The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really. Talk soon. Bye bye.”

  And just like that, the line goes dead.

  Sophie lowers the phone and grimaces at it again. “That was weird,” she says, to nobody in particular.

  Just at that moment, the door to their hotel room creaks open and a head-height, plastic, purple penis edges its way through the gap. It is attached, it transpires, to a horrific rubber mask that Brett is wearing.

  “Ew!” Sophie exclaims. “That’s even weirder.”

  “I’m sorry?” Brett asks, his voice muffled by the mask.

  “God, no wonder she didn’t trust you,” Sophie says. “What is that?”

  Brett closes the door behind him and slides the mask up onto the top of his head so that the attachment is pointing skywards like some absurd party hat. He is wiggling his eyebrows and grinning and looking generally pleased with himself. “It’s called the Vulcan Driller!” he announces, theatrically. “So tell me, are you ready to be drilled, Babe?”

  1968 - Hackney, London.

  Barbara is kneeling before the grate, folding newspaper in the special concertina fashion her mother taught her. Minnie is coming around this afternoon (the laundry is closed for repairs to the hot water system) and Barbara is vaguely conscious of the fact that she will be pleased if she arrives and sees her folding the firelighters properly. The desire to please your parents never quite seems to go away, not even once you have a child of your own.

  Below, through the floorboards, she can hear Tony swearing about “bloody coal dust.” They have just had three bags of coal (the minimum) delivered to the cellar, which is also Tony’s new darkroom. Jonathan, who has been grumpy all morning, is momentarily lost in a world of Lego and she’s making the most of it. He starts school next week, and though she still loves him with unreasonable intensity, and though she fears the emptiness of the house once he does start school, she is also rather guiltily looking forward to it. She’s intending to use the first few weeks to finish decorating the lounge and dining room, and then she’s going to look for some part-time work. She would have loved to produce a brother or sister for Jonathan but she’s been forced by circumstances to make other plans. Plus, unless she can manage to bring in a little more money, they won’t be redecorating the bedrooms or buying carpet for many years, if ever.

  “Useless! Bloody useless!” Tony shrieks, and Barbara glances over to watch the effect of his angry voice on Jonathan, who pauses, wrinkles his brow, but then thankfully resumes play.

  Barbara fills the fire with her pleated firelighters, lays a few pieces of hard-to-come-by kindling over the top of them, adds a few lumps of coal on top of that and then, with a little regret that Minnie will never see just how well folded the newspapers were, she strikes a match. “It’ll be nice and warm in here soon,” she murmurs.

  Tony will no doubt complain about the cost. He has already said that lighting fires in September is a waste of money, but after three days of drizzle, Barbara doesn’t just fancy a fire. She needs one.

  She can hear Tony’s feet now, stomping up the wooden steps. The door to the cellar bursts open with enough force that it slams back against the wall and, as she glances up from the gently rising flames, he appears in the doorway, red-faced and angry looking. “I’ve had enough,” he says. “I’m going down the Ladywell for a pint.”

  “Did it not work, sweetheart?” she asks.

  “No, it bloody didn’t. And how I’m supposed to work in a load of coal dust, God only knows.” And with that, he vanishes from view, slamming the front door behind him.

  Barbara holds her breath for a moment and then, with a sense of relief, releases it. It’s strange really, because she always misses Tony when he’s at work, yet the truth is that she likes the idea of him more than the reality of his presence. He’s always so tense, always on the verge of anger if not actually angry. So she always feels a great sense of relief when he leaves the house, as if some looming danger has passed. He has never hit her. He has never, for that matter, so much as raised a hand to her or Jonathan. But it always feels like it might be on the cards. It always seems like it could happen at any moment.

  Barbara puts the fireguard in front of the hearth, then heads through to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. By the time she gets back to the lounge with it, Jonathan has fallen asleep, his face pressed against the strewn multi-coloured Lego bricks. She should probably move him to a more comfortable position but he’s had a difficult morning and this moment of quiet – just the dripping of the gutter outside and the crackle of the fire – is heavenly. So she leaves Jonathan be, sips her tea, and stares at the flames.

  Later on, once Minnie has been and gone – with an umbrella under one arm and Jonathan under the other – Barbara heads down to the cellar. There is indeed coal dust everywhere. It’s in the developing trays, it’s on the workbench, it’s all over the borrowed photographic enlarger. “Of course it didn’t work,” she tuts, wondering why Tony couldn’t just clean it up before he started. She has never been able to understand her husband’s lack of patience, his constant need to race to the finish line. He’s a good provider and the fastest DIY hand she has ever met. Other men’s wives are jealous of the speed at which he can nail up a shelf – many of them wait months for such things. But ask him to sand down a window-frame before repainting it, or to clean a brush after using it, or indeed to clean up coal-dust before attempting to develop expensive photographic film, and there’s just no hope. He talks more and more frequently these days about becoming a professional photographer but unless he learns a little patience, Barbara just can’t see it working. Racing up and down the country on a motorbike seems to her to suit him much better.

  She pulls a strip of negative hanging on a wire towards her. It contains ghostly images of people’s faces but because they’re so vague, she can’t see who they might be.

  She picks up a sheet of instructions. It says, “Ilford Photographic Developer Solution.” She reads the text from top to bottom. It reads like a cake recipe: add so much of this to so much of that. Mix it up. Check the temperature. Wait so many minutes. How hard can it be?

  She decides to clean the cellar. Yes, she’ll clean up all the dust and then maybe, if he’s sober, and if he’ll let her, (and neither of these are overly likely) she’ll attempt to help him try again. Perhaps together they can master it.

  ***

  Barbara has had an idea, a crazy, ingenious, slightly dangerous kind of idea that would need authorisation from someone who knows about these things in order to be put into practice, if only someone out there existed who could authorise such a thing. But the only people for whose advice Barbara could ask would deter her – this she knows. And she suspects that they would very probably be right to do so.

  There’s nothing inherently wrong about her plan and she can’t even put a finger on what it is about this idea that makes it seem so naughty. But even before the plan has been put into action, naughty is how she feels. Naughty and excited, like a second class ticket holder who spots the opportunity to sneak into the first class carriage.

  And now, here, ringing the doorbell, is Diane, who is dangerous in her own right.

  Sometimes Barbara thinks about Diane and wishes they saw more of her. And sometimes Barbara thinks that she wants to be Diane, for there is a vibrancy about her, something edgy and risky and seductive. But other times, most of the time in fact, she wants to keep Diane as far away from her family as she possibly can. Right now, despite Barbara’s misgivings, Diane is standing on the doorstep as requested, because when push comes to shove, Diane is the only person she knows with the power to make her plan happen.

  “Hello!” Barbara says, wrenching open the front door — it has swollen with all the rain. “Come in! Come in! You look frozen!”

  Diane, who is wearing a grey trouser suit over a roll-neck sweater and a purple beret over her new bob haircut, looks amazing. Once upon a time, Barbara was able to reassure herself that she m
ight not be as clever as Diane and she might not be as funny either, but at least she was prettier. But that ceased to be true some years ago – proof, if any were needed, of what fashion and a good hairdresser can do.

  “I am frozen,” Diane says.

  “Where’s your coat?” Barbara asks, ushering her into the lounge. “Don’t you have one?”

  “I couldn’t find one to go with this outfit,” Diane admits, pulling an embarrassed face. “Stupid, I know! I regretted it the second I left the house. I’m bound to catch that cold everyone’s getting now.”

  “Well, it is November.”

  “I saw a nice trench coat in British Home Stores, actually. I should have bought it. It’s just that... well... British Home Stores... Anyway... This is nice,” she says, nodding at the fire and then glancing around the room. “It’s looking cozy here now you’ve redecorated.”

  “Thanks. Well, you warm yourself up there,” Barbara says, feeling suddenly nervous, convinced, at this moment, that it is all a mistake. Desperate to escape the cosy proximity of the lounge, she says, “I’ll make you a nice hot cup of tea. Don’t move!”

  “Sure,” Diane says, even as she is following Barbara to the kitchen. “So, what’s this all about?” she asks, removing her beret and shaking her hair loose. “It all seems very cloak and dagger, wanting me to come around when Tony’s out at work and everything.”

  “Not really,” Barbara says. “I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Talk?”

  “Yes.” Barbara clears her throat then concentrates her energies on rinsing out the teapot, on spooning in the tea... She senses one of her breathless crises coming on. If she can just concentrate on some mechanical action, she’ll be alright. If she just executes some simple task until it passes, she knows from experience that she can keep breathing.

  “So, what’s it about?” Diane asks. “What’s the secret?”

  “It’s probably silly. I mean, it’s probably not possible.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I want to talk to you about photos. About developing them. And printing and all that.” Barbara peers into the pot and gathers her courage before, fixing a neutral expression, she glances up at Diane. She’s half expecting her to laugh at her.

  Diane just looks confused. “I don’t understand,” she says.

  Barbara takes a deep gulp of air, then launches herself. “Tony’s been having a hard time since your Dad closed the shop,” she explains.

  “I thought he would.”

  “We can’t really afford the prices they charge for developing and printing elsewhere,” Barbara explains.

  Diane nods. “It’s an expensive business. But I thought Tony had set up his own darkroom. In the cellar or something?”

  “He did. But he isn’t getting on with it. They’re all too dark or too light or too scratched or too something. He’s just wasting money on paper and chemicals and not getting anything to show for it.”

  “That’s Tony, I’m afraid,” Diane says. “There’s nothing difficult about it, but he just can’t – or won’t – follow instructions.”

  “That’s exactly it,” Barbara says, now filling the teapot from the kettle.

  “But I don’t see how I can help,” Diane says. “He’s always been like that. He’s not likely to change.”

  “I wondered if...”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you... do you think it would be possible... I mean, I’m not sure if you think I’m up to it but...”

  “Oh!” Realisation sweeps across Diane’s face. “You want me to teach you?”

  Barbara squints at her. “I’m being silly, aren’t I?” she says, tentatively.

  “No! Of course not.”

  “And you probably don’t have the time anyway...”

  “Barbara,” Diane says. “I–”

  “You know what? Just forget I ever said anything.”

  “I’d love to show you how,” Diane says.

  “Really? You would?”

  Diane nods energetically.

  “I might not be any good at it.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “I mean, I’m no photographer or anything, but I can follow instructions. I can follow a recipe and I can follow a knitting pattern. That sounds silly... I just mean, if someone tells me how, I can do most things. So I thought maybe...”

  Diane is suppressing a grin. “You’ll be great, Barbara,” she says. “Really.” She visibly notices something now and frowns as she scans the room.

  “He’s at school,” Barbara says.

  “God, of course!” Diane exclaims, as if some mystery has just been revealed. “So you have all the time in the world.”

  “For the moment, I do. Though I doubt it will last. Here.” She hands Diane a mug of tea which Diane cups in her hands and raises to her lips.

  “Mmm. Thanks,” she says. “So. Show me this darkroom.”

  Wednesdays and Fridays become photography days. Film processing is more complex than Barbara imagined. She has to learn to mix chemicals, to read temperature charts, to calculate developing times… She has to load film into a canister in the pitch black with her hands inside a bag and learn about over-exposing and underexposing on both camera and enlarger.

  But she enjoys the process, loves it, in fact, as much as anything she has ever done. After the brain deadening years of child-rearing, she feels like she is waking up, feels as if her mind is stirring after a long sleep, spluttering and juddering into motion.

  She enjoys the hours spent in the red light of the darkroom too, thrills (more than she cares to admit) to her one-on-one time with pretty, clever, funny Diane, enjoys feeling, for once, as if she is her friend, not Tony’s.

  Despite Diane bringing her own papers and products, and even though they take great care to leave the cellar exactly as they find it every time, Tony almost catches them twice. Once, because Barbara forgets to switch off the little electric heater. “I was cleaning down there,” she says, “and I was cold.” And once when, arriving home early, he catches Diane in the kitchen, a box of photographic paper in one hand. “Perfect timing,” Diane declares, seamlessly offering it to him. “I brought you some paper to practice with.”

  Barbara isn’t quite sure why she doesn’t tell her husband what she’s doing. To Diane, she justifies it by saying that she wants to surprise him. But that’s not the truth, or at least, it’s not the whole truth. She’s scared that Tony will somehow put an end to her new adventure. She’s not sure why he would do such a thing but she senses that it’s a possibility. And she feels strangely guilty about her time alone with one of Tony’s oldest friends. And so they manage to keep it a secret. Just. And one Wednesday in December, as they peer, hips pressed together, at the image slowly revealing itself in the developing bath, Diane says, “I think my work is done here.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’ve got it,” Diane says. “That’s perfect. The last three have all been perfect. You just need to practice lots of dodging and burning and do some double exposures now. But you’re already way better than Tony at all of it. And I mean that.”

  Barbara stares at the developing picture to avoid looking at Diane. Because if she looks at her right now, she will need to hug her. And if she hugs her, she will need to kiss her. Surprisingly, she no longer feels conflicted about these desires. She’s had time, here in the dark room, to come to terms with it. She doesn’t know where the desire comes from and she’s decided that she doesn’t really care. She loves Diane, really, but in a different way to the way she loves Tony, in a way a woman can only love another woman. It’s something about feeling as if they are in-league together, and she has bonded with her these last weeks in a way that has never happened to her before. But she knows the limits of what’s possible and what’s not. She knows where the train tracks of her life are leading, and kissing Diane simply isn’t on the itinerary. “Don’t tell Tony that,” she says.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it
,” Diane laughs.

  “I might tell him this weekend,” Barbara says, prodding at the sheet of paper in the chemical bath. “About all of this, I mean.”

  “Don’t tell him,” Diane says. “Just wait till he’s nearly finished a film and then take it out and develop it. He won’t believe his eyes.”

  “But what if I get it wrong?”

  Diane bumps Barbara with her hip. “You won’t,” she says. “You’re fine.”

  “And if he’s angry?”

  “You should take that out and fix it now,” Diane prompts, pointing at the print.

  “Yes. I was just about to.”

  “And if he’s angry, then he’s stupid,” Diane says.

  Barbara slides the sheet into the stop bath, then into the fixer. “Hum,” she says. “No comment.”

  “Because you’re not allowed to comment. But I am. Anyway, I think he’ll be annoyed at first. But then it will be just a huge relief.”

  “I hope so.”

  They dry Barbara’s print and then tidy the darkroom carefully before moving upstairs to the lounge. “I’m glad you got the hang of it so quickly,” Diane says. “Because I’m going to have to vanish for a while and I won’t be able to help you till I get back.”

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Barbara says, feeling suddenly tearful. “I’ve really enjoyed our afternoons together.”

  “So have I. And it’s the least I could do. Really,” Diane says.

  “I’m kind of sad that–” Belatedly, Barbara’s mind processes Diane’s phrase. “What do you mean, you’ll have to vanish for a while?” she asks.

  “Just that,” Diane says, now pulling on her coat.

  “But why?”

  “It’s just something I need to do,” Diane says, her hand fluttering towards her mouth before being wrested under control.

  “If I can help, then you should tell me,” Barbara says concernedly.

  “I don’t think anyone can, really.”

  Barbara reaches out to touch her shoulder now. “Diane,” she says. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”