The Photographer's Wife Page 7

  “You’d have to get a sponsor. Maybe talk to Pentax again.”

  Sophie snorts. “Pentax wouldn’t go near it with a bargepole. He died, remember. The return on their investment was nil once Mum had burned the photos.”

  “Someone else then. And you’d have to budget in a salary for yourself to cover running the whole thing.”

  “Right...” Sophie says, vaguely.

  “Of course,” Brett adds, smiling wryly, because he knows that this is the elephant in the room that Sophie has been pretending to ignore. “Ideally you could find a way to link your own work into the mix, make it a father-daughter thing and use it to launch your new career as an arty-farty Milly Colley lookalike. So that could make it worthwhile.”

  “You reckon?” Sophie asks, as if the idea is only now crossing her mind.

  Brett just laughs and rolls his eyes.

  1950 - Eastbourne, East Sussex.

  Barbara awakens to the screeching of seagulls and momentarily can’t work out where she is. She rubs her eyes and looks up at the unfamiliar, pale-blue ceiling, then across the room at Glenda, sleeping in the single bed beside her.

  And then she remembers: she’s on holiday. She smiles to herself and stretches with cat-like contentment. It’s the first time in her entire sixteen-year life that she has been on holiday and though they only arrived by train late last night, she’s already loving the sensation of a different bed with different sounds. She thinks about getting up to look outside but instead falls asleep again. Lie-ins are rarely permitted at home.

  When she awakens next, the sun is streaming in through the salt-splattered bay window and Glenda, wrapped in her dressing gown, is silhouetted against the blue sky beyond.

  “Morning,” Barbara says, through a yawn.

  Glenda turns her head to look back at her. She looks puffy and indistinct without her makeup but also a little less severe, a tad more friendly.

  “It’s a lovely day,” Glenda says. “I think I’d like to go swimming. Before breakfast. What do you reckon?”

  “Ooh! Yes!” Barbara says, sitting sharply upright. “Let’s do that!”

  There isn’t a single cloud in the sky as they cross the main road from the Sea View (No Vacancies) and descend the few steps to the pebble beach. “Will it be cold, do you think?” Barbara asks.

  “Freezing,” Glenda says. “But I don’t give a damn.”

  “Me neither.”

  Barbara swivels her head to take in the vista: the sun rising to the left, the vast, empty pebble beach before them, the pier to the right... It’s all so crisp, so clean, so refreshing after London. A simple change of vista can, she is discovering, make you feel like a completely different person.

  They remove their dresses revealing the one-piece swimming costumes they wriggled into before leaving, then linking hands, they run shrieking across the painful pebbles and into the murky, green water. It is indeed freezing. The morning dip is short-lived but exhilarating.

  After a fried breakfast complete with bitter, over-stewed tea and watered down orange juice, the sisters head back out and walk along the seafront in the direction of the pier.

  “I love the seaside,” Barbara announces. “I think I’d like to live here one day.”

  “I know what you mean,” Glenda replies. “But I think you’d get bored. There’s lots more to do in London that in Eastbourne.”

  “I suppose,” Barbara says, even though she can’t think of a single thing that she would prefer to “do” in London than simply being here today.

  Halfway along the pier, just after the candy-floss booth with the organ music, they are approached by a young, blond beach photographer. “Come on girls,” he says. “You’ve got to have a picture to take home to Mum.”

  And because he’s about her age and good looking with it, (Barbara loves men with beards and they’re pretty rare in 1950s England) she asks, “How much?”

  “For you lovely ladies, a shilling,” the man says. “And I’ll take three for the price and let you choose your favourite. I promise you’ll look like film stars.”

  “A shilling!” Glenda laughs. “We can get lunch for that.”

  “Oh, come on,” Barbara pleads, looking into the photographer’s blue eyes. They seem to contain a hidden smile. “It’ll be a present for Mum when we get back.”

  “We can’t afford it,” Glenda says. “You know we’ve got just enough for the—”

  “Please?” Barbara pleads.

  “Sixpence, then,” Glenda says, addressing the man. “Not a penny more.”

  The man’s mouth slips into a cute grin.

  “And we get to keep all three photos,” Glenda adds. “They’re of no use to you anyway.”

  “All-right, all-right,” he says. “You drive a hard bargain girls but because you’re both so gorgeous, I’m gonna let you have what you want.”

  Once the photos have been taken – two leaning against the railings with the wind blowing Glenda’s hair around and one posing with a fake, full-sized bull (thoughtfully provided for this exact purpose) – the man hands the girls his card, then, as an afterthought, tags along as they start to walk along the pier.

  “Did anyone ever tell you, you look like Claudette Colbert?” he asks Barbara.

  She senses that she is blushing as she replies, “No, no one ever did, actually.”

  “Don’t listen to his smooth talk,” Glenda tells her. “He’s only after a bit of slap and tickle. They all are.”

  “I’m not saying I wouldn’t mind,” the man says, shockingly, making Barbara blush again. “But you really do look like Claudette Colbert. It’s uncanny.”

  Barbara glances at Glenda and smiles coyly. “Do I?” she asks, and Glenda just pulls a face.

  “Can I take your photo over there?” the man asks, pointing to a bench seat in a small wooden shelter. “The light’s lovely over there.”

  “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 t
o 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.