The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  “I know you’re not,” Jonathan agrees, reaching for his glass of chardonnay.

  “And don’t get drunk before the meal. Please don’t get drunk before they arrive.”

  “I won’t.”

  “It’s unfair. Especially when you know I can’t drink.”

  “I’m not getting drunk,” Jonathan says flatly. “This is my first glass and that was my second sip.”

  “Sure,” Judy says, her voice full of doubt.

  “You can check the bottle if you want,” Jon offers. “It’s in the fridge.”

  “God, Jon! You make me sound like the wine police or something.”

  Jonathan chuckles. “The wine police. I like that.”

  “I’m just saying, don’t get drunk before they even get here. Is that too much to ask?”

  “No sweetheart,” Jonathan says, lifting the wine and placing it on the farthest corner of the windowsill, out of temptation’s way. “So, I’m wondering. If I feed Mum fish, whose karma gets fucked the most?” he asks, feeling suddenly devil-may-care and vaguely feisty, perhaps due to the now out-of-reach glass of wine.

  “You’re being silly,” Judy replies. And it’s true. He is being silly. But all the same, the question seems like a good one. Whose karma does get butchered the most here? The fisherman for fishing it? Him, for pulling the poor thing’s bones out? His mother for eating it? Judy perhaps, for not stopping him – for letting him buy it with money from their joint account? Where do the chains of cause and effect and responsibility end here?

  “Anyway,” Jon says, momentarily forgetting and starting to reach for the wine before reigning in his erring hand. He reaches for the pepper instead: an alibi. “Maybe it’s the salmon’s karma that was stuffed. Maybe he was a really bad salmon in a previous life. Maybe that’s why he ended up on this chopping board in the first place.”

  “Your grasp of karma is about as good as your mother’s grasp of nutrition,” Judy says.

  “Yes. You’re probably right.”

  “Just don’t let them gang up on me like last time, OK?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m your wife. And they’re your family. So I’m not allowed to fight back. So I need you to stand up for me.”

  “I didn’t let anyone gang up on you last time,” Jonathan says.

  “Well, they did.”

  And this is true.

  Sophie had launched a minor attack against Judy, breaking into sacred ground via one of the weaker portals – homeopathy. It had been nothing initially but a border skirmish, but egged on by their mother (who loves her pills) and a little too much chardonnay, and backed up, seemingly, by the whole of western cartesian logic, and sensing Judy’s vulnerability on the subject, Sophie had gone in for the kill. And Jon, despite believing vaguely that homeopathy probably did work (because Judy said it worked for her and why would she lie?) had found himself mechanically unable to take position in defence of his wife, had found himself unable, when faced with Sophie’s mathematical explanations of the absence of any active compound in homeopathic remedies, to defend Judy’s floundering theories about water having memory of having once had a molecule of Thuja near it but not apparently of having passed, since time began, through hundreds of mammals’ stinky bowels. Judy had gone to bed early and made his life hell for almost a week after that one. And Jon had secretly stopped taking the Thuja 10ch pills her naturopath had prescribed (without any noticeable change to his health.) And there had not been another family meal since.

  “I promise I won’t let them gang up on you,” he says. “Now go and put your feet up.”

  “You want me out of the kitchen?”

  “No. You’ve been saying you’re tired all day. So I’m saying you should make the most of the calm before the storm. That is all.”

  “I am tired. Pregnancy is exhausting.”

  “I know. Just don’t say it when Mum’s here or you’ll have the whole diet thing to deal with.”

  “What diet thing?”

  “Oh come on. You know this. If you say you’re tired, she’ll say you’re anaemic and that it’s because you’re vegan and then...”

  “Jon, I’m sure your mother knows how tiring it is being pregnant.”

  “Yes. I’m sure she does. But that’s still what she’ll say. And you know how she’s the world’s expert on pregnancy. And nutrition.”

  “She’s the world’s expert on everything.”

  “You’re right. She is.”

  “What was she like with Sophie?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “When she was pregnant.”

  “Oh, I don’t remember much.”

  “But you were old enough. You were five or six, right?”

  “Six, yes. But I was too busy hiding in tree houses, I think.”

  “Tree houses? You had a garden?”

  “No, we went to Wales. For three months. We came back after Sophie was born.”

  “Wales? I never knew that. Why on earth did you go to Wales?”

  “Mum was tired or something. I think the doctor prescribed lots of fresh air.”

  “Huh!” Judy says.

  “Huh?”

  “You see, even with her half-cow per day, she was still so tired you had to retreat to Wales. It’s called being pregnant. It’s exhausting, Jon.”

  “I know,” Jonathan says. “So please go and sit down!”

  “OK, OK! I’m going. Just shout if you need me, alight?”

  “Alright.”

  Jonathan waits until he hears the sound of the television (a game show) and then sidles over to the glass of wine. He glances guiltily at the doorway, then lifts it and downs the contents in one. “Family dinners,” he thinks. “Ugh!”

  Jonathan straightens from the delicate operation of folding over the aluminium foil seam of his third fish parcel and sips the final dregs of his second glass of wine. He wonders if Judy will do a wine bottle audit. He wonders if she’ll give him hell. She really is the wine police, he thinks.

  The doorbell chimes, so he calls out, “Can you get that, Jude? I still have fishy fingers.”

  “OK,” Judy calls back. “But if it’s your family, they’re a bit early.”

  Jonathan imagines one or other members of “his family” beyond the front door and imagines them hearing Judy’s shrieked words and winces, then heads to the sink and begins to wash his hands.

  “... no, she’s not here yet,” he can hear Judy saying. “But then we did say seven-thirty and it’s not even seven.”

  “You look well,” Barbara replies, ignoring Judy’s barb about the early hour. Barbara is good at bulldozing through difficulty, at not taking umbrage, which is one of the reasons she “gets on” so well with Judy where so many other people don’t. It’s a trait Jonathan has inherited, thank God. “Pregnancy is making you bloom, dear!” Barbara tells Judy.

  “So people keep telling me,” Judy replies. “Yes, just hang it there. Come through. Jon’s in the kitchen wrestling with dead things.”

  “Dead things?” Barbara says, her voice now loud as she enters the kitchen.

  “It’s just fish, Mum,” Jonathan says, drying his hands on a tea-towel.

  “Hello dear,” Barbara says, crossing the room and kissing him on the cheek.

  “Hi Mum.”

  Judy appears in the doorway behind her, raising her eyebrows comically. “Your Mum’s already here,” she says.

  “Yes,” Jonathan replies. “Yes, I spotted that.”

  “I was just saying how well Judy looks,” Barbara says, blustering through the strained atmosphere. “She looks positively ruddy.”

  “She does.”

  “I’m actually feeling...” Judy starts, but Jonathan catches her eye and despite her annoyance that no one is actually asking her how she feels, she wrestles her sentence under control before it escapes her mouth. “... quite well,” she says, wide eyeing Jonathan and tilting her head sideways.

  “Well, it’s still early days but that’s good,�
�� Barbara says.

  “Jon was just telling me how you got so tired when you were pregnant with Sophie that you went off to Wales,” Judy says.

  “I didn’t exactly say that,” Jonathan says. “I didn’t say it was because you were tired.”

  “Was there another reason?” Judy asks.

  “Wales? I... No...” Barbara stumbles. “I wasn’t tired as such. We just needed a break.”

  “Sounds quite luxurious,” Judy says. “I wish Jon would whisk me off somewhere for three months.”

  “It was just a little cottage,” Barbara says. “A little damp cottage. It was hardly luxurious.”

  “All the same.”

  “You didn’t go out much, did you Mum?” Jonathan asks. “Or have I got that wrong?”

  “No, not much. It rained a lot.”

  “But even when it wasn’t raining, you never went out. I remember going to the shop with Dad.”

  “Yes, there was a tiny shop in the village.”

  “Gosh, were you laid up in bed?” Judy asks.

  “No, I... I went a bit mad, to be honest,” Barbara says. “A sort of agoraphobia thing. It happens to a lot of women during pregnancy.”

  “So that’s something to be grateful for, at least,” Judy says, nodding at Jonathan. “I don’t have agoraphobia.”

  “We used to get stuff for Diane, too,” Jonathan says. “We used to do two boxes of food. I remember that.”

  “Diane?” Judy asks.

  “She was Dad’s friend,” Jonathan says.

  “And she went with you to Wales?”

  “It was actually Diane who found the cottages,” Barbara explains. “They belonged to some distant aunt of hers or something. And she worked as his assistant sometimes.”

  “Drink, Mum? There’s some rather nice white open,” Jonathan says, pulling the bottle from the fridge.

  “What happened there, Jon?” Judy asks, nodding at the bottle.

  “I used quite a lot in the fish parcels,” Jonathan lies.

  “I’m OK for the moment,” Barbara says.

  “I’m not drinking either, obviously,” Judy says, patting her belly.

  “Oh, actually, go on then,” Barbara says, soliciting daggers from Judy. “Can’t have him drinking alone, can we?”

  “Did Sophie manage to track her down then?” Jonathan asks, as he pours two glasses of wine.

  “Diane?”

  “Yes. I know she wanted to get in touch with her.”

  “No. I don’t think she did. And please don’t bring it up in front of her. She’s been driving me insane about Diane.”

  “What did this Diane do exactly?” Judy asks.

  “She developed and printed some of his films. He was never very good at it,” Barbara says. “He never had the patience.”

  “He must have been doing very well to have a travelling assistant.”

  “No, not really. Not at all, in fact. As I say, the cottages were free of charge. Because they were in her family. And she was sort of a family friend more than an assistant.”

  “Shall we go through to the lounge?” Jon asks.

  Barbara leads the way and Jonathan follows her.

  “I’ll just serve myself a drink then, shall I?” Judy asks, but Jon and Barbara are too busy talking to hear her, so she sighs, pours herself a glass of Perrier and follows on into the lounge.

  “What time did Sophie say?” Jon asks her when she joins them.

  “Seven-thirty,” Judy says. “I told everyone seven-thirty.”

  “Everyone?” Barbara asks. “Gosh. Who’s coming?”

  Jonathan laughs. “No one else,” he says. “Unless Judy’s invited Manchester United as a surprise treat?”

  “I haven’t,” Judy says with a fake smile.

  A silence falls across the room, born of the simple fact that all three people present, including Judy herself, are attempting to analyse why she said, “everyone.” Jonathan solves the riddle first and quickly attempts to change the subject before his mother decodes yet another disguised barb. “So... tell me more about Wales,” he says. “Other than the fact there was a treehouse, I don’t remember much.”

  “There were two, actually,” Barbara says. “You loved those tree houses.”

  “And did you actually have Sophie in Wales?” Judy asks, as if Wales were the Sahara, as if Wales might not have midwives or hospitals.

  “To be honest, I’d rather talk about something else,” Barbara says, in a flat, controlled tone of voice. “It was a horrible time for me. I’ve been doing my best to forget it all.”

  “Horrible? Because?”

  “Mum said she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Jonathan points out.

  “OK, OK. I just wondered what was so horrible. The holiday in Wales, or having a baby? Sorry.”

  “The house was tiny and damp, and impossible to heat,” Barbara says, her tone a little exasperated. “The wood-pile was all soaked through because it had a leaky roof, so we could never get the fire to light. It rained almost constantly and, as I said, I wasn’t well.”

  “Right,” Judy says. “Not good then.”

  “And please don’t bring it up once Sophie’s here.”

  “Why does Sophie want to contact Diane anyway?” Judy asks.

  “For this silly exhibition of hers,” Barbara says. “But it’s utterly likely that she’s passed away.”

  “Oh that would upset Sophie,” Jonathan says. “She really liked Diane.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds like her now,” Judy comments, detecting some subsonic vibration from the direction of the porch and, sure enough, the doorbell chimes a moment afterwards.

  “I’ll go,” Jonathan offers, already standing.

  “Well, thank you!” Judy says.

  “Anyway, you do look well,” Barbara repeats, once Jonathan has left the room.

  “Yes,” Judy says. “You said. Thanks.”

  It is just after midnight by the time Sophie gets home. Brett, who promised he’d wait up for her, clearly has not done so. Sophie can hear his snoring the second she opens the front door.

  She’s disappointed about this. She’s feeling upset – a hard-to-define mixture of various unsettling emotions: insecurity, aloneness, inadequacy, irritation – a familiar set of feelings that only family dinners have ever managed to conjure up. She had been hoping, on her return, for a friendly ear and a supportive hug, something to allow her to feel that even if that family didn’t work too well, at least this one did.

  She steps out of her shoes and hangs up her coat, then pads barefoot to the lounge where she’s surprised to discover Brett asleep in an armchair. He has an art book on his lap and his glasses are cutely skewed. He apparently tried to stay up, bless him.

  She pours herself a slug of Brett’s whiskey, downs it in one and then serves herself a second shot. She spent most of the evening gagging for more alcohol to soften the pain of listening to Judy but like Jonathan with his dairy products, she found it easier to forego getting sloshed than to tolerate any additional sniping about her alcohol intake.

  She passes behind Brett and gently lifts away his glasses, folds them and places them on the coffee table feeling a little surge of love for him as she does so. She moves across the room and takes a seat opposite him. She sips at the whiskey and studies Brett’s features, spooky in the light from the reading lamp.

  Some muscle he must contract when awake has relaxed now, and his belly has expanded even beyond its normal generous dimensions. He looks fatter and older. But softer too. He always looks a little crafty when awake: sly and perhaps a little too pleased with himself. Asleep he looks innocent, childlike and geriatric all at once.

  Sophie imagines him waking up and asking her how her evening went and she sighs. She wouldn’t know what to say if he were awake to talk to.

  In the morning, when she wakes up, she finds herself enlaced in Brett’s hot arms. His body temperature seems to be a couple of degrees higher than hers which is a source of added ec
stasy during sex, a supplier of comfort in winter and a sweaty irritation in summer. She yawns and stretches her legs and Brett says, “Awake?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You survived then?”

  “Umh...”

  It’s not until Brett has showered and dressed that they discuss Sophie’s evening and when Brett asks her, “So, how did it go?” she realises that some unconscious mechanism has been operating during her sleep which has allowed her to process the events of the night before. “It was awful and fine, both at once,” she says.

  “Right...”

  “Awful because I hated almost every second of it, and fine because it was successful.”

  “Successful? You got them on board for the exhibition, then?”

  Sophie laughs. “No. I didn’t mention it once. I was under strict instructions from Jonathan not to mention it and he was right. As official favourite child he knows much better how to handle Mum than I do.”

  “How was it successful then?” Brett asks, now lifting his collar and pulling his tie around his neck.

  Sophie sips her coffee before replying. “The thing with Mum, as Jon correctly identified, is not to let her realise that you need something from her. As long as you don’t need it, she’ll give it freely.”

  “Because?”

  Sophie shrugs. “Because there’s no power to be gained by denying it, I suppose.”

  “Sure,” Brett says. “That makes sense. A sort of Woody Allen sense but sense all the same. So what did you talk about?”

  “Jon’s job, the human rights – or fishy rights or whatever – of fish...”

  “The rights of fish?”

  “Yeah. Jon cooked salmon for the three of us and I don’t think Judy was thrilled about it. So she regaled us with tales of the environmental horrors of salmon farming whilst we ate.”

  “Nice.”

  “She’s probably right to be honest but she’s just so annoying, you can’t really help but play devil’s advocate.”

  “My sister’s like that,” Brett says. “Except that unlike Judy she’s invariably wrong.”

  “Oh Judy’s generally wrong about most things,” Sophie says. “I just meant she was probably right about salmon. But I’m not sure what you can eat these days. It’s all a bit fucked-up, isn’t it?”