The Photographer's Wife (9 page)

“We’re not paying for any more photos,” Glenda tells him. “So you can just buzz off, now.”

“These are just for me,” the man says. “To remember Claudette here by.”

“Aren’t you worried about all the film?” Barbara asks. She knows that film is expensive.

“My mate’s dad’s got a shop,” the man tells her. “I get them for free. Developing too. Go on. Go sit on that bench there. Just for a couple of shots.”

Barbara fiddles with her hair, then crosses the pier to the bench. When Glenda starts to follow her, the photographer says, “Hang on a mo. Just let me get one of Claudette on her own.”

“It’s Barbara, actually,” Barbara says.

“Nice to meet you, Barbara,” he replies, bending over the viewfinder of his very professional looking Rolleiflex. “I’m Tony.”

“And I’m Glenda,” Glenda tells him, hand on hip. “Not that you care.”

“That’s lovely,” Tony says, and just for a minute Glenda thinks he’s referring to her name.

“Turn a bit to the right so that the sun... that’s it. Lovely! … So are you two sisters, then?”

“We are,” Barbara replies.

“I knew it. You both have real star quality. And turn the other way now,” Tony says, and as Barbara does so, she sees that Glenda is leaving them to it, already heading back along the pier.

“Glenda!” she calls out. “Wait!”

Glenda wiggles her fingers over her shoulder. “Have fun, sis’,” she says. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t. I’ll meet you back at the hotel for dinner.”

“Gosh,” Tony says quietly, his voice smooth and cheeky. “Lucky me!”

“Glenda!” Barbara shouts, but really she’s rather glad that her sister ignores her.

The photos taken, Tony and Barbara continue to the end of the pier where they lean over the railings and look into the swirling depths. The air is filled with the iodine smell of seaweed.

“The sea’s really cold,” Barbara says, digging a fingernail into the thick, pocked paintwork of the railings. “We went for a dip this morning, with Glenda.”

“You have to go in the afternoon,” Tony says. “Wait till it’s warmed up.”

“That’s what I said too.”

"So, are you two on holiday?” Tony asks.

“Yes. We’re only here for three days. More’s the pity.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. ’s lovely. The air’s so fresh and it’s got the sea and everything,” Barbara says. “Do you live here all year round?”

Tony nods. “It’s fun in summer but it gets a bit boring in winter. I like it when the waves are all crashing around though.”

“Glenda said it’d be boring in winter. She said there’s more to do in London. But I’d still rather live here, I reckon.”

“Where abouts are you?”

“The East End. Shoreditch.”

“You got a boyfriend in Shoreditch, then?”

Barbara looks away, closes her eyes briefly, then takes a deep breath and replies, “No. I haven’t. What about you? Have you got a girlfriend?”

“No,” Tony says. With a grin, he adds, “Not yet, at any rate.”

They walk around the end of the pier and, from a booth, Tony buys a packet of chips, thickly cut and smothered in salt and spicy, tangy vinegar. These they share as they head back to land. “Chips always taste better out of newspaper,” Barbara says, licking her fingers.

“You’re right. They do.”

"So, is that your actual job?” Barbara asks, pointing at Tony’s camera.

“No. It’s just a hobby, really,” Tony says. “I make some pocket money with it though. Especially on bank holiday weekends. As long as I don’t cross paths with the proper photographer, I’m OK. He chases me off his patch sometimes. But my real job is a courier. I deliver packages on a motorbike. Things that are too urgent for the postman.”

“Gosh, you’ve got a motorbike?”

Tony shakes his head. “They lend me one for work. A knackered old thing it is. A Royal Enfield from the war. It sounds like a machine gun and it’s a bugger to start.”

“It must be fun though.”

“It’s OK when the sun’s out,” Tony says. “Bleedin’ horrible in winter though. I have to go all the way up to London sometimes. Maybe I’ll come visit you next time.”

Barbara glances at her feet. “Maybe,” she says.

“D’you fancy a cuppa?” Tony asks. They are walking past a workman’s cafe.

“I had better not,” Barbara says. “Glenda’s being a bit funny about money. She says we’ve got a limited holiday budget.”

“This is on me,” Tony says. “Come on. I’m thirsty.”

The air inside the cafe is steamy and laden with the greasy fumes of the fried breakfasts the workmen around them are eating. They buy cups of thick, sickly tea from the counter and slide into two window seats. Tony wipes the condensation from the window with his sleeve so that Barbara can see outside – a generosity of gesture that does not go unnoticed. “There you go,” he says.

“Thanks.”

"Where are you staying?” Tony asks.

“A bed and breakfast. On the seafront. The Sea View.”

“They’re all called that.”

Barbara laughs. “They are! We knocked at two Sea Views before we found ours.”

“My mum runs a guesthouse too. Ours is called Donnybrook,” Tony says.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why Donnybrook?”

Tony shrugs. “Search me. I think it’s somewhere in Ireland or something, but it was already called that when we moved here.”

“And your dad?”

“He drives lorries. Long distances. He’s away a lot. Which is alright by me.”

“You don’t see eye-to-eye with him, then?”

“He’s alright, I suppose. When he’s sober. A bit handy with his fists when he isn’t.”

“Oh, that’s not so good.”

“What about your folks?”

“Mum’s a seamstress,” Barbara says.

“She does sewing and stuff?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

Tony nods. “And your dad?”

Barbara sighs and swallows.

“Sorry,” Tony says. “I didn’t think. Was it in the war?”

Barbara clears her throat. “He’s not dead,” she says. “He just never came back, really.”

“He’s missing?”

“No. He never came home to us, I mean.”

Tony is frowning, so Barbara tries to explain the inexplicable. “I don’t know that much about it, really. Mum never lets anyone talk about it. But I think he met someone else. Someone told Glenda that he was living in Harlow working as a builder or something. He’s got a whole new family now.”

“And you never go and see him?”

Barbara shakes her head. “No.”

“Never?!”

Barbara turns to look out at the street. The window is already misting up again, so she wipes it with her hand. “Can we talk about something else, please?” she asks.

“Sorry,” Tony says. “Me and my big mouth. Famous for it, I am.”

“It’s OK,” Barbara says. “But I’d rather talk about something else, that’s all.”

“Sure. So what shall we talk about?”

“Tell me about Eastbourne. Have you got a lot of friends here?”

“Oh yeah. Loads,” Tony says, sipping at his tea. “It’s a very friendly place, is Eastbourne.”

“Do you go dancing and stuff?”

“In summer, sometimes. They have some good ones at the Winter Gardens. D’you like dancing, then?”

“I think so,” Barbara says.

“Maybe I could take you,” Tony suggests.

“Maybe,” Barbara says, daring to wink as she says it.

Though it’s naughty, Barbara does not return to the Sea View for lunch that day. She sits with Tony at the water’s edge on Eastbourne’s (now-crowded) beach and throws pebbles into the water. She rides with Tony on a donkey. It’s supposed to be for children only but Tony knows the donkey man so it’s alright. And exactly as the clock-tower begins to chime, Tony says, “It’s five.”

“It is. I should go back and find Glenda. She’ll be worried.”

“Can I kiss you, then? Before you go, I mean.” Tony asks.

Barbara flushes a deep shade of puce as she stops walking, brushes her hair from her eyes, and then summoning all of her courage turns to face him. “Do you really want to?” she asks.

“Of course I do,” Tony says. “You’re a cracker, you are.”

“D’you really think so?” Barbara asks. “Or do you say that to all the girls?”

Tony nods. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for a girl who looks like Claudette Colbert,” he says, dramatically. “Maybe you’re the one I was waiting for.”

Barbara squints at him. “Maybe just a peck then,” she says.

On the train home, Glenda tells her, by way of warning, that she needs to realise it’s just a holiday romance. Barbara turns from watching East Sussex slide by to face her sister. “Why would you say that?” she asks.

“Because I don’t want you moping around when we get back,” Glenda says. “It’s just a holiday fling.”

“How would
you
know?” Barbara asks. “You’ve never had a holiday fling. Or a holiday for that matter.”

“It’s happened to friends of mine, alright? Tony forgot you ever existed the minute you got on this train. And you’ll forget all about Tony the–”

“We saw each other every day. He gave me these flowers,” Barbara says, nodding at the small bunch of roses lying on the seat beside her. “I think he really likes me.”

“He probably stole those from somebody’s garden,” Glenda says. “And he wanted to get into your knickers, that’s all. You don’t know what men are like yet. But you’ll learn.”

“That’s a horrid thing to say,” Barbara says. “I think you’re just jealous!”

Glenda shakes her head knowingly and turns to look out of the window. They are creaking into a tiny station called Polegate. She doesn’t say anything more on the matter because, though she is utterly convinced that Barbara will never hear from Tony again, Barbara has hit the nail on the head. This is the first time in her life that a man has focused his attention on her little sister rather than on her. So yes, she
is
feeling jealous.

The photos arrive that Thursday morning (Tony used the excuse of sending them on to obtain Barbara’s address). Enclosed in the envelope with the three rather good holiday snaps is a handwritten page. “I think you’re the most cracking girl I’ve ever met,” it says. “I think I’m in love with those melancholy Colbert eyes of yours. Please tell me I can come and visit you soon?”

Barbara stares at herself in the mirror and wonders if she has melancholy eyes and if that’s a good thing. But the two-room apartment they occupy, above the laundry where her mother works, is squalid and Barbara is too ashamed to let Tony see it. So she borrows the train fare from Glenda and only two weeks later, telling Minnie she’s visiting a new girlfriend, Diane, she heads back to Eastbourne.

On the train down she ponders the fact that if she were to marry Tony, she’d have to live in Eastbourne. She’d avoid the three a.m job at the bakery her mother has been pushing her to take, she’d escape the horrible rooms above the laundry, and she’d get to live at the seaside, all in one fell swoop. She feels a bit guilty for being so calculating but nothing ever appealed more.

On arrival, The Donnybrook looks exactly like the bed and breakfast she stayed in with Glenda, all flock wallpaper and winceyette sheets. Being on a side road set back from the sea-front, it doesn’t have a sea view, but with Tony’s mother, Joan, run off her feet, and his father, Lionel, away driving somewhere, Tony is able to sneak in and out of her room pretty much at will. Which makes it the best four days and nights that Barbara has ever spent.

By day, they wander along the beaches and hang around in the seafront arcades with Tony’s friends Hugh and Diane.

Hugh is a dry, charming, permanently-suited proselytising communist, while Diane (who lives above the photo shop and constantly smells of developer fluid) is a tearaway Tomboy with perfectly straight, floppy, black hair and thick, dark eyebrows that really need plucking.

But what with Hugh constantly trying to steal kisses from Diane, and Diane nonchalantly laughing at his advances, they are great fun to be with. And the air and the light of Eastbourne are as fresh and invigorating as ever.

Barbara worries that Diane might have eyes for Tony but when she asks him about it he says, “Don’t be daft. She’s a mate. I’ve known her since I was three or something.”

Barbara still thinks that she’s right though, and decides that maybe she just needs to nab Tony quickly. Maybe she needs to get there before Diane does.

When Barbara gets home that Sunday evening, she finds Glenda preparing stew on the little Bendix cooker and Minnie repairing the frayed collars of shirts from the laundry.

Barbara drops her bag and pecks her mother on the lips.

“Here, holiday girl,” Minnie says. “Take a bunch of these will you? Just the ones from the top of the pile. Missing buttons. Otherwise I’m never gonna get through ‘em all.”

Barbara nods, slips off her coat and scoops some shirts from the pile before retiring with the sewing box to the armchair. She’s tired from the journey home. She would have liked to have had a cup of tea first. But she knows better than to argue.

"How was Eastbourne?” Minnie asks.

“Lovely,” Barbara says, already cutting a length of cotton and threading a needle. “Not as hot as when Glen and I was there. But it was sunny.”

Minnie nods and tips her head sideways, prompting her to continue.

“Diane’s Mum was really nice,” Barbara continues, launching herself into the lie. “And their guest house was almost exactly the same as the one we stayed in, only farther from the sea.”

“And they didn’t mind having you to stay, then?” Minnie asks, her voice doubtful.

“No,” Barbara says, putting on a thimble, selecting a matching button from the tin and starting to sew it into place. “And we helped making beds and things. I did washing up too.”

“You did?” Minnie says, sounding even less convinced.

Barbara senses that she is on the verge of being rumbled. It’s hard to pull the wool over Minnie’s eyes. She swallows with difficulty and tries to concentrate on the sewing.

“Shall I put
all
of these carrots in, Mum?” Glenda asks, and Barbara knows that this is her attempt at providing a distraction. Glenda too, senses the danger.

“Just use your common sense,” Minnie says, then addressing Barbara, "What else did you get up to? Tell me more. Tell me everything.”