Shooting Butterflies (34 page)

‘Nice house.'

‘Mrs Shield loved it. It was a real wrench for her to leave but the place had got too large. It's funny how we talk about a house getting too large, as if it had changed overnight in some teenage growth spurt, emerging suddenly with all the curtains too short and not a single piece of furniture that fits.'

‘And you, did you mind her selling up?'

‘I suppose I do have a certain sentimental attachment. All those happy childhood memories. I could show you the spot under the large rosebush where Finn and I buried our pets, until eventually the little bodies were stacked so high we had to take our funerals to the lilac hedge … only kidding. And look, there's the oak, just over there, from where I fell and broke my arm when I was ten. And you see that little shed in the corner, that's where I locked Finn up and forgot, going off to stay the night at Noah's house, so Mrs Shield called the police and reported him missing …' Grace turned to him with a radiant smile. ‘Such happy days.'

‘Sounds as if you were a truly revolting kid.'

‘Oh I was; everyone said so.'

He pulled her close. ‘I was really angry with my parents when they sold up,' he said. ‘I knew I was being selfish, and illogical too as I had left home about ten years earlier, but I still gave them a hard time. It was absolutely too much for them to cope with: six bedrooms and that large yard, and all my poor old mom had ever really wanted was one of the neat and modern handy little apartments on the outskirts of town with a view of the river. But I behaved as if it was their duty to remain the same – same them, same home, same rituals – just for me while I was free to move on and change as much as I wanted.'

‘It doesn't matter how old we get, in the relationship with our parents we're all arch-conservatives. Still, I really didn't mind Mrs Shield selling The Gables. I was perfectly happy there, but I always thought it rather a dull house. Anyway, the really big wrench was leaving Kendall. There I could stroke a wall and think, my mother touched this exact place, my handprint is resting on hers, she walked these stairs, and cooked my dinner in that kitchen; you know the kind of thing. After that I stopped being too attached. Maybe once you've been pulled away roots and all, it gets easier
the next time it happens. Actually, I wanted to live in Noah Blackstaff's house. He was this kid I hung out with. His father was dead. It's actually his grandparents' place but he stayed with them in the long holidays. The old people still live there, in that large, wonderfully gloomy old house down the lane.
And
Noah had the ghost. It wasn't his father or anything, but any ghost was better than none, in my opinion. And he wasn't even that interested. It just seemed unfair. He had Northbourne House, a ghost and a famous grandfather. The old boy's an artist; a bohemian, for heaven's sakes. Of course, Arthur Blackstaff is a very Home Counties bohemian; just enough cloak and wide-brimmed hat to fit the image to a tee at the same time as riding to hounds and knowing how to eat soup properly. Looking back, I think he was always pretty conservative – you know, the kind of guy who would pat you on the back with a “Bad luck, old chap, there but for the grace of God” if you told him you had syphilis, but would blackball you if you had Aids.'

‘You have a different definition of conservative round here.' Jefferson kissed the top of her head. She loved that he was tall enough to do that; it was nice, sometimes, to be allowed to be small. ‘I have to admit I've never heard of the guy.'

‘He used to be all the rage, as Mrs Shield would say. Mostly with the kind of people who aspire in vain to a set of ancestors for their walls. No, I'm being unfair; there's more to him than that. In his day – strange expression, that – he managed to be both popular
and
highly regarded by the critics.'

‘I take it you're not a huge fan?'

Grace shrugged. ‘It's ages since I saw any of his stuff, but no. His are the kind of paintings that shout
this is a horse
; oh, it is so exactly like a horse, every detail is right, every horsy inch of it, and yet … yet I don't
feel
it. But take Picasso's bull. I know he started off with every detail of that animal, every muscle and sinew, but when he had finished he was left with just a few lines that just screamed bullness.'

‘I don't really get Picasso.'

‘You haven't seen enough, that's all. When you have you'll fall in love with him, I promise.'

‘I'm in love already. There's no room for Pablo. In fact I believe
that right now I'm experiencing the very essence of inloveness. So, who's the ghost?'

‘Was. It's not been seen for ages.' Grace lowered her voice to not much more than a whisper. ‘She walked the gardens at night, keeping to the shelter of the trees. She was tall and slender in her flowing white robe and her hair rippled like moonshine all the way to her waist. Only one person saw her face, an old poacher, and he said she had the face of the Madonna. He swore off poaching after that, and never had another drink.'

‘My darling, are you making all of this up?'

‘No.' Grace looked up at him and shook her head. ‘Not a word.'

‘But no photographs, I suppose, of the ghost?'

‘No.'

‘As a matter of interest, has anyone ever captured a ghost on film?'

‘Some say they have. But looking at the pictures, you can't tell for sure. It could be a wisp of steam, a trick of the light or just jiggery-pokery. I think mostly you have to content yourself with trying to catch a spirit. If I have caught the spirit of a subject of one of my portraits, then I will have done well.'

‘I can't even take a decent snapshot. Truth is I've never been that interested in trying.'

Grace turned round and raised her arms, cradling his face in her strong hands, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘You know something?'

‘What?' He looked back at her, unsure suddenly.

‘Don't look like that,' she exclaimed. ‘So stricken.' She kissed him on the lips and on the tip of the nose and on each cheek, tanned even now, in mid-winter. ‘I was just going to say that you're allowed not to be fascinated by the same things as I am.'

He smiled, a little embarrassed. ‘Yeah, sure. But I feel like I should know more, that's all. I want to share in your kicks.'

‘Lots of people don't get it. I have friends who never even take a camera on holiday because they feel it comes between them and the experience. For me, it's the opposite. To me, everything is floating, unreal, until I've got my shots.'

‘You sound like a druggie.'

She laughed. ‘I've got a habit, that's for sure. But it's a way of working things out too, little things like life. We all need that: some kind of black box explaining what's actually going on. When I'm behind the lens I see differently, I see more. Things begin to make sense even if the sense is just me taking a picture. Of course, there's the fact that I'm bloody good at it – photography, that is. I mean, who doesn't like doing something they're good at?'

‘Maybe then you'll understand my choice of career. When I strapped the leg of an injured rabbit once, I made such a hash of it the poor bunny ended up being carted off for an amputation. Working as a defence lawyer on my first big case, on the other hand, I saved a guy's arse – said arse having been headed firmly in the direction of the electric chair.' He paused. ‘Though if you ask me, I'd say the rabbit was the better man.'

They went for lunch at a place some fifteen miles from Northbourne. ‘Worth it?' Grace asked as they arrived. The sun turned the old brick of the house a red-pink, ivy clambered up the walls between the leaded windows and just yards from the porch was the river where a swan made its regal progress, seven grey cygnets in her wake, through a noisy group of ducks making way like courtiers. ‘Worth it,' he said.

After lunch they went for another walk. Jefferson was carrying the Leica. He looked through the lens then he asked Grace, ‘What should I be thinking about if I were to take a picture right here?'

Grace stopped and looked around. ‘I tend to think in terms of three components.' She pointed to a woman standing on the small bridge some ten yards away. ‘You see her? OK, so she is our first component. The backdrop of the bare branches of the trees reaching into the river and the old barn is our second component. But there is more to come, I reckon. I'm never quite sure why I know this, but I'm usually right. There's a third component and it will make my picture. She's waiting for someone? You sense her impatience in the way she paces up and down a tiny area of the bridge. And the little smile that plays at the corners of her mouth; again it's as if she is expecting something good. So we wait and see if I'm right. You have to be both patient and ready to move fast, which is why,' she
said by way of an apology, ‘I got into the habit of chewing tobacco.'

‘I'm sorry I made you give that up.' Jefferson was looking at the woman on the bridge.

‘No, you're right, it's a disgusting habit.'

‘It wasn't the aesthetic aspect; you're my girl, yellow teeth or not.' He leant across and gave her a quick kiss. ‘It's your health I'm thinking of. Cigarettes are bad enough, but that shit you chew …'

‘Which is why I don't do it when you're around.'

Jefferson looked at her. ‘When I'm not around?'

‘Look, take what you can get.' Grace took the Leica from him and pointed it at the woman.

‘Won't she
mind
you staring and pointing that thing at her?'

‘She won't notice. She's in her own world.'

‘And what about her privacy?'

Grace lowered the camera for a second and turned to look at him. ‘What about it?'

‘It's that easy, is it?'

‘It has to be if I'm to go on working. Look, she's frowning now and she can't stop glancing at her watch. Before, she was gazing out across the water; now she's looking over her shoulder at the road. Who do you reckon she's waiting for?'

‘A guy?'

Grace nodded. ‘Perhaps.'

But they were wrong. A woman in her sixties came round the corner, bent low as if she was walking against a strong wind. She was pushing a baby in a buggy. Her steps were quick and full of purpose, her sturdy legs were clad in thick navy tights under a pleated plaid skirt in grey and beige, and on top of that she was wearing a green quilted jacket. Her face was broad and her short grey hair sprang back from her forehead as if trying to get away. As she walked she kept looking over her shoulder. The woman on the bridge relaxed into a smile as she ran towards them and up to the buggy, lifting the child into her arms and kissing him and holding him close. The older woman looked uncomfortable. Her stern expression softened only once, when the child grabbed at the young woman's hair, getting his tiny fingers caught. She
laughed as she gently untangled him. The boy pulled back in her arms, his gaze locked into hers, and then he too laughed and Grace got her picture.

Later she showed Jefferson the finished photograph. ‘If you wanted an illustration of true happiness,' she said, ‘that picture is it.'

‘And what if, after we left, that old woman took the child away again? What's your truth then?'

Grace thought of that vexed line,
the camera never lies
. The look on that young woman's face when she held the child in her arms was one of pure joy. But there had been a prequel of anxious waiting; there had been the furtive manner in which the older woman had looked around her all the while. Maybe, as Jefferson said, the child had been taken away again. Maybe he had been pulled screaming from his mother's arms and strapped back into the buggy while she had to stand by, helpless, her eyes filled with pain and longing, as she was parted from her child once more.

‘Truth is such a slippery beast,' Grace said to Jefferson. ‘Have I captured a moment of joy, or just an interlude in suffering?'

‘What about a happy moment in sad times? After all, that's what life's like for most of us.'

His dark hair shone. His eyes were intensely blue underneath arched dark brows. His chin was firm and his upper lip was a perfect Cupid's bow. He stood waiting for her on the high street, leaning against an open-topped sports car. Grace, looking at him through the lens, smiled approvingly; he was the picture-perfect romantic lead in countless women's dreams. ‘Say orgasm,' she said and closed the shutter.

She was playing with stereotypes; comforting, dangerous stereotypes, beloved aids of the propagandist. She wanted to see how much of the personality you could obliterate simply by concentrating on the stereotypical elements of your subject.

‘I want you to pose as the Each and Every Lover,' she had said to Jefferson. ‘You shall be the hero of every romantic novel, every Hollywood film. If I get it right, whatever makes you uniquely you will not be seen. I would like to be able to place the photos side by side and for no one to notice that they are all of the one man. My aim is to obliterate you.'

‘You will have to. Or I will have a hard time explaining what I'm doing in your photos.'

‘C'mon, what are the chances of anyone who knows you back home seeing my pictures in some small gallery over here, or even seeing it's you? Anyway, if the shots work out, you won't be yourself; you'll be my creation, my wishfulfilment.'

‘Aren't we just talking disguises?'

‘Oh no. There will be no wide-brimmed hats or false beards. All I'll be doing is giving our common prejudices a helping hand. And if you confound me and remain you, then I won't show them.'

The only thing Jefferson did not like doing was nothing. He was really bad at nothing. Other than that he was easy-going. He did not protest one bit when she made him put on a check shirt and a Barbour jacket she had borrowed from a photographer friend. He was perfectly happy to pose some more, chin held high, pipe in hand, legs sturdily apart and feet planted firmly on
the fake soil imported into the studio she shared with four other photographers, a black Labrador at his feet. He made a great fuss of the Labrador, borrowed from the same friend who had lent the jacket, and this delayed the shoot as the Labrador – whose name, inevitably, was Bertie – got over-excited and peed on Jefferson's green gumboots.