‘This is wicked.’ The model spoke with a strong Essex accent and the sudden transformation of her crimson lips, from melancholy seduction to slightly brazen smile was a real let down.
‘I told you you’d be a natural,’ Adam said. ‘Glad I propositioned you now?’
Natasha caught a flutter of very long eyelashes. ‘Any time,’ the model simpered.
‘Now, turn away but keep your eyes on me. Look over your shoulder. Stop. Right here, remember?’ Adam poked two fingers towards his own eyes. ‘A little further. That’s it. Lean forward as if you’re about to run, or you’re backing away from something.’
The girl adjusted herself, her pose looking a little awkward from where Natasha was standing. Adam obviously thought so too. He walked over to her, stood behind her and put his arms around her shoulders, then leant his body against hers, pushing her over slightly. Surely he didn’t have to stand quite so close! He lifted the girl’s arm, bent it, put his hand over hers and laid it against the opening of the cloak. ‘It’s cold. Wrap it round you.’ Then he moved to face her, placed his palms on either side of her face and gently angled it towards him. He said something else which Natasha didn’t catch, but it brought a smile to the girl’s face.
What a creep. It troubled Natasha, the way he’d openly flirted with her at the Opium Den when he was supposed to be worried about Bethany, in love with her still. But this was taking it way too far. Why was she bothering?
Adam walked back to the camera. Angie went over to him, brushed her hand across his arm to attract his attention. Or to stake a claim.
He turned to her and she whispered something to him. He nodded and she went over to the other side of the room, came back with a white lily, which she gave the model to hold.
‘It’s night,’ Adam began, his tone colder now. ‘You’ve been running through the woods. You’re sure you’re being chased. You kissed me once but you know you shouldn’t have. Look back over your shoulder. That’s good. You can see my face in the darkness now. I’m catching up.’
Another staccato volley. The blanched face, partially concealed by the sumptuous folds of velvet, frozen by the flare.
‘Wistful and provocative now.’
‘Make love to the camera you mean?’
‘Be my guest.’
Oh, please.
The final flash died, leaving a bright floating image on Natasha’s retina, like the afterglow of the sun.
‘OK, Diana,’ Adam said. ‘We’re finished.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, honeybun. I couldn’t bear it.’ She glided towards him, the hemline and small train of the cloak swishing over the floor, then turned, allowing him to ease her out of it. Angie hovered close by, relieved Adam of the garment and went to hang it on a rail.
Natasha coughed.
‘Sorry,’ Angie muttered to Adam, flicking her eyes in Natasha’s direction. ‘I forgot to tell you.’
The reaction on Adam’s face told her the question at the forefront of his mind was, how long she’d been standing there. He looked guilty which instantly made her suspicious.
She wasn’t going to let him off the hook easily. ‘I wanted to talk to you. If I’m not interrupting anything.’
‘I’ll be just a minute.’ He glanced over to the back wall. Natasha’s eyes had adjusted and she could make out an easy chair pushed up against it. ‘Have a seat. Can Angie fetch you a coffee?’
‘Lovely.’ She stayed on her feet.
As Adam retreated back into the darkness, Angie cast a chilly smile in Natasha’s direction and disappeared into an anteroom off the main studio. She came back seconds later with two steaming mugs in her hands, one of which she handed over. She’d made it strong enough to stand a spoon in. If she’d been given a choice, Natasha would have asked for it milky, with one sugar. ‘Thanks.’ But the girl’s eyes were already trained back towards the spotlight.
Adam was standing on its periphery and Angie went to give him his coffee, made to his exact taste no doubt.
Natasha wondered if Bethany had ever been present when Adam photographed other girls. If she was jealous of Angie, who seemed to know Adam so well she did everything before he had to ask, and who clearly shared closely with him an important part of his life? But then that was the case with most people. You spent most days of the year with work colleagues. It was they who got to share your frustrations and successes.
Natasha took a sip from the mug. Her tongue furled at the bitter taste.
As Diana headed for the bathroom, Adam made some adjustments on the camera, closing down, shutting off. Natasha couldn’t help watching Angie, who looked as if she was loitering, finding things to do. She was sorting through reels of film, putting them down, picking them up again, scribbling notes on stickers, sifting through a pile of Polaroids. Natasha almost wanted to reassure her: Don’t worry, I’m not interested in him.
Interested? You couldn’t help but be ‘interested’ in Adam, in both senses of the word. But his life was obviously complicated. It took all sorts though. Perhaps Bethany was a free spirit, not prone to possessiveness. Could you love someone and never be jealous?
By the look of things, Bethany had more cause than most. Did she find she was copying Lizzie Siddal’s life in ways she might not have wanted? Being involved with someone like Rossetti, artistic, mercurial, a womaniser, someone who gave her no peace?
Maybe she’d already had her heart broken beyond repair.
At last you will be mine.
Adam wandered over to where Natasha stood. Angie, with obvious reluctance, slung a denim jacket over her shoulder. She came and offered Adam her cheek onto which he delivered a swift kiss. Then she lifted her arms up around his shoulders for the briefest of moments and as she pulled away said, ‘Have a good evening.’ She threw a glance at Natasha that spoke the exact opposite.
‘That was brilliant,’ Diana said as she re-appeared, swinging across the studio as if it were a catwalk. She scrunched up her blonde hair, securing it with a silver band. Tall and thin, she had changed into tight denims and a white T-shirt with Babe written across the breast in pink sparkles.
Adam clasped her hand. ‘You were great.’
‘So were you. You’ll give me a call the minute I can see them?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s such a brilliant idea. I’m surprised no one thought of it before.’
‘Thank you.’ His voice sounded suddenly flat.
‘And I’m so glad you’ve decided to carry on with it after…’ she flicked her eyes at Natasha, lowered her voice. ‘Well, Jake’s told me what’s going on. I said nothing’s changed as far as I’m concerned. It’s a shame about Bethany. I liked her. But the exhibition’s going to be an incredible success. I’m sure of it.’ She squeezed his arm, batted her eyelashes again, made her voice throaty. ‘Come and see me again soon, OK?’
She walked towards the door through which Angie had just gone, leaving Natasha alone with Adam.
Twenty-Two
ADAM WAITED UNTIL the door closed.
‘It’s good to see you.’ The blacked out room and spotlight created an atmosphere that was unnervingly intimate, like a moonlit walk. ‘You look tired. It suits you.’
Don’t give me any of that crap.
He reached out as if towards her, then extended his hand over her shoulder half trapping her against the wall. He flicked a switch and the spotlight blinked off, casting the room into utter darkness. Natasha stiffened, felt a flicker of fear. You could scream at the top of your lungs down here and no one would ever know. Too bad.
Another light came on, weaker but positioned directly above.
‘There’s nothing going on. I wanted to get the best out of her, that’s all.’
I bet you did. ‘It’s absolutely none of my business. Could I see the pictures you took of Bethany the other day?’
Adam hesitated, then led the way to the back of the studio. The door he opened had Dark Room written on it, but it looked more like an office. Small and
heated, with a single stripped pine bench, an angle-poise lamp, and filing cabinets. On top of them were containers of chemicals, trays. Natasha had watched old photographs being restored, reprinted, and had always thought there was something almost mystical about the way an image gradually materialised on the blank paper, floated up out of the solution. Digital couldn’t compete. She was glad to see Adam hadn’t entirely abandoned traditional methods.
She also noted that there was a computer on the desk.
Directly behind where she was standing was another door, with a bolt across it.
‘Does Jake use this studio as well?’
‘Not for much longer.’
Adam had gone to one of the three filing cabinets, carefully withdrawn a manila folder from the top drawer. He fanned out a handful of large matt black and white pictures onto the desk. ‘Have a look at these first.’
The short reach of the light forced them to stand close together. Natasha felt his hair brush her face, just below her temples, caught the scent of it, clean and lemony. She wondered what it would be like to touch it. Where had her indignation gone when she needed it? Not to mention her wariness. She drew away and Adam, as if taking a hint, retreated to just beyond the fringe of light.
She picked up one of the pictures. It was a larger version of the one Adam had given to her. Not black and white exactly but various tones of grey, delicate and dreamy.
She put it aside. Beneath it was a shot of Bethany’s face, emerging from darkness, the image infused with a dusky light. The simplicity of the composition made it ageless. The one beneath was almost identical, except that her face was even more vague, as if she was fading away. Her eyes were trance like.
Natasha remembered the way Adam had used words to entice the emotions he wanted out of the girl he’d been photographing earlier, and she wondered what he’d said to Bethany to make her look like that.
‘They’re beautiful,’ she said.
In the right hand corner of the picture were initials she’d seen on the picture Adam had given to her earlier, the same letters that were on all the photographs. ‘What does TR stand for?’
He took the print off her. ‘It’s just a code.’
‘Will there be any men in your exhibition?’ She thought of the Cameron photographs in the National Portrait Gallery. It was the men that came to mind. Lord Tennyson bearded and wild-haired, Rossetti’s brother, William, with the bright stare of a wizard. ‘That’s what Julia Margaret Cameron was best known for, wasn’t it?’
‘True. But it’s much more interesting taking pictures of girls.’ He still stood outside the reach of the light, like a grand inquisitor with his face obscured, making it impossible to tell if he was being glib or not.
‘And the Pre-Raphaelites are remembered for their pictures of women of course. They chose models who shared traits and experiences with those they were meant to portray.’
Lizzie as Ophelia, a girl driven insane by unrequited love; Beatrice, Dante’s lover in heaven. And Bethany?
‘Did Bethany like what you saw in her?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Adam, are you worried about her?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think there’s any chance she might do anything drastic?’
He turned to her. ‘Absolutely not!’ He seemed furious that she’d even suggested it.
Natasha tried to look as if she was reassured. But Adam’s answer was too emphatic, as if he was determined to convince her, or himself. ‘I’m sorry. I had to ask.’
She slowly sifted through the shots again. The pictures were all characterised by that soft focus. Was that the quality Adam recognised in Bethany? The same quality the Victorian artists had noted in Lizzie Siddal, something phantom-like, foreshadowing of an early death? Or was that just the result of the techniques he’d used?
‘You know that picture you gave me, I presumed the blurriness wasn’t intentional but due to a fault in the processing or something.’
‘Actually, you’re not far off the mark. In Cameron’s case it was achieved by accident, at first.’ He leant over to drag a heavy book down from the shelf above the desk and opened it at a monograph of a girl in a garden. ‘See, she started off with a lens with a short focal length which only allowed one shallow plane to be completely in focus.’ He indicated a circuitous area with his finger, over the filmy cascade of the model’s hair, then touched her sharply defined profile. ‘And the collodin emulsion they used in those days also tended to make the finished print look a bit hazy. A lot of the effect though, was down to the incredibly long exposure which meant that breathing or slight movements, almost invisible to the naked eye, were recorded on the film…’ He was suddenly a different person, animated, enthusiastic. It reminded Natasha of the way Steven talked about archaeology. There was something very attractive about people who had a passion for a subject, a knowledge or expertise they were eager to share. ‘I generally use one of the Victorians’ less scientific methods,’ he added. ‘A trick of the light. If you drape fabric over windows or lamps, the diffusion gives sitters a sort of supernatural glow.’ He shut the book, put it back in the bookcase. ‘I’m boring you.’
‘Not at all,’ she said truthfully. ‘It’s fascinating.’
They shared a smile.
‘So what eternal quality do you see in the girl you were photographing earlier?’
‘Diana? Oh, she was definitely a snow queen, icy and predatory.
‘Is she a friend?’ How clumsy was that?
‘Not in that way,’ Adam smirked. ‘She wants to be an actress. Thinks the exposure will be good for her. We … I met her at a party about a year ago. And the first thing I noticed were those bright red lips. They seem to shout at you even when she’s not saying anything. The Victorians believed that character shaped a person’s features. I think there’s something in that.’
The vision was strong. Marcus, his fingers working a skull, eyes and lips and cheekbones taking shape beneath his hands. His voice, mingling with her own as they speculated together about what the person might have been like, when all they had to go on was a slowly developing face. She pushed the vision away.
Adam was looking at her again.
‘You’re not going to ask me then?’ he said. ‘What characteristics I see in you.’
‘I’m not sure I want to know.’
‘It’s a difficult one. It’s my guess you’re a bit of a chameleon, changing who you are depending on the circumstances.’
‘That’s probably very astute.’ She handed the photographs back. ‘I’ve always thought black and white is so much more beautiful than colour. Why old photographs are so much more striking than modern snap shots, I suppose.’
‘Colour is too realistic. Black and white leaves more to the imagination. You wanted to see the pictures from Little Barrington, didn’t you?’ He turned, opened the filing cabinet and took out another folder. ‘Like I said, the black and whites didn’t turn out, so it’ll be the colour I use for the exhibition. Think it’ll work though.’
The picture was much larger than the rest, the print glossy, the colours almost Technicolor. Bethany’s face was bleached out. Natasha wasn’t sure now why she’d wanted to see it, what she’d hoped to gain.
She laid the photograph on the desk. ‘I keep thinking. That long call you said she made before she left. I’d really like to know who it was to. I don’t suppose you’ve had an itemised phone bill…’
As if on cue the phone rang, making them both jump. Adam snatched up the receiver. ‘Yes. Can I courier them over tomorrow?’ He put the manila folder down on the desk, dragged over a notepad and pen.
The corner of another photograph was protruding from the folder, a single shot that Adam had left inside the file. On an impulse, Natasha flipped open the folder.
It took a while for the significance of the image to register in her mind.
Adam hung up.
‘I took it the evening before she left,’ he said. ‘She h
ad a thing about Sleeping Beauty.’
Natasha glanced at him, then stared down at the picture.
Bethany was lying on her back on a narrow, flat surface which looked more like a bier than a bed. Her eyelids were closed, her head fallen slightly to one side, her hair fanned out around her. Her hands were crossed loosely on her breast. The table was overhung with silk and she was wearing an organza gown, diaphanous and floaty. The drape of the fabrics and the bloodless tone of her skin gave the picture a sculptural grace. She was like a marble statue on a sarcophagus.
‘Where was it taken?’
‘At the flat. It was important to her that I waited until she was really asleep. She said it’s one thing you can never see, what you look like when you’re sleeping, unless someone takes your picture.’
There was something incredibly intimate about it. It was a lover’s role, a parent’s role, to watch over the sleeping. Yet it was not a lover’s eyes that had watched over Bethany, but the cold, intrusive eye of the camera lens.
Adam eased the photo out of Natasha’s hand. It was impossible to read his eyes. The light in them was hard and yet his voice sounded sad, regretful. ‘She said it would be interesting to see her expressions when she was dreaming.’ He was staring at the picture now, whispering as if they were in the presence of someone whom he didn’t want to wake.
Natasha forced the words out. ‘She looks like she’s…’
‘I know,’ he cut in. ‘That was part of the idea. You know how commercial photography began?’
She did, but shook her head. She wanted to hear it from him.
‘The first photographers who were paid for their work took pictures of the dead. Long before there were wedding photographers and studio portraits, when people died, especially children and the young, their pictures were taken as a memento for their family. Mortuary photographs they were called. It sounds gruesome, but I’ve seen some of them. They’re incredibly beautiful.’ He slid the picture back into the folder now and looked at her. ‘It’s not quite true, that the dead look as if they’re sleeping. It’s the sleep of children. Innocent, at peace. The Victorians were preoccupied with death of course. Almost as much as we are obsessed with sex. Only sex has lost some of its mystique, don’t you agree? Death is the only taboo left.’
Pale as the Dead Page 12