by Ashe Barker
Sitting together in that prison visiting room, I told her she shouldn’t just hand over her life savings to me. Her reply was simple enough.
“Even though your baby’s dead, that doesn’t stop you being a mother now. Thinking like a mother. And so you’ll understand about priorities, about caring for your child more than anything else in the world. You might be grown up, Sharon, but you’re still my baby and you always will be. And my money’s yours, along with anything else I’ve got that’ll help you.”
And I did understand. Perfectly. So I hugged her and thanked her, and together we planned my new life.
I told her I was going to be a photographer. No, scratch that. I told her I already was a photographer. She seemed less surprised than I might have expected. Perhaps it’s in the mother’s DNA to know about their child’s unspoken fantasies. Perhaps she knew that all my life I’d harboured a secret fascination for photography but, up until recently, I’d never had an opportunity to really try it out, really get into it. But then, out of the blue, shortly before I found myself in prison, I’d acquired a camera. A really good, state-of-the-art digital camera.
When I say ‘acquired’, I really mean stole. I didn’t tell my mother the details, but the truth is Kenny, me and a couple of other idiots who used to hang around him had stolen it from a bloke we’d mugged down by the river in Bristol way back. Then I’d stolen it from Kenny. Actually he never even knew I had it because I’d shoved it in my pocket instead of the bag with the rest of the stuff we’d got from that job. I’d kept it hidden and had soon worked out how to use it. And that’s when I became a photographer.
Up until then photography had just been a dream, something others did, people who could afford the expensive gear needed for high-quality pictures. But suddenly, courtesy of that man we’d robbed by the river in Bristol, I had a camera and my dream became reality. Before my enforced four-month sabbatical at Her Majesty’s pleasure I started by taking snaps of anything I saw in the neighbourhood around me, the grimmer the better, then I’d go round to a friend’s flat to download my pictures onto her laptop.
Summer, my friend with the computer and a flat, worked in the local library. I’d gone in there looking for books on digital photography, and we’d got chatting when I asked her if I was allowed to use their computers to download and edit my pictures. She’d explained she was sorry, but no. Internet research only. Or if I was a student I could do my homework. But no downloading pictures—I might be into porn or God knows what. She’d been grinning as she’d said all this—I doubt anyone could look more innocuous than I did—but rules are rules.
On impulse, though, probably because she’d seen me in there a few times by then and I was a sort of regular, and I seemed harmless, she offered to let me use her laptop. She knew I lived near her because my library account showed my address, a few streets away from her flat. She’d said I could come round and use her place, her equipment. She’d even stand me as much coffee as it took. I’d thought she was crackers—despite appearances to the contrary I could have been a dangerous criminal, the judge clearly thought so—but I accepted her generosity. Summer’s kindness set me on the path towards my dream of becoming a photographer, and for a few weeks she was perhaps the best friend I had. Ever.
She thought I was nuts, taking pictures of drunks in shop doorways, piles of rubbish and litter, burned-out cars, vandalised property, stray dogs. My lovely camera even did black and white shots—that guy we robbed obviously knew quality gear—and that was perfect for my sort of material. Classy. To me that was how my world actually looked and I wanted to record it, my life in all its horrible, brutal reality.
The urban realism stuff fascinated me from the beginning, still does I suppose, but as I sat with my mother explaining how I wanted to rebuild my life, I realised that what I’m really passionate about is landscapes. Rural landscapes, different seasons, different locations, but the wilder, the more untamed, the better. So there began my dream of wanting to be a professional landscape photographer, taking pictures that people would want to buy, to pay good money for, to keep—to display on their walls.
I want to capture the moody, timeless, windswept wilderness of Britain’s hills, dales and moorlands, and translate those into beautiful stylish prints. In my mind’s eye I can already see the glorious reds and golds of autumn, the icy whites and blues of winter, the lush springtime greens and the sleepy summertime yellows, layered and blended onto canvas. I see the variegated patterns, some vibrant, some muted, some speckled with humanity in the form of buildings or livestock, some lonely and uninhabited. And I see my name, printed in the bottom corner, marking the work as mine.
I explained all of this to my mother, and she got it. She really did. She could see the photographer in me too. She believed in me. That was all I needed.
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About the Author
Ashe has been an avid reader of women’s fiction for many years—erotic, historical, contemporary, fantasy, romance—you name it, as long as it’s written by women, for women. Now, at last in control of her own time and working from her home in rural West Yorkshire, she has been able to realise her dream of writing erotic romance herself.
She likes to write about people, relationships, and the general cock-up and mayhem that is most of our lives. She often writes about places she’s known but her stories of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of her own imagination, with a hefty dose of kink to keep it interesting. We all need to have a hobby.
Ashe loves to craft strong, enigmatic men and bright, sassy women to give them a hard time—in every sense of the word.
When she’s not writing, Ashe’s time is divided between her role as resident taxi driver for her teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, rabbits, tortoises, and Colin the hamster.
Email: [email protected]
Ashe loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com
Also by Ashe Barker
Carrot and Coriander
The Dark Side: Darkening
The Dark Side: Darker
The Dark Side: Darkest
Sure Mastery: Unsure
Sure Mastery: Sure Thing
Sure Mastery: Surefire
The Hardest Word: A Hard Bargain
The Hardest Word: Hard Lessons
Paramour: Re-Awakening
What’s Her Secret?: The Three Rs
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