“You mean it?” I said, feeling a spark of hope.
“Send them over,” she said. “Let me have a look.”
As I waited for her to get back to me, I thought it over. It wouldn’t be quite what I’d promised Leila, but it would be better than anything I’d managed so far. The only problem was that I’ve always found exhibitions a bit weird. It’s all very well to publish this kind of image in a newspaper, so people know what’s going on, but different when they’re in some gallery, presented as art.
I tried to explain that to Theo when she called back. She wasn’t having any of it.
“Listen,” she said. “The images are well done. I think your use of light is beautiful. But the words next to them will tell the story, and that’ll make the images into something else.”
“But—”
“And how many of the people who see your work in the press remember what they see? An exhibition is much more likely to make them think about it properly, and tell their friends. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“So will you do it?”
I thought of Leila and Rashida, and the women in Badam Bagh. They wouldn’t have been so precious about it, they’d have jumped straight in. She’s doing you a favour, I told myself. Take it.
“Yes,” I said. “And thanks.”
A few days later, Theo called again with details of a gallery in Clerkenwell. They’d had a cancellation for a show supposed to start in six weeks’ time. It was last-minute, and I’d be pushed to get it ready, but I jumped at it.
It felt good to get back to work, a different preoccupation, something other than the baby, and I chose the pictures easily. The words were harder: a maximum of three hundred for each image didn’t give me space to say much. I began with the mug shots from Badam Bagh, sticking to the facts, hoping they’d be enough to make an impact.
Shahzada, 21: accused of adultery when she ran away from her husband who brought boys to their house for sex. Pregnant at the time, had her son in jail. Sentence: 15 years.
Khatira, 26: attempted suicide after five years of beating and slavery inflicted by husband’s family. Sentence: 10 years.
Gulpari, 19: convicted of the murder of her husband following years of violence when she couldn’t get pregnant. Sentence: life.
Leila’s story was harder. I puzzled over it for hours, putting the pictures in different orders, taking out words, adding others. Eventually I went back to my computer, looking through my images to see if there were others I could use. Flicking through them, I noticed the snapshot of Rashida again, the one of her laughing at the fairground. It was completely different to the others, wouldn’t go with the series, but I knew I had to put it in as well: Rashida had been behind it all – the photographs wouldn’t have existed without her.
Rashida, 24: journalist, fixer, producer. Killed at work in Kabul on 25th August 2011 by a suicide attack.
Today I went to London to see the gallery and visit my favourite framer, who’d said he’d manage to fit me in. It felt odd at first to leave my seaside hideout, but as the train trundled through forests and fields, then suburban allotments and gardens, I felt a rising excitement at being back in the city, the place that I’d left and come back to for twenty years, the place where I got my first commissions, the place where I first met you.
I walked from King’s Cross up Gray’s Inn Road, thinking of how it had changed since I first arrived at the station, fresh from university, with just a backpack and the Nikon camera that Edith had given me. Some of the old burger joints were still there, blasting out wafts of stale cooking oil, making the bug turn in my belly as I walked past.
The gallery was perfect: light and airy, unpretentious. Theo introduced me to the owner, and we walked around measuring and planning where to hang the photographs. Afterwards, Theo took me for lunch in a café near Lincoln’s Inn Fields and talked about the show while I ate steak and chips. I’m always hungry now: the little bug’s insatiable.
Theo soon steered the conversation to Florence.
“She likes you a lot, you know.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Are you always this direct?”
“I’m fond of Florence. And she hasn’t been interested in anyone since, well… since she had a fling with me a few years ago.”
“With you?”
“Yes. Do you mind?”
I thought about it for a second. “No.”
“So? What are you going to do about it?”
“Look at me. Five months up the duff. Possibly – according to Florence – suffering from some form of PTSD. Jobless for the foreseeable future. I’m not exactly a catch.”
“Isn’t that for her to decide?”
“She doesn’t know what she’d be taking on.”
“I’d say she has a pretty good idea.”
Coffee arrived, and we sat sipping it, both of us quiet for a while.
“Do you like her?” Theo said, after a bit.
“Yes,” I said. “I like her very much.”
“Well, think it over. She’s worth it.”
On my way back to Brighton, I leant my head against the window. I don’t know what I’m doing, hiding out in Edith’s flat, letting the days pass, disconnected from the rest of the world. For all its glitter and razzmatazz, its drag queens and its naughty weekends, Brighton’s still a small town by the sea. London feels real, a place of possibility. I’ve always loved that it’s a city where no one cares who you are, where you can make yourself into whatever you want.
But with a child? It wouldn’t be like it was before, a place to leave and come back to at will, somewhere to dip in and out of, to get the best of and move on. A child needs dependability, security, things I’ve never been much good at, things I’m going to have to learn.
I’m scared, Suze, all over again.
I’d brought Elizabeth’s diary to read, but I couldn’t face it. Instead, I thought of what François said that night at the Gandamack – about chance and circumstance, and being in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time. At least I’m not going to be forced into marrying someone I don’t love. I’ve got options. I’m all right.
Just past Hassocks, my phone buzzed: a text from Florence.
“Fancy a coffee?”
Tempted, I smiled, but I was tired and my head too full of thoughts, and so I texted back and said very nicely but definitely no.
Fifty
ELIZABETH WILLOUGHBY’S DIARY
28th June 1915
Robert meant what he said about “seeing to” Hari. He has also seen to me.
When I arrived at the Pavilion this morning, I was told to report to Colonel MacLeod at once. He was waiting for me in his office, looking extremely angry.
“What do you know about this?
He pushed a copy of the Daily Mail across his desk, open at a page showing a photographer taking a picture of a nurse standing beside the bed of Jemadar Mir Dast, a Pathan who came to us in April after being badly wounded at Ypres. He displayed great bravery that day, leading his platoon and commanding them when no British officers were left. He will be awarded a Victoria Cross in July, which is why the newspaperman was interested in him.
The nurse, of course, was me. I had been posing for Mr Fry, who was taking a photograph of Mir Dast and myself. Just as Mr Fry was about to take the photograph, the Daily Mail photographer had dashed up and taken his own of the three of us.
“It looks as if we’re courting publicity,” he said. “And it looks as if you are actively nursing the patients. You had already been warned, Miss Willoughby, and I’m afraid I have no choice but to dismiss you from your position.”
There seemed little point in further protest. I had no future at the Pavilion anyway, given my condition. I thanked him, stood up, turned and walked out of the door, trying to hold back my tears. Making my way along the corridor with my head down, I
bumped into someone: the smell of hair pomade immediately told me who it was.
“Hari,” I said.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
He looked dreadful, even worse than before, and exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. I supposed I looked just as bad: a month of worry and sickness had left me crumpled and worn.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
We went out into the gardens and found a bench under a tree, away from any overlooking windows. Not that it mattered any more: I no longer had to play by the rules.
“What’s the matter?” I said as soon as we sat down.
“You go first.”
I told him what had happened with Colonel MacLeod.
He grimaced and said that he had also seen him this morning, with Colonel Campbell too.
“It was a difficult meeting. Apparently someone has reported that I’m having” – he hesitated – “ relations with an Englishwoman.”
“Was it Robert who reported you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect so. They didn’t mention you by name, but they made it very clear whom they meant.”
“And what is to happen now?”
“I’m to be sent to the Front.”
I felt a terrible, crushing sensation.
“What? But… you’re not a soldier.”
“I’ll be a medical officer for the Indian Corps,” he said in a shaky voice, “setting up Regimental Aid Posts.”
“But that’s terribly dangerous. You’ll be shelled. You could be killed.”
He made a gesture with his hands – of acceptance or defeat, I don’t know which – and said that he thought that was the whole point.
“Can they do that?” I stammered. “Can they make you go?”
He nodded. “I’m part of the Indian Medical Service. I was granted a temporary commission when I came to the Pavilion, and I won’t be given an honourable discharge now.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I’ll talk to Robert. I’ll tell him again that nothing happened between us. Or I could tell him what you told me. That would prove it once and for all.”
“Don’t!” he said, urgently. “Promise me you won’t. It would only make it worse.”
“You’re facing the possibility of death,” I said. “It can’t be worse than that.”
“What I am is against the law. I’d be sent to prison. Can you imagine an Indian sent to a British jail for a crime like that? I wouldn’t last two minutes. At least the other way I have a chance, a small one, but still a chance.”
I suddenly saw that there was a price to be paid for my having broken the rules, for falling in love with him, and that horribly, unforgivably, it was he who would pay it.
I hung my head. He looked at me and smiled, and made that little gesture again, and I knew that I still loved him, and was filled with the most desperate regret.
I found Robert in another part of the gardens, talking to one of the patients. Marching straight up to him, I asked him loudly what he had done, not caring if I made a scene.
He took my arm and led me away.
“Elizabeth.” His voice was calm. “What do you mean?”
I told him how I had been called to Colonel MacLeod’s office that morning, and how he had dismissed me over the photograph in the Daily Mail. We both knew, I said, that wasn’t the real reason, that the hospital had been photographed since the day it opened. Robert shrugged.
“I’ve been talking to Hari too,” I said. “He told me he’s being sent away to the Front.”
Robert raised his eyebrows in a way that infuriated me all the more. I felt a deep, unholy rage, wanting to run to him and beat his chest with my fists.
“It’s because of you,” I said. “You’re sending him off there, knowing there’s a good chance he’ll never come back. You’re utterly wrong to do it: nothing ever happened between us.”
“I only have your word for that,” he said.
I was outraged. “And my word is not enough?”
“This is war, Elizabeth,” he replied. “No one’s to be trusted.”
Deciding to change tack, I took a deep breath. “Robert,” I said gently. “I’m going to be your wife. I’m carrying your child. Surely you can believe what I say.”
He took my hands, shaking his head. “Can’t you see that it’s my duty to protect you, to protect your reputation? Whatever you do reflects on me – and I won’t be made a fool. People talk: they’ve seen you with Hari, laughing together, walking on the seafront. You’ve shamed yourself, and me as well. I won’t stand for it any longer.”
“But nothing ever happened.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it happened or not: the question is whether it looks as if it might have done.”
There was a pause, then I tried one last time. “How can you do this? You have been at the Front, you have seen what it’s like. How can you, in all conscience, send someone into that hell?”
There was again that flash of something awful in his eyes.
“It’s what he deserves.”
Fifty-One
It took me a while to decide what to wear for the private view – not easy when you’re as big as I am now. My belly stuck out high and proud – there was definitely no disguising it. In the end, I cobbled together a version of my usual look for these things – spike heels, black trousers and a jacket with a stretchy T-shirt underneath. The trousers had an elasticated waist and the heels had to go in my bag until I got there, but the overall effect wasn’t bad at all.
I caught the train to London early: there was somewhere I wanted to go before the gallery. I took a cab to Fleet Street from the station, feeling a pang of regret as I thought of all those meetings with editors, the planning sessions before a trip.
I paid the driver and slipped into an alley. Suddenly the traffic noise was replaced by birdsong. Just outside the church was a tiny coffee van. The cheery owner smiled and gave me a little biscuit.
“For the baby,” he said.
“Thanks!” I said, touched, and popped it in my mouth.
I stood on the threshold for a moment before I went in. St Bride’s Church, designed by Christopher Wren, scene of Samuel Pepys’s christening. Scene of too many memorial services for friends killed in the field.
I used to go there before jobs to prepare myself, getting my head around what I was going to see. Now I sat in one of the choir stalls, looking up at the arched ceiling. The church was deserted, apart from a cleaner in a pale-pink tracksuit dusting the altar. In my belly the bug twisted and churned.
Please, I thought, let this be the right thing.
The altar to the left of the nave was covered with a white cloth. On top stood framed pictures: journalists killed in Mogadishu, shot dead in Kyrgyzstan, Somalia, the Afghan province of Uruzgan.
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt upon us,” said the carving below.
On the wall was a list of people who’d died covering the war in Iraq – correspondents, cameramen, sound recordists, translators – and the names of the places they’d worked for: Al-Jazeera, the BBC, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, El Mundo, Channel 4.
Fumbling in my bag, I brought out the photograph I’d mounted on a piece of card, with Rashida’s name below it, her dates and how she died. “Journalist” I’d put in bold, so she’d be remembered the way she wanted. I propped the photo up with the others on the altar, took a candle from the box and lit it from the flame of another. Fitting it into a holder, I stood still for a moment, remembering.
“Goodbye, Rashida,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I’d dithered about inviting journalists and editors that I knew to the show, but then gritted my teeth and fired off a batch of emails. To my amazement, they all came.
The bug caused a bit of a stir. Everyone was trying to be cool, but there were raised eyebrows and confused looks all round. Friends said “Congratulations” and “When’s it due?” and “Let’s meet up” – an
d I knew they were dying to know more, but oddly enough I didn’t care.
And what was really great, Suze, was that they seemed to like the photographs. They weren’t just there for the booze – they weren’t just glancing at the pictures and moving off to chat: they were reading the words and looking – properly looking. I made a speech, just a short one, about the women in the photographs, about Leila, Badam Bagh and Rashida, tucking away a mental image of the crowd to report back to Faisal and Leila.
By the end of the evening my heels were killing me, but it didn’t matter. I had a pocketful of notes scribbled on the back of business cards, with names of people asking me to call. I’d posed with Theo for the press in front of Leila’s picture and given journalists the story behind it. I’d finally kept the promise I’d made to her – and it felt great.
I travelled back with the Brighton girls, all on fine form after the free drinks and excitement. As the train rumbled on through the night, one by one they fell asleep, heads resting on each other, coats over their knees against the cold from a window that kept blowing open. Soon Florence and I were the only ones awake.
“How’re you doing?” she asked.
I nodded. “Pretty good. Better than I’ve been in months.”
She smiled. “You were great. And they loved your pictures.”
“I was scared. I’m glad.”
“You’re pretty impressive, you know,” she said.
When we got to the station there was a discussion about taxis.
“You take it,” she said to the others. “There isn’t space for five. I’ll sort myself out.”
The wind was blowing hard, straight off the sea, and funnelled up Queen’s Road. I pulled my coat around me, my hands jammed into my pockets. I looked at Florence smiling at me, her hair blowing in the wind.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The next morning – this morning, I guess – I lay in bed next to Florence, looking over at Edith’s Mughal miniatures on the opposite wall, and felt surprisingly good. Comfortable even, happy.
Florence woke and yawned, then smiled, propping herself on her elbow.
The Repercussions Page 22