Edward jumped to his feet. ‘Another stout, Carine?’
She shook her head. Adoration was what she wanted.
Tobias raised his empty glass in a meaningful fashion.
Edward walked to the bar and called, ‘Landlord!’
While he was out of earshot, Carine asked Tobias, ‘Will you give me grounds for divorce?’
‘Carine, we rub along. Don’t listen to him. He is down on his luck. Why else would he turn up after all these years? He knows he made the wrong choice when he didn’t come back to you. Once he knows the studio is mine now, he’ll be off like a shot.’ As an afterthought, he reached his hand across the table to grab for hers. ‘I love you, Carine.’
‘Most people love me. I’m a very nice woman, and competent too which is not always a winning combination.’ She pulled her hand free. She wondered where it came from, this ice in her heart, this numbness of feeling. All this might be happening to a stranger.
Tobias stared at his empty glass. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘No. I don’t suppose you do.’
Edward returned with the Scotch egg on a plate.
The barman followed him, bringing two pints. He took away Tobias’s and Edward’s empty glasses.
Carine considered the egg, thinking she should have ordered a pork pie. A pie would be easier to take out without a wrapping. She wouldn’t stay here. If she ate that egg, she would be sick.
‘Are you sure a Scotch egg is wise?’ Tobias adopted his most solicitous tone. ‘With your upset tummy?’
‘It’s too late,’ she told them. ‘It’s too late for any of this.’ She rose, trying to breathe evenly so as to stand without losing her balance. ‘I’ll leave you two to talk about old times. Don’t come to blows. Ask the landlord to supply you with salt and pepper pots if you need to play out battles.’ She pulled on her cream lace gloves.
It was Edward’s turn now. He reached across and took her hand. ‘Don’t go yet.’
She waited.
He looked at her gloved fingers, as if for inspiration, and then at her. ‘A master has left. There’s a house vacant. I couldn’t keep us on a poet’s pence, but I have a good job. You’ll be able to draw, paint and write your greetings card verses. The other wives will envy you.’
‘Other wives? She’s my wife.’
Carine stared at the ashtray, which for some reason allowed Edward to think he could go on talking, or perhaps he thought he did not need a reason to spill his words into the air. He was spoiling everything. By being here with Tobias, he was breaking their spell. How could a poet not understand that? She willed him to stop. He did not. It was as if he was asking Tobias’s permission to claim her.
‘I’ve saved every penny I’ve earned. You would want for nothing. Leave him. We’d need to say we are married, that’s all. You’re not happy. I see it in your eyes. If I’d come back and seen you happy, I would have gone away, I swear.’
Tobias bit his lip. ‘Charming I’m sure. You told me to tell her you were dead.’
‘I didn’t mean it. It was one desperate day when I wanted to be dead. You should have known better.’
She held the edge of the table. ‘You were a Bobby Dazzler, Edward. You should have had faith in me. I would always have seen the dazzler in you.’
‘It was myself I lost faith in.’
Carine turned away, leaving the Scotch egg on the table. Let them fight over that. This was not how it was supposed to be. She and Edward should be on the moors, resting in the heather while he declared his undying love.
The brass handles on the pub door gleamed. She opened it. The door closed heavily behind her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Haworth Churchyard
Harriet liked to look at gravestones, reading the names. What was sad about Haworth Churchyard was the number of tiny children named on huge stones, stones big enough to kill them had they been alive and unfortunate enough to have one fall on them. Some graves were marked with stone slabs, flat to the ground, that she stepped round. Other slabs were raised, like a table. Yet there was life, too. A crow perched on the branch of a tree whose leaves made a dappled pattern. A thoughtful tabby cat sat on the wall, watching two cockerels peck at the grass.
Derek wasn’t looking properly. He was walking about, glancing at headstones, moving on. Harriet suspected he was bored. ‘Are you fed up? Clear off if you want, don’t mind me.’
‘I’m not fed up. I’m wondering if there’s anyone famous. I can’t see the Brontës.’
‘Go look in the church.’
‘I won’t be able to take a photograph in there.’ He reached in his haversack and brought out a woollen cloak with hood. It was reversible, plain green and purple on one side and the same colours repeated in a tartan pattern on the other side. ‘Will you pretend to be a Brontë? Stand by the gateway, sideways on, so that you could be a person from the last century.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to enter a competition. The theme is “waiting”. Imagine you are waiting for someone.’
‘If I do that, will you do something for me?’
‘What?’
‘Lie down on a tombstone and pretend to be dead.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I want a photograph that will make people look twice, something startling that will shock them. Instead of “oh, here we are again, one more picture of someone in their best hat standing by another person’s motorcar, someone in a bathing suit”.’
He grinned, a little maliciously she thought. ‘Or standing in a doorway.’
‘Leave my Auntie Kate out of this. I like her doorway photos more than Carine’s stupid flowers.’
‘What do you have against Carine?’
She took the cloak from him. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘What question?’
‘Will you pretend to be dead for me if I wear this for you?’
‘As long as no one sees me lying there. It’s probably against the rules. It’s probably sacrilege.’
She put on the cloak. ‘The dead won’t mind. If they see anything, if they know anything, it will break the monotony of being dead.’
They walked together to the church gate. She pulled up the hood. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘It’s my gran’s.’
He walked through the gate onto the street, took a few steps, judging the correct distance for the best photograph. He took out his Thornton-Pickard Reflex. ‘Take the hood back, just a little. I don’t mind your hair showing, but they wouldn’t have had short hair.’
Harriet would have disliked posing on her own account but she was pleased to wear the cloak and be someone else, even if it did make her look more like a gran than a Brontë.
He took the picture. ‘I’m good at getting it right first time.’
‘You won’t know that until it’s developed.’
‘Right, now if you go to the door of the parsonage, and stand as if you’re about to go in.’
‘Doorways, eh? Copycat.’
Harriet walked up to the parsonage gate. She liked those grey Georgian houses, the kind of house a child might draw. She glanced through the window. There was not much to see. Someone had been cleaning. There was a brush, mop and bucket.
‘A Brontë wouldn’t look through her own window. Act as if you’re just about to open the door.’
‘Which Brontë am I?’
‘Branwell.’
‘Ha ha, very funny I don’t think.’
He took the picture. ‘Just one more, in the garden, looking as if you’re going to do something to a shrub or a flower.’
‘Such as?’
‘Anything you like, snip, sniff, dig with a pretend trowel.’
She took up what felt like an awkward pose. ‘I bet you wish you were taking pictures of Carine.’
He took the picture. ‘You make a better model for this setting.’
That was not the answer he was supposed to give. She took off the cloak and handed
it back to him. ‘Come on then. Be dead for me.’
He looked at his suit. ‘Have you brought a clothes brush?’
‘I’ve chosen the spot and I dusted it with a big hanky.’ It was a lie but rain washed the slabs clean enough. She led the way, and pointed. ‘You can fold your own cloak and lie on that if you like.’
He hesitated.
She took out her Kodak. ‘Three photographs of me for one of you. Just do it, Derek.’
He set his haversack on the path and lay face down, nose flat against the slab.
‘Turn round! Lie on your back and cross your hands on your chest like a proper corpse.’
‘No! And I’m not turning my head. I don’t want anyone to see me as a dead person.’
Harriet clicked the shutter the instant he stopped protesting. ‘Now turn over. We made an agreement.’
‘I don’t know why you’d go in for shockers. It’s bad taste.’
She snapped him again. ‘Bad taste is being in love with someone old enough to be your mother.’ She hadn’t meant to say it. It just came out.
‘What?’ He got up. He stared at her. ‘Who says that?’
‘I do.’
‘I’m not in love. I just think a lot about Carine.’
‘That’s obvious.’
‘I wouldn’t, if she were with someone half reasonable. Tobias is the most hateful person I have ever met. I do believe he tried to kill me, run me down. And anyway, what if I am in love?’
‘That’s more stupid than playing dead.’
‘Better to play dead than to be dead.’ As soon as he said that and saw her face, he knew it was the wrong thing, but she was a very annoying girl.
She was looking beyond him, into the little lane between the churchyard and the Sunday school.
He turned to see what or who she was looking at.
There was Carine, alone. Even from this distance, he saw that she was crying.
‘You’ve forgotten your gran’s cloak,’ Harriet called, when Derek started to run. He did not hear her.
Amateur Photographer Monthly
In his new series of amusing articles, Mr Sanity, Amateur Photographer, entertains readers of Amateur Photographer Monthly with tales about his photographic adventures.
A keen band of amateur photographers gathered at the railway station in the City of L. Destination: the wilds of Yorkshire and the queer little hill town of Haworth. For a long weekend these snap-happy individuals would give themselves over to the gentle art of photography with the aim of coming out on top in the picture stakes.
Intention: to capture for posterity some intensely dramatic view in the style of the old masters; to turn a wrinkled peasant into a work of art; to shake off the cares of life and find, for the briefest time, another way of seeing and to remember that life can be a bit of a lark. Far be it from your informant to claim that every single snapper on this outing wanted to win life’s prize; that is simply the impression created.
Let me introduce you to our band. Beauty comes with a Beast, her sot of a husband. Our single lady is the Mystic. The Mystic, it transpires, does not deign to carry a camera. She vows to keep all images in her mind’s eye. You will hear little of her for that reason. The young gel we will call the Undertaker. She likes nothing better than to take her box Brownie for an outing to the churchyard. An expired rabbit will be her delight.
Making their own way to our destination – separately your informant hastens to add – are the Poet and the Observer. The Poet searches for the perfect image that he will reduce to words. His heart holds secret yearnings, perhaps connected with the Beauty, the Mystic or the Observer. Certainly he loads his new Noiram so clumsily that he has the unique ability to ruin pictures before they are taken.
For the Observer, doors hold a particular fascination. She pretends that it is the subjects who stand in the doorway that gain her attention. Mr Sanity mistrusts this claim. Undertaker, the Observer’s protégée, is almost left behind as the mists descend because she has found the skull of a ram, which discovery is her very heaven.
Beast has brought his tripod and portable darkroom. He has ambitious plans for pictures on a grand scale, taking in fifty miles of hills and dales. He will square these down to the size of a postcard and sell them for sixpence a time. Beauty has yet to take a picture. She is no doubt waiting to capture that magnificent moment when Beast tumbles over the rocks into the quarry below.
In such a setting, Mr Sanity turns to the historical. He had the good fortune to point his Vesta into the tunnel of time and capture a Miss Brontë waiting by the gate for her future, and turning into the door of the parsonage when that future evaded her.
Editor’s Note: Mr Sanity’s Photographs on page 7
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A Last Supper
We gathered for supper, acting as if nothing unusual had happened that afternoon. Edward came in last and sat as far away from Tobias as possible, which given our small number was not very far. I sat with Tobias on my right, Rita on my left and Carine on her left. Derek sat opposite Tobias, with Harriet to his right and Edward beside Harriet.
The nearest Carine had come to confiding about the events of the day was to say to me that she did not want to sit next to Edward or Tobias.
Elisa brought dishes of rabbit soup to the table, two at a time. She made a point of pulling a funny rabbit face at Harriet.
Elisa seemed an odd young woman. I had tried to locate Mrs Varey and had begun to wonder whether Elisa had given her frequent doses of knock-out drops. Twice I had gone into the kitchen and Elisa had pointed to the box bed in the corner, made a shushing motion and indicated that her mother was asleep.
The sight of food put everyone in a state of muted cheerfulness, which was the best we might expect.
In a confidential voice, Tobias paused from slurping his soup. ‘Kate, that idea I was telling you about earlier, you’ll keep it to yourself?’
‘It’s flown out of my head already.’
Tobias’s schemes grow in proportion to how much time he has on his hands, and how much alcohol he has drunk. I had no wish to be his confidant.
He leaned towards me. ‘Your slide show gave me the notion. You’ll have seen the way we set up the studio for portraits.’
‘I’ve seen the way Carine arranges it.’
‘It’s a bit formal, you know, and artificial, not designed to put folk at their ease. While we’re here, I’ll take country scenes. I’ll project them onto a solid screen using magnified glass. My subjects will look as if they are standing in an attractive landscape, a wood or by a stream. It would especially suit foreigners who want to send home a portrait against a backdrop that fits the idea of what is forever England.’
Elisa placed a large pie on the table, and a platter of boiled beetroot and green beans. She glared at Tobias with such a look of dislike that I wondered whether he had made a nuisance of himself with her. He does have something of a reputation.
Edward Chester, having arrived a couple of days before us, seemed to have made a good impression on Elisa. She cut the pie and dished it out, giving Edward the largest slice and an extra portion of beets and greens.
It had been an exhausting first day. At about ten o’clock, the three of us who were sharing a room went up together. The stairs were dark and we had but one candle. Harriet climbed into her box bed for the purpose of changing into her nightie. ‘I’ve a window in here but it’s overgrown with ivy so I can’t see out. The ivy across the pane looks like fingers.’
‘Do you want to swap?’
She came out and hung her clothes over a chair. ‘No. I like it in there.’
Rita had brought a large bottle of gin and a small bottle of Indian tonic. She came round with mugs, one for me and one for Harriet. ‘With just a drop of gin for you, Harriet, to help you sleep.’
After the long day, and the gin, I expected to sleep well but lay on my back looking up at the ceiling. Something twinkled above. I could not at first tell what it was, and then
I realised. It was a star.
As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I tried to see whether any other parts of the roof were open to the sky, but I could not tell.
Harriet had gone quiet, which meant she was asleep.
Rita was murmuring, saying her prayers, and so I did not interrupt. They were odd prayers. Not that I was listening, but I could not help but hear her say, ‘Oh Lord, seven of us came, let seven go home.’
I had not expected to hear mystic Rita talking to God, but perhaps she regarded this as an emergency. Did she have stars above her head, too, and expect the roof to fall in on us?
Now giving up on sleep, I got out of bed and walked about the room, looking at the ceiling. The roof was so full of holes it might as well have been open to the sky. Through every gap I could see stars, so many worlds above us and so far away.
Now I understood why Mrs Porter said she hoped it would not rain. Mrs Varey should have instructed us to bring large umbrellas, or tents.
In the corner of the room, I noticed an odd shape and went to look. It was a collection of buckets and bowls.
I climbed back into bed, now knowing what must be done in the event of a deluge.
No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard the floorboards creak.
In a sleepy voice, Rita said, ‘Carine!’
There was a shuffling and more creaking.
‘Is Tobias snoring?’
Carine said, ‘No, but I’ll tell him he was.’
I stared at my own private star and tried to remember who it was said that stars were worlds. The answer came to me as I fell asleep.
My last thought as I tumbled into dreamland was that tomorrow would be Saturday, 4 August, a day of celebration. From tomorrow, the parsonage would be known as the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
But we visitors would remember the day for a very different reason.
When I rolled out of bed the next morning, Rita was already up and dressed. She bobbed down, looking at herself in the single blemished mirror, running a comb through her hair.
A Snapshot of Murder Page 13