The Photographer's Wife (32 page)

“And now you’re being disingenuous,” Brett says.

“Disingenuous. That’s your word of the month.”

“You’re right. It is. I like it. I like how it rolls off the tongue. Though if people stopped being it, then I’d be happy to stop
using
it. Now, if you’ll calm down a second, I have some more cool news for you. I’ve gotten you a gallery. A really rocking gallery. And the owner has already agreed in principle to host the exhibition.”

Sophie freezes. She’s stuck halfway between outrage and excitement and she doesn’t know which way to swing. “You have?” she says.

“Uh huh.”

She bites her bottom lip – the excitement is winning out. “Is it White Cube?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“It is, isn’t it! It’s White Cube. Tell me it’s White Cube?”

Brett laughs lightly. “I’m not saying until–”

“God, I
love
White Cube. You’re a genius, Brett.”

“OK, look. It is
not
White Cube.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then where? Is it–”

“We need to talk first. We need to talk about my involvement in this project, Sophie. I’ve been spending a lot of time on this. I’ve lined up meeting upon meeting for you. I got you that darned book deal (he nods at the envelope in her hand, here) by offering to push it in the
Times.
And I got the gallery by telling them we had the book deal lined up. None of this would be happening without me.”

“OK, OK, Brett. So you want to be paid. I get it. And here was I, thinking that you were doing this for love.”

“No, Sophie,” Brett says. “This isn’t love. In
there
is love,” he points to her bedroom. “This bit, here, is work. So yes, I
do
want paying. And I want a written, signed contract before I go any further.”

“A contract?”

“I want exclusive interview rights to you, your mother and Jonathan. And I want the exclusive right to negotiate image rights to the
Sunday Times.
You’ll get paid for that if I can make it happen. Minus my cut, of course.”

“Of course!”

“And I want twenty-five percent of all other proceeds.”

Sophie blinks exaggeratedly and feigns outrage by dropping her jaw. She takes a step back. “You’re out of your mind,” she says.

“It’s a very fair–”

“Fair?!” Sophie gasps. “Twenty-five percent? That’s not fair, that’s daylight robbery.”

Brett snorts. “It’s actually
not
, Sophie. I feel that it’s fairly generous consider–.”

“No. The answer is no.”

“No?”

Sophie nods. “Yes. I’m saying
no
to your offer. So how do you
feel
about
that?”

Brett shrugs. “That’s OK,” he says. “I can cancel the gallery easily enough.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Sure. If that’s what you want. And cancelling the gallery will cancel the book deal. You can always rebuild this whole shebang from scratch on your own. You’ll end up with a few photocopied pages and some shitty little gallery in some place no-one can even find, but hey, what do I care?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Good. Go ahead.”

“OK. I think you should leave now.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Seeing as this – what I thought was a relationship – is actually a
business
relationship, and seeing as our business meeting is over, I think you should leave.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Then I’ll make it simple. Fuck off to your own place, Brett.”

“Oh,” Brett says, pedantically. “I
see.
Personally, I was thinking more in terms of a quick
bang
followed by a celebration meal somewhere but if that’s how you want to play it...”

Momentarily, Sophie struggles with herself. One part of her watches two other seemingly independent parts slugging it out in the wrestling ring of her ego. It’s like this sometimes. It’s as if her body, specifically her mouth, becomes possessed by some alien force whose only desire is to push every argument to the ultimate, destructive limit. What she
really
wants now is exactly what Brett is suggesting. Sex, celebration, happiness. But that part of her loses the battle and she hears her mouth say, “Just fuck off, Brett, will you? Just take your huge, stinky ego as far away from me as possible before I throw up, will you?”

“My huge, stinky ego, huh?” Brett repeats, his mouth still smiling,
just,
even as his eyes burn with anger. He picks up his bag, pulls a stapled document from within and places it on Sophie’s desk. “The draft contract,” he says. “Call me when you’ve come to your senses.”

He strides across the apartment then, embarrassingly, has to return, first for his keys and then for his phone, and then again for his coat, before finally making it to the front door. “You know what, Sophie?” he says, his hand on the latch.

“Oh, just shut up and
go
, will you?”

Brett groans and vanishes from view. He does
not
slam the door behind him.

1970 - Embankment, London.

Barbara is standing at the Embankment end of Waterloo Bridge. She is rocking Sophie’s pram back and forth as she waits for Tony to arrive.

She can see Big Ben in the distance, her daughter is smiling as she sleeps and she’s meeting her husband for a picnic on a beautiful June day... And yet all that she can think of is her mother. They (she, Glenda and Minnie) have a meeting with the cancer surgeon tomorrow and Barbara already knows, just from looking at her, that it’s going to be bad news. She can tell from the pallor of Minnie’s complexion that despite the radical surgery her mother has undergone (and there is no surgery more radical for a woman than this, after all) they did not “manage to get it all.”

She’s been expecting bad news since the operation and now, today, she’s struggling to think of anything other than the fact that she’ll have more bad news by this time tomorrow.

She hears Tony calling her name and turns to see him crossing the road towards her. “Hello!” he says, a little breathlessly. “And how are my girls today?”

Barbara forces a smile. Her sorrow at her mother’s failing health has been making Tony irritable. He has never said so, but she can tell that he believes her joy over Sophie’s birth should somehow outweigh the illness of her mother. She can hear it in the way he insists that Minnie will “probably be fine.” She can sense it in the way he shuts off any discussion of Minnie’s cancer with a diametrically opposed discussion of Sophie’s loveliness. Tony can’t deal with death or illness. Or rather, ignoring it
is
Tony’s way of dealing with death or illness. So, “We’re fine,” is the reply Barbara gives. “She’s been asleep since I got on the train.”

“I thought we worked out that the bus was better?”

“It was packed, Tony. I couldn’t get the pram on. I waited for three buses and then gave up. So we got the train to Charing Cross.”

“Is that a picnic?” he asks, pointing at the basket beneath the pram.

“It is. Cheese and pickle sandwiches, and scones and jam.”

“Nice,” Tony says, “But you didn’t have to. I told you not to bother.”

Tony had said this morning, in his usual financially irresponsible way, that he would buy them lunch today. But it’s cheaper this way. And they avoid the risk of ending up in a pub. “I thought a picnic would be nicer,” Barbara says. “It’s such a lovely day.”

“How about the gardens?” Tony asks, pointing over the road.

“What about St James’ Park?” Barbara asks. “We’ve got time, haven’t we?”

Tony glances at his watch. “Sure,” he says.

It’s a week before the general election, just about the busiest that Fleet Street can be but he’ll take an hour today to do this. He’ll just have to make up for it this evening. Barbara’s right. It is a beautiful day. They start to walk.

When they reach Trafalgar Square, they find a rag-tag band of protestors demonstrating in support of a Labour vote. Various groups are chanting and waving banners but their messages are diverse and confused and their hearts don’t really seem to be in it.

“Can we go look?” Tony asks, patting his camera bag.

“Of course,” Barbara says, turning the pram and steering it towards Nelson’s Column.

As they reach the protest, Tony bends over his camera and starts snapping. “There don’t seem to be any other press people here,” he says, photographing a hippy with a placard which reads, “Labour Yes, Vietnam, No.”

“It’s all a bit old news, isn’t it?” Barbara says. “I think everyone’s bored stiff with the election. Plus, we all know Labour are going to win again.”

“They reckon it’s not as certain as everyone says. That’s what the guys are saying at work.”

They walk around the edges of the demonstration and Tony takes a photo of a pretty girl with a “VAT at 20%? No thanks!” poster.

“Look,” Barbara says, pointing at a small group of feminists to their right. Tony follows her regard and sees a woman with long blonde hair and a baby strapped to her chest. Stacked at her feet are a pile of placards awaiting distribution, the top one of which reads, “Keep Religion Out of My Womb. Yes to Women’s rights. Yes to Abortion. Vote Labour.”

“Some of us will do anything for a baby and others just want the right to get rid of them,” Barbara says. “It’s strange when you think about it.”

“It is,” Tony says, now turning to take a photograph of a group of policemen climbing out of a van.

Sophie, awoken by the chanting, starts to cry. “We need to get out of here,” Barbara says. “It’s too noisy for her.”

“Sure,” Tony agrees. “Just one second.”

“I’ll head off that way,” Barbara says, pointing west. “You can follow on.”

“OK. I won’t be long.”

“Before you leave, I think you should photograph
her,”
Barbara says, nodding.

“The chick with the kid?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“There’s just something funny about a woman holding a baby while fighting for abortion,” Barbara says. “It would make a good photo. That’s all.”

“You reckon, do you?” Tony says, sounding only half amused. He’s still a little up-tight about the photography thing, still hesitates between macho annoyance and gentle encouragement any time Barbara has an opinion. “Here,” he says, handing her the camera. “Take it.”

Barbara takes the camera from his outstretched hand. She’s not sure whether he’s challenging her or encouraging her, or perhaps a little of both. “I do know how to,” she says.

“I know you do. So take it.”

She raises one hand to shade her eyes from the sunlight and frowns at him. She’s still not sure what she’s supposed to do here. He seems to be in a good mood today but that, she knows, can change suddenly.

“Well, go on then,” Tony says, and so she gives up trying to work it out, shrugs and, kicking the lock on the pram wheel, crosses towards the group of women.

2012 - Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Barbara stirs her tea and steels herself before returning to the dining room, mug in hand. Pensive, she sits before the pale blue folder. It glares at her; it
dares
at her.

She sips her tea. Another minute can’t hurt, can it? There’s no one here to witness how much time she takes to find the courage to plunge into the past. It is her past, after all.

She takes a deep breath and almost moves her hand towards the folder but fails. She surprises herself with the thought,
Why couldn’t she just wait until I was dead?
And then, in a rush, before that other part of her can interfere, she flips the cover open.

So these are the ones you chose,
she thinks, addressing Sophie in her mind.
Tell me which photos you like best, and I’ll tell you who you are.
Someone said that once. Phil perhaps?

The first image: A woman in hot pants on a pushbike.

Images flash up:
A grazed knee. A kite. Another, different bike. Those bikes... Jonathan wanted one so badly.
All the boys did. What was it called again?
The brand escapes her. Pretty girls on bikes baring flesh – the seventies in a nutshell. She smiles to herself and, feeling momentarily braver, flips to the next image.

A man this time – a man in a sports car. He’s wearing a white shirt, a tie and braces.
Braces.
Her mother had a photo of her father wearing braces. Nobody wears braces anymore. What was the point of them? Why didn’t they just use a belt? The man in the photo is smoking a cigar – he looks smug and wealthy and really rather horrid. What was it they called them?
Yuppies!
Yes, that’s it. Yuppies. Young, upwardly mobile something-or-others. The eighties then. The Thatcher years. She and Tony did alright in the eighties, but it was a terrible time for most.

She flips another page. A couple of punks with mohican haircuts, kissing on Brighton pier. She had been beside him when he took it and some sweet, sickly sensual memory, the smell of candy-floss perhaps, comes back to her now. Yes, she had been there. Sophie was begging to go on the Waltzer and in the end, they had caved in. Big mistake. She had vomited all over the push chair.

She flips another page and inhales sharply. This one has caught her by surprise. She had forgotten, momentarily, why she was nervous about this. And here it is. The past rushing at her like a freight train. 1969 or 1970? She’s not sure. Election year anyway. The year of Edward Heath’s surprise victory for the Conservatives. One of the worst governments in history, wasn’t that what people used to say about Heath? If only they had known what was to come, they might have gone easier on him.

She remembers Tony taking this one. Or did
she
take it? Yes, she suspects that she did. She thinks (but isn’t sure) that she did it to spite him over some slight, real or imagined. For who, forty years later, can recall which moods were justified and which moods weren’t?

She studies the photo and feels vaguely sick. Yes, she took it. And she developed it too. Tony had been run off his feet whizzing up and down the country picking up rolls of film and typed news stories from journalists covering the election rallies. So she had developed it herself in the cellar, the first time he had ever asked her to do so. Sophie, who was upstairs in a cot, cried throughout. Yes, it’s
all
coming back to her now.