The Photographer's Wife (28 page)

“Huh?” Brett says.

“Huh! Don’t get snobby on me now.”

“I just thought you might wanna take your ma somewhere a bit special, is all.”

“Mum’s weird about restaurants,” Sophie says. “She’ll like this. This is perfect. You’ll see.”

“And you’re sure she’s gonna be OK travelling all the way here on her own?” Brett asks.

Sophie nods towards the restaurant, where, seated in the window, her mother is waving. “Look. She’s already there,” she says, waving back.

“Nice!” Brett says, as he pushes against the door.

“Just shhh!” Sophie admonishes, following him in and crossing the spartan interior to her mother. “Hi Mum! You made it!”

“Of course I made it!”

“This is my journalist friend, Brett.”

Barbara looks up at Brett and Sophie sees her give him the once-over. Her regard gives nothing away. “Hello Brett,” she says flatly.

“Hello Mrs Marsden.”

“You’d better tell me
your
surname if we’re going that way,” Barbara says.

“I’m sorry?” Brett asks, as he slides into a chair, then wriggles out of his jacket and hangs it over the seat-back.

“Mum just means you should call her Barbara,” Sophie explains, sitting herself. “Brett’s American, Mum. They don’t do sarcasm.”

“Um,
hello?”
Brett says. “We
so
do.”

“Well, that
wasn’t
sarcasm,” Barbara says.

“OK. It wasn’t. So how was the trip to Brighton, Mum?”

“Slow.”

“Slow?”

“I never understood why old people have to be so
old
,” she says. “That bus stopped every one hundred yards and at every single stop some pensioner got on, and not one of them had thought to fish out their purse or their travel-card before the conductor asked for it. So every stop took ten minutes and the whole trip, just over two hours.”

“I said we could come to Eastbourne. I did offer, Mum.”

“No,” Barbara says, now picking up the menu. “This is good. I don’t come to Brighton enough these days. It’s a change. And you know what they say...”

“What do they say?” Brett asks, looking vaguely distracted as he searches his pockets for a handkerchief with which to clean his glasses.

Barbara glances at Sophie and pulls a face – a suppressed smile. It looks like,
is this the best you could do, dear?

“He’s American, Mum,” Sophie says again. “And what
they
say,” she tells Brett, “is that a change is as good as a rest.”

“Oh, OK then,” Brett says, nodding blankly. Sophie’s pretty sure he has no idea what’s going on here at all.

“This is much more expensive than Qualisea,” Barbara announces, peering over the menu.

Sophie struggles to repress a smile. “Six quid? For cod and chips? Are you joking? We pay that for coffee in London.”

“It’s four-fifty in Qualisea. That’s... um...”

“Twenty-five percent less,” Brett says, clearly having decided to demonstrate that he’s not so stupid. “Or a third more, depending on how you wanna look at it.”

“Yes, exactly,” Barbara says. “A third more.”

“This
is
Brighton. And we do have a sea view.”

“I suppose,” Barbara concedes, and Sophie watches the effort it takes her to be positive. She sees the struggle taking place behind her frozen features until finally she vanquishes the demon, licks her lips and says, “Yes, well, it’s lovely. It’s worth a bit extra to be able to sit and watch the ships, don’t you think?”

The meal is nice enough – simple fare, competently cooked – but the conversation does not go to plan. Barbara seems happy enough to discuss Brett’s American origins, or his job at the
Time
s, or his taste in clothes (she approves and wishes more men would dress appropriately, she tells him.) But every attempt at guiding the conversation towards Sophie’s father, or his work, or the retrospective, is quickly closed down, either through a discreet change of subject, or, when that fails, by a downright refusal to discuss the matter.

“I don’t know, now let’s talk about something else,” Barbara says, when asked which images she’d personally like to see included.

“I’d really rather not think about it,” she says, when asked who, from Tony’s entourage, they could invite to a potential private view. “So many of them have passed away. That’s the thing.”

After a walk through the centre of town and a coffee at Costa, they walk Barbara back to the seafront and wave as the departing number twelve bus forces its way into the weekend traffic.

“Huh!” Brett says, his universal exclamation.

“I told you she wasn’t keen,” Sophie says.

“Not keen?” Brett laughs. “That, babe, is what they call
stonewalling.”

“I thought she’d be better with you, but if anything she was worse.”

“Sometimes even
my
charms fail to sway the ladies. What can I say?” Brett says, taking Sophie’s arm and giving it a squeeze. They turn and start to walk back towards the Lanes, where their chic little hotel is situated. Sophie blows through her lips and asks, doubtfully, “I
can
do it without her, can’t I?”

Brett shrugs. “It’s like my editor said. You
can.
But at least half of the PR opportunities come through exploiting the ‘
Woman Who Knew Him Best.’”
Brett raises his fingers to indicate the quotes around the headline.

“Exploiting...” Sophie repeats, pulling a face.

“Babe, you know what I mean.”

“Yes. I do. So anyway, what now?”

“What now, as in...?”

“What now. As in
today
. More coffee? Back to the hotel?”

“I saw a store I’d like to go back to,” Brett says. “Just off the Lanes.”

“OK. What sort of store?”

Brett takes Sophie’s hand. “You’ll see.”

“Oh, do tell me it’s not that sordid little sex shop with all the dildos in the window?”

“I said,” Brett tells her. “You’ll see!”

Sophie hardens her features but then a few minutes later softens them again as Brett pauses outside a tiny jewellery shop. “Oh!” she says.

“Don’t be disappointed,” Brett mugs. “We can still do the sex shop afterwards.”

Once Brett has bought Sophie an inexpensive-yet-pretty turquoise necklace and a pair of cufflinks for himself, and has teased Sophie a little with empty threats of oversized dildos, they head back to the hotel. Because they are unable to pick up the WiFi in their room, Brett heads downstairs with his laptop to check his email, while Sophie lies on the bed and attempts to think about strategies for motivating her mother but instead falls asleep.

When she wakes up, the laptop has returned but Brett is still elsewhere, so she sends him a text asking where he is and then phones her mother.

“Hello Sophie,” Barbara answers. “I’ve only just got in. Are you missing me already?”

“I just wanted to check that you got home alright.”

“I did. As you can see.”

“Did you have an OK time today?”

“I did. It was a lovely change, actually. I always liked Brighton.”

“And what about Brett? Did you like him?”

A ghastly silence ensues until eventually Sophie says, “God! I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then, shall I?” She can hear her mother working her mouth at the other end of the line, almost literally mincing her words. “Come on then, spit it out.”

“It’s just...” Barbara says. “Look... He seems nice enough.”

“But?”

“But I think you should keep him at arm’s length.”

Sophie pulls the phone from her ear and frowns at it before resuming the conversation by asking, “What do you mean,
keep him at arm’s length
?”

“Why do you need a journalist anyway?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You know what they’re like. They’re only ever interested in digging up dirt. And if you
are
going to do this silly retrospective thing, then I think you need to keep Brett away from it. That’s all I’m saying.”

Various thoughts compete for Sophie’s attention, including but not limited to:
What Dirt?
and,
My mother doesn’t trust Brett
and,
Do I trust Brett?
And, with a little rush of adrenaline, she also realises that most importantly of all, her mother has for the first time ever admitted the idea that the exhibition might actually take place. And that’s one hell of a victory.

“Brett’s not really got anything to do with the exhibition,” she finally says, a comment chosen to cement this new acceptance that the exhibition is a reality. “I mean, other than the fact that he’s put me in touch with a few people in the business... But that’s about it.”

“That’s not what it sounded like,” Barbara says. “He sounded like he was running the whole caboodle.”

“He really isn’t.”

Another silence.

“Mum?”

“Then I don’t see why you brought him along.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why bring a journalist to meet me if he’s got nothing to do with it all?”

“Oh!” Sophie laughs. “God, I’m sorry.”

“What’s so funny?”

“He’s my
boyfriend
, Mum. I’m sorry. I should have said... I just thought you’d got it.”

“Brett’s your boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Since... a while now. That’s why I brought him to meet you.”

“I see,” Barbara says. “Actually, I have to go now,” she adds, sounding embarrassed.

“I’m ever so sorry Mum,” Sophie says. “It’s not your fault. I should have explained.”

“Of course it’s not my fault. But there’s someone at the door. I have to go.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. Talk soon. Bye bye.”

And just like that, the line goes dead.

Sophie lowers the phone and grimaces at it again. “That was weird,” she says, to nobody in particular.

Just at that moment, the door to their hotel room creaks open and a head-height, plastic, purple penis edges its way through the gap. It is attached, it transpires, to a horrific rubber mask that Brett is wearing.

“Ew!” Sophie exclaims. “That’s even weirder.”

“I’m sorry?” Brett asks, his voice muffled by the mask.

“God, no wonder she didn’t trust you,” Sophie says. “What
is
that?”

Brett closes the door behind him and slides the mask up onto the top of his head so that the attachment is pointing skywards like some absurd party hat. He is wiggling his eyebrows and grinning and looking generally pleased with himself. “It’s called the
Vulcan Driller!”
he announces, theatrically.
“
So tell me, are you ready to be drilled, Babe?”

1968 - Hackney, London.

Barbara is kneeling before the grate, folding newspaper in the special concertina fashion her mother taught her. Minnie is coming around this afternoon (the laundry is closed for repairs to the hot water system) and Barbara is vaguely conscious of the fact that she will be pleased if she arrives and sees her folding the firelighters properly. The desire to please your parents never quite seems to go away, not even once you have a child of your own.

Below, through the floorboards, she can hear Tony swearing about “bloody coal dust.” They have just had three bags of coal (the minimum) delivered to the cellar, which is also Tony’s new darkroom. Jonathan, who has been grumpy all morning, is momentarily lost in a world of Lego and she’s making the most of it. He starts school next week, and though she still loves him with unreasonable intensity, and though she fears the emptiness of the house once he does start school, she is also rather guiltily looking forward to it. She’s intending to use the first few weeks to finish decorating the lounge and dining room, and then she’s going to look for some part-time work. She would have loved to produce a brother or sister for Jonathan but she’s been forced by circumstances to make other plans. Plus, unless she can manage to bring in a little more money, they won’t be redecorating the bedrooms or buying carpet for many years, if ever.

“Useless! Bloody useless!” Tony shrieks, and Barbara glances over to watch the effect of his angry voice on Jonathan, who pauses, wrinkles his brow, but then thankfully resumes play.

Barbara fills the fire with her pleated firelighters, lays a few pieces of hard-to-come-by kindling over the top of them, adds a few lumps of coal on top of that and then, with a little regret that Minnie will never see just how well folded the newspapers were, she strikes a match. “It’ll be nice and warm in here soon,” she murmurs.

Tony will no doubt complain about the cost. He has already said that lighting fires in September is a waste of money, but after three days of drizzle, Barbara doesn’t just fancy a fire. She
needs
one.

She can hear Tony’s feet now, stomping up the wooden steps. The door to the cellar bursts open with enough force that it slams back against the wall and, as she glances up from the gently rising flames, he appears in the doorway, red-faced and angry looking. “I’ve had enough,” he says. “I’m going down the Ladywell for a pint.”

“Did it not work, sweetheart?” she asks.

“No, it bloody didn’t. And how I’m supposed to work in a load of coal dust, God only knows.” And with that, he vanishes from view, slamming the front door behind him.

Barbara holds her breath for a moment and then, with a sense of relief, releases it. It’s strange really, because she always misses Tony when he’s at work, yet the truth is that she likes the idea of him more than the reality of his presence. He’s always so tense, always on the verge of anger if not actually angry. So she always feels a great sense of relief when he leaves the house, as if some looming danger has passed. He has never hit her. He has never, for that matter, so much as raised a hand to her or Jonathan. But it always feels like it might be on the cards. It always seems like it could happen at any moment.

Barbara puts the fireguard in front of the hearth, then heads through to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. By the time she gets back to the lounge with it, Jonathan has fallen asleep, his face pressed against the strewn multi-coloured Lego bricks. She should probably move him to a more comfortable position but he’s had a difficult morning and this moment of quiet – just the dripping of the gutter outside and the crackle of the fire – is heavenly. So she leaves Jonathan be, sips her tea, and stares at the flames.