The Photographer's Wife (13 page)

“You’re a harsh one,” her mother tells her. “Just because you went to art college doesn’t give you the right to decide what everyone else has to like.”

“I don’t,” Sophie says. “I just know that poor old Judy couldn’t paint a white wall white.”

“I like them.”

“Yes, I know you do,” Sophie replies, struggling to keep the exasperation from her voice. She wonders for the hundredth time quite how her mother and brother have managed to spend so much time with the artist that her father undoubtedly was without absorbing even a smidgin of his good taste. And nowhere is their failure to learn from her father’s gift more evident than in their awed appreciation of Jon’s wife’s badly painted, nauseatingly bucolic landscapes.

“So come on,” Sophie prompts. “What
have
you been up to since I was down last?”

“I told you,” her mother replies.

“Have you seen Patti?” Sophie asks. Patti Smith (not
the
Patti Smith, sadly) is her mother’s neighbour.

“Her hip’s playing up again.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Sophie says.

“They’re talking about operating again,” she continues, finally finding her rhythm. “Patti reckons one of those superbugs slipped in when they operated. It’s because the hospitals are so dirty these days.”

The monologue about Patti’s hip condition lasts through the entire main course. It’s only when they reach dessert, an obscenely large slab of pappy lemon meringue pie, that her mother pauses for breath.

“I met the new arts correspondent for the
Times
the other day,” Sophie says, having decided that, for multiple reasons, she needs to bite this particular bullet (or at least nibble at it.) “He’s ever so nice.”

“That’s nice dear.”

“He asked me if anyone had ever thought of doing a retrospective of Dad’s work.”

Her mother stops eating for a second and looks Sophie directly in the eye. She shakes her head sharply. “No,” she says looking concerned. “Never.” It sounds not only like a response but like an interdiction too.

“It’s funny that, isn’t it?” Sophie says. “I mean, he was such a big figure in British photography. You’d think someone would have thought of it.”

“I don’t think they do them for photographers.”

“Do what?”

“Retrospectives. It’s more of a painter’s thing, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes they do. For big names. I went to the Mapplethorpe one. And Dad was a pretty big name. I thought it would be quite cool to organise one.”

Her mother raises one eyebrow.

“What?” Sophie asks.

“Well,” she says. “It’s just one of those crazy ideas of yours, isn’t it. You’ll be on to something else within a week.”

Sophie runs her tongue across her teeth, then, to avoid saying the harsh words on the tip of her tongue, she forks another lump of oozing pie to her mouth. For this has always been Sophie’s reputation. Jon is the hardworking, serious son and Sophie is the inconstant, airhead daughter. And never shall those myths be challenged. She frowns at the mouthful of sugar she has just swallowed and then pulls a face as she pushes the plate away.

“I hope you’re not dieting again,” her mother says.

“Mum! I just ate a billion calories of fish and chips,” Sophie laughs. “I’m not sure what diet you think I’m on.”

“Well, good. You’re too skinny.”

“I
wish.
If anyone is too skinny, you are.”

Sophie doesn’t bring up the idea of a retrospective again until they get back to the house. While her mother makes a pot of coffee, Sophie leans on the kitchen counter and takes a deep breath before asking as casually as possible, “So, are all Dad’s photos still up in the loft?”

“Probably,” her mother replies. “If they haven’t all turned to dust.” It’s only when she has said this that she realises that she has just provided her daughter with a perfect justification for checking on them. “But I’m sure they’re fine,” she adds.

“I should probably check,” Sophie says, pouncing on the opportunity.

Her mother pulls a pained expression. “It’s horrible up there, Sophie,” she says. “It’s full of junk and dust and bird-poo and–”

“I bet there are photos of you when you were younger too, aren’t there?”

“I’m
not
having you rooting around in the loft.”

“Oh, go on Mum,” Sophie pleads. “I’d love to spend the afternoon looking at old photos with you. Just a few.”

“Oh
Sophie!
It means getting the ladder from out the back and everything,” her mother whines. But she is twisting her mouth sideways again, so Sophie knows that she has won.

In the loft – which is indeed filthy – Sophie finds the photos, perfectly preserved in a pile of stackable wooden boxes. She doesn’t know who stored them thus, but each box contains a series of plastic sleeves, each of which contains a tiny sachet of damp-absorbing silica gel.

She takes a selection of the packages and hands them one by one to her mother.

“Is it all dry up there?” she calls up. “There aren’t any leaks, are there?”

“No, it’s fine,” Sophie replies. “It’s absolutely dry.”

Once her mother has declared that, “that’s enough now,” Sophie closes the box, then, before she climbs back down, she looks around at the rest of the junk in the attic.

Behind the photography boxes are a pile of old suitcases. She lifts one to check the weight, then, sensing that it’s not empty, she pulls it towards her and, with difficulty, opens the rusty clasp.

“What are you doing up there?” her mother asks.

“Just a second,” Sophie says, lifting the lid on the suitcase.

Inside, she finds her father’s old overcoat and a lump forms in her throat. The sensation of being wrapped in his arms, of being wrapped in the texture of this coat, fills her memories. She sniffs it in the hope of detecting some trace of him but thirty years have passed. It smells of nothing these days but musty, dusty loft.

She folds the coat, strokes it gently, swallows with difficulty, then puts it to one side and peers back into the suitcase. It contains a man’s hat, a trilby, she thinks, though she doesn’t know how she knows this and doesn’t remember ever having seen her father wear it. There are, god knows why, some old, nylon net curtains, a blanket, a pair of children’s slippers and a funny old doll in a sailor dress. She frowns at the doll, then, when her mother says, “Sophie! You’re letting all the heat out,” she returns to the trap door and climbs down the ladder.

“I found this,” she says, handing the doll to her mother, who smiles and strokes the doll’s hair.

“Was that mine?” Sophie asks. “I don’t remember it at all.”

“No, it was mine. When I was little,” her mother says.

“Wow. How old is she?” Sophie asks, scooping the packages of photos from the telephone table where her mother has piled them.

“Thirties,” she replies. “Late thirties. She’s supposed to be Shirley Temple.”

“Really?”

Her mother nods. “It’s a Shirley Temple doll. They were all the rage. She used to have a Shirley Temple badge too but that got lost pretty early on.”

“Hello Shirley,” Sophie laughs, peering in at the doll’s shiny, surprised face.

“Actually, I always called her Lucy Loop,” her mother says.

“Lucy Loop?”

Her mother nods. “Don’t ask me why. I don’t remember anymore. But yes. We always called her Lucy Loop. I dragged her around my whole childhood.”

They sit, side by side, at the dining room table, the pile of plastic packages before them. Sophie sips her coffee and notices that her mother is wringing her hands.

“Does this make you nervous, Mum?” she asks her.

Barbara wrinkles her nose. “A bit. There’s a lot of past in there.”

“I can do them on my own if you want.”

“No, no, I want to look at them. It’s just... well, it’s been a long time.”

Sophie pulls the first of the folders from the pile and slides it towards her, opens it, then pulls the contents onto the table. “Did you pack all of these up like this?”

“Yes. When I moved.”

“You did a good job.”

“Jonathan helped me.”

Sophie starts to leaf through the photos. The first twenty are rather dull black and white images of landscapes but then suddenly there is a scene change and the images are of people in London. “Wow!” Sophie says, sliding a photo of a woman in a mini skirt and knee-high boots towards her mother. “The sixties!”

“Huh,” her mother says, studying the photo and then pushing it back.

“Isn’t that Auntie Diane?”

“Yes.”

“She was pretty.”

“Yes, she was.”

Sophie flicks through another series of dull images: a house-front, a motorcycle, some kids playing football in the street, and then, coming upon a photo of her father in a dark checked suit holding her mother’s hand, she pauses. “Dad looked good in a suit,” she comments.

Barbara laughs. “He did. I could never get him to wear one, though. He reckoned wearing a tie strangled him.”

“You look good too. You look really happy.”

“I was. We were on holiday in Scotland. That’s Edinburgh, I think.”

“Who took the photo?”

“Phil, your father’s friend.”

Sophie continues to leaf through the photos, but other than three or four images of her father, the first package is something of a disappointment. For the most part, these are faded, often poorly developed photos of dull buildings and unexceptional landscapes.

Sophie sighs softly and hands the pile to her mother who repackages them while she opens the next batch.

“Gosh, Dad in a suit
again,”
Sophie says. “And look at those flares.”

The photo shows her father wearing the same suit. He has long hair, a beard and a huge kipper tie.

“That was Phil’s wedding,” Barbara says. “There should be some more with all of us.”

Sophie skips through the pile until she comes to a photo showing her mother and father standing behind the bride and groom. Her mother is wearing a long tie-dye dress and a floppy orange hat.

“That’s Phil and Jean,” her mother says pointing. “You loved Phil. Do you remember?”

Sophie nods. “Was I at the wedding? I don’t remember it.”

“You were. You ate half the cake. You were covered in it.”

“That’s a great dress.”

“I was so proud of that dress,” Barbara says. “It was the most daring thing I ever wore. But I only ever put it on twice, I think. Maybe three times.”

“Because?”

“I don’t know. It made me feel self-conscious, I suppose. People always commented on it. It was a copy of something I had seen in London.”

“You
made
it?”

“I did. I made lots of clothes.”

“I didn’t know that,” Sophie says. “I mean, I remember you making curtains and stuff. But not clothes.”

“I stopped. About then. It got cheaper to buy things than make them.”

Sophie pushes the photo to one side and continues to work her way through the pile.

“Ooh, the summer of seventy-six,” she says, pausing to study a picture of a woman in a bikini, sunbathing on a beach that is so sunbaked, it has fractured into a crazy-paving pattern. “That’s not
the
photo though is it?”

“No, that’s not the one that won a prize. It was the same day though. The same beach.”

“This is actually really interesting,” Sophie says. “People would love to see some of these. You know, the photos
around
the photo. All the ones that never made it into the public eye.”

“I’m not so sure,” Barbara says. “I think people like the myth.”

“The myth?”

“That the famous photographer only ever took a few tens of really memorable pictures. I’m not sure people want to see all these other ones.”

Sophie looks up at her mother in surprise.

“But what would I know?” her mother adds.

Sophie frowns. Her mother has always had this ability to surprise her with a sudden pertinent remark. It’s almost as if she has learned to dumb down her conversation but occasionally forgets and lets out some razor-sharp comment.

“That’s very true, actually,” Sophie says. “I suppose it depends on whether there are enough good ones for an exhibition. Enough good ones that people haven’t already seen, I mean.”

“I think you’ll find that there aren’t that many,” Barbara says.

“Gosh, this is an old one,” Sophie says, pulling a tattered image from the pack.

“Huh,” Barbara says. “I don’t know how that got in there. That’s your grandmother.”

Sophie leans in and peers at the picture. A scowling woman in an apron, standing in front of a laundry and holding a bag of washing. “She looks like a tough old thing,” Sophie says.

“People had to be tougher back then.”

“Because of the war?”

Barbara shrugs. “In part. But everything was harder in those days. There was no hot water, or central heating, or even proper cooking facilities. Lots of people in the East End didn’t even have a tap. There were no refrigerators, no washing machines... You have no idea how lucky you were to be born when you were.”

Sophie groans and points at the laundry behind her grandmother. “Looks like Gran used to take her stuff to the laundry,” she says. “So things can’t have been that bad.”

“No,” Barbara says. “No, I suppose they can’t have been.”

1951 - Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Barbara holds out her hand and Tony fumblingly slips the thin gold band over her ring finger. He looks nervous and sweaty in his rented suit, but in Barbara’s mind’s eye he is as smooth and as suavely dressed as a prince.

“You may kiss the bride,” the aged official says, and Tony grins and leans in to peck her on the lips.

When they turn to face the room, just for a second, the reality of the pale green walls (slightly shiny), of the seven people sitting on stackable chairs (slightly rusty) and the dim grey light filtering through the dirty windows, pierces Barbara’s mental bubble.

Minnie, mistaking her daughter’s expression, dabs at the corner of one eye and nods at her encouragingly, and Barbara forces herself to smile back,
has
to force herself because in this instant, this is all so very far from how she thought her wedding day would look that she can barely bear
to
look. But then the Wedding March begins to belt out of the gramophone and Barbara finds her inner princess all over again and starts to drag her imaginary train across the cold noble floors of Canterbury Cathedral, nodding at the gathered gentry as she does so.