by William Boyd
Sister Lamorna opened the door to number two and Elfrida stepped in, seeing a bare white room with brown linoleum on the floor. There was an iron bed, a wooden chair and a chest of drawers, painted white. A small ebony cross hung on the wall. A door led off to a neat tiled bathroom with a shower. It looked like a cross between a room in a hospital and a cell, Elfrida thought. She turned to Sister Lamorna and smiled.
“This is exactly what I was hoping for.”
Sister Lamorna was Dr. Ingham’s sister, though there was little resemblance. Lamorna was lanky with a small round face under her bonnet; she lacked Sarah Ingham’s handsome, chiselled sternness.
“How many other ‘visitors’ are there?” Elfrida asked.
“Two others currently. We’re rarely full up. It’s not to everyone’s taste.”
Elfrida glanced again at the small, stark room. This would be her world from now on, for £100 a month.
“It seems ideal,” she said.
“Let’s go back and sort out the administrative bits and bobs,” Sister Lamorna said. “Perhaps this would be a good time to meet the Mother Superior.”
The Mother Superior, the Reverend Mother Matilda, turned out to be a tiny person with a pronounced dowager’s stoop. Osteoporosis had its iron claws into her, Elfrida saw, but she seemed unperturbed by her awkward posture. She had bright gleaming eyes behind round wire-rimmed spectacles. She was dressed like Sister Lamorna in the Zealottine’s typical forest-green belted tunic but beneath her white bonnet she wore a coif and a wimple across her bent shoulders.
They chatted about the few formalities of becoming a “visitor.” Elfrida would wear a green tunic, always with an apron and a headscarf of her own choosing as long as it wasn’t too garish—this would signify that she wasn’t a novice Zealot. She was free to roam anywhere about the grounds—even go into Taunton if she wished (always in Zealottine garb, however)—and choose any form of manual work she felt inclined to do, in the kitchens, the gardens, the workshops or the home farm.
“Do I have to go to church?” Elfrida asked.
“Good heavens, no!” the Reverend Mother said. “We’re not here to convert you—and we don’t want any heathens in our chapel.” She found this notion amusing, as did Sister Lamorna. They both laughed, hands over their mouths. “Of course, if you want to worship, you’re more than welcome.”
She would eat with the nuns when they ate (at a separate table) and if she smoked she could smoke in her room.
“You’re not a prisoner,” the Reverend Mother said. “You’re our paying guest. A ‘visitor.’ Like all visitors if you want to leave we won’t stop you.”
Elfrida saw the wisdom behind this licence. Your redemption as a visitor—physical and mental—wasn’t the responsibility of the institution, as it would have been in a hospital or a detox clinic—it was entirely your own business, paid for by yourself and, if it worked, a product of your own efforts. All they did was provide a safe context for that redemption to occur—if it could.
“How would you like to be known? Sister Elfrida? We call all our visitors ‘Sister.’ ”
“I’d like to be called ‘Sister Jennifer,’ please,” Elfrida said.
“Sister Jennifer it shall be.”
She was taken by Sister Lamorna to an office, the bursary, as it was called, where she filled in and signed forms and completed a standing order for her bank to pay her monthly rent. The business over, they returned to the front door where her taxi was waiting.
“Give my love to Sarah,” Sister Lamorna said. “Will you be seeing her?”
“Yes, I will,” she said. “I have to report back. I’ll settle my affairs in London and should be down next week.”
“Grand. Give us a tinkle on the telephone and we’ll have your unit ready and waiting.”
Elfrida said goodbye and climbed into the taxi. They pulled away down the short drive and passed through the gates between the twin lodges. After five minutes, Elfrida asked the taxi driver to stop. They were on the crest of the hill and they had a good view of the wide long valley below and the convent set there in its park and farmland. She let her eyes follow the modest inclines and declivities of the valley floor—its swales and ridges, hollows and hillocks—pulled into a kind of shapeliness by the hand of human beings with its superimposed grid of lanes and hedgerows: random nature subdued by an easy and unthreatening order. Larger woods bulked where the land began to climb and couldn’t be tilled—agriculture ceding ground to heath and rocky outcrop—and beyond the summits of those encircling hills was a blurry frieze of other plum-hazed hills in the very distance. She hadn’t any fixed sense of her geography yet. These hills and woods had ancient names, like the farms and the hamlets she could see, and one day soon she would learn them but now, in her innocent ignorance, she felt embraced by a vision of perfect English countryside, steeped in its history and seasonal cycles.
As she looked out over the view and the place that was to become her home, Elfrida felt a strange, almost spiritual moment occur. It seemed a form of exorcism to her, as if Elfrida Wing, novelist, the new Virginia Woolf, was departing her corporeal state and her body would now play host to a new persona, Sister Jennifer. It was a kind of inorcism, she thought, if such a word existed. She had a strong conviction—and a strong conviction was all you could really ever be sure of in life—that she was going to be all right.
8
The spotlights were in position, casting their powerful beam, as was the stand with its vinyl backdrop—a stippled “old master” white—unrolled between the two tall windows with their wooden shutters closed. There was a stool for Gary to sit on. Talbot checked the frame through the viewfinder of the Rolleiflex then fitted a pentaprism so that the Rollei’s lateral reversal would be corrected. There was nothing more to do other than wait for the model.
He poured himself a small calming Scotch and soda. This ridiculous pop song was in his head—the park, the cake, the rain, the sweet green icing flowing down, the bloody missing recipe—and one key line repeated like some loop on a tape recorder. “Pressed in love’s hot-fevered iron, like a stripèd pair of pants.” He never remembered popular music, it was like the noise of traffic to him, or aeroplanes passing overhead, but this song had a strangely powerful grip on him. Maybe it was that line, like something from a gimcrack metaphysical poem with its preposterously accented adjective and, he acknowledged, he had to admit, its particular association with the very day he had met Gary Hicksmith. He had popped out to buy a pint of milk and some biscuits in case Gary wanted a cup of tea. He went to the small grocer’s in Meadowbank, that appeared to be open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and that song, the song of his summer of 1968, had been tinnily playing on a transistor radio by the till, haunting him with its plangent, ghostly refrain. The park, the cake, the rain, the sweet green icing flowing down. And the stripèd pair of pants, of course, pressed in love’s hot-fevered iron.
He heard the garden-door bell ring and he hurried down to admit Gary. He opened the door, diminishing the welcome of his smile in order to seem more professional and disinterested—not like some panting lover on a tryst.
“Come in, Gary, come in,” he said. He suddenly wished Gary wasn’t called Gary, that he had a name like Tim or Sam. Fool, he thought, snob—be careful.
Gary was wearing the same clothes as yesterday—the pale jeans and the blouson—but had changed his red t-shirt for a white one.
“Is this outfit OK, Mr. Eastman?”
“Perfect. But we won’t go any further until you start calling me Talbot.”
“Talbot it is. Talbot.”
They went in and climbed the stair to the main room, Talbot leading the way. He could see that Gary was impressed with the array of lights and the evident professionalism of the set-up. Talbot offered him a drink—tea, red wine, whisky?—and Gary opted for red wine, thanks, Talbot.
Ta
lbot handed him an envelope with a cheque for £50 inside.
“This is for your time. The commission.”
“Oh. Fantastic. Thanks.” He folded the envelope and quickly slipped it into a pocket without looking at its contents.
The exchange of money somehow altered the mood, Talbot immediately thought, irritated with himself for introducing it so early, as if the transaction had robbed the occasion of its informality. He went to fetch the wine—maybe that would help—as Gary wandered around taking in the room.
“It’s a great flat, Mr.—Talbot. Great. It’s, you know…It’s very good taste, if you know what I mean.”
“Thank you. I just wish I could spend more time here.”
He opened the wine and poured two glasses.
“My God! What’s that? Fort Knox?” Gary said. He had seen the door into the gallery with its heavy padlock.
“I keep my cameras and lights there,” Talbot said, handing him his glass of wine. “Expensive stuff. Thousands of pounds. When I’m away I have to feel it’s secure. So many people are in and out of this place.”
“Don’t blame you.” Gary smiled. “When you’re worth a few bob you’ve got to keep it safe.”
“Precisely. Shall we make a start?”
Gary took his seat on the stool and Talbot made a fuss of minutely adjusting the lights, turning the stands an inch or two this way or that way, enhancing or reducing the luminosity.
“You can take your jacket off,” Talbot said. “The t-shirt’s fine.”
Gary slipped off his jacket and Talbot hung it over the back of a chair. Then he took up his position behind the Rollei and peered down into the viewfinder, sharpening the focus. He saw Gary’s young, strong face in stark chiaroscuro, ready to be captured. A vein on Gary’s neck pulsed visibly, the light shadowing its cursive path along the muscle. Talbot felt the paradoxical inverse of the old fear—that conviction experienced by primitive peoples who were sure that, being photographed, their souls were stolen by the malevolent photographer with his magical camera-machine. In this instance the subject was innocent, unconcerned and ignorant. Now the photographer was the knowing soul-stealer. In the next few seconds Talbot would steal the soul of Gary Hicksmith from him, thanks to the expensive stop-time device he was employing, mounted on its tripod before him.
He could see Gary was a bit tense, not at ease.
“Think of something else, Gary. Ignore the camera. How did the Arsenal play this Saturday?”
“I don’t know. I’m not that interested in football to tell the truth.”
Click. He wound on the film with the Rollei’s little handle. Got you.
“So what did you do on Saturday afternoon?”
“Went fishing.”
Click.
“Catch anything?”
“Couple of tench. Two-pounders.”
“Have them for supper?”
Click.
“You’ve got to chuck ’em back in.”
Click.
“Really? That seems unfair.”
Talbot kept up the flow of questions, all banal, interspersed with a few posers—“Ever fished with a dry fly?”—that had Gary frowning before he replied. The camera captured the moment, stopped time and Gary Hicksmith was held forever. Talbot finished the roll and wound it on to the take-up spool.
“Let’s take a break,” he said, and topped up their wine glasses.
“This is really tasty,” Gary said, sipping his wine. “I’m not really a wine drinker, in actual fact.”
“It’s a burgundy,” Talbot said. “Comes from a tiny vineyard in the east of France, in the Saône Valley. Just a few acres. They make this exquisite wine.” Now he felt a bit pompous. “It’ll get you drunk, though, if you give it a chance.” That sounded false, as well.
“Costs a fair bit, I don’t doubt,” Gary said, holding the wine up to the light.
“Worth every penny.”
“If you’ve got the pennies.”
“Of course.”
“You could teach me a thing or two, Talbot, I’ll bet.” He pouted, thinking. “I left school at sixteen. Wanted to earn some cash so I started as a scaff. My dad was a scaff. And that was that.”
“You’ve got plenty of time, Gary. You’re young.”
“Yeah. But I’m not educated. And I know it. And I want to start my own business—but I don’t know nothing—apart from scaffolding. And fishing.”
“Well, if I can ever be of help…”
“You’ve already helped. This fifty quid you paid me—it’ll be my deposit. I found a small yard in Muswell Hill. Hicksmith Scaffolding Ltd. We’re on our way, sort of. Soon as I can afford a lorry.”
“Bravo! Shall we have another session?”
Talbot went through the motions of taking another roll of film, knowing he had everything he needed. Gary’s face, perfectly lit, perfectly printed, would be hanging in the gallery in a day or two.
He stepped back from the camera feeling a form of listless contentment overtake him. Was he a bit drunk? Perhaps it was the burgundy and the darkened room affecting him, Gary Hicksmith spotlit at its centre.
“I think we have it, Gary. Let’s finish the bottle, shall we?”
Talbot lifted the bottle off the table and started towards Gary but, as he did so, the toe of his left shoe caught in the creased corner of the rug on the floor and he stumbled, the bottle flying from his fingers, and he crashed into the camera tripod going down heavily on one knee, breaking the force of his fall by rolling over onto his back.
He sensed Gary leap from the stool and in a second he was standing over him.
“Talbot! You OK? You all right?”
“Silly bloody fool that I am. Yes, I think so.”
Gary reached down a hand and Talbot grabbed it, thumbs interlocking for better purchase, and Gary took his weight and hauled him easily up, Talbot lurching forward again as he regained his feet.
In that half-second their faces were suddenly very close—an inch or two—Gary startled, concerned, Talbot breathing heavily—and Gary steadied him with a strong grip on his bicep. Talbot swayed. Gary’s face, large and focussed. So close. So very close. It was almost an embrace, chest to chest, hands gripping.
In that heedless moment Talbot thought he would kiss him. He leant forward. Gary recoiled.
“Your lip’s bleeding! Jesus!”
Talbot reared back, feigning more imbalance.
“Sorry! Sorry about that!”
There was blood on his chin, dripping. Talbot’s hand went to his mouth and his fingertips came away—red, slick. The scab on his lip must have broken in his fall.
“Jesus Christ! You all right?”
“I must have banged it when I fell. I’m sorry.”
Gary was staring at him, very strangely.
“What’s going on, Talbot?”
“Let me get a cloth,” Talbot said and ran to the kitchen, thrust a dishcloth under the tap, wet it and held it to his mouth. He closed his eyes, trying to blank out what he’d almost done. For some reason he thought of a line of verse—“The awful daring of a moment’s surrender”—why? What song, what poem? One, two, three. He went back in.
“I think they call that a ‘clash of heads’ on the football field,” Talbot said, forcing a smile.
Gary still looked at him strangely. Talbot dabbed at his re-split lip and glanced at the cloth in his hand, at the blood-blots.
“Many apologies, Gary. I probably should have had a stitch in that cut. Bloody hell!”
Absurdly he found himself thinking of Anny and Jacques Soldat, of Soldat’s hard blow. The blow that had produced this scab. This scab that had broken at the vital moment. What life was that? he thought. In what universe did that occur?
“My apologies, Gary,” he repeated. “God, Sturm und Drang. Must w
atch that bloody rug.”
“Yeah, well, no harm done,” Gary said, his voice quiet, thrusting his hands in his pockets, evidently uncomfortable. “You’re the one what’s bleeding. How about you?”
“I’ll survive,” Talbot said, imagining he could almost hear Gary’s mind racing, re-running the last few moments, trying to comprehend what nearly happened there. Keep talking, keep talking, he told himself. “I think I need something stronger than wine,” he said, with forced heartiness. “Something medicinal.”
He went to the cupboard and took out the bottle of Scotch and two glasses.
“Not for me, thanks,” Gary said.
Talbot poured his whisky carefully, again glad to have something to do as he collected his thoughts and wondered where this ghastly, awkward situation might lead. What had he been thinking of? Awful daring. Madness. Insanity. He drank a small mouthful of the whisky, his lip stinging, watching Gary slowly pace the room.
“All’s well. Thank you, Dr. Glenlivet.”
“Actually, come to think of it, I will have one,” Gary said. “If you don’t mind.”
Talbot poured an inch of whisky into a tumbler and handed it to him.
“You sure you’re all right?” Gary said. “It can shake you up, a fall like that.”
“I’m fine. Nothing broken.” Talbot sat down on the arm of an armchair. “What drama.”
“You almost knocked your camera flying. Rocking to and fro—managed to grab it.”
“Now that would have been a disaster.”
Gary stood there, deep in thought, and took a sip at his whisky. He put his glass down with a clunk, as if about to make a speech or a proclamation, it seemed.
“Yeah…” he said to himself, as if making a decision. “Yeah…”
“What is it?” Talbot asked, trying to sound neutral.
“In fact, Talbot, I was just on the point of asking you something,” he said. “Just then.”
“Oh, yes? What?”
“A favour.”
Talbot smiled. “Anything I can do to help.”