The Husband's Story (21 page)

All the same, there was nothing in the window of number twenty-seven for the keen amateur to complain about. Stan paused for a moment wondering whether, if things went well, he would go for a Rollei, a Canon, a Minolta, another Pentax or a Praktica. He'd never before imagined himself able to afford any one of them. But a combination of Mr Karlin's advances and the special discount offers made almost anything seem possible.

By comparison his own camera seemed ridiculously old-fashioned. It was the sort of thing that an industrious schoolboy might expect for a birthday present. Mounted on a tripod in the middle of a well-equipped, modern studio it would hardly be calculated to persuade any self-respecting model that she was sitting in the nude for one of England's top-notch photographers.

The door of number twenty-seven opened with a little
ping
, and Stan found himself facing a display case of exposure meters, flash bulbs, telephoto lenses and magazine-projectors. He would have liked to stay to examine them. Indeed, the proprietor recognized a potentially serious customer as soon as he saw him. He was an excellent judge of
class and summed Stan up immediately, putting him in the twenty-five-to-thirty-pound bracket with an exchange deal thrown in. He was therefore surprised when Stan enquired about the studio. It seemed somehow out of character.

‘Are you the Agency booking?' he asked.

Stan nodded.

‘Through here.' He pulled back the red velvet curtain behind him as he was speaking, and stood to one side to let Stan go past. ‘They're all ready for you,' he said.

The studio stood at the end of a short corridor. The door was open and he could hear voices. His feeling of nervousness returned to him. For a moment he wondered if he was up to it. Then he braced himself. He wasn't going to turn back now. He intended to show how much at ease he was, to demonstrate that to him nude models were just part of his regular photographic equipment.

‘Evening all,' he said as he stepped inside.

Helga came forward to meet him. She was smiling that charming smile of hers.

‘It is good,' she said. ‘We are all punctual. I will introduce you. Soon we can begin.'

‘I'm ready,' Stan told her.

Helga turned away from him.

‘This is Mandy,' she said. ‘She has only just got here. There is Denise, too. She is in there, undressing. She, too, is well-built like Mandy.'

Helga was certainly right about her being well-built, Stan thought. In her tight-fitting woollen jumper she looked enormous. Enormous, and strangely bovine. With her wide, dark eyes set rather far apart and her deep, Mediterranean complexion she had an air of authentic farmyard tranquillity. The hand that she held out to him was soft and dampish. And, when she said ‘Hullo', he noticed that her voice was throaty like a man's.

‘It is for studies of the bust that she is most excellent,' Helga assured him as though Mandy were not there. ‘She has fullness.'

‘I can see that,' he said.

For a moment he stood there regarding her. It was then that he realized why her voice was so thick, so contralto-ish. It was because she was chewing something. Whatever it was, it had got stuck round one of her teeth and with a red-nailed finger she patiently prised it free. Then
she resumed her chewing.

‘She is not yet eighteen,' Helga announced proudly. ‘Denise is one year older.'

Stan wasn't thinking about Denise, however. He was thinking about the portable lighting console over in the corner. Up to now he had only read about lighting consoles, seen advertisements for them in photographic periodicals, heard them mentioned at camera club sessions. And this evening he was actually going to use one. With the lighting console up against his tripod he would, without moving, be able to control every lamp in the studio. The prospect pleased him, and he found himself feeling glad that he had come. He was, in fact, still fiddling with the console when the door at the far end opened and Denise emerged.

She was wearing nothing but a long bath-wrap and the folds fell apart as she shook hands with him. Stan tried not to look. Not that he need have bothered. For a nineteen-year-old, Denise seemed a remarkably self-possessed young lady.

She shot a quick smile at him. It was a strictly professional smile, produced and put away again all in a single instant.

‘Got a cigarette?' she asked.

Because Stan did not smoke, it had to be Helga who gave her one. She did so disapprovingly.

‘You smoke too much,' she said. ‘Smoking darkens the teeth.' She put her hand on Mandy's arm. ‘The changing-room is now free,' she said. ‘Please to get ready.'

Excessive smoking, Stan discovered, was not Denise's only shortcoming. She seemed also excessively short of sleep. She had perched herself on one of the studio stools and, with the ash from the cigarette dropping onto her bath-wrap, she put back her head and yawned. All in all, she seemed to be pretty much at home in the studio.

That was evident when Stan started to pull one of the lamps into position.

‘No good,' she said. ‘It's fused. They haven't fixed it.'

Stan thanked her.

‘You know this place well?' he asked.

‘Should do. I'm the regular.'

‘Keep you busy?'

‘Keep
them
busy.'

The console was working perfectly, and there was now a pool of
light spread out there in front of him. At his command, he could make it intense, suffused, dim, reflected, even shadowy. And already he could see the picture forming before him. He would bring over two of the white papiermâché columns, and have the model standing in between. She would be partly in the light and partly in the shadow. Her hand would be up to her forehead as though she were in thought and her left foot would be thrust out at an angle as in ballet.

Stan straightened himself.

‘O.K. then,' he said. ‘Shall we begin?'

Denise slid out of the bath-wrap, and wiped her eye on the sleeve.

‘It's these lights,' she told him. ‘They're murder.'

As she stood there in front of him, Stan realized that he had never really looked at anyone in the nude before. He'd seen Beryl undressed, of course. But only in glimpses. Beryl had a very keen sense of what was nice and what wasn't, whereas Denise seemed entirely unaware of any difference.

‘How do you want me?' she asked.

Stan walked over to the papiermâché columns. The lighting was excellent, real brilliance on one side and a deep rich darkness on the other. The picture in Stan's mind was becoming clearer. He showed Denise very carefully where he wanted her to stand.

‘You'll have to position me,' she told him.

He didn't like actually touching her. For a start, her skin felt colder than he had expected. And now that she was close to him he could see that her shoulders were covered in a fine, white down. It was the side lamps that showed it up. With ordinary overhead lighting he doubted whether he would have noticed. But it gave him an idea. When he had finished the thoughtful study, he would bring the camera right in and shoot deliberately along the shoulder line. He might even ask her to powder up a bit. All in all, he was beginning to discover that figure photography could make a rather exciting pastime. And meanwhile, the pure classical nature of his composition delighted him. He was beginning to think of possible titles for it.
Temple Gateway
seemed appropriate.

Helga's voice broke in on him.

‘She is excellent also for
lingerie,'
she said. ‘So, too, is Mandy. They will show you.'

Stan had finished the Temple Gateway study and was busy photographing the down on Denise's shoulder-blades when Mandy emerged
from the changing-room. She was still chewing. Holding a rather creased kimono around her she sat down at the back of the studio and munched away contentedly.

It was Helga who was not content. It seemed that the agent and the salesgirl were at work within her. She got up and went over to Stan.

‘Not to forget the full frontal,' she said. ‘For centre-spread purposes.'

It was getting hot in the studio. Stan took his coat off.

Helga noticed immediately.

‘The great heat is for the models,' she observed. ‘Otherwise they go goose-pimply. It would not look pleasant.' She reached out and touched his arm. ‘But you are tired,' she said. ‘It is not good for the pictures. First, you rest. Then Mandy. After that, lingerie. And last of all, twosomes.'

‘Twosomes?'

‘Both models together. Classical and fun-shots. Both are saleable. The market is quite international.'

The session with Mandy was placid and without incident. She appeared somehow to have lost interest. Not that it was immediately apparent that she had ever had any. She merely chewed, posed and then started chewing again. Hands laced behind the neck and leaning slightly forward was the pose that Helga specially recommended. Taken from the side it was good for the fullness, she explained. She even went through to the shop for more film so that Stan wouldn't have to stint himself.

It was the lingerie studies with Denise that held things up. The lingerie was lacy, transparent and jet black. But he saw at once what could be made of it. With a little more of the lingerie and a little less of Denise, the effect could, he reckoned, be quite interesting. And with the captions all ready-made, too.
Toilette de la Duchesse
, for example, would do nicely for a back view of Denise gazing into a mirror with her hair drawn down over one shoulder and her quite remarkable bosom seen only in reflection. If, on the other hand, he turned her round so that she was facing him, smile and all, and got her to hold her hair on the top of her head like a crown,
Naughty Nineties
would seem just about right to catch the spirit of the piece.

Again, when it came to the twosomes, it was Stan's literary sense that saved him. What otherwise would have been simply another example of the sort of nude photography of which he disapproved was rendered harmless, even rather beautiful, when entitled
Turkish Harem
or
Arabian Nights.
Because Stan was naturally a rather slow worker he did not get beyond the classical studies.
Zenana Maidens, Odalisques Reclining, The Seraglio
– one after another he set them up, re-lit them, asked Mandy to stop chewing and pressed the little button. By then it was too late even to attempt the fun-shots that Helga wanted.

Not that Helga really minded. She was so eager to get her hands on what Stan had already taken that it was all that she cared about. To save time she offered to take the negatives back with her and have them developed at the agency. That, however, was something that Stan could not allow. He always did his own printing and developing and had strong views on the subject. His twenty-minute, illustrated talk on ‘The Darkroom, its Use and Misuse' had been much admired by every camera club audience to which he had addressed it.

And Stan refused to be rushed. He didn't want to see all that hard work wasted through over-hastiness. That was why he insisted on having the whole week-end to make a good job of it. Reluctantly, Helga had to agree. They would meet next Monday night, she suggested, at six o'clock as usual. Only this time it wouldn't be at Greco's. The Clansman in Charing Cross Road would, if Stan didn't mind, be more convenient. Naturally, Mr Karlin would come too, she added, if he happened to be free.

By then it was nearly nine o'clock. Mandy and Denise had put their clothes on again and gone home. Helga stayed behind to settle up with the proprietor and Stan started to walk to the station. It had been hot under the studio lamps and the evening air felt chilly.

By the time he had reached Praed Street, he was shivering.

As it turned out, Mr Karlin couldn't manage it. It was Helga alone whom Stan met in the rather brassy lounge of The Clansman. Distinctly further down the scale than Greco's, The Clansman did not appear to mind how many unaccompanied ladies there were sitting around on the premises.

Looking round him, Stan thought at once how out of place Helga looked. There was a freshness about her, almost an air of innocence, that did not seem to belong anywhere at that end of Charing Cross Road. And certainly not in The Clansman. The clientele of The Clansman was mostly middle-aged and a bit faded, the men fatter than was good for them and the women with hair that looked younger than their faces. Helga belonged to a different world altogether.

And she was certainly very encouraging.

‘You are exactly what Mr Karlin has been looking for,' she told him. ‘With the right models and with your artistic sense it cannot go wrong. The royalty payments will be most satisfactory. I am sorry about Denise and Mandy. They have now grown too fat. I will find you new ones.'

He had given her the envelope of prints that he had brought with him, and she was stroking it lovingly.

‘I know these will be good,' she told him. ‘I can feel it. They will start earning money immediately.'

‘Any luck with the others yet?'

Helga shook her head.

‘But do not worry about them. They are not important. It is with this kind that you will make your fortune.'

And again she stroked the envelope that she was holding.

Her eyes were fixed on him as she said it. Stan thought that they were the frankest, most honest eyes that he had ever seen. He couldn't bear to mislead her.

‘But don't count on me,' he said. ‘Not really my cuppa tea. I'm more landscape and costume. And nature, of course. Like my swans.'

Helga put out her hand, and rested it on his forearm. It was a small,
delicate hand, blue-veined and practically weightless.

‘Not to worry.' Her eyes were still looking into his, and she was smiling. ‘See what Mr Karlin says. Mr Karlin can make you a rich man.' She paused. ‘You are all right for money now?' she asked. ‘Mr Karlin said I was particularly to enquire.'