Where the Light Falls (25 page)

He looked up at her, at his mother, who'd come through a difficult thing and was suddenly wise about the world.

‘You can't know why someone does something like that, Andrew. Whatever her problems were, they were bigger than you.' She paused and cut a piece from her omelette. ‘Have you ever thought that maybe in those years you spent with her, you actually helped her? That maybe you helped keep her alive?'

He tilted his head back to try to stop the tears from falling. He hadn't cried like this since he was a young boy and it felt childish to lose control in this way.

His mother came over to him and they moved together to the couch. She took him in her arms. He couldn't remember ever being held so tightly by her. It took him almost half an hour to empty himself of tears and when it was over he felt calm.

Later, he showed her out and she stood in the hall for a moment, lit from above by the halogen lights, small, pursed circles. He kissed her soft cheek goodbye.

•

After his mum left, before he went to bed, he made a call to Dom.

‘
Hallo?
'

‘Dom, it's me,' he said.

‘Hi,' she said.

‘Sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I'm flying to London tomorrow for the exhibition opening. I'll be back in Berlin a few days later.'

She sighed. ‘So, now you're coming back?' Her words were short and hot, delivered like blows.

‘Yes, probably on Saturday,' he said, speaking quickly, making the most of this new certainty that possessed him. ‘Or, I was thinking you could come to London for the opening? We could spend a few days there. We've never been to London together, it might be fun.'

‘Come to London?'

‘Yes, for the opening. You usually come to my
openings with me.' It was always comforting having her there, a reminder of who he really was.

She was silent and so he continued to speak.

‘I found out about Kirsten, what happened to her. And I took those photos I was telling you about, of the young girl. They'll be in this exhibition—I'm really happy with them. I think it's my best work for a long time. I'd love for you to see them.'

‘I don't even know what to say. You've been away for weeks—am I supposed to ignore that? Should I pretend nothing's happened?'

‘No, Dom, it's not . . . It was just . . . I'm sorry.'

‘Sorry? Sorry isn't enough right now.'

‘I found out about my father while I was here. How he died. It was a brain aneurysm; my mother finally told me about it. Do you know I always thought it was a heart attack?'

‘Your father? How could you not know that, how your own father died? Didn't you ever ask?'

‘No, Dom, I never asked my mother about it. Not until now.'

‘Well, I'm glad you found out, then.' She was silent, but she didn't hang up. ‘Sometimes it's very hard to know what you feel about things, Andrew. I had no idea you didn't know about your father's death.'

‘No, I didn't tell you. I think I was embarrassed about not knowing.'

‘Sometimes, it's like you push your feelings away.'

He paused. ‘Maybe I do. But not my feelings about you.'

‘No, not about me, but other things. And it affects me.'

‘Don't say that. I love you. I'm coming back. I've only been gone a month—nothing's really changed, has it?'

‘No, but I don't think I can do this thing where we're together, but you keep so much to yourself. If you want me to be a part of your life, you need to involve me in it. I don't want to feel like I'm living with someone who doesn't let me all the way in.'

There was a gentle click and then nothing. The silence of a dead line. Had he ruined it? He had found out about Kirsten and about his own father, but he worried that it had been at the expense of his relationship with Dom.

29

The evening of his opening in London, Andrew opened the wardrobe in his hotel room and took out his plastic suit bag. From inside, he took out his check business shirt, one of the only two formal shirts he owned and kept for occasions like this. The collar was very stiff. He unfolded the ironing board and pushed the plug of the iron into the wall socket.

He moved to the kitchenette and filled a glass of water from the bathroom tap, dipping his finger into it and sprinkling the droplets over his shirt. He pushed the warm iron across the fabric and the smell of warm cotton rose to him. There was something clean and reassuring about that smell; he smoothed out the creases of his shirt and prepared himself physically for what was to come.

He manoeuvred his arms into the sleeves, one at a time, the fabric was warm and dry and against his cool skin, it made him shiver. He moved out the door of his room and took the elevator to the lobby, where he waited for the cab. He sat on an old leather couch as firm as a muscle and watched. How much of his life had he spent this way, sitting still in order to observe other people?

In the corner of the lobby an old couple sat quietly at a table. There was a calmness around them, a stillness. Their hands were clasped on the tabletop. They didn't need to speak to each other. They were content, aware that the time they had left with each other was limited, that they had no more time to waste.

The bellboy waved to let him know the cab had arrived.

Outside the cold air grazed his lungs. He hopped in to the small black cab.

‘Hoxton, please,' he said.

Was it jet lag? As they drove, everything around him looked small, the buildings and the houses like scale models of something much larger. Above him was a sky of ceaseless grey. London had always been a place of transit to him, a city he spent a few days on his way somewhere else. He'd never stayed long enough for it ever to feel familiar.

As they neared the gallery, what he felt wasn't so much a sense of anticipation as a sense of dread. His body grew stiff with the awareness of what could go wrong; bad thoughts clung to him like tar.

He wasn't entirely sure why he did this to himself. Did he think people would only like him if he was bright and shiny and lit by success?

From his pocket, his phone gave off two quick pings. Who could be messaging him now?
His thoughts rushed towards Dom, but instead it was his mother.
Good luck! Love, Mum
. In all of this, no matter what bad decisions he'd made, it helped to know she loved him.

•

The day before, Andrew had arrived at the London gallery, where he'd met Marten Smythe for the first time. His body didn't match the authority of his voice; he was a short dumpy man with a cropped, grey beard. He had a small, lipless mouth like an animal that only eats meat. Andrew knew immediately what sort of person Marten Smythe was: the type who crowds around success and who only wants to be around things that glow.

He had the USB stick with Phoebe's photos on it in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He had never made up his mind about whether to send it over. But it didn't matter now; he had decided that he didn't want to exhibit the photos of Phoebe. He felt sure of it and, as he shook Marten Smythe's hand, he knew that he had made the right decision.

‘How was your flight?' Marten Smythe said.

‘The flight was fine. The hardest part is the jet lag.'

‘I'm sure it is. How far behind is Sydney?'

‘It's ahead, by eight hours.'

Marten Smythe cleared his throat. ‘Well, I'm not sure if there's been some hitch, but we still haven't received the high-resolution images of the girl with the face. We'll need those now, or I'm afraid we won't be able to proceed with the show.' His words sounded moderate, considering the threat they implied.

‘Yes,' he replied. He would be strong. He wouldn't be pressured into doing something he didn't want to do. He would protect Phoebe's image. He would do the right thing and he would not bend to this man's will.

‘Have you brought them with you? We really need them today, tomorrow will be too late. We need to have them printed.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes' seemed to be the only word he was capable of saying. ‘I'm sorry, I got a bit busy.' He fiddled with the USB stick in his pocket.

Marten looked over to the office at the back of the gallery where a woman was sitting behind glass. The two of them exchanged a look that implied they had discussed this beforehand.

‘If you give them to me now, we can arrange the printing for this afternoon. We have someone on standby at the printers.'

‘Yes.' He stood still for a few more moments. Marten Smythe's eyebrows twitched. Andrew reached into the pocket of his jacket. In his head, he was telling himself
that he had done enough. He had given them ten photographs that were already hanging in the gallery. They didn't need the photographs of Phoebe as well.

‘I assume you have the files with you?' Marten Smythe had his hand held out.

‘Yes,' he said.

Andrew couldn't help it. The way he had lived his life, his art had always come first. He had pursued it at the expense of everything else. He dropped the USB stick into Marten Smythe's plump hand.

•

The opening was already underway when he arrived that night at the gallery. He walked in and the room was full. There were more people than he expected and he stood on the threshold for a moment, wondering whether there was any way for him to avoid entering the room. The space was split across two levels and the walls were impossibly white. He stepped forward and forgot how loudly people spoke at openings, loud enough for their conversations to be overheard, and walking into the room he passed through several layers of sound.

Moving to the table of drinks he picked up and drank a glass of water, the sudden coldness of it making his throat seize. As he drank, he allowed his eyes to move around the room. The feeling he got when he
saw the photos of Phoebe was lofty, of the floor moving away from underneath him. It wasn't very often that he permitted himself to feel proud of his own work.

Most of the photographs in this exhibition were portraits of people who appealed to him in some way. A man who'd worked for thirty years as a ferry driver, his face an escarpment of lines.

Marten Smythe walked towards him, accompanied by a man wearing a dark grey suit. Andrew couldn't stop staring at the man's tie, a very tight knot at the base of his throat. He had crumbs down the front of his shirt, the remnants of dismantled hors d'oeuvres. He wiped his hand on a paper napkin before he shook Andrew's hand.

It was always this way at openings: the lights shone too brightly in order to illuminate the work, but they made the people around them look too visible, their features grotesque. Marten introduced them; the man had already bought one of the photographs of Phoebe.

‘Congratulations,' the man said, regarding him distantly. Marten moved away from them to speak to someone else.

‘Thanks,' he said and smiled, but his smile felt painted onto his face.

‘Where did you find the girl?'

The girl
, he thought. He had done this to Phoebe, made her into an object. Some people would look at the photo he had taken of her and all they would see was what was wrong with her face.

The woman who worked at the gallery walked towards him with a glass of champagne. She was wearing a grey woollen dress, a soft sort of wool that made him want to rub his face against it. She squeezed his arm as though she knew him and left him to talk to the man in the tight suit alone.

‘I actually found her at a school in Sydney near where I grew up,' he said.

‘Well, the photos of her are very moving,' the man said, stepping backwards, drifting from him into the crowd.

The room seemed to have filled with even more people, which made him nervous. He had the sudden urge to leave, to step out into the cool air, hail a cab and allow it to whisk him away. His name was everywhere in the room, beside every photograph and all around him everyone was talking about his work, but still he didn't feel he was anywhere he belonged.

The woman who worked at the gallery moved from a conversation she was having behind him and stood by his side.

‘You must be very happy with the result?' she said, looking up at him, stretching her neck and tilting her head upwards, like someone peering out from under an awning. Seeing this sudden vulnerability about her, he was reminded of Phoebe.

He looked into his drink and nodded.

‘I guess it might also be quite confronting,' she said.

‘Yes, I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this,' he said. Sometimes he felt he spent his life apologising.

‘The photos of that girl, they really are something, though I guess you must have known that already?'

He looked at Phoebe's face on the bare white wall. ‘I knew I had something,' he said. What was it he knew he had? In Phoebe he had seen something of himself and, by taking her photograph, he had preserved it.

‘I like her a lot. Her name is Phoebe. She's interested in photography herself,' he said and the woman nodded.

More people were introduced to him and he spoke to them. They said kind things and he tried to respond graciously. After eight, the crowd started to disperse. He reassured himself that all the people around him would soon be gone and he could excuse himself for the night. But, then, where would he go? Retreat to his hotel room where the air was cool and all the sounds were muted? It was an empty room. A room he would depart from without leaving any trace of himself.

Around him, red dots were lined up beside his photographs, small red stepping stones creeping up the walls, and he knew he'd sold more prints than he'd ever sold before at an opening. But the thought jerked around inside him, like a small metal pinball. It meant nothing to him without Dom.

He had talked himself hoarse and now there was nobody left to talk to. The room was almost empty. He didn't want to be there, but he didn't want to be alone.
What was this feeling? He could only count this night as a success, but why did he feel he was standing on the water's edge with the tide pulling away from him?