Shooting Butterflies (23 page)

Sonia's daughter had been curious. Grace should have moved face first, not backing in the way she did. Yes, a bear's claws were vicious but the bear was not. Maybe the enclosure should have been shut? Why? The bears weren't going anywhere, not while Ben was with them. The photographer should not have walked inside, backwards or otherwise. She didn't mean to. An ambulance? Not necessary, Grace said, just something to stop the bleeding until she got to the hospital. One of the animal-welfare people drove her.

Grace phoned the school from casualty and left a message for Andrew.
Might have to start dinner without me.

‘It's been one of those bad bear days,' Grace apologised as she joined Andrew and their guests for cheese.

In the kitchen Andrew hissed, ‘
Everyone
serves Marks and Sparks Chicken Kiev.'

Later, working in her darkroom, seeing her pictures emerge, she felt as if she had fought her way out from under a sticky grey membrane into the light once more. She smiled to herself and thought, I might be a hopeless bastard most of the time, but I do take exceedingly good pictures.

‘They need all the help we can give.' Grace, moving the telephone receiver a fraction further from her left ear, asked Robina who
they
were. ‘You mean Leonora and that sod Archie?'

‘The
children
, Grace. The Right to Play. I told you all about it the other day.'

‘Oh yes, you did.'

There was a pause. ‘Well, the girls at Lady Katherine Ellen are being marvellous,' Robina said finally. ‘Now, what I need you for is the grand auction.'

‘How
is
Leonora? Have you reported him to the police yet?'

‘Police? No, no, of course I haven't. I had a long talk with them both and he's agreed to go to counselling. And Leonora isn't entirely without blame. I've always said to her, “Love is an act of will. You work and then you work some more.” I'm convinced this was a one-off. He's a good man, Archie.'

‘If you say so.' Grace had met him three times and on each occasion she had had to ask Andrew who he was. It was those quiet sandy little men you had to watch. ‘Although if someone had beaten up a daughter of mine, I might think that person not at all a good man.'

‘You do see things in black and white, Grace. And there is Rory to think of. He needs his father. Archie has asked her to marry him. As you know, I've never been happy about this living together and not being married. Not because I'm old-fashioned – you know I'm the last person to worry about things like that – but because I think it signifies a deeper lack of commitment. Sir Dennis and Lady Barbara called me up and said how thrilled they were that our children were finally taking the plunge. You've never met Archie's parents, have you? Charming people.'

‘He beats the shit out of your daughter and you're planning their wedding … have you gone mad?'

‘Hardly “beating the shit” as you put it, Grace. They both lost their tempers. Anyway, our auction. I want you to do something.'

Grace gave up trying to understand her mother-in-law, asking in a tired voice, ‘What?'

‘A photograph; something really special for the auction. It was Andrew's idea. He's so proud of you, Grace, if only you knew.'

Andrew came in through the door just then and Grace turned, receiver in hand, frowning at him, pointing at the phone. ‘It really was good of Andrew to offer my services but I'm doing a project of my own right now. I've been invited to exhibit at the McLeod Gallery and I don't have much time.'

There was another pause before Robina asked, ‘What do you mean, you might not have time?'

Let's see, Grace thought, what could I have meant? She said, ‘I might not have time.'

‘Please don't make difficulties, Grace,' Andrew said.

‘I'm sorry, but as I explained I've got an important project on right now.'

‘I didn't know about any project,' Andrew said. He sounded aggrieved.

‘I told you about it,' Grace said, turning away from the receiver. ‘Then it's not that you're particularly interested, is it? You just hate to think you have been kept in the dark.'

‘You mean you won't
help
?' Robina wailed at the other end. Grace, it seemed, still had not learnt the rules. Smack small defenceless child and throw him out of the room: A OK. Refuse to do ‘one's bit': descend to hell without passing Go. Grace was feeling strangely light-hearted. How bad becomes me, she thought. How neatly nasty fits.

‘But we counted on you.'

‘Maybe you shouldn't have,' Grace said evenly. ‘Maybe just occasionally you should ask before you start counting. And, if you don't mind me saying so, I think you should pay more attention to your children and less to mankind. Mankind, on the whole, can manage without you. Your family should not have to.'

The conversation ended.

‘It's as if I never even knew you,' Andrew said.

Grace looked at him. ‘
Now
you notice. Of course you never knew me. You weren't interested in knowing me. You had decided what you wanted me to be and then you looked no further, or rather you just kept on looking past me at all the relative strangers you could dedicate yourself to, be a friend to, be good old Andrew to.'

‘And you knew me? If you did, how come you're so disappointed? No, you're as guilty as I am of projecting your favourite images on to a willing surface.'

Grace turned round. ‘You know, you're absolutely right, I am.'

‘Well, at least we know where we stand,' Andrew said. ‘So what is your precious project about, anyway? And can't you combine it with doing something for the auction?'

‘It's up to you. It's about plastic surgery. Silicone and fake bone matter and some kind of fabric surgeons use for enhancing lips which
actually is the same stuff used in ski suits. As far as I know, most of these materials aren't biodegradable; well, not as rottable as flesh anyway. And I had this vision of rows of decomposing bodies, all with perfect pert breasts and luscious kissable lips and cheekbones to die for, and I thought it would be a great idea for a series of pictures.'

‘So now you're going to rob graves,' Andrew said.

Grace, mock-patient, assured him, ‘I won't use real dead bodies, promise. I'll go to my friend Rob. You remember Rob? Does props for films. He's very successful. He'll have bodies and in all stages of decomposition too. I'm not aiming at an exact replication of what actually happens to a body in that situation, but to make people pause and think about the absurdity of what we are doing to ourselves.'

‘It's obscene,' Andrew said.

‘And, Andrew, that's exactly what I'm saying. All this surgery
is
obscene.'

‘That's not how I meant it,' he said. ‘As you well know.'

Andrew ate his supper of sausages and mash. In the early days Grace had refused to cook such food as it was so obviously bad for him, but lately she served up whatever he wanted. For a while she had even stopped putting out his vitamin supplements. It used to be a little game between them, she portioning them out for him every morning saying it was important he take them and him protesting that it was all faddist nonsense but taking them anyway; for her sake. Then the day had come when she left them in the cupboard. It was not planned. It just happened that as she was groping round for his multivitamins and his fish-oil capsules her hand came out empty and clenched in rage.

But when, on the third day, he looked at her with hurt eyes and said in a little-boy's voice, ‘Where are my vitamins? I thought you said I had to take them,' she had felt bad and had put them out again although she could not, in all honesty, say that her heart was in it.

Grace was arranging her books. She had got to her collection of biographies; row upon row of teachers and role models, line upon line of inspiration and accumulated wisdom. She sank down on to the chair by the desk, a Diane Arbus biography in her hand. How
long since she had read any of these books? Had she been frightened of what they would tell her, these lives lived truthfully and in the light of conviction? She had been lost; lately her life had been a half life lived by less than a person. Less-than-Grace had stalked the streets and the meandering lanes. Less-than-Grace had bargained with the truth and negotiated with her feelings. Less-than-Grace had been miserable and pretty damn useless.

The phone rang. It was Angelica. ‘I was just thinking about you,' Grace said. ‘I need more work.'

‘You've lost a lot of contacts. You need to get out there, network. What are you doing right now?'

‘I'm arranging my books.'

‘Now, that's useful. Beats taking photographs for getting back to work.'

‘I'm thinking about whether I should give my marriage another chance.'

‘Really!' said Angelica, who had just got divorced and wanted all her friends to be divorced too.

‘Oh, Angelica, I don't know. It must be one of the most common delusions of our times; that we can make marriage work. But when the sum of two people makes less than one … Then again, Robina was banging on about love being an act of will. Maybe she's right. Maybe if you will yourself to act lovingly the feelings will follow. In fact, I think that's how Mrs Shield came to care about me and Finn.' Mrs Shield was a good woman and when she married Gabriel Shield, she knew that it was her duty to love her little stepchildren, however hard that might be. And she knew it could not be done if you brought the mixed emotions of an adult, of a second wife, to the party. ‘She just went ahead and acted the good mother,' Grace said. ‘Whatever her actual feelings. She picked me up when I fell over and gave me a hug when I was sad. She took up the hems of my school tunics when short skirts became the fashion, and let them down again when I seemed to have grown an inch overnight. She practised cricket in the garden with Finn and she took us off for our inoculations and cheered us on at sports day. One Christmas she queued all day outside Selfridges to buy us each a Beatles doll, and she did get two although by the time she got to the front of the queue there were only Ringos left. At some time during all that
acting the part, she actually came to love us. So maybe I should give it a go; act loving and happy with Andrew and then I might wake up one morning and feel it too.'

‘Bullshit. You either love the man or you don't. There is a bit in the middle where you deceive yourself and everyone else, but that's all it is: deception.'

‘You're bitter.'

‘I was married for longer, that's all.'

‘I just think it would be good if we could get it to work again.'

‘Why?'

There was a pause. ‘Ah, well there you've got me.'

Angelica was phoning from her small office at the gallery. She was busier than ever these days, acting as an agent for several of her past and present exhibitors, Grace included. At the beginning Grace had said, ‘What about the rule that says don't mix friendship with business?'

And Angelica had replied, ‘If I had to choose I'd rather have you as a client.'

‘Thank you. And I mean that,' Grace had said.

But now on the phone, Angelica complained, ‘Not that there's been much business from you lately.'

‘That's changing,' Grace said. ‘It's like all the best romances; through all the turmoil of the past years work has been there, steady, faithful, patiently waiting by my shoulder for when I would be ready. Finally I turned round and saw it for what it is; the love of my life.'

‘So why are you arranging books?' Angelica said. ‘Why aren't you out there working?'

‘I can do both in a day,' Grace said. ‘And I need to get some order: in my head, in my house.'

‘I've got clients who do more work in a week than you do in a year.'

‘Good work? As good as mine?'

‘Some of it is better. You've lost your edge, Grace. Your energies have been sucked in other directions.'

‘I suppose marriage and fitting into a new family and a couple of miscarriages can do that to a person.'

‘Do you talk, you and Andrew? Does he know how you feel or is he
walking around convinced that he's really happily married; they can do that, you know. If only Tom and I could have talked we might still be together. That and if he hadn't been a complete arsehole.'

‘We talk,' Grace said.

‘Andrew, are you busy?'

‘I'm going over some papers for work. What is it?'

Grace stood in the doorway of her husband's study. ‘It's about the new project.'

‘What about it?'

‘I don't like talking to you while you're reading.'

Andrew put the pile of paper covered in columns of figures down on his desk.

‘You know Angelica's acting as my agent.'

‘No.'

‘I told you. Anyway, this work I'm doing for the council …'

‘What work?'

‘I told you about it. I also told you I didn't think you were listening.'

‘If you got on with it, I would listen.'

‘I'm trying to, but you're either reading or you interrupt.'

‘Do you want to talk to me or not?'

‘Just forget it, Andrew.'

‘Grace …'

‘Yes.'

‘Where are you?'

‘In the darkroom.'

‘Are you planning ever to come out of there? Only asking.'

‘What did you want?'

‘Have I got any clean socks?'

‘I don't know. Look in your drawer.'

‘Andrew …'

‘Yes …'

‘Do you ever think about the nature of light?'

‘Why do you ask such bloody stupid questions? Can't you see I'm busy?'

* * *

‘Grace …'

‘Yes …'

‘You never take the initiative any longer.'

‘I don't feel like it.'