have to think of it in the current climate. What are your own views, ma’am, may I ask?’
It was a delicate subject. There were as many Secessionists in Washington as there were Unionists. But there was something about her that made him feel he could just ask. So once again, he did.
She stopped walking, touched his arm and turned towards him.
‘Mister Owens,’ she said, and her face had a dark expression he hadn’t seen before. ‘I love this country, this beautiful, free country of ours. I cherish the freedom that we have here. But I fear that what is going to happen over the coming weeks and months will be truly terrible.’
He thought she looked as though she was going to cry.
‘And yet, I don’t know how it can be stopped or what alternatives there are.’
‘So if you were me, you would enlist, ma’am?’ he asked.
Her reply startled him.
‘No, I would not, Mister Owens. Think; if nobody enlisted then there could be no war.’
She held his gaze for a moment and then they began to walk again, heading for where a line of cabs was parked. Gilbert’s immediate concern was less the impending war, but rather how he could contrive to meet her again. He enjoyed her company. While he would have liked something romantic to happen between them, he assumed that there was somebody else. Still, to have her as a friend – he would have settled for that. He had an idea.
‘May I ask you, ma’am – have you ever thought about having your picture taken? I believe your face would look very well in a photographic portrait. Since you’re a friend of mine – at least I hope I can say that – I’d be pleased to do one for you at no charge.’
It had never occurred to her, she said but yes, now that he came to mention it, she thought it would be nice. But of course she would insist on paying. They would see, he said and she laughed.
She came to sit for the picture the following Wednesday afternoon. When she had last proffered her hand, he had just taken it. This time he kissed it.
‘So do you work in a hospital, ma’am?’ asked Gilbert, as he was preparing the camera.
‘No, I have a private practise that I run from my home.’
‘There can’t be many female doctors in Washington.’
‘Mister Owens, there are very few female doctors in this country.’
‘You must be only recently qualified?’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Mister Owens. However, it’s a fe
w years ago now. I qualified in Philadelphia. I qualified but almost immediately got married.’
Disappointment fell on him like a rock.
‘But you still call yourself Miss Reynolds. You didn’t take your husband’s name?’
‘No, I took his name alright, but we divorced about a year ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gilbert. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry, Mister Owens. I’m not. And as for prying, I don’t know about you but I hate conversations that are just small talk. If I speak with someone I want to find out about them. I want to know about their life – what makes them tick. So pry away, if you wish to.’
‘It must have been very difficult for you ––’
He left the question hanging there.
‘Divorce, Mister Owens. The wronged wife’s remedy. He found somebody else to play around with, I divorced him.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ he said.
‘It was anything but,’ she said. ‘Like all young women I expected it to be forever.’
‘So now you live alone?’
‘Now, I live alone,’ she said.
He couldn’t tell whether or not she was happy with this situation.
‘Why are you asking me this anyway?’ she said.
‘I like to find out about people too, ma’am.’
‘Do you now?’ she said.
They talked on as he took two photographs, one a full length portrait and the other a head and shoulders. She seemed pleased with the result. He had already figured out how he could arrange to see her again.
‘Would you like the pictures framed, ma’am?’
‘Yes, I think that would be very nice.’
‘And when would you like to pick them up?’
‘Well, I’ll be away for the next couple of weeks. I’m going to Annapolis to visit some cousins. I normally take a bit of a break at this time of year. And what with the situation and everything I may not get a chance to see them again for a while. I shall be back in a couple of weeks so maybe I could call round then?’
When she had gone he could still smell her perfume in the air. He went over bits of their conversation in his head. He tried to remember what her voice sounded like. He felt a sort of golden glow as though he were bathed in sunlight and the dull afternoon hardly bothered him at all. Any thoughts he might have had about enlisting were shelved – at least until she got back.
And then the next day they were shelved for even longer because that was the day it became busy. He should have seen it coming. With all of these soldiers coming into town and with time on their hands, it was only a matter of time before their thoughts should turn to getting their photographs taken. And so it was.
From then on there was a steady stream of men coming into the studio. Sometimes they came alone, sometimes with their friends, often with a wife or sweetheart. Money started to roll in. Every day now, Gilbert had to make a visit to the bank whereas before he had been lucky to have to do it once a week. He would be nuts to join up now, he reasoned. He would ride the wave while it was there. He would put off any thought of enlistment until the end of the summer. Anyway, if many were to be believed, the war would be over by then.
9
‘I think I fix the problem, boss.’
Gilbert had come out of the darkroom where he had been trying to wash the redness from his eyes. He had the shakes, he was sweating and he was angry.
‘What have you done now?’
‘Well you know, I cause this problem, boss. I feel I gotta fix it.’
‘Damn right you gotta fix it. And when this is all fixed you’re fired.’
Roberto ignored this.
‘I speak to the policeman. I give ’im some money. ’e say ’e fix it.’
‘Fix it?’
‘Yeah, just take ’im a few days. He say close the place, get outta town and by the time we get back it all be fixed.’
‘Fixed?’
‘Yessir,’ said Roberto airily. ‘Fixed.’
‘Fixed how?’
‘Fixed, boss. You know – fixed. You know how it works. With money, people forget about things. Is the same everywhere. In Italy. ’ere. Everywhere.’
When he said ‘Italy’ it sounded like ‘Eat-aly’.
‘So why don’t we just stay here?’ said Gilbert in exasperation. ‘Lock the door and stay inside.’
‘I ask him that, boss but ’e say no good. Better not to be ’ere.’
‘Why?’
‘In case they come and search the place, boss.’
Gilbert shook his head. There was something not quite right about all of this. But he was having difficulty focusing. He really needed a drink. Maybe then he could think straight.
‘I need to get some whisky,’ he said.
‘Is okay, boss. Already got some for you. See?’
Roberto pointed out two bottles which stood on the edge of the heap of supplies. Gilbert looked at him uncertainly. There was a silence as he tried to see what was going on in the Italian’s face. Then Roberto said, ‘So now we go, eh? ’ere – come see the wagon.’
Despite himself, Gilbert followed Roberto out through the back door into the courtyard. There, a brown horse with a full tail, a mane of coarse matted hair and a fringe that came down over its eyes, was contentedly munching a bucket of oats. The horse could not have been described as fat. Gilbert suspected that the oats it was consuming constituted the first decent meal it had eaten in a while.
‘What you think? She magnificent. No?’
‘She’s a he,’ said Gilbert coldly.
The sun was only just up, but not enough to have penetrated the enclosed cobbled yard where they stood. Overhead there was a pale blue sky with a few high fleecy clouds in it. It looked like being a fine day.
Roberto went and nuzzled the horse, rubbing its cheek with his hand.
‘You beautiful boy, ain’t you?’ he said. ‘And what you think of the wagon?’ he asked Gilbert in continuing delight.
With great reluctance, Gilbert found himself admitting that Roberto had done an extraordinary job. A new wheel, the wood still white and fresh and smelling of varnish, stood on the side facing them. A shaft of the same color had also been added. What made the wagon into a mobile darkroom was that the wooden bed of the wagon had a rectangular metal frame fitted to it, tall enough for a man to stand up in. Over this, a covering of black canvas was fitted. The new canvas was glossy in the morning light. Gilbert said nothing.
‘So now we load up, eh?’ said Roberto happily.
Gilbert felt too weak to carry or lift anything. And he felt angry – angry towards Roberto and this mess that he’d managed to create, angry that his own life was such a mess, angry that fate had taken Sarah from him. Why had she left him when she had said that she loved him? He stood by the wagon as Roberto carried out the supplies and equipment. There were two cameras – a large single plate camera that took eight-by-ten-inch glass negatives and a twin-lensed stereo camera which produced a double image on a smaller glass negative. Next came wooden boxes of clear glass plates for taking the photographs on. After that bottles of chemicals – collodion made by dissolving pyroxylin in alcohol and ether, silver nitrate to sensitize the plates and a solution of iron sulfate, acetic acid and alcohol to do the developing. Then came the provisions, a few flagons of water and a sack of oats for the horse. Finally, Roberto brought out a travel bag and Gilbert’s hat and jacket.
‘I got some clothes in ’ere for you, boss,’ Roberto said, indicating the bag.
Gilbert felt he was being pulled along by a force that he didn’t fully understand. As luck would have it, just as Roberto was saying that the next thing was to go across town to the chemical suppliers, a wagon pulled into the yard. On it was a consignment of chemicals that Roberto had ordered but hadn’t expected to arrive in time. The driver and Roberto seemed to know each other well and chatted for a minute or two. Then, once the chemicals were loaded they were rea
dy.
‘I just need to get something,’ said Gilbert.
He went back inside and up to his room. In a corner was his painting equipment – an easel, canvases, sketch pads, paints. He took the brown leather satchel that he used to carry his paints and upended it, scattering everything onto the floor. Then he went to his bedside locker and took out a letter of several pages and a photograph. He put them into the satchel. Then he took the list that Sarah had written and put it in as well. He slung the satchel on his shoulder and went downstairs.
The horse grudgingly gave up the bucket of oats and these were stowed in the back. Roberto climbed onto the wooden seat and took up the reins. With some difficulty Gilbert managed to climb up and settle himself beside Roberto. Gilbert had a bottle of whisky cradled in his lap like a baby. Roberto clicked a few times with his tongue; shook the reins onto the horse’s back and reluctantly the animal began to lumber towards the gate of the yard.
10
‘It’s good to see you again, Mister Owens,’ she said as he emerged from the portrait area to take the next client.
He felt a surge of delight at the sight of her. He had missed her and she had been on his mind a lot over the previous couple of weeks. He had wondered what she was doing in Annapolis. He found that he faintly envied the cousins who were getting to spend time with her. He wondered if she thought of him at all. The time seemed to crawl. He kept the day she would return marked on a calendar. And now – finally – she was here.
She came in the mid-afternoon. He excused himself from his next client and took her in back where he showed her the framed portraits. While she was studying them, she said, ‘Such a strange feeling to look at an image of yourself like this – to see yourself as others see you.’
Sunlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 2) Page 5
