The Photograph

by Penelope Lively

  Polly fumes and fusses. She rehearses further appeals to her mother. She yanks the Habitat sofa into its bed mode, which means that her sitting room is barely navigable. She knows that she will sleep badly tonight, and be fouled up for work tomorrow.

  And another thing. Dan is not coming out of this well. Probably she needs to stop seeing Dan sooner rather than later.

  Glyn and Kath

  Glyn is concerned with time. He is also worried about the time: it is twelve-forty-five, he is sitting on the side of a Dorset hill, and at two o’clock he has a seminar in the university, which is well over an hour’s drive away. He should be getting a move on, instead of which he is sitting here brooding about time.

  Time is his most essential professional tool, he reflects. Without it he would be faced with a chaotic and incomprehensible medley of evidence, much like the confusing juxtapositions of the landscape itself. Time is the necessary connection between events. Time is the device that prevents everything from happening at once. Pioneering archaeology went all-out for the establishment of chronology, and no wonder.

  A kestrel hangs in the wind, level with his line of vision. Beyond it, in the distance, the green complexity of field patterns is interrupted by a large, long building with tall chimneys which he knows to have once been a nineteenth-century mill, today a development of luxury apartments. Just below him the hillside ripples away in a series of ledges; these he recognizes as the eroded ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort, which is why he is here at this moment. He is working on an article for which this hill, which he has not visited for some while, can provide some useful references.

  The kestrel evokes Kath. He came here with her once: another kestrel performed similarly, and Kath remarked on it. “It stays still,” she had said. “The wind is rushing past it, and it stays still. How?” He sees today that other bird, and Kath’s hair blown across her face, and feels her hand on his arm. “Look!” she is saying. “Look!”

  Glyn is now diverted from his reflections on the functions of time; he notes that his flow of observation—unconsidered, uncontrived—is a nice instance of the tumultuous, spontaneous operation of the mind. He knows enough of the theories of long-term memory to identify his recognition of the mill and the hill fort as the practice of semantic memory—the retention of facts, language, knowledge, without reference to the context of their acquisition. He simply knows these things, along with everything else he knows that makes him a fully operational being—a being considerably more operational than most, in his view. Whereas the vision of Kath sparked by the kestrel is due to episodic memory, which is autobiographical and essential to people’s knowledge of their own identity. Without it we are untethered, we are souls in purgatory. Those glimmering episodes connect us with ourselves; they confirm our passage through life. They tell us who we are.

  Glyn stands up, impelled by his own circadian clock, which is muttering away about that seminar. The kestrel swings suddenly sideways and down. Glyn heads for his car, which he will recognize thanks to a further spurt of semantic memory, and which he will be able to drive because procedural memory keeps all such skills alive. Without that, we would fall over, be struck dumb, stare bemused at the driving wheel.

  Precarious, he thinks, as he plunges surefooted down the steep hillside. The precarious fusion of automatic processes, all of them necessary for daily functioning, all of them operating at the same time. And indeed, even as he thinks this he is also taking note of various things about this site, carrying out the purpose of his visit. He assesses the alignment of the ramparts, and the trace of a possible entrance. He relates this place to other known Celtic sites. But these thoughts are permeated with something else—not so much a thought process as a condition of the mind, a climate: all the while, that episodic memory mode is in operation, reminding him that he and Kath paused just about here to eat sandwiches, that she found an orchid, that she called out, “Come! Something amazing!,” that a shower of rain sent them running for the car.

  And when was this? Neither semantic, episodic, nor procedural memory can help here. Clearly the mind rejects the concept of chronology. It is an unnatural idea, fostered by perverse chroniclers ever since the Old Testament.

  And what else was going on then for Kath? Glyn gets into the car, starts the engine. Now that he knows what he knows, the Kath that he sees is infused with something dark and unwelcome. Was she betraying him at that very time? Was she thinking of Nick, as she watched the kestrel, as she caught sight of the orchid?

  It is several weeks since his discovery of the photograph, the event that has come to seem a defining moment. There was before the photograph, a time of innocence and tranquillity, insofar as such a state exists. Now it is after the photograph, when everything must be seen with the cold eye of disillusion.

  Well, not everything. His marriage, simply. Which is quite a lot. He is calmer. The initial consuming fire has banked down to a steady, smoldering purpose. He must reconstruct his years with Kath, scrutinize them, search for further enlightenment. He must discover if this was an isolated incident. If it was, that is bad enough; if it reveals an entire lifestyle unknown to him, then he is discredited. He is proved to be without powers of observation or perception. Worst of all, everything that he remembers of that time is shown to be faulty.

  He is in the process of creating a retrospective diary of the period. Where he was, when, and for how long. And so, by extension, where Kath was and what she was doing—as far as this is possible, which largely it is not. His own files are the reference source for his activities, but piecing things together is a laborious process taking up far too much time. Kath’s part is more elusive, and requires input from others.

  Oliver Watson proved pretty useless. Perhaps not altogether so, because this woman Mary Packard would have to be sought out at some point, and might be more productive. But generally speaking, the meeting with Watson had been futile, like a cross-country trek to some archive in pursuit of a document that turns out to be unrewarding.

  The purpose of the exercise is to identify and interrogate key figures with whom Kath was involved: friends who may be persuaded to bear witness, men who may have been lovers. Of course he is not going to come out with it, just like that. He is not going to say, “Do you happen to know if my wife was promiscuous? Did you by any chance sleep with my wife at any point?” He is going to probe. He is going to be devious, circumspect. He will go in with some pretext, put out feelers. He will know, the instant he is on to something. He will know by the inflexion of a voice, by an intonation, a hesitation, an evasive reply. He is, after all, trained to home in on significant omissions. He knows when absence of data is suggestive. He can recognize the implications of a gap in the record.

  Right. Now for the list of witnesses. He will need a swathe of material: diaries, telephone directories, newspaper libraries, compliant contributors. He will need the name of the woman who ran that gallery in Camden, and information about craft centers and arts festivals—all those erstwhile haunts of Kath’s. He will need patience, and his own professional skills. He is stimulated rather than daunted. This is after all his métier: the pursuit of information is what he does best.

  But first of all he must interrogate himself. His prime resource is the leaky vessel of his own memory. At times he views it thus, quite literally—as some old pail with holes and rusted seams. Alternatively, he imagines an extensive manuscript of which there survive only a handful of charred fragments; it is like trying to piece together the Gospels from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  He makes lists. He rummages through files and old engagement diaries, and so discovers where he was and when during those ten years of marriage. This is where the leaky vessel comes in, the charred fragments. He remembers that during the summer of 1986, when he was working on early population densities and spending a great deal of time in the British Library, Kath was helping out with a music festival, or so she said. She came and went. There was a man who used to ring up a lot, one of the organizers. G
lyn picks up an echo of his voice: “I wonder if Kath is around? Peter here, from the Wessex Festival . . . If you could just tell her I called.”

  That festival is entered on Glyn’s chart, fleshing out 1986. This Peter is entered also, underlined.

  The project occupies Glyn’s every spare moment, along with many moments that are not strictly speaking spare at all. He examines old files when he should be reading departmental papers, or going over a lecture. His thoughts drift in that direction during meetings. Now, in the car heading towards the university and that seminar, he is in full undistracted contemplation of the matter. All right, this is obsessive behavior, and he is perfectly aware of that. But that is par for the course; Glyn does obsession, always has, a five-star capacity for obsession is what makes him a painstaking researcher, obsession has produced seminal books and articles.

  He reaches the university, dumps the car, hurries to his office, where a posse of students is camped outside his door. He switches to charm mode, apologizes for being late, apologizes for his muddy shoes (see, I have been out on the job), sweeps them into the room. He must now apply himself to agrarian change in the sixteenth century; later on, back to the matters in hand.

  Why? Why? Why? Motive is all. Motive is clarification. Motive explains. Motive soothes, perhaps.

  He is good at nailing motives. The landscape heaves with hidden motives, coded motives. It looks the way it does because people chopped trees down to build ships, because they overran the place with sheep when wool was in high demand. It is scarred with the effects of cupidity: shafts sunk because this man wanted to get rich, villages swept away because another man needed to improve his view. Motive is Glyn’s speciality.

  He is in a dispiriting public library in a small market town. He has arrived here after consulting back issues of newspapers, the Internet, and by way of five phone calls to total strangers. But here he is on a Friday evening, having driven sixty miles, about to attend a poetry reading.

  His most recent informant had said that, no, there shouldn’t be any problem about getting a ticket. And, no, there is not. The library is well furnished with computers, and rather more lightly equipped with books. Uncomfortable chairs are arranged in a semicircle, confronted by three further chairs in a row. Eleven people are seated in the semicircle. A man has emerged from a back room and looks around, apparently checking the arrangements. Glyn has already deduced that this must be his quarry, but he consults the librarian who sold him a ticket. Yes, that is Peter Claverdon.

  Glyn inspects. He now knows something about this fellow—long-term arts administrator, something of a jack-of-various-trades, peripatetic and evidently versatile, hired to mastermind arts events from musical extravaganzas to this evening’s contribution to a weekend of poetic commitment. Lean build, casual dress, late fifties. And undoubtedly the guy from those remembered phone calls. Glyn experiences a stir of hostility, which will have to be kept well under control.

  He chooses a seat at the back. Three more people trickle in, plumping the audience out to fifteen, which looks less amid the empty chairs. The poets arrive, shepherded by Peter Claverdon. They do their stuff. Glyn pays token attention, watching the quarry and considering tactics.

  The reading concludes. Two members of the audience buy copies of the poets’ works. The poets chat among themselves.

  Glyn picks his moment, and advances. He introduces himself. “The name should ring a bell with you. You knew my wife.”

  The man looks blank, and then there is a gleam—a definite gleam of something. “Oh—Kath. Good heavens—Kath.” Now there is compunction, concern. “What a tragedy. I was so sorry—”

  Glyn’s expression indicates stoicism, grief suppressed. He gestures gracious acceptance of sympathy. He allows a moment of tribute. Then he proceeds. He explains. He appeals. He has this notion to write a brief private memoir of Kath, for circulation amongst relatives and friends. There are some areas of her life about which he needs to know more. Periods when she had commitments away from home. People who knew her then. Such, I understand, as yourself. Wondered if I could take up a little of your time. A chance to color in some of the blank spaces . . .

  Glyn observes the man keenly as he speaks. What is he seeing? The man is responding, definitely. But what is the response? Something flickers in his eyes. Passion recalled? Guilt? Embarrassment? Glyn is alert; he scents involvement.

  When Claverdon replies, he is all compliance—he seems enthusiastic. Yes, he saw quite a bit of Kath back then. What a lovely person she was. Used to ferry performers around for us, that sort of thing. See them into their hotels, get them to the venues on time. An entire Hungarian string quartet fell in love with her.

  A red herring? Glyn registers benign interest.

  The audience is ebbing away. The poets are packing up. “I’ve got some photos, come to think of it,” says Claverdon. “Why don’t you come round to my place? I live five minutes from here. The poets may want to get drunk, but I’m sure they can manage on their own. I’ll just point them in the direction of the White Hart, and we can be on our way.”

  This helpfulness is disconcerting. Glyn feels wrong-footed. What is going on? It is clear that the man did indeed know Kath. His tone, and that betraying movement of the eye, suggest that he knew her well. Just how well? Is this willing invitation some crafty smokescreen?

  Peter Claverdon disposes of the poets. He leads Glyn through the market square and down a side street, talking about these photos: definitely one of Kath escorting a well-known conductor, if he can lay his hands on it. “She did some office filling-in for us a year or so later—you remember?” He shoots a quick look at Glyn, who expediently remembers. “She was a person we liked to call on—very popular girl, Kath.”

  They reach a terraced cottage. Claverdon unlocks the door, calling out, “Hello!”

  No reply. “Ah,” he says. “My partner should be back any minute. Coffee? Drink?”

  A partner. Was she around then? Was she aware of Kath? Is the smokescreen for her benefit also? Glyn accepts a glass of wine, his attention now in overdrive. There is something about this guy, something he cannot quite nail. And there is a note of comfortable intimacy when he speaks of Kath.

  The photographs are found, after some rummaging in drawers. And, sure enough, there is Kath. There is Kath beside the prominent conductor, who had taken rather a shine to her, says Claverdon. And here is Kath in a jolly lineup of the festival staff. Kath is next to Claverdon; Glyn finds himself scrutinizing them very closely. He cannot see their hands. Kath is beaming. She looks happy, relaxed. She is radiant. Glyn has an odd feeling of exclusion; he knew nothing of that day, of these people.

  It strikes Glyn that it would be appropriate to establish himself. He is a mere cipher at the moment, where Claverdon is concerned. He swings the conversation round, and makes clear who he is and how he stands. But Claverdon knows, it seems. He nods—a neutral sort of nod, with perhaps not quite enough recognition of status. Yes, Kath said. Said you were always very busy. Said landscape history took up all your time.

  She did, did she? This is provocative. Suggestive. There is the smack of intimate exchanges here. Glyn is bristling, but must keep his cool. He turns back to the matter of Kath and the summer of that festival. He mentions that he cannot remember where she used to stay. Hotel, was it? He is trained on Claverdon, watching for some giveaway.

  There is the sound of the front door opening. “My partner,” says Claverdon.

  And into the room comes a man. A man slung about with supermarket carrier bags, a domestic and slightly out-of-breath man, who dumps the bags, aims a kindly smile at Glyn, says to Claverdon, “I thought I’d better do a Sainsbury before the weekend.”

  Claverdon explains Glyn. “You remember Kath Peters? Who was one of the Wessex Festival team? You and Kath were great mates. Poor Kath—”

  The man is all interest. Of course he remembers Kath. Who wouldn’t? He makes a face of regret, of sympathy. He starts at once on some anecdote inv
olving Kath.

  Glyn is barely listening. He feels like some kind of dupe. Partner. How was he to know the guy was gay? His time has been wasted. No point in hanging on here. He finishes his glass, waiting for the moment when he can get up and leave.

  The two men are recalling some occasion when Kath apparently saved the day with an emergency sprint to Heathrow to collect a replacement performer. Glyn shifts a hand and notices his watch with exaggerated surprise. “Heavens! That late . . . I must be off.”

  Claverdon’s partner has poured himself a drink and is settled on the sofa, talking the while. “Game for anything, wasn’t she? And she was on such a high that summer. What a shame it all went wrong. She was so upset—you could see.”

  Glyn does not hear this; he will hear it later, much later. He is on his feet now, pleading time, distance, fatigue. “Many thanks,” he is saying. “Good to see those pictures—” His hosts also rise; Claverdon looks rebuffed, as well he may. The partner hovers. When Glyn is outside the door, heading for his car, the image returns—the pair of them, staring at him. Well, one could hardly have set to and explained, could one?

  So you loved her?

  Of course.

  Did you say so?

  Probably. Surely. Anyway, that is immaterial. I never went in for those statutory exchanges.

  He married Kath because it was an imperative.

  “Speaking.”

  “Ah. You don’t know me—Glyn Peters. But I believe you used to run the Hannay Gallery, and would have known my wife, Kath.”