The Photographer's Wife

by Nick Alexander

  “Thanks,” Sophie says. “I was scared it was too much.”

  “No, it’s gorgeous.”

  “And Dad’s, too,” Sophie nods to the other end of the room. “Did you see? I tried so hard to contact you, Diane. I so wanted your help curating this. I hope you feel I chose the right ones.”

  “It’s lovely, Sophie, lovely,” Diane says. “Of course, your mother took that one, so the label’s wrong but that’s OK.”

  “The self portrait?”

  “The portrait,” Diane corrects.

  “Really?”

  “Um. And Phil took the Shipbuilding cover shot of course. But you couldn’t really leave that one out.”

  “Yes, he told me that. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. So that’s true, then?”

  “Oh yes. We often swapped photos. Your father had all the contacts, you see.”

  “More than you?”

  “With the newspapers he did, yes.”

  “Well, please don’t tell anyone,” Sophie says. “God, I can’t believe you came!”

  “All the way from Portland, Oregon, my dear. Fresh off the plane.”

  “Really. Oh, I’m so happy Diane. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” she says. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  She pauses now in front of an image of Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse. “That’s one of mine, she says.

  “Noo!” Sophie breathes.

  Diane nods. “Festival of light,” she says, struggling a little to articulate the ’s’ and the ’t’. “Bloody horrible it was… All the bigots in one place. Anti this and anti-that. And I always thought that he was a closet case anyway.”

  “Is it really yours?” Sophie asks. “Because that’s, like, three out of thirty. That’s ten percent that are just wrong.”

  “Yes. You can tell because it’s thirty-five mil’,” Diane explains. “Your dad only used one-twenty. That was taken with my big Nikon zoom. God, I loved that lens. I wonder what happened to it.”

  Sophie groans. “Oh, please just don’t tell anyone,” she says.

  Diane winks and raises a finger to her lips. “Mum’s the word,” she says.

  “Tell me that the others are his, at least?”

  Diane quickly scans the walls. “I think so,” she says. “Yeah, I reckon you’re OK.” She steps to the left and then pauses in front of the next image, Sophie’s photo of a group of laughing drag queens at a gay pride event. “Now this one, I really like.”

  “Thanks. It’s one of my favourites too.”

  “They look like they’re having such fun and yet…”

  “I know,” Sophie says. “There’s a sadness, isn’t there? So are you here just for the exhibition? Or do I get to see more of you?”

  “No, sadly not.”

  “Oh. I’d love to see you again. Even if we just have dinner or something.”

  “Oh sure. I meant I’m not just here for the exhibition, sadly.”

  “Sadly?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later. But let’s just keep things… you know… fluffy, for now, huh?”

  “Oh, you’re not ill, are you?”

  “No dear. I just get kicks out of wearing silly wigs,” Diane says. “Like your drag queens back there.”

  Sophie slides one arm around her waist. “But you are staying in England for a while?”

  “I can’t afford the bloody treatment over there, love. So yes. No choice, really.”

  ***

  Once Barbara’s heart has slowed and she feels able to breathe again, she returns to the gallery. She will be polite and friendly to Diane. And then she will ask Jonathan to take her home.

  When she steps back through the door, she sees that Sophie is with Diane, in fact Sophie has her arm around her. The two of them together is just too much for her to cope with, so she moves to plan B. She skirts around the edge of the gallery until she reaches Jonathan. He’s talking to a good looking woman, apparently also from the Times, so Barbara lingers and, feeling silly, pretends to study a photograph that she, herself, took.

  Eventually, Jonathan introduces the woman to the crazy lingering mother, whereupon she (presumably thinking that meeting the in-laws is a little premature) thankfully drifts away.

  “Jon,” Barbara says urgently. “Can you take me home, love? I don’t feel so well.”

  “Home?” Jonathan says. “It’s not even nine yet.”

  “I know, but I do feel poorly.”

  “Well, OK, Mum. In a bit,” Jonathan says. He’s used to Barbara crying wolf. “I just want to chat to a few more people. Diane’s here. Have you seen her?” He points across the room and Diane, who happened to be looking their way, now leans in to whisper something to Sophie before breaking away towards them.

  “Hello Barbara!” Diane says.

  “Hello,” Barbara answers with notably less enthusiasm. Back to plan A, she thinks. “How are you?”

  “About as well as I look,” Diane says.

  Jonathan, who feels inexplicably unwelcome, coughs and makes his excuses. “I’d better, um, mingle,” he says vaguely.

  “I’m so happy to see you, Barbara,” Diane says.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s a lovely exhibition.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sophie’s done an amazing job.”

  “Yes. She has.”

  “Is something wrong, Barbara?”

  Is something wrong? Barbara repeats the words in her head as she struggles to work out how to reply. What would the model of politeness and decorum she decided to be say to that? “No. Yes…” she mumbles confusedly, then, “Look. Why are you here, Diane?”

  Now Diane looks confused. “Here you mean? Or in England.”

  “Both. Either.”

  “I’m sick, Barbara,” she says. “I’m dying, actually. That’s why I wanted to see you.”

  Barbara nods and manages to both look and feel sad at this. The feeling bit is a surprise. Perhaps time does heal. “Is it cancer?”

  Diane nods and tugs at a strand of hair. “Hence this monstrosity.”

  “I didn’t notice,” Barbara lies. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well… That’s what I wanted to say to you,” Diane says. “That I’m sorry.”

  Barbara laughs lightly. She doesn’t choose to do this, it just erupts. “You’re sorry?”

  Diane nods. “I wanted to…” But she lets her voice peter out. Barbara is holding one hand up.

  “I really can’t do this,” Barbara says, still unexpectedly smiling. She doesn’t feel as if she has full control of her features this evening. “Not here. Not tonight.”

  “But I…”

  “In fact, maybe never, Diane. But definitely not here. Definitely not tonight.”

  “But I know you know,” Diane says. “You always knew and I–”

  “Stop!” Barbara says. The smile has vanished and her voice was louder than she intended. “Please, Diane,” she insists. “It’s all in the past now.”

  “But…”

  “It’s all so long in the past as well. Look around you. Half of the people who were there are dead now. Another ten years, there’ll be no one here to even remember. So just… just don’t.”

  Diane swallows and licks her lips. “OK,” she says. “I just thought… But OK. God, I’m sobering up. And we can’t have that.” She turns away and crosses to where a waitress is passing with a tray of drinks.

  You didn’t cry, Barbara thinks. You didn’t shout. You didn’t cause a scene. And now you can just go and forget this ever happened.

  She surveys the room, desperately looking for Jonathan, but it’s already too late because Diane is scurrying back towards her carrying not one, but two glasses of wine. As protection, Barbara tries to engage a stranger in conversation. But he just nods politely and, no doubt frightened by Diane’s other-worldly presence, slides off towards the exit.

  Diane thrusts one of the glasses into Barbara’s face. “Chink glasses with me,�
� she says.

  Barbara doesn’t reply but simply shakes her head. She orders her hand not to move one inch towards the offered drink. Diane waves it around some more, almost spilling the contents but again Barbara shakes her head. “No,” she says quietly. “I can’t do that.”

  “You said it’s all in the past. Just raise a toast with me. To Sophie. Just for that part of the story. That part of our story.”

  “I can’t, Diane,” Barbara whispers. “I’m sorry.”

  “Please,” Diane says, still holding out the glass. Her eyes are watering and her bottom lip is trembling, Sue-Ellen style. “I’m not asking for thanks or forgiveness, or anything else. Just raise a glass to Sophie with me and you’ll never see me again. I promise.”

  Her voice is quivering and Barbara can sense her own tears rising, the pressure of them slowly building behind her eyeballs. She feels hot too, senses beads of sweat sprouting on her forehead. To avoid any further drama, she nods quickly and takes the glass from Diane’s hand.

  “To Sophie,” Diane says.

  Barbara swallows and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. “You’ll go?”

  Diane nods. “I’ll go.”

  “To Sophie then,” Barbara whispers.

  They clink glasses and Diane downs hers in two hefty sips. “You’ve done such a good job with her,” she says. “You should be proud.”

  “Thanks,” Barbara says, reaching out to steady herself on the wall. The room is spinning a little and the moment, sadly, still doesn’t seem to be over.

  “You’re a saint, Barbara,” Diane says. “You know that, right?”

  “You can stop now. Please stop.” Barbara’s eyes dart around the room and she sees that both Phil and Jonathan are watching her concernedly.

  Diane is still talking, despite her promise. “I can’t believe that she turned out so well,” she is saying. “And a photographer as well!”

  Barbara’s face is swelling. She can feel it doubling in size, she can sense it turning into a vast, hot mass of shame.

  “OK,” Diane is saying. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. But there’s no harm done, is there?”

  “Please just go,” Barbara pleads. “You said you’d go. Please just go!”

  “I will. But I’m just saying that she’s a credit to you both,” Diane says, stealing a last glance at Sophie. “And she looks so like Tony, it’s uncanny.”

  Barbara gasps. She opens her mouth to speak but manages only a surprising, monotone groan, somewhere between the sound of a bereaved cow with a dead calf and that of a distant fog horn. She shakes her head and watches as, unexpectedly, her fingers release the glass and it falls in slow motion to the floor, where it shatters, wetting her foot.

  The perspex bubble is back. It’s been years, longer than she can remember, but it’s back now and outside it, distorted by it, Jonathan is running towards her shouting something. “Mum,” perhaps. Everyone is looking at her. Sixty people have turned to stare. Perhaps they’d like her to dance for them, perhaps she should dance like a Zulu all over again but she can’t because her legs are buckling now, even as the room is spinning around her, even as Diane, now fringed with rainbow colours, is covering her mouth and saying, “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. I always thought you knew.” And the colours are brighter now, everything is brighter and rainbow edged, and whiteness is seeping in around the edges slowly obliterating the staring faces, the open mouths, the spinning pictures, the twirling ceiling. The brightness, the heavenly whiteness. Thank God for it. It’s making all of this go away.

  1983 - Hackney, London.

  It has been a week since the policewoman came to the door. It has been a week since Barbara fell to her knees, since she discovered that at forty-nine she had become a widow. A heart attack, they said. In Paris, they said. The coroner’s report would follow. The body too, would follow. Such cruel language, such hard words, but things, even bad things, need to be described.

  Since that moment, time has stretched into an endless landscape of nothingness, something way beyond sadness. A feeling that everything is locked outside. A feeling that feelings themselves are beyond reach. Just a void to be got through, just phone calls to funeral parlours and calls to Tony’s friends and colleagues, and vain attempts to get Sophie and Jonathan to eat something, eat anything, even though Barbara herself is unable to eat.

  But finally the week has passed and the body is home. Men, they leave you. Each does it in his own way but they leave you. And sometimes they come back dead.

  Sophie slips silently into the lounge. She’s wearing black slacks and a black, polo neck sweater. Her eyes are puffy from crying.

  “You’re not wearing the dress,” Barbara says, an observation, not a criticism.

  Sophie just shakes her head. She crosses the room and sits at Barbara’s side. She leans her head on Barbara’s shoulder. “I still don’t want to go, Mum,” she says.

  Barbara puts one arm around her. “No one wants to go,” she says. “But it’s good. You’ll see. Funerals exist for a reason.”

  She looks at their reflection together in the curved screen of the television. Mother and daughter in black. Mother and daughter in mourning. As an image, it looks almost like one of those religious paintings. It would make a good photo, she thinks obtusely. But who wants to remember moments such as these?

  The door to the lounge opens again and Jonathan enters. He’s wearing a grey suit and a grey tie, badly knotted. Barbara makes a mental note to fix it before they leave the house. His complexion is almost the same colour as the tie. “There’s a policeman at the door,” he says.

  Barbara frowns and sighs. She doesn’t know why a policeman would come to the house on the day of the funeral but there’s probably a reason. There’s probably some formality that she has forgotten.

  “Shall I show him in?”

  She nods. “Yes. Show him in,” she whispers.

  She removes her arm from Sophie’s waist then stands and pulls her dress down. The policeman, barely into his twenties, enters nervously, his hat in one hand. “Mrs Marsden?” he says.

  Barbara nods.

  “Can I have a word please?”

  Barbara manages an approximation of a smile. “Come in.”

  “In private would be better,” the man says.

  Sophie glances up at her and then stands. “I’ll go,” she says.

  “You too,” Barbara tells Jonathan gently. “Help Anne with the food. I’ll call if I need you.”

  The policeman closes the door behind them. He does this almost silently, as if scared of waking the dead. He pulls an envelope from his pocket. “We got the, um, coroner’s report over from the French,” he says. “They sent it by fax.”

  Barbara nods.

  “His things are coming later as well,” the policeman says.

  Another nod. “Yes, I know.”

  “They sent me because I speak some French. So I can translate it, like. We didn’t know if you’d be able to read it otherwise.”

  “I can’t,” Barbara says. “But do we have to do this today? The funeral’s in two hours.” She’s trying to hold things together. And unexpected extras like these don’t help.

  “Oh, no. Not at all,” the policeman says, sounding relieved. “I could come back another day, or even translate it and, um, post it to you.”

  He starts to slide the envelope back into his pocket but Barbara thinks, What could it possibly say that could be worse than this? What could it possibly say that could bring any more grief? If we do it now, at least the funeral is the end of it all.

  “Wait,” she says. “I changed my mind. Let’s just get it over with, can we?”

  Some emotion sweeps across the policeman’s features, like the shadow of a cloud sweeping across a field. Barbara watches it happen and wonders what it means. “If today’s the funeral, then it might be better if–”

  “Please,” Barbara says, sitting back down and patting the sofa beside her. “It’ll only take a minute, won’t it? And
then it’s done.”

  The policeman swallows and wrinkles his brow. “It’s… not very nice, I’m afraid,” he warns. “I had a peek, earlier.”

  “These things aren’t nice,” Barbara says.

  He sits beside her and she takes the envelope from his hand, then pulls the sheet of fax-paper from within. It shows an official form, in French, filled in with a typewriter. Everything’s in capitals.

  She hands it to him. “So,” she says.

  The policeman clears his throat. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer…?”

  “No,” Barbara says. She feels sorry for the policeman. He’s little more than Jonathan’s age. He’s too young for this. She tries to help him out by pointing at the form. “This is when it happened, I suppose?” she says.

  The policeman nods. “Yes. One-o-five. In the morning, that is. It’s twenty-four hour clock. They always use twenty-four hour clock, the French.”

  “And this?” Some of the words are jumping off the page at her but she doesn’t understand the context, so she assumes that they must just have very different meanings in French.

  “Yes, that’s the blood analysis,” the policeman says. “They did, you know, an autopsy, just in case.”

  “Was he drunk, then?” Barbara has spotted the word, alcool.

  The policeman nods gently. “Yes. Alcohol,” he says flatly, “and, um, traces of cocaine and heroin.”

  “Heroin?!”

  “Yes. ‘fraid so.”

  Barbara struggles to contain inappropriate laughter rising within. She coughs instead. “Tony didn’t take heroin,” she says. “Or cocaine. He didn’t take any drugs.”

  The policeman clears his throat again. “I’m just reading what it says, ma’am.”

  Barbara snorts. “Then there’s some mistake. There’s been some mix up.”

  “I’m afraid that’s… unlikely,” the policeman says hesitantly.

  “Heroin? No.”

  “It’s more common than you might realise,” the policeman says. “Especially with these arty types.”