The Silver Age (13 page)

He could have put a stop to any of these conversations if
he’d chosen to, but curiosity always got the better of him. He followed her now
the way he might have followed a celebrated sports team from a city he’d once
lived in, maintaining a sentimental interest in her exploits. There was something
gorgeous about the way she lived her life, he had long believed, as if it were
a kind of performance art. She had created a character for herself –
interesting and dynamic, if not especially original – acting out the part with
undeniable skill and panache.

Even so, he was mildly irritated when he heard that she
was moving overseas. As usual, she had worked out a most favourable deal for
herself. She was keeping her column at the
Telegraph
, and adding to it
the role of London culture correspondent. The story of that city’s renaissance
had been prevalent in the media for quite some time: the bandwagon awaited. For
someone like her, it was a natural fit. It wasn’t jealousy he felt, exactly,
when contemplating this news, but yes, yes it was. How many times had they
mused about moving abroad? He had always wanted to go to New York rather than
London, granted, but it was still the same general idea. She could at least
have let him know she was leaving the country.

Once he’d had time to digest this latest development,
however, he saw the foolishness of his pique. Of course it was only natural
that she would want to test herself on a larger stage. Her job at the newspaper
gave her access to foreign postings that she would have been a fool not to
capitalize on. He would surely have done the same thing himself, if the timing
had been right and the opportunity there. In his New York dreams he had always
imagined the two of them going together, but there was no reason he couldn’t
still make it happen without her. And maybe he would, one day, if Natacha was
up for it.

It did not take Jenny Wynne very long to cause a ruckus
in Europe, as detailed in her dispatches. One week she was quaffing bellinis on
a billionaire’s super yacht during the Venice Biennale. The next she was back
in London covering the BAFTAs. A month later she was splashed across the French
papers after writing an op-ed in the Herald Tribune about how French men were,
contra stereotypes, hopelessly maladroit at lovemaking. The Gallic tabloids
were in paroxysms over the unsettlingly Bardot-like beauty from the North
American hinterland who had dared to voice such an insult.

He couldn’t help but read her article as an implicit
tribute to his own masculine charms. After all, if she had found his French counterparts
so lacking, then presumably it was because they compared unfavourably with what
had come before. There was another thing. If she had been so effortlessly able
to make a name for herself abroad, then didn’t that bode well for his own
chances, were he ever to decide to follow in her footsteps and make for one of
the world’s great cities? He wasn’t a femme fatale, to be sure, but then again
he was just as good in his own field as she was in hers, if not better. If she
could make it, so could he.

All of this made it especially frustrating when things
began to slow down for his photography business. Early in the new year, he’d
assumed his clients were just going through a seasonal hibernation, and that
things would pick up on their own as the weather improved. But as the weeks
went by and the assignments slowed to a trickle, he realized that the problem
was more serious than he’d thought.

One of the things he’d come to realize as a freelancer
was that the market for his services was always in flux. Just when you thought
you had the game figured out, the rules would suddenly go out the window and
you’d be left trying to figure out how the new game worked. This, he sensed,
was one of those times. The world of commerce – not just his little niche but
the system as a whole – seemed to be transforming around him through a series
of tiny shifts. A single, random example: when he went to withdraw money from
the bank one day mid-winter, he found that the instant tellers had all been
upgraded. The new design was sleeker, its colours brighter. The buttons felt
different under his fingers, more clicky or something, and cooler to the touch.
It was silly, but he found such changes vaguely unsettling, as if he’d woken up
one morning in a slightly different universe than the one he’d gone to bed in.

A small part of him wanted to chuck it all and start
over. A move to New York might not be in the cards, but there were other
possibilities. He could switch careers, become a high-school art teacher, a
firefighter, some sort of business man. It wasn’t as if his current career had
any deep loyalty to him. On the contrary, even during the good times his
clients tended to react with confused amazement whenever he suggested an
ambitious project or an increase in his day rate.

But no, he wasn’t ready to start over from scratch, not
after everything he’d invested in being a photographer to date. And so he
marshalled his energies and made a big push for new business. First, he put
together a list of everyone he knew in the industry, something he’d been
meaning to do in a systematic way for a long time. Then he started sending out
emails, making phone calls and shopping around his portfolio. He proposed photo
essays, art exhibits, advertising assignments, anything and everything he could
think of. He stressed the fact that he could produce good work on a modest
budget, that he could meet deadlines and get the job done with a minimum of
fuss and a complete absence of muss.

Within a couple of weeks, he had three small assignments
for new magazine clients, as well as a job for an agency shooting appetizing
shots of people stuffing their mouths with pizza. It wasn’t the most creative
work, to be sure, but there was a certain technical challenge in trying to
breathe life into such material. More to the point, the money was decent, and
there was the possibility of bigger jobs for the same client down the road.

He also had a bite on the art photography front. A new
gallery on Queen West had expressed its willingness to host a show for him. There
wouldn’t be space for it until the fall, but that wasn’t a problem for Stephan
because he would need that much time anyway to develop work to show. Perhaps he
could revisit his port lands project. If not, he would find a new subject,
start fresh. Either way, it was encouraging news.

April was always a shaky time of year in Ontario,
weather-wise. The snow would melt, and winter would seem to be over, but just
when you put away your parka another blizzard would come screaming in from the
north. This would happen two or three times, as if the snow gods were playing
mind games, trying to break your spirit before retreating to the high mountains
to wait out the warmer months. By the time the snow was finally gone for good,
Stephan’s business was back on its feet. There was no question that he would be
able to make rent on his loft and studio for the next couple of months, at
least. But his sense of uncertainty remained.

He was grateful to have Natacha, and for the stability
she had introduced to his life. She always did whatever she could to help him,
whether by providing emotional support or ensuring that he ate his vegetables.
During his relationship with Jenny Wynne, he had frequently come away from
encounters with her feeling drained and on edge, but with Natacha he invariably
came away calm and comforted. Jenny was empty calories; Natacha was real
nourishment. With each passing week he drew closer to her.

On a Saturday morning in May, they were lying in bed at
his place. She had to get back home, prepare for a visit from her family, but
they’d stolen a few extra minutes together.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” he said. “We could flop
around like this for days at a time.”

“Why don’t you just move in with me, then?” she said.

He started to laugh, then saw her expression. “Wait a
minute, you’re serious? But what about Elise? Or was she just a figment of your
imagination as I’ve always suspected?”

“She is not a figment, buddy,” Natacha said, mock-stern.
“But she’s been offered a contract position at the university in Heidelberg
where she’s been doing her field research. She’s going to finish up her work
here by correspondence and then stay on.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.”

Until that moment, moving in together had not occurred to
him as a real possibility, although of course it was a perfectly normal thing.
Pete and Sally had lived together for years before getting married.

“Think it over, okay?” she said. “It’s not just rent. We
could go fifty-fifty on utilities, phone bill, Internet, all of that stuff. You
could either get rid of your place or find a sublet – you might even make a bit
of money on the side.”

“Hmmm.”

“Plus, you’d have the pleasure of lying in bed with me
like this any time you wanted.”

“What if you got rid of your place and moved in with me?”
he asked. “ I mean, it is closer to work for both of us.”

“The two of us in this place? I mean, it’s a cool
bachelor pad, but it’s an open loft, and so little. We’d be at each other’s
throats.”

“I doubt that, but I guess I see your point… although
what about Gamblor?”

“I’m sure she’d adapt. She could even have her own room,
if we put her litter box in Elise’s.”

“Hmmm… she’d like that I bet. What do you think, madam?”
he called to his cat.

Gamblor was on the other side of the room, staring
intently at a potted plant of which she was fond. She looked over and meowed,
then resumed her staring.

“I think that was a yes,” Stephan said.

“And what about you? Do you agree with her?”

He pulled her closer to him and kissed her. She was so
warm in his arms, and her hair smelled like coconut-scented shampoo.

“So?” she said.

“So I think I’d better get started on that sublet ad.”

Chapter 12

On a Sunday evening late in June he went down to the lab
to do some developing. Business had been reasonably good since the worrisome
slowdown over the winter, and there were several tasks he needed to get to. He
had a couple of advertising jobs lined up at the moment, as well as some
personal stuff he thought might work for his planned fall show. He would focus
on the latter tonight, he had decided, which meant that he’d be able to do some
black-and-white developing by hand, something he always looked forward to.

Natacha had understood the need for the session, although
it had meant cancelling a planned evening of hanging out together, ordering
takeout and watching Deadwood at her place. She was never thrilled when he
started on one of his jags of working nights, because it put them on opposite
schedules. But they’d talked about how evening was his most creative time in
the darkroom, how the night’s open-ended quiet freed him up to do his best
work. She got it. Besides, it wasn’t as if they weren’t going to have plenty of
evenings together once he moved up to her apartment. On the contrary, they’d
have all the time in the world.

He arrived at the lab at around seven, and was pleased to
see that most of the darkrooms were free. As he let himself in, he smiled,
inhaling the familiar odour of developing chemicals. He was headed for Darkroom
Three, but as he walked down the hallway he saw that something wasn’t right.
The door to the darkroom was wide open, bright light spilling out into the
hall. Next to it, a bunch of equipment that had once resided within was stacked
in an untidy pile.

He found Bill inside, messing around with a bunch of new
computer equipment.

“Stephie! Haven’t seen you around much lately. New lady
friend in your life?”

Stephan blinked. “Yes, actually, but what’s all this?”

“Welcome to our new server room,” Bill said, gesturing
towards a rack of digital gadgetry.

“Looks expensive.”

“Well yeah, but I was able to get a loan for it on decent
terms. Interest rates are low, and they liked my growth strategy.”

“Growth strategy?” This didn’t bode well.

“I’m moving into digital image processing in a big way.
Making use of the latest technology. Drop a few buzzwords and you’d be amazed
how eager some banker will be to throw money in your lap.”

“But this was your best darkroom.”

Bill sighed. “It was your favourite, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was.”

“I’d forgotten that, Steph. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Bill.”

“Sure, but you’re one of my best customers, and now I’ve
gone and pissed you off.”

Bill leaned back against a small table, which groaned
against his weight, threatening to send the new desktop PC on top of it
crashing to the floor. He sighed again. “At least I still have the two other
black and white rooms left for you,” he said. “And in case you hadn’t noticed,
they’re free quite often. A little too often, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m sure it’s just a dry spell,” Stephan said. “It was
dead for me this winter, and I actually got really worried, but now I’ve got
plenty of work again. Just promise me you won’t take those last two darkrooms
away too.”

“I’ll always do film here, Steph, Scout’s honour. It’s
what got me into the business in the first place. And there are still a few
purists like yourself left who demand it.”

Stephan shook his head. “Purists” sounded like a
euphemism for something less positive. He’d never thought of himself as a
Luddite, but the evidence was mounting. “Maybe I should just pack it in, go
digital like everybody else.”

“That’s not what I was suggesting at all, Stephie – don’t
get paranoid on me. Although now that you mention it you really should try some
of this new gear. Our high-resolution printer is fully up and running now. You
can do poster-size blow-ups lickety-split.”

“Hmmm.”

“Think of how good your factory shots would have looked
printed out in full colour on a three-foot by five-foot sheet.”

To Stephan’s surprise, he found the idea exciting.

“Think it over,” Bill said. “But meanwhile, please keep
coming here with your film. You
are
still a valued customer, you know.”

“Don’t worry about that, Bill,” Stephan said. “I’m not
going anywhere any time soon.”

He pried open the first negative canister with a bottle
opener, as he had done however many hundreds or thousands of times before. The
canister’s top popped neatly off, its metal casing falling away to reveal the
coil of unexposed film within. Next, he expertly wound the film onto a plastic
spool and cut the spindle from the end. Then he inserted the spindle into a
developing tub and screwed the lid into place. He flicked on the safety lamp,
and the tiny darkroom filled with a soft red light. He’d once read that the
bridges of warships were illuminated by red lights, because they did not dilate
the eyes of the crew members and thus interfere with their night vision. The
image of that appealed to him.

As he processed the negatives – pouring each of his
chemicals into the tub in turn, then shaking the tub rhythmically to spread the
liquid evenly over the film – his mind wandered back to his conversation with
Bill. Maybe one day he would give digital a serious try. It didn’t have to
displace his film work, though inevitably it would take time and energy away
from it.

He poured the last of the fixer out of the tub, then
unscrewed the lid and removed the spool. The roll of negatives unfurled,
looking like an illustrated strand of DNA, its secrets now made visible. He
held it up to the light, to catch a first glimpse what was imprinted there.

*  *  *  *  *

Over the next few weeks he didn’t see Natacha nearly as
often as he had earlier in the year. It was mostly a work thing. Natacha had a
bunch of extra responsibilities on her plate now that construction season was
in full swing. And Stephan’s bookings with both new clients and old had
continued its upswing.

He missed seeing her every day, of course. On the other
hand, their relationship had gotten serious so quickly that it seemed only
natural, now that the getting-to-know-each-other period was over, that they
would pause and regroup. He was also secretly fonder of tuna-fish sandwiches,
ramen noodles and baked beans than he cared to admit, and felt an illicit
pleasure as he reacquainted himself with such bachelor foodstuffs in Natacha’s
absence – not that he didn’t still find her gourmet creations to be both
delicious and nourishing.

He was genuinely excited by the prospect of moving in
with her. Still eager to give co-habitation a try, he was also keen to get to
know more of her neighbourhood, with its excellent restaurants, stylish
furniture stores, and pretty side streets. Plus, it was a change, one he could
see himself stomaching with relative ease. There was still a lot of work to do
before the move could even begin, however. He needed to give notice to his
landlord that he would be leaving his condo, which still had several months
left on the lease, and to pare down his possessions, which meant putting up a
bunch of ads on Craigslist. Moving was such a headache, and he was annoyed to
be doing so again less than a year after moving in, even if it made sense.

On a Thursday evening in late July, he went down to Café
Diplomatico on College Street to meet Pete for dinner and drinks. It had been a
blazingly hot summer so far, humid and sultry. That day had been no exception,
but the evening brought with it a slight breeze, which made sitting out on the
patio a reasonable option. Their table was street-side, with an unobstructed
view of the passing crowds. Stephan could tell when a beautiful woman was
passing without looking, because Pete’s eyes would begin to drift after her.

Stephan himself remained uninterested in such things
these days. He understood that Pete’s distraction was innocent enough, and that
his friend would never dream of betraying his wife. But he himself preferred
not to even go there. He was one hundred per cent off the market.

In addition to the human crowds, the wasps were also out
in full force that evening. One of them kept dive-bombing Stephan and Pete’s
table, landing on their antipasto misto platter again and again, until Stephan
picked up his fork, on sudden instinct, and with a slow downward stroke crushed
it – with an audible crunch – into the shiny slice of ham on which it had
alighted.

“Oh my god, did you see that?” Stephan cried out in
amazement. The wasp hadn’t seen the fork’s narrow tines, it seemed. Perhaps it
had been lulled by the light shining down unbroken between them.

Pete leaned in, folded the slice of ham in half over top
of the wasp, as if closing a book.

“Enjoy your ham grave,” he said, solemnly.

Their main dishes arrived a few minutes later, and they
ate in comfortable silence for a while, savouring their food and drink. Pete
was the first to speak.

“I almost forgot – how’s living up at Yonge and Eglinton
treating you?” he asked.

“It’s not, actually,” Stephan admitted.

“Not treating you well?” Pete asked with a frown.

“Not treating me anything.”

Pete considered this. “You mean you haven’t moved yet? I
thought that was a done deal.”

“It was. It is,” Stephan said. There was no reason to be
defensive. “I just haven’t had a chance move my stuff up there yet. We’ve been
busy.”

He felt suddenly guilty, as if he’d been caught in a lie.
Which was silly – there was no conspiracy here. He’d assured Natacha that he’d
make the move happen any day now, and in response she’d casually asked him to
keep her posted.

Pete studied him with narrowed eyes. “You’re sure you’re
still going to do it?”

“Absolutely,” Stephan said. “We’re just letting things
unfold organically.”

“Organically? You mean like a marijuana plant?”

“I was thinking more like fair-trade coffee, or a
beautiful flower. Some sort of rare and valuable orchid.”

“That’s cute,” Pete said. “But I wouldn’t leave it too
long if I were you. She’s a great catch, you’ve said so yourself. She’s smart,
nurturing, has a life of her own.”

“It’s true,” Stephan said, with pride. “She really is
quite awesome.”

“Well then, all I’m saying is don’t forget that old Woody
Allen line about a relationship having to keep moving forward, or it’ll wind up
like a dead shark.”

“Or a wasp in a ham grave.”

Over the course of the following week, after giving
Natacha an official heads-up, he began to move his possessions over to her
place. She lent him her car for a few days, which made the job easy and meant
that they’d only need to rent a van for a few hours at the end of the process
to pick up his larger pieces of furniture. He took his time, trading efficiency
for ease. He felt a sense of relief now that he was going through with it, and
Natacha seemed to as well, he noticed.

One Saturday afternoon he was at home packing when he
spotted an old cardboard shoebox tucked away under his bed. Reaching an arm
into the narrow space beneath the box spring, he managed to catch the corner of
it with his fingertips. He drew the box out and, sitting down on the bed,
removed its dusty lid.

Inside he found a thicket of old negatives, some in clear
plastic organizers, others scattered loosely. There were also stacks of contact
sheets and black-and-white prints. He recognized them as keepsakes he’d put
aside over the last few years. It was strange that he was always so careful to
hang onto things, and yet so seldom bothered to revisit them after setting them
aside. If all of his old photographs, the personal ones, were to disappear in a
fire or flood, he would probably feel sad for a few days and then immediately
forget that they had ever existed.

He flipped absently through the pile, occasionally
pausing to study a print that caught his eye, or to hold a strip of negatives
up to the light for a glimpse of its contents. There were shots from parties
he’d attended years ago, sunny streetscapes, photographs of old friends he was
no longer in touch with, even a few images of Gamblor in Stephan’s old basement
apartment.

He smiled, reflecting on his last few years in the city –
if nothing else, it had been a colourful time in his life. Then his eye caught
a distinct curve peeking out from the bottom of the box. Scrabbling down
through the mess, he uncovered an old print, already yellowing and curled at the
edges. It was a shot from a series of black-and-white nudes he’d done of Jenny
Wynne back in the early days of their relationship. The shots were artistic and
tasteful – not pornographic or even particularly revealing. He felt a wave of
nostalgia as he flipped through them.

Jenny had suggested to him, in jest, that he could build
a show around these shots. It would be fodder for an amusing scandal – the
Telegraph
’s
readers were a prudish bunch, after all, and easily riled – but of course she’d
only been kidding around, pushing his buttons. The shots had been for private
consumption only, and he’d been supposed to give her the negatives for
safekeeping but somehow it had never happened.

He found the contact sheet and dug it out, along with a
handful of additional prints and a few strips of negatives. She’d allowed him
only a single roll before experiencing a sudden, uncharacteristic, attack of
modesty, he recalled. The shoot had been fun – not to mention rather sexy – and
he’d taken it seriously, carefully composing each shot. Aiming for a dark and
moody style, he had relied solely on natural light from the skylight in his
studio. Deep shadows enveloped her figure in most of the images, and her curves
seemed to melt into the darkness.