The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  “Is there any point in my continuing?” Brett asks.

  “Not really,” Sophie says, holding out one hand to take the photos back. She slips two from the back of the second wallet and hands them to Brett. “I thought maybe these two,” she says. “We’re a few images short still and at least these look like the soft-focus was intentional.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean,” Brett says, doubtfully, “but if you use these, someone will realise that all the others exist too. People will wanna see them all.”

  “We can just say that we didn’t consider them worthy of attention, can’t we? Everyone will realise we’ve made a selection.”

  “Nah,” Brett says. “I say trash ‘em.”

  “Trash them?”

  “Uh-huh. A famous photographer father is a bigger story than a mediocre one who took some lucky snaps.”

  “Aw, come on Brett. My dad was not a mediocre guy who took some lucky snaps.”

  “Well, anyone who looks at these will kind of think that he was.”

  Sophie can sense heat rising. She’s starting to feel angry. “Brett, you just can’t say that. This is my dad you’re talking about.”

  “Sophie, I’m just saying what I see here.“

  “You know what? If that’s what you really think, then maybe you are better out of this.” Sophie stuffs the photographs back into her bag and stands. “Maybe we really should forget the whole thing.”

  “Sophie!” Brett says. “You’re overreacting here.”

  “Of course I’m bloody overreacting. He was my Dad. And he’s dead!”

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything, OK?” Brett says, but Sophie is already pulling on her coat. She’s knows he’s right, but she’s stuck and doesn’t know how to change direction.

  Brett stands and gently touches her arm. “Sophie. I’m apologising here. I’m sorry. Now please, please just sit the fuck down.” He glances around the room and Sophie, following his regard, now realises that everyone is looking at her. In case of need of a quick exit she keeps her coat on. But she does manage (just) to sit back down.

  “Gee!” Brett says.

  “I’m sorry. But you just can’t say stuff like that about my dad.”

  “I know this,” Brett says. “It’s countries and families.”

  “Countries and families?”

  “Sure. People can tell you all kinds of stuff about where they come from. About all the bad things that happened to them. About their home country or their folks or whatever. And they’re allowed to tell you that stuff and you’re allowed to listen. But you must never, ever agree with them. And definitely don’t join in with the trashing.”

  Sophie runs her fingers through her hair. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, that’s about the sum of it. It’s OK for me to say these are awful. But just leave it to me, OK?”

  “Anyways,” Brett says. “We agree on one thing. We can’t use them.”

  “Yes,” Sophie says. “Yes, we agree on that.”

  Sophie’s phone vibrates, so she pulls it from her pocket and studies the screen. “Oh my God!” she says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Judy’s sprogged!”

  “Huh!” Brett says.

  “It’s a boy. Dylan. The poor wee fucker.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “I don’t know what’s worse,” Sophie tells him. “Being called Dylan or having Judy for a mother.”

  1976 - The Norfolk Coast.

  “Dad,” Jonathan whines. “There’s a whole traffic jam stuck behind us now.”

  Embarrassed, as ever, by Tony’s holiday meandering, he is kneeling on the back seat of the Beetle watching the frustrated drivers behind them. Tony only has two driving styles – relaxed and road rage. Personally, Barbara far prefers “relaxed,” but at this moment in time she’s unable to come to his defence.

  “I’m doing forty,” Tony says, glancing at the speedometer. “There’s nothing wrong with forty.”

  “Except that the speed limit’s sixty,” Jonathan says.

  “It’s a limit, Jon, an upper limit. It’s a maximum, not a minimum. Isn’t that right, Barbara?”

  Barbara does not answer. She continues to stare out of the side window and Tony drives in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. “So have you still got the hump with me?” he asks her quietly. “About last night?”

  Still Barbara does not answer him.

  Sophie, who is seated behind her, shouts (with alarming force) “Beach!”

  “Yes, Sophie,” Barbara says. “Yes, that’s a huge beach.”

  "I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then, shall I?” Tony asks.

  “Take it any way you want. I’m past caring,” Barbara replies.

  “Definitely a ‘yes’ then,” Tony mumbles.

  He did not come home last night and Barbara had been seriously worried. Knowing that they were supposed to be leaving for Norfolk in the early hours, she had been unable to convince herself that this was “just” one more of Tony’s random absences. And when finally, at eight am, he had reappeared, revealing that, yes, it was just one more of Tony’s random absences, she had found herself unable to forgive him. Which is pretty much where she remains still.

  “I just don’t see what the problem is,” Tony is saying now, prompting Barbara to sigh again. “Talk to me!” he says. “We’re supposed to be on holiday here. We’re supposed to be having fun.”

  Barbara licks her lips, then speaks quietly, addressing him over her shoulder. “The problem, Tony,” she says, “is that I was worried. The problem is that I didn’t know if you’d be home today or tomorrow, or ever even.”

  “But I was home in time. And we’re here now, aren’t we?”

  “The problem,” she continues, “Is that you still won’t say where you’ve been.”

  “I told you. I had a work shoot up north. I stayed over at Phil’s.”

  “And the problem,” Barbara says, “is that’s simply not true. And we both know it.”

  “There’s another beach,” Sophie shouts, pointing again. They have been driving for an hour since lunch and she’s getting bored. The car is unbearably hot, doubly so in the rear seats, and having been promised a beach, a beach is what she wants.

  “Phone Phil,” Tony says. “He’ll tell you. He’ll back me up.”

  Barbara turns to face him and raises one hand to paint an imaginary headline across the windscreen. “Man’s best drinking buddy confirms dodgy excuse to wife!” she reads. “Shock scoop!”

  “You’re impossible when you’re like this.”

  “I’m impossible?”

  “Mum!” Sophie says, now pointing backwards. “What was wrong with that beach?”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan says. “It looked alright to me.”

  “What was it like?” Tony asks, grateful for the subject change. “I didn’t see.”

  “It was baked solid,” Barbara says, fidgeting in the discomfort of her sweaty vinyl seat.

  “So we carry on?”

  Barbara chews a fingernail and fights with herself. The beach they just passed may not be ideal for Sophie’s needs (sandcastles) but it was absolutely perfect for Tony’s needs, which are for saleable photographic evidence of the “hottest summer for three-hundred years.”

  “The next beach won’t be far,” Tony says, and both Jonathan and Sophie groan.

  “Cutting off your nose to spite your face.” The phrase, one of Minnie’s favourites, pops into Barbara’s mind. It happens a lot these days and Barbara wonders if Minnie is somehow present and talking to her, or if it’s nothing more than random memories bubbling up from her past. Sometimes she thinks that those two versions of the truth amount to pretty much the same thing – that those who are no longer with us remain with us specifically through our memories of them. That memories are perhaps more than just recordings, that they are the actual essence of the people we have known, the places we have been, lingering on long after the event, like time travellers, like ghosts. />
  In this instance Minnie would be right. As a family they need Tony to do well: they need him to take the right photographs and they need him to sell them. And if he isn’t going to tell her where he vanishes to – and after thirteen years of marriage, she knows that he isn’t – and if she isn’t going to leave him – and after thirteen years, she knows that as well – then sabotaging the professional aspect of this trip, which Tony assured her was going, after all, to pay for this trip, really doesn’t make any sense. It really would be cutting off her nose to spite her face.

  She turns her body to face him now. She leans in so that only he can hear her. “I hate you right now,” she whispers.

  Tony glances at her, then back at the road. He frowns. “What?” he says.

  She leans in and says it again. “Right now, at this instant, I really hate you. I just want you to know that.”

  “Jesus!” Tony exclaims, looking distinctly unsettled.

  “But…” she adds, more loudly. “You should turn around and go back to that beach.”

  “What?” Tony says again.

  “Go back to that last beach,” she repeats, soliciting cheers from both Jonathan and Sophie.

  “Why?” Tony asks, suspicious of Barbara’s motives, scared that she has perhaps seen a cliff she wants to push him off.

  “That beach was amazing,” Barbara says. “It’s all baked and cracked like crazy paving. And it’s covered with semi-naked, bright pink females. It’s exactly what you said you were looking for.”

  Tony glances in the mirror, flicks on an indicator and then pulls into a siding. The tailback of frustrated drivers speeds past, already accelerating to speeds that Jonathan would consider more reasonable now that the Beetle from Hell has finally pulled aside.

  “Really?” Tony asks. “You’re not just winding me up.”

  “Go back, Dad,” Jonathan says.

  “Yes, come on,” Sophie agrees. “Go back.”

  Barbara nods and smiles and flutters her eyelashes at him repulsively. “Go back, darling,” she says. “You’ll see. I meant everything I said.”

  1977 - Hackney, London.

  Barbara glances at the kitchen clock. “You’d better get a move on,” she tells Jonathan. “You’re going to be late.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jonathan says. “It’s just P.E.”

  “It all matters.”

  “I just want to see the dude in his new threads,” Jonathan says.

  “If you mean your father, you’ve already seen him in a suit at Phil’s wedding,” Barbara says, even though she understands entirely. She too is looking forward to seeing Tony in his new suit.

  “Yeah, but I’ve never seen him in a white suit,” Jonathan says, his voice full of adolescent disdain. “I’ve never seen him dressed up like a Bee Gee before.”

  “Don’t you dare say that to him!” Barbara warns. “He’s nervous enough as it is. And it’s not white. It’s cream.”

  “He’s still gonna look like a Bee Gee,” Jonathan says.

  “Please! Just go to school will you? You’ll see him tonight anyway.”

  But it’s too late. Tony is clomping down the hallway towards them in brand new thick-soled shoes. “Are you sure I have to wear the tie?” he asks Barbara, tugging at his collar.

  Everyone pauses to look at him. A moment frozen around him simply because his clothing is different. It’s a strange, out-of-time sensation.

  “I like it!” Sophie declares. “I think you look lovely, Dad.”

  Still fiddling with his kipper tie, Tony shoots her a coy grin and a wink. She’s very much a daddy’s girl and he can always count on her for a feel-good comment when he needs one.

  Barbara, who has now crossed the room to meet him, agrees. “You look marvellous,” she says, straightening his tie and pushing it a little further into the waistcoat. “You look like a prizewinning photographer.”

  “I feel like I’ve been sentenced to death by hanging,” Tony says.

  “Now you know how it feels, Dad,” Jonathan, who has to wear school uniform every day, says. He can’t see what the fuss is about.

  “I doubt your tie gives you much bother. Not the way you wear it around your knees like that.”

  “Ties are naff anyway,” Jonathan says, a smile in his voice. “None of the Bee Gees wear ties.”

  Barbara shoots Jonathan a glare and he grins defiantly at her.

  “Yes, but I’m not in the Bee Gees, am I?” Tony says. “I’m not going on Top of The Pops. I’m going on a bleeding arts program.”

  “OK,” Barbara says. “That’s enough. Jon, go to school. Right now! It’s almost eight-thirty!”

  Jonathan stands, picks up his sports bag and jive-walks across the room to his father. He gives him an exaggerated once-over, then says, “You’s the man, pop,” before – humming Stayin’ Alive in a silly, high voice – he strides, hips swaying, down the hallway.

  “Cheeky little git,” Tony says, once the front door has closed.

  “He’s fourteen, Tony. They’re all like that at fourteen.”

  “Will I be like that at fourteen?” Sophie asks.

  “No,” Tony says. “You’ll be an angel at fourteen, just like now. You’ll be an angel forever.” He looks at Barbara again. “It is too much though, isn’t it? I should have got the blue one.”

  “No, really, you look perfect. We watched Aquarius together last week. You saw how they were dressed.

  Tony feels scared and all of his fear is being focussed on the stupid suit. But knowing the cause of his fear isn’t enough to actually ease it. He looks at Sophie who is still staring adoringly up at him from the breakfast table. “What do you think, pumpkin?” he asks.

  “Can you walk me to school?” she replies. “I want everyone to see how handsome and famous you are.” Which is of course the exact perfect thing for her to have said.

  “I’d love to, but I can’t, sweetheart,” Tony says, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got to be in Wembley by ten.”

  “Please?”

  “We could walk her to school and then carry on to Hackney station,” Barbara suggests. In truth, she too wants to make the most of Tony today. She too wants to be seen with her husband in the suit, wants to bask in a little of his prizewinning glory.

  “Alright,” Tony says. “But we’d better get a move on.”

  Sophie has crossed the room and picked up her father’s camera. “Can I take a photo of you?” she asks.

  Tony rolls his eyes. “Just the one, then,” he says. “Do you remember how?”

  “Of course I do,” Sophie says, removing the cover.

  Once Tony has swept Sophie up in his arms at the school-gates, twirled her around (and at eight years old, this is getting difficult) then released her into the noisy throng, Barbara links her arm through his and they head towards the station.

  “I still feel stupid dressed like this,” Tony says, despite feeling a little flattered by the admiring glances of passers by. “I look like I’m going to a wedding. I look like I’m going to my bleeding wedding.”

  “You need to worry less about how you look and think more about what you’re going to say. Because believe me, you’ll look perfect.”

  “And what the hell am I going to say?” he asks. “You know how I hate all that arty-farty bollocks.”

  “Well don’t say that. But really, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “So tell me, Mr Marsden,” Tony says in a mocking TV voice. “What is this photo about? Which of your deepest desires were you trying to express?”

  “Just stop. You’ll be fine!”

  “But they’re going to want a load of nonsense,” Tony says. “And I’m no good at all that spiel. You know I’m not.”

  “Tony! Stop it!” Barbara says, squeezing his arm. “You’re getting yourself in a tizzy for nothing. You’ve already won the prize. Everyone already thinks you’re the bee’s knees. That’s why they invited you on.”

  “It’s easy enough for you to say. You’re no
t about to face the Spanish Inquisition on national telly.”

  “Can’t you say they’re just photos?” Barbara says. “Say they’re photos and they’re meant to be looked at, not talked about.”

  Tony snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure. That’ll go down well.”

  ***

  Barbara carries the final dish, a plate of Stilton stuffed celery, into the dining room. She pushes the devilled eggs to one side and repositions the tray of mini-quiches so that she can fit the celery onto the table. She stands back and appraises the spread, then sighs with satisfaction. It looks perfect.

  “Mum, it’s playing!” – Jonathan’s voice, calling from the lounge.

  Next, Sophie appears in the doorway. “Mum!” she says, urgently. “They’re playing the tape. Come on!”

  Barbara walks through to the lounge, now almost too crowded for her to enter. Neighbours have squashed onto the sofa and Tony’s friends from his old photography class are seated cross legged on the floor. There are new people too, people Tony apparently knows well but who Barbara has never met before: two journalists from the Mirror, a painter, a poet, a cook… Everyone is drinking. Everyone is smoking. And a vague, sweet smell in the air makes Barbara think that they aren’t only smoking cigarettes. Really the place looks like an ashram but Barbara is determined to remain relaxed. She’s determined to fit in and have a little fun for once.

  Dave, who has brought his Betamax player along, is lying outstretched and onscreen the generic to Aquarius is playing. Sophie, who knows the words to the theme tune The Age of Aquarius, is singing along.

  Malcolm is still talking. “Incredible really that that’s all on that cartridge thing,” he is saying. “When did they show this?”

  “Sunday night,” Tony says. “Half-past ten.”

  “And you just recorded it from the telly?”

  “Dave did,” Tony says.

  “Shhh!” Sophie tells them and everyone is glad that she has been the one to silence them.

  On screen, Peter Hall is introducing the program.

  Tonight we’ll be talking to Steve Leber, the co-producer of a new musical called Beatlemania and Anthony Marsden, who is the first person ever to be named photo journalist of the year twice in a row. But first we have Wolfgang Büld who has made a full length documentary about London’s punk movement. Hello Wolfgang!