Together by Christmas

by Karen Swan

  . . . Gisele’s pregnant.

  The fact of it came back to her again, ignored but not forgotten. She went to the larder cupboard and pulled down her favourite bottle of whisky from the top shelf. She poured herself a snifter in an eggcup – an old habit that wouldn’t die – and knocked it back, closing her eyes as the burn hit the back of her throat, liking it – liking it for the memories it triggered of a life when everything had been more intense, when the things she did had mattered, when nothing had existed beyond Now, when life had made sense precisely because it was framed by death. She was safe now but sometimes she felt it was this domestic version of living – so cocooned and soft and dulled – that left her feeling bewildered and lost.

  She wanted another but she made herself put the bottle back and reached into the fridge for some beers instead; she considered glasses too, but thought better of it. She padded down to the ground floor and set the beer bottles on the bedside table, switching on the floor lamp in the far corner and smoothing the wrinkles off the bedspread. She looked around at the little scene just as she heard the knock at the door – not the bell, just like she’d said. She didn’t want Jasper to be disturbed.

  She checked the time. It wasn’t yet eight. She went through to the hall and pulled back the bolts and locks and chains.

  ‘That’s some security you’ve got going on there.’ Matteo Hofhuis grinned as she finally opened the door to him.

  ‘You can never be too careful, in my experience,’ she said. ‘And you’re early. Again.’

  He smiled back at her unapologetically and she could see the shadow already darkening on his shaved head – the memento of their day together, the token of his trust, the reason Claudia had fled the studio in tears. He shrugged, those famous blue eyes set to full smoulder and working their magic, even on her. ‘I couldn’t wait a minute more. Giving you three hours has been bad enough.’

  She felt a small part of herself come alive again, knowing she needed this. It was something to grab onto, at least for a little while. She held the door a little wider. ‘Well, I guess you’d better come in then.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Hurry-hurry,’ she said brightly, waiting by the front door as Jasper wriggled into his padded coat and fiddled with the buttons. She looked out at the world hurrying about its business too, commuters walking briskly, dog-walkers idling as their pets sniffed at trees and lamp posts, a jogger in gloves and hat labouring on the other side of the canal. She could see the water had begun to finally freeze on the surface. It had been coming on for the past week, the cold days clobbered by plummeting temperatures at night, and now looping swirls curled in the fragile ice, the water caught mid-twist, dead leaves and the small wooden boats tethered along the canal walls held in a tightening grip.

  She hoped it would hold, that the freeze would deepen and the city would become white. She loved how it became a negative of itself in the winter – the characteristic black bricks of the buildings and the black water of the canals becoming bright and light . . .

  ‘Please Jazz, we’re going to be late,’ she sighed, gesturing with her arms for him to exit the building.

  ‘But—’ He stared at her nervously, his coat finally done up.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I’ve left my water on the table.’

  She groaned. ‘Oh, honestly! You would forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on!’

  Big brown eyes blinked back at her, making it impossible to be cross. She ruffled his hair with a grin. ‘Hurry up there, then. I’m going to unlock the bike. I’ll take your bag so just pull the door closed behind you.’

  He scampered up the stairs again as she jogged down the stone steps and crossed the cobbled street to her bike. Fiddling with the lock keys, she went to swing the little rucksack into the large basket at the front when she noticed something was already in there. She frowned, pulling out a tall, slim hardback book.

  Odd.

  It was entitled If and on the cover was an illustration of a flock of sheep in the rain, one standing alone and forlorn; it was simply drawn and undeniably charming, washed over with deeply tinted watercolours. But what was it doing here? In her basket?

  ‘Mama?’

  She looked up to find Jasper waiting obediently on the pavement opposite, his water bottle in his hand. She startled, frightened that her attention had been so fully engaged elsewhere, away from him. She looked left and right. ‘Okay, you can cross.’

  He ran over to her and held up the bottle for her to put in the side pocket of his rucksack. ‘What’s that?’ He stared at the book in her hands.

  ‘It’s a book,’ she said, handing it to him so she could lift him up and strap him into his seat. ‘I found it in the basket.’

  ‘Why is it in the basket?’

  She shrugged, clicking him in and reaching for his helmet. ‘I don’t know. Someone must have lost it, I guess.’

  He peered closer at the cover, pressing a finger to the illustration as she pushed his hair back from his eyes. He needed a haircut – another one; she had never known anyone grow hair as quickly as this child. ‘He’s getting wet.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He looks cold.’

  ‘Mm-hmm,’ she hummed, bending slightly to fasten the clasp beneath his chin.

  He carried on looking at the picture. ‘He should stand with the others to be warm.’

  Lee pulled back and looked at him with a small smile. If. If we stand together . . .? ‘I guess that’s the moral of the picture, yes.’

  ‘What’s a moral?’

  ‘The right thing to do.’

  ‘Moral,’ he repeated, as though trying out the word for size; it was accentless in his little bilingual voice. ‘I like this book,’ he said decisively. ‘Can we keep it?’

  ‘I don’t see why not – it’s not like we can give it back to the person it belongs to, is it? We don’t know who it belongs to and there’s a lot of people living here.’ She quickly fastened her own helmet. ‘Okay. Now hold tight, we’re already wildly late. I don’t know what your teachers are going to say.’

  ‘They say—’

  ‘No, no! Don’t tell me!’ she insisted with a laugh, as she swung her leg over the top tube and began pedalling. Her day had started on a good note; she wanted it to stay that way.

  She walked into the studio twenty minutes later, unwinding her scarf and pulling off her kitten hat. ‘Morning!’

  Bart looked startled. ‘You’re bright today.’

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘And you can tell that from a single word?’

  ‘It was the way you said it. All bouncy.’

  ‘Bouncy?’ She tutted as she hung up her coat and headed for the coffee machine. She had never been called ‘bouncy’ in her life, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Nevertheless, she was in a good mood this morning, she couldn’t deny it. Last night had done what she’d needed – given her a brief escape. ‘Want one?’

  ‘Got one, thanks,’ he said, watching her suspiciously. ‘. . . Anything you want to share?’

  ‘I’m not giving you my coffee. I just offered you one.’

  ‘No, I meant – agh, forget it.’ He gave up, knowing perfectly well she was being obtuse. She knocked back the coffee shot and took a moment to enjoy the hit before walking over to him. ‘Okay, so where are we at?’

  ‘Well, I think you’ll be pleased.’ Bart took a folder from the top of his paperwork pile and slid it along the bench to her. ‘Which is not the same thing as saying the client’s management will be. Apparently he’s just signed as the lead in some Viking epic, and hair – preferably long hair – was taken as a given.’

  ‘Why? Were there never any bald Vikings?’ she grinned. ‘Relax. It’ll have grown back in a couple of months. When are they beginning shooting?’

  ‘Next month.’

  ‘Huh. Well, he should have said, then.’ She opened up the file and stared into the eyes that had been locked onto hers only a few hours previously in her spare room. Echoes of th
e connection that had tugged between them through the lens yesterday vibrated through her again now. The electricity crackled on the page; it was what gave the images their vibrancy, magnetism. But though she could read it, she no longer felt it. Like the diminishing toots of a stream train puffing out of sight, the feeling was distant already. He had been precisely what she had needed – but she had only needed it for a few hours.

  ‘Mmm . . . The lighting’s a bit sharp in this sequence,’ she murmured, putting on her eye loupe and scoring out three whole rows of images with a red cross. ‘And I don’t like the angle in these here, do you?’

  It was a rhetorical question. Bart knew Lee never doubted her instincts on her own work. She could ruthlessly edit herself without any need for input from anyone else, and had many times thrown out entire shoots, refusing to hand over the images to the client if she wasn’t absolutely happy with them. It made her a nightmare to work with but it was also what made her desirable; no one had higher expectations of her than she did of herself and her very perfectionism and uncompromising vision was the reason the bookings kept coming.

  She went through the contact sheets with brisk efficiency, eliminating scores of images (mainly the early ones) on account of an awkward pose, a forced look, a ‘too perfect’ symmetry, so that by the time she’d finished, they had perhaps a dozen left from an initial count of one hundred and eighty.

  ‘Yes.’ She stepped back, looking at the survivors with a critical hawk-eye. She famously never retouched her images and it was in her contract that her clients were forbidden to alter her work in any way. ‘Give them those. I reckon there’s a good three cover options there if they want them. That I’d choose, anyway.’

  ‘Yep.’ Bart nodded in agreement. It wasn’t unknown for the publications to go out with multiple covers in limited-edition runs when she’d spoilt them for choice like this. He shuffled the edit into a new pile and took them back to his desk.

  She sank onto her high stool, flicked quickly through the post and checked her emails. It was the usual depressing mix of marketing spam and domestic miscellanea – her studio insurance was coming up for renewal, her Life magazine subscription was about to expire, a dispatch note for the new inner tubes she’d bought for her bike.

  ‘So are you going to call him, then?’ Bart asked from across the space, his eyes on his screen.

  She clicked on an email for dinner arrangements at her place with Noah, Liam and Mila tomorrow night. ‘Who?’

  ‘Matteo!’ He swivelled around on his chair, pointing a finger at her. ‘And don’t even try to deny it! It was pretty damn obvious there was something between you. I can always tell with you.’

  She gave a groan. ‘He’s an actor, Bart. Easy on the eye, perhaps, but—’

  ‘He’s never going to save the world?’ he finished for her, knowing her too well. ‘But does he need to? You don’t need to marry him, you know. You could still go on a date with the guy, just have a few drinks.’

  ‘I have a five-year-old. I don’t have time for dating. I barely have time to sleep,’ she muttered.

  ‘Lunch then. You’ve gotta eat.’

  She peered over her glasses as him. ‘Bart, it’s sweet of you to worry about the abysmal state of my love life but I’m honestly more concerned about who’s going to win The X Factor.’

  ‘You don’t watch The X Factor.’

  ‘Precisely. You know, sometimes I think you forget Happily Ever After only exists in fairy tales.’ She flashed him a sarcastic smile.

  ‘So cynical. So sad,’ he tutted dramatically, just as the phone rang. ‘Oh, and before I forget, Dita called. She’s getting on a plane now,’ he said as he picked it up, ‘but-says-she’s-going-to-be-in-town-next-week, most-likely-Wednesday-but-could-be-sooner, and-are-you-free-for-brunch? Hello, Fitch Studios,’ he said all in one breath.

  Dita?

  Lee felt her laissez-faire mood seep away like water into sand, the past dragging down her spine like a sharp red fingernail. Her former boss was a hard woman to pin down these days and hearing from her was like getting a call from the White House. She’d been like Lee and Cunningham and Schneider and all the others once too. It had taken being ambushed by Tamil Tigers to make her step back from working in the field; her daughter had been three at the time. But unlike Lee, she hadn’t turned her back on that world altogether and, as the Reuters bureau chief in London, her voice down the line – too often heard when Lee had been dialling in from some godforsaken, drought-addled war zone – had represented safety. Civilization. The land of bubble baths and coffee machines. More than once she had talked Lee down from rising panic as mortars had been shelled over her head. More than once she’d arranged a pickup to get Lee out of a ‘sticky situation’, as she’d called extracting her from Tahrir Square in 2011 when the protests quickly became riots and no woman was safe; and rescuing her when Lee found herself in the maze of Gaza tunnels as Israel began its aerial bombardment of the West Bank in the summer of 2014. Dita had a reputation amongst the men they worked with for being an uncompromising and unscrupulous hard-ass, but to Lee, she was a gravel-voiced, dirty-laughing surrogate mother.

  Lee dialled her number but it went to voicemail. ‘Dita, I got your message. Text me where you’re staying when you get here. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I see you.’

  They never bothered with pleasantries. Their phone calls had always had to be punchy and to the point when a line could be cut at any moment. Still, Lee wondered what she was doing over here. Dita usually transferred flights through Paris. Why was she going to be in Amsterdam?

  ‘That was Julia from the gallery,’ Bart said, intruding on her thoughts. ‘The painting is all done. They’re ready when you are.’

  ‘Great. Did you collect the prints?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bart said, leading her over to the workbench and whisking away a long sheet that had been draped over the top. ‘Ta-da!’

  ‘Oooh!’ She stepped back, taking in the large five-foot images that were now mounted and framed to her exact specifications. He had set them out along the table in a double line and she looked at them in pairs, front and then back, working her way along the row as Bart watched on, nervously biting his nails. ‘Yes,’ she hissed under her breath with a feeling of satisfaction – and relief. ‘They look great, better than I’d even hoped,’ she murmured, peering at one of the images more closely – a thin, dark-haired woman with her hair twisted up in a chignon, pearls at her throat. She had her back to the camera and was wearing a pale-grey taffeta Dior evening gown, her face turned in profile. ‘God, you really wouldn’t know, would you?’

  ‘I know,’ Bart agreed, standing beside her, his arms hugging his torso as they both stared at the images of soignée perfection. ‘It’s really powerful, Lee. You’ve done it.’

  She turned to face him. ‘Do you honestly think so?’

  ‘I know so. You’re amazing.’

  She raised an eyebrow and jogged him with her elbow. ‘Even without celebs at the party?’

  ‘Fuck ’em!’

  She chuckled, but her smile quickly faded. ‘I just hope the colour turns out the way I wanted,’ she said nervously.

  ‘They sent over a couple of snapshots last night, if you want a quick look,’ he said, bringing them up on his phone to show her. Lee squinted. The gallery’s previously standard white walls had been painted a deep, lustrous plum colour and lacquered to a glossy finish. It was a rich, opulent shade, but with an old-world glamour too, matching the Belle Époque formality of the ballgowns the women were wearing in the images.

  ‘Yes,’ she said again, feeling pleased. ‘I love that. The white would just have been too stark, don’t you think? I really want these images to be treated and hung like paintings. I wanted them to feel grand and formal and enduring.’

  ‘Well, you’ve done that all right. If John Singer Sargent was alive now, he’d have a camera in his hand and be shooting portraits just like that.’

  For different reasons, though, Lee thou
ght to herself; she wasn’t in the flattery game. They rose to standing again. ‘Okay, well, if they’re ready for us, let’s load these up and get over there. I’ve done the running order on a flat plan, so once we’re happy it works, I’ll leave you and Julia to the installation.’

  ‘Why? Where are you going?’ he asked, watching as she picked up her faithful Hasselblad 501C. It was an entirely different beast to the Nikon Nikkormat, which had been her first ever camera and remained her favourite even now. She’d never shot another image with the Canon 5D since that last day in Syria; she’d bought the Hassy just a few months after arriving in the city, a token of her fresh start. She zipped it into its bag, checking the correct lenses were packed and slinging the strap across her body.

  ‘To the hospital. Sinterklaas is visiting the wards today, remember?’ She gave a rueful grin. ‘Honestly, spending an afternoon with a bunch of overexcited kids and a man in fancy dress? Give me the Taliban any day. And I’m not even getting paid for it! I must be mad.’

  ‘You must be nice.’

  She winked at him as she pulled her hat onto her head, making sure her cat ears were straight, and they walked out of the studio. ‘Yeah, well – don’t tell anybody.’

  The light was always tricky here. Strip lighting did no one any favours, much less those battling diseases that ravaged their immune systems.

  ‘Is this one your favourite?’ Lee asked, picking a small furry tiger from the assorted collection of toys on the bed. She was sitting on a chair to the side, trying not to be overwhelmed by the number of tubes coming out of the child’s body, fretting that with every move she might pinch or dislodge one.

  ‘This one,’ little Amelie said, holding up a pig. It had a beanbag body and weighted trotters. ‘I like how it feels when I go to sleep,’ she said in a small, weak voice, carefully arranging the toy across her chest in a demonstration.

  Lee smiled, knowing just what she meant. ‘It makes you feel held?’

  The little girl nodded.

  ‘Yeah, I like that too. It’s a nice feeling.’ She wondered when the poor mite had last had a ‘nice feeling’. Lee hadn’t seen her on the ward before and one of the nurses had said she’d been transferred from Rotterdam, awaiting a new heart. ‘Are you excited about seeing Sinterklaas?’