London Tides: A Novel (The MacDonald Family Trilogy Book 2)

by Carla Laureano

  At least there were still some people in London happy to have her back.

  Grace climbed the stairs from the Underground platform and emerged to a street-level cloud of diesel fumes over musty river water. Her stomach immediately began to do backflips. It was one thing to have her photos printed in magazines, picked up on the AP wire. That was her job, her calling even. But this collection of portraiture, taken as a personal mission and the fulfillment of a promise—that was something entirely different. Her job as war photographer was to show other people’s tragedies, but this collection hit far too close to her own.

  She’d never been a coward, though, and if she could trust anyone with her work, it would be Melvin.

  Her steps slowed before a glass storefront beside a corner pub, an elegant black sign with gilt letters proclaiming Putney Bank Gallery. Kraft paper obscured the view through the windows, but a brick propped open the door to let in air and let out the sound of hammering.

  Grace stepped inside, pausing by the door so she could watch the activity unnoticed. Several men with tool belts were securing false walls faced with plasterboard to chains from the ceiling joists, and a ginger-haired woman rolled a layer of new white paint on the permanent walls.

  “Grace!”

  She turned from the preparations to the man striding across the polished concrete floor toward her. Midsixties and trim, with a shaved head and neatly trimmed beard, he seemed far more comfortable in his prestigious London gallery than he ever had in an editorial office. Even then, his taste had been impeccable and his influence wide.

  Grace accepted his hug and quick kiss on the cheek. “Melvin, this looks amazing! Who is it?”

  “Gordon Wright. Abstract oils. We’ll be cutting it close for Friday, but we’ll make it. We always do. How about you? How does it feel to be back in London?”

  “Like home, surprisingly. It’s changed a bit since I spent any real time here.”

  “It always does. Come, I’ve something to show you in my office.”

  Grace followed him around piles of tools and paint buckets into a small office at the back of the gallery, sparsely furnished with a desk and two inexpensive chairs, its walls covered with whiteboards and pin boards and light boxes. It was a nod to his former life as a photo editor at Londinium Monthly, one of the first publications to print Grace’s photography. Her long and eccentric friendship with Melvin had spanned years and multiple changes of career direction, but it was the only reason she had considered his request to open her archives.

  He unbuttoned his blazer as he settled behind the desk and gestured for Grace to take one of the chairs. “I have to admit, Grace, you shocked me. What you sent me was not at all what I expected.”

  Grace’s stomach immediately took a nosedive into the soles of her green Doc Martens. “I told you, Melvin, it’s a personal project. I didn’t shoot them to be exhibited—”

  “No, you misunderstand me.” He leaned forward and folded his hands on top of the desk. “They’re fantastic. I’ve only seen your editorial work, your war photography, which is very good. Poignant, painful, often shocking. But these …” He stood, then slid a whiteboard out of the way of a wall-mounted corkboard. “These are incredible.”

  Grace twisted around and then rose, amazement swelling in her chest. He had printed two dozen of the photos she’d sent him as black-and-white four-by-sixes and pinned them out in what she assumed was the order he’d want to display them in the gallery. She’d taken the photos, scanned the slides, viewed them on a screen, but somehow seeing them this way gave them heft. Importance even.

  “See what I mean? These are art, Grace. I can’t believe you’ve never shared them before.”

  She stepped forward to view each of the photos close up. Men, women, children from around the world, captured in the midst of their normal activities. Mourning. Celebrating. Living. Even she could admit there was a melancholy beauty to them, a common thread between composition and style that seemed to unite people across cultures and countries.

  “Hope,” Melvin said softly. “Even in the ones that show someone’s worst moments, you somehow captured hope.”

  Grace flicked her gaze to his face, then away, too embarrassed to see the admiration in his expression. “Are these your final selections?”

  “No. But I thought we’d start here. Which of them must you absolutely have exhibited?”

  “I trust your editorial vision.”

  Melvin rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. “You did these on an M3, yes? Thirty-five millimeter?”

  “You know I did.”

  Melvin’s expression softened then. “How are you doing? I heard about Brian. It must be very difficult for you, especially coming on the anniversary of Aidan’s death.”

  Grace swallowed hard and bit her lip in a vain attempt to stem the swell of tears. Each time she thought she’d made peace with the incident, the grief came back in full force. The timing had seemed like the universe’s sick joke. Every year she commemorated the day her photojournalist brother had been killed during a Northern Irish nationalist riot, and every year the grief rushed back as keen and sharp as the day it happened. To lose another young man on that day—especially one close to Aidan’s age—had felt as if God was trying to tell her something.

  Maybe he was.

  She forced a watery smile. “Let’s just say it will never be my favorite day.”

  “I can understand that.” Melvin seated himself behind the desk again and slipped on a pair of black-rimmed glasses. “Did you bring me the slides?”

  Grace fished a small box from her rucksack and pushed it across the desk to him. He lifted the top and thumbed through the mounted negatives, then placed the box in his drawer. “I’ll take good care of these, Grace. I’ll start on some tests this week, and then we can fine-tune the final prints. Eight weeks feels like a long time, but I can guarantee you we’ll be working up until the last minute. What are you doing with the photos once the exhibit is over?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’m still trying not to hyperventilate over the thought of people viewing work I’ve hoarded for the last decade or two.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” A peculiar glint in Melvin’s eyes raised warning flags. “You should sell them. Especially if you never plan on exhibiting or printing these again.”

  “I’m not interested in selling them. Besides, who would want something like this hanging in their home?”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t think you understand quite how well known you’ve become. A one-off print from the renowned Grace Brennan could bring in a fair bit of money.”

  “I’m not interested in the money.”

  “Who says you have to keep it?”

  That stopped Grace’s next protest before it could form.

  “I know you, Grace. You’ve never been about the money. As long as you could afford a bed, food, and film, you were happy. I also know that you’re not exactly hurting for funds these days, despite the fact you’ve been wearing those same blasted steel-toed boots for the last ten years. But can you think of what one of those charities could do with, say, two hundred thousand pounds?”

  “No one would pay ten thousand pounds for one of my photographs,” she said, but she knew Melvin caught the doubt in her words. Even after Melvin’s commission for the showing and the cost of production, that was a massive amount of money that could be put to good use. “May I think about it?”

  “Of course. I know what these mean to you, and I’m honored you’d trust me with them. You’ve become quite an artist. Aidan would be proud.”

  It felt like a dismissal, so she pushed her chair back from the desk. But Melvin’s eyes traveled instead to a spot over her shoulder. “Ah! You got my message. You’re just in time.”

  Grace twisted in her chair and blinked in surprise at the tall, blond man standing in the doorway. “Henry? What are you doing here? When did you get back to London?” She looked between the two men, scowling ha
lfheartedly at Melvin. “Did you set this up?”

  Henry laughed and pressed Grace into a friendly squeeze. “Hey, Grace. In answer to your questions: I heard you were here, I moved back to London a year ago, and yes, of course he set this up.”

  Melvin was grinning at both of them, evidently pleased at her reaction to the impromptu reunion. She took a seat in the far chair, leaving room for Henry to sit in the one she’d just vacated. “I don’t understand. I didn’t even know you two knew each other.”

  “Melvin knows everyone,” Henry said. “But it was actually one of my old editors who called me. Melvin told him you might be moving back to England; he gave me a call; I got in touch with Melvin. Et voilà, here I am.”

  “So, you quit too. You’re out.”

  “Seemed like a good time. Ella is having a baby in the fall, and these days conflict isn’t the safest place to make a living when you have a family to support. Not that it ever was.”

  Now Grace understood. This wasn’t just a visit; this was an impromptu intervention. Henry had been one of the last foreign correspondents from her batch to stay with the job, but he’d spent the last several years in Eastern Europe while she covered the Middle East. “I can hardly believe it. I thought you’d be the last one standing. What are you doing now?”

  Henry exchanged a look with Melvin. His expression turned a little sheepish. “I just took a position in communications with Children’s Advocacy Fund.”

  Grace let out a laugh of disbelief. “You’re working for an NGO. After all the times we said that was the last job we’d ever take?”

  “Times change, Grace. You of all people should know it’s not so easy to let go of your life’s work. Besides, I believe in this organization. They’re actually doing things right. And it lets me use my experience doing something other than sitting behind a production desk.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’ve found something that makes you happy. And Ella has to be thrilled.”

  “She is. So am I.” He paused long enough to fix her with a serious look. “That’s why I want you to come work for me.”

  Grace blinked at him. “Work for you in what way?”

  “I need a creative director, someone with experience in the field who has a strong editorial eye. I’ve been following your work for years, Grace. These photos here”—he waved at Melvin’s board—“prove your talent doesn’t just lie in conflict. These are the kinds of photos our donors need to see.”

  “So you want me to be a fund-raiser?”

  “No, I want you to be a journalist. The marketing collateral coming out of London right now is slick. Commercial. It doesn’t tell a story. It’s all smiling African children and happy farmers. It doesn’t communicate our needs, or why donations are important. I think you’re the perfect person to change that.”

  Grace sat there, stunned. Yes, she had come back to London wanting to make big changes to her life. But she’d been thinking she might go back to commercial photography. Working for a charitable organization had never occurred to her. She’d always had the impression of the head offices being filled with do-gooders who had never put a foot on the ground, who had absolutely no idea what the program directors in the far-flung reaches of the earth went through. Westerners came to Asia and Africa and India, mucked up what was actually working in the villages, and left them worse off than before, all in the name of charity. And now he wanted her to be one of them? Melvin’s earlier words began to make sense.

  “See what we’re about first and then decide.” Henry pulled out a heavy square of vellum from his inside pocket and passed it to her. “We’re having a fund-raising dinner on Friday evening. Come, see the presentation, talk to the board of directors. You know me, Grace. I’m not going to be involved in something that isn’t making a difference to the people we’re trying to help.”

  Grace turned over the invitation in her hand. The Savoy hotel. Possibly the poshest venue in London and the last place she wanted to spend a Friday night. But she couldn’t bear to dash the hopeful looks on both men’s faces. “Okay. I’ll go. But I’m not promising anything.”

  “Fair enough.” Henry gave Grace’s shoulder a squeeze, then rose to shake Melvin’s hand. “Nice seeing you, Melvin. I’ll see you Friday, Grace.”

  Grace nodded as he left the room, then turned an accusing stare on her former editor. “You set me up.”

  “What? I’ve known you forever, Grace. You’re not going to be happy shooting weddings and births and skyscrapers for a living. You need more meaning to your life. What’s wrong with having a little security at the same time?”

  Grace shook her head and shouldered her rucksack as she rose. “You meddle more than a little old lady.”

  “So my wife says. You can thank me later.”

  A reluctant smile crept onto her face. “We’ll see about that. Call me when you have the test prints started.”

  “Will do, Grace. Don’t cause any trouble in the meantime.”

  It sounded like a challenge, but that was because she felt backed into a corner. She wound her way back out through the construction zone and took a deep breath of exhaust-filled air. Of all the nongovernmental organizations she’d interacted with, the Children’s Advocacy Fund was one of the better ones. Asha volunteered with the organization for part of the year, claiming it focused on local development rather than handouts. Still, Grace had spent her life being an observer, a dispassionate reporter, a watchdog of sorts. It was her job to record the truth, to witness the things that no one wanted to acknowledge.

  And look where that’s gotten you.

  She plugged her earphones into her ears and started back the way she had come. Melvin might think her return to London was ensured, but he’d unintentionally given her more reasons to doubt. You need more meaning in your life than that, he’d said. Even he didn’t understand the whole truth of it. It wasn’t just about meaning. It was about identity.

  If she wasn’t a war photographer anymore, then who was she?

  Chapter Four

  Grace woke with a cry as a grenade shook the ground beneath her feet. For several terrified moments, she scrambled for protection, something to shield her from the next one, but she came up with a handful of blankets and a mangled pillow instead of dirt and rubble.

  A dream. Thank you, God, just a dream. She reached for a lamp just as Asha burst out of the bedroom.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “I’m sorry. A nightmare. I’m … I’m really sorry.” Grace pressed her hands over her racing heart and realized her T-shirt was drenched in sweat.

  Asha deflated like a balloon. She sank down on the arm of the sofa that served as Grace’s bed and pushed her tousled hair from her face. “Are you all right?” She didn’t ask what the dream was about. She already knew.

  “I’ll be okay. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Asha squinted at the clock. “I have to be up in twenty minutes anyhow. I’ll go make some tea.”

  While Asha stumbled to the kitchen and began banging about in the cupboards, Grace sank back against her pillows and tried to banish the memory of the dream.

  Brilliant light shone down on her from an unnaturally blue sky, seeming to amplify the oppressive heat. Explosions rocked the ground around her, and she ducked behind a stone wall beneath a shower of dust and debris. The photographer beside her—as green as any twentysomething she’d ever met—huddled over his camera, his eyes terrified. He yelled something at her, but the automatic-weapons fire drowned out his words.

  When there was a break in the barrage, Grace poked her head up over the wall and raised her camera again. “Now or never!” she said to Brian, whom she assumed was still hunkered behind her. But a quick look revealed nothing but empty space.

  She swore loudly as she saw him running in a half crouch toward a broken-down section of the wall. Before she could call him back, a flash of light burst in her vision, followed by a deafening explosion that threw her back to the ground. The scene swam around
her, colors, muted sounds, a ringing in her ears. Dazed, she lifted her head.

  Brian was gone. Or at least in any form recognizable as a man.

  Grace pressed her fingertips to her eyes as if it could erase the memory. That wasn’t even how it had happened. Brian had been killed three months ago in Syria, but her memory had superimposed the violence in Misrata, Libya, where two of her more experienced colleagues had died in the period they now called the Arab Spring.

  Syria or Libya, she’d witnessed enough violence to last a lifetime.

  She fingered the small Celtic cross tattoo on the inside of her right forearm, the one she had inked with the dates of Brian’s birth and death. It was a replica of a larger one he’d had on his arm, at least as much as she could remember from the one night they’d compared tats. His had had more detail, though. Maybe she should add some shading to the cross and the lilies behind it …

  But she knew very well that the design was just a record. Proof. It did nothing to change the reality of what she’d seen and experienced. It did nothing to bring him back. That’s why she had chosen to finish the sleeve with the green dragon before she left Paris, a symbolic ending not just to her career but also to the things she’d done to cope.

  “That part of your life is over,” she murmured to herself, unsure whether it was supposed to be reassurance or a warning.

  “What did you say?” Asha called from the kitchen, her voice more alert.

  “I just asked if the tea was ready.”

  “Almost. You bought croissants?”

  Grace climbed off the sofa bed, then wandered into the kitchen, where Asha was staring at the kettle. The normalcy of the act relieved the pressure building inside. “They’re for you. I don’t know how you manage to keep your figure with all the junk you eat.”

  Asha grinned and waved a hand over her hip. “Jake likes me with some curves.”