Pig Island (39 page)

The world didn’t seem real to me. With Dove gone, it was like the plug had been pulled on my life. The tiredness thing wouldn’t let up. I slept long stretches, nine, ten hours, but I’d wake up tireder than before and end up asleep at my desk, hands flopped on the keyboard, sending long strings of letters on to the screen. It crossed my mind to see a doctor, but I kind of guessed what the answer would be—
Have you been under any stress recently, Mr Oakes
? And then it would come out—Lexie dead, the way I didn’t feel better that it was all over, worry about the book. Before I knew it I’d be in counselling, clutching a Seroxat script. So instead I kept going, pushing forward like I was under water, ignoring this perpetual drag on me.

After ten long days I got the manuscript off to the editor. The publishers’ art department had been sending us visuals of the dust-jacket and now they’d arranged a photo session for Angeline in some studio in Brixton. This was something Finn and me and Angeline had spent a long time talking about—how to show her to the world. She wasn’t going to let the deformity itself be photographed, so we’d decided on a still from the video, and for a modeller who worked for a medical-supply company to make and photograph a fibreglass cross-section of it. The publishers were going to send her up to Pig Island later in the month to get some shots of her at the chapel, but they wanted some studio portraits too. Just head and shoulders. It happened on the first Monday in March. The beginning of spring and, looking back at it now, it turned out to be the beginning of another kind of change in the air.

“Well?” I said. “How do you feel?”

We sat in the makeup room looking at each other. She hadn’t taken off her outdoor clothes: she still had on her coat and a knitted stripy beanie pulled over her hair. I’d brought the JD with me and now I opened it, poured her some in a plastic cup and handed it to her.

“You going to be OK?”

“I don’t know.” She took it and shivered, shooting an anxious look at the door. We’d been let in by the janitor to an empty studio, but now the others were arriving. We could hear voices out there. “They’ve seen the video. I wonder what they’re going to think. Of me.” Her eyes went across the room at a rack of dresses pushed into the corner. They were covered with Cellophane but you could see the long skirts trailing the floor. She’d been fitted and measured for these, specifically so nothing would show. “But whatever I wear, it doesn’t matter. They’ll still know.”

“You can change your mind,” I said. “I’ll have Finn tear up the contract. You only have to say the—‘

“No. No, really.” She gave a small, nervous laugh. She pulled off her hat and ran a hand through the short curls, raising her eyes cautiously to the mirror, getting a shy look at her face, bare and colourless. “I’m going to do it. Of course I am.”

When the makeup girl came in I left them to it and wandered into the studio, thinking about what she’d said:
What will they think of me
? The studio was in a warehouse with polished concrete floors, ceiling cross-braces painted black, and big, unlit studio lamps standing like sentinels in the dark corners. A roll of white paper hanging from an overhead brace had been pulled down to the floor and a small swivel stool placed in the centre. An assistant wandered around setting up lights, snapping open diffusers, all the time chatting in a low voice to the photographer, who was bent over the top of his camera, peering into the viewfinder. The photographer was in his early twenties and looked like he wrote for an alt music mag like
Mojo
or
NME
, with his faded print Bob Marley T-shirt and his jeans hanging round his arse. They didn’t see me come in so I got quite close and I’d listened to them for a few minutes before I sussed they were talking about disabled people modelling.

“There’s this whole, like, obsession with it at the moment. Marc Quinn and that pregnant bird, Alison Lapper.”

“Yeah, and Aimee Mullins …‘ said the assistant. ”Both totally cool.“

“And personally, I’m, like, this is 50, you know, so
about time too
.”

“I know.”

“It’s so overdue, it’s just not funny. It’s time they—‘ The photographer broke off suddenly and straightened, looking far off into the corner of the studio. Me and the assistant both turned to see what he was looking at. The dressing-room door had opened and Angeline was there, blinking shakily in the studio lights. She was wearing some silver number that had a neckline half-way down her stomach and looked like it cost half my yearly salary, and she was a totally different person: the makeup girl had slicked her short curls back against her head like a black helmet, fixed false eyelashes on her, and outlined her mouth in lipstick like red plastic. Her hands were shaking but her face was as composed as a shop-floor dummy, almost glassy it was so perfect. She swallowed, then began to walk, slowly, sort of tentatively, putting one foot in front of the other, like she thought she might fall. No one breathed while we took her in and the studio went totally silent, just the sound of her heels clicking on the floor echoing round the high roof. She got to the edge of the lights, hesitated, then stepped on to the paper, walked quickly to the stool and sank on to it like it was a life raft.

“Fuck.” The photographer let out an amazed whistle. Just soft, under his breath. “Fucking hell.” He shook his head, then tugged up his jeans and went to stand on the paper about two foot in front of her, looking at her curiously, like he was asking a question. There was a long pause. Then he goes, all surprised, “You’re beautiful, Angeline. You’re totally fucking gorgeous.”

At first she stared at him, like she couldn’t work out what he’d said or who he was. Like he might be telling her off, maybe. Then something inside her sort of cracked open and all this colour spilled out under her skin and her cheeks went pink. “Thank you,” she whispered shyly. “Thank you.”

He gave a disbelieving laugh, still staring at her. “You,” he said, “are totally, totally welcome.”

Not taking his eyes off her, like she might run away if he did, he walked backwards to the camera. He lifted up his hands—the way you’d pacify a skittish animal.

“Don’t move,” he said, glancing down at the viewfinder. “Don’t move.” And before she knew what was happening he’d taken a photo. The flash fired and he was winding on the camera.

Angeline blinked at him. “Did you do it?”

“Yes,” he said, switching the camera to display and squinting at the screen. He looked up at her. “See how easy it’s going to be?”

It was so weird that afternoon to stand there, outside the lights and watch her kind of… I don’t know the word, but
expand
, maybe. Like she was growing under the attention. It was like each time the flash fired the muscles in her face relaxed a bit more until the doll look softened and she looked, even I have to say it, awesome. And no one was treating her weird or patronizing. No one was stupid about the way she had to sit, half tilted over because she was never comfortable on a stool and had to grip the sides of it. Instead they were treating her like she was something cool.

When they’d done about twenty shots they got her changed, put her in a different dress, different hair and stuff. During the day she went through about six different dresses, most of which looked totally fucking ridiculous to me, like some of those makeover boudoir get-ups but must’ve been some kind of style statements because everyone else seemed to get them. Even Angeline. By three o’clock I had to sit down. I was getting tired. And there was something else. I was starting to get arsed off with the photographer.

At first it was great, seeing how happy he was making her, but now he was getting sort of tiresome. The way he kept up with this
beautiful, beautiful
shit, it was getting on my tits. I started watching him a bit more closely. I went further into the shadows so they couldn’t see me, and stood there, fiddling impatiently with my keys, spinning them on my finger, pulling them on and off the ring, trying to stop myself saying, “What? Do you fancy her or something? Stop staring at her.” So when, at the end of the day, we were all knackered and I thought, At least it’s over, he went up close to her, dropped his face, and said something really quiet, I stopped spinning the keys and went very still, watching them closely. Angeline’s smile went. She sat there, her eyes on the floor, and listened to him talk, tucking the hair behind her ear and thinking about what he was saying. He finished and straightened, took a step back. “Well?”

“Hey,” I said, coming closer to the set so I could feel the lights on my face. “Angeline?”

But she didn’t turn to me. She didn’t even seem to hear me. Her eyes were locked on his. There were a couple of beats, then she gave a small nod.

“Hey,” I murmured. “Angeline?”

No one reacted. The photographer went and unscrewed the camera, took it off the tripod and lay down on his stomach, resting on his elbows with the camera raised to his eyes. He was focusing on her skirt hem and, suddenly, catching us all by surprise, she reached down, grabbed the fabric and lifted it to her knees.

I’ve got the photo from that moment and I still look at it, even today. Her thin ankles, the little sweaty footprints of her feet on the background paper, but most of all the third, broken and squashed foot, heavier-looking, but you can tell it’s made out of the same flesh as the other two, and it’s hanging there, with its own shadow. Turns out it’s the best shot in the book, the one everyone talks about. But at the time I was ready to kill the photographer.

When they’d finished, when she’d gone to get her makeup off and someone had brought round coffee and a bottle of sparkling rose, I took my glass and made sure I sat near him. Wanted to keep an eye on him. I wasn’t having him talking to her on his own again.

He was lounging on a sofa, half on his back, idly running his charity bands up and down his arms. If he knew I had the arse with him he didn’t show it. “So,” he said, all casual, “what happens when it all comes out?” He paused to drain his glass, and swivelled his eyes to me. “When I was watching her all I could think was, What if her dad reads the book? What’s he going to think? See, if it was me I’d be hiding in a hole.”

I looked at him steadily. “Malachi Dove is dead. How can he read the book?

“Is he?”

“Don’t you read the papers? They’ve been talking about it all week.”

“Oh, that body. In Dumfries. But they never confirmed it. Never said it was definitely him. Did they?”

“No,” I said, in a slow voice, like he was a child not listening properly. “They’re waiting for DNA before they do. But it was him. He. Is. Dead.”

Angeline came across the floor then, holding an opened can of diet Coke. We both looked up. She was wearing a white dressing-gown and I could see where her makeup had been taken off: a line round her neck. Above it, she was pink and shining, glowing more than she had a right to after five hours under the lights.

“Hey,” said the photographer, getting up and smiling, a really fake smile like he was dazzled by her. “Have a seat.”

She sat down, tucking her curls into two pins above her ears. “I’m 5000 tired,” she said, with a smile. She looked at me. “I’m so tired.”

“You were great,” I said, but I had to force it out.

“Hey, Angeline.” The photographer leaned sideways and shoved a hand into his back pocket. He pulled out a card. Held it out to her between two fingers, so delicate you’d think it was some exotic butterfly, not a bit of cardboard. “I work with her all the time. Her work is lush—just lush. Edgy. Real. Know what I mean?”

She took the card and looked at it. Her mouth twitched a little.

“What is it?” I said, leaning over. “Let’s see.”

There was a moment’s hesitation before she handed me the card. I had to pull it a bit to get it out of her fingers. Just a bit. I flipped it over and stared at it, my face set. The features editor of the
Daily Mail
. What was going on? I turned to the photographer, moving my head stiffly. “Well? What’s this?”

“She’s really wanting to do something on Angeline.”

The fucking features editor of a national newspaper knew about Angeline? How had that happened? I leaned forward and tapped his knee, getting him to look at me, wanting to tell him to sit upright, stop slouching. “That’s OK. That’s fine. Except we’re negotiating the serial rights on this story and it’s not with the
Mail
.” I paused to make sure he’d heard that. “OK?”

“Sorry, mate.” He held up the glass to me, like he was toasting our status as a couple. “Didn’t want to interfere. Not my job to make waves.”

I stood up. “Come on,” I said, holding my hand out to Angeline. “Let’s get you dressed.” But she didn’t get up. She sat there, staring at my hand. “Come on,” I repeated. “It’s time to get dressed and go. Let’s give your friend some time to read his contract.”

Angeline sighed and rolled her eyes. “OK,” she said, in a sarcastic voice. The same voice Sovereign always used with her mother. “I’m commg.”

She finished the Coke and dropped the can into the bin. She held up her hand, thumb at her ear, pinkie at the corner of her mouth, and smiled at the photographer. “Call me,” she mouthed, and walked straight past me, sauntering off to the makeup room, her feet in the towelling slippers slapping lazily on the floor, the way I’d seen hookers in Tijuana walk. I stood and watched her and all I could think about was when I was a teenager in Bootle. Back then the local fathers used to line up outside nightclubs waiting for their daughters at kicking-out time. They’d get out of their cars and put their elbows on the roofs. They’d look casual, but you could tell what they were thinking. They were thinking if one of those arseholes in the club had laid even a
finger
on their little girl he was going to get a hiding he’d never forget.

Chapter 7

We travelled home in silence, Angeline in the passenger seat chewing gum she’d picked up somewhere. She kept fiddling with the radio, trying to find Choice FM, until I reached over and switched it off. I’d made up my mind we weren’t going to speak to the photographer again. I didn’t like his interfering and I didn’t like the knowing way he talked about Dove. The body in Dumfries was him, no one had said it wasn’t. In the morning I’d call Danso—just so I could hear the DNA match from his mouth. Even so, when I got home I went into the back garden and nailed the gate closed. Then I double-checked the cellar door and trundled the lawnmower up against it.