Czytaj książkę: «The Girl Behind the Lens»

TWO

Joanna sat on the floor surrounded by photographs and eyed each one critically. The college exhibition was to take place in a month’s time, but she had been working on the collection all semester and felt that she’d taken enough shots to put together an impressive composition. The collection consisted of a series of black-and-white shots depicting brides in various guises. Joanna had picked up a wedding dress second-hand. She’d liked the slightly worn look of it, the way the lace trimming had frayed at the edges. She had wondered as she fingered the silk who had owned it, and why she’d decided to give the dress to a charity shop.

The brides stared up at her as she arranged and discarded the pictures. She picked up her favourite, an angular shot of a young woman in a bridal dress sitting on the window ledge of an empty room. The girl’s reflection had been caught in the glass, her wistful expression captured perfectly in the lens. Beneath the window, a battered suitcase anticipated the girl’s departure.

Joanna stood back and directed the head of the halogen lamp over the pictures scattered on the living room floor. There was a bride running down the street, her hair falling loose and her bouquet to the fore of the picture lying in a puddle on the ground. Another showed a bride walking in a narrow street with the battered suitcase. Her back was to the camera and she held her dress up with one hand to reveal a pair of Doc Martens on her feet as she walked the street slick with rain.

Joanna smiled. The girl in the photo was a good friend, and they’d had some fun during the shoot. The girl hadn’t modelled before, but her pale skin and slight frame had been exactly what Joanna had been looking for in a subject and she had finally persuaded her to do it. Joanna was just placing this photo next to the first when there was a knock at the door. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, which confirmed her suspicions. It was after eleven o’clock, too late for any caller. She turned out the halogen light, which she hoped had not been visible through the thick curtains, and made her way stealthily towards the window. Through a chink in the curtains, she peered out. The security light had clicked on. That, in itself, wasn’t unusual, next-door’s cat often set it off, but she couldn’t see anyone and, just as she’d begun to wonder if she’d imagined the sound, a pounding on the knocker confirmed the presence of the late-night visitor.

Joanna crossed the room, eased the door open and stepped into the hall. She listened for any sound upstairs, but heard none. The knocking had not woken her mother. Joanna pressed her eye to the spyhole, and saw a woman standing in the porch. She wasn’t anyone that Joanna had seen before, and she wondered, as the woman raised the knocker for a third time, if she had the wrong house. Exercising caution, she decided to find out.

‘Who is it?’ she called, mouth close to the door.

She watched as the woman at the other side paused, looking directly at the spyhole as though she too could see through to the glass, and finally spoke.

‘Angela?’ she said.

On hearing her mother’s name, Joanna decided that the woman was no threat. She removed the chain and opened the door so that they were standing opposite one another. Joanna gauged that the woman was about her mother’s age. She was quite tall and held herself in an almost regal manner.

‘I’m looking for Angela. This is Angela Lacey’s house?’

‘Yes, but I’m afraid my mother’s not here. Can I help you?’

The woman hesitated; clutching her handbag in one hand while the other remained in the pocket of her camel-coloured coat.

‘Do you know when she will return? I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. I must speak to her … I know it’s late but …’

‘I’m sorry, but are you a friend of my mother?’

The woman smiled a strange smile. ‘A friend, no … I wouldn’t say that. Your mother knows … well, knew … my husband.’ She trailed off, eyes glistening.

‘Look, would you like to come in? She … she is here. It’s just that she’s in bed, but seeing as it’s important I can wake her.’

Joanna stepped back and the woman entered the warmth of the hall. Joanna showed her into the living room where her photographs were scattered on the floor. She saw the woman’s eyes dart around the room, taking everything in. They rested on the photos.

‘What’s your name?’ Joanna asked.

‘Rachel. Rachel Arnold. You can tell your mother it’s about Vince.’ She was busy plucking off one leather glove as she spoke. Joanna nodded and told her to sit down.

As she climbed the stairs Joanna wondered who Vince was, and how he was connected to her mother. When she’d reached the top of the stairs she turned on the light in the landing and eased open the door to her mother’s room. It was in darkness and she could hear her breathing heavily in sleep.

‘Mum.’ Gently, she touched her shoulder. Her mother stirred slightly and Joanna whispered to her again, louder this time.

‘What? What is it?’ Angela said, partially sitting up. Her voice was thick with sleep.

‘There’s a woman downstairs. She says she needs to talk to you about somebody called Vince?’

Joanna’s mother sat up suddenly and pushed the duvet from her. ‘Vince?’

‘Yes, her name’s Rachel something. She’s waiting in the living room. Do you know her?’

Angela ran a hand through her hair. ‘What time is it?’ she said.

‘After eleven … I didn’t know whether to answer or not … it’s so late and … do you know someone called Vince?’

Her mother stood in the middle of the room and cast about her. She picked up a blouse from the back of the bedroom chair and then put it down again. Joanna took her dressing gown from a hook on the bedroom door.

‘Here – put this on,’ she said.

Her mother slipped into the dressing gown and tightened the belt. She sat on the edge of the bed and stuck her feet in her slippers. ‘She’s in the living room?’

‘Yes. I had to invite her in. She looked kind of upset … and I couldn’t leave her on the doorstep … not like that.’

Her mother nodded, took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair again to flatten it. Joanna followed her from the room. Her mother paused at the top of the stairs and she almost walked into her.

‘Look, maybe you should stay here,’ her mother said.

Joanna hesitated. ‘Will you be all right? I mean … who is that woman? Why would she call so late?’

‘Just someone from the past … please, wait in your room, Joanna. I’ll explain everything later.’

Joanna nodded, but her mother didn’t look at her. With one hand on the banister and the other lifting the end of her robe she hurried down the stairs.

‘Rachel, you’ve rung me twice already. I’ve told you, I haven’t heard from him.’

‘I know. I’ve come to tell you … Vince, he’s … he’s dead.’ The woman’s voice wavered.

‘What … what do you mean? How could he?’

The living room door closed, and Joanna crept down the stairs in an effort to hear what followed.

‘They found him. This morning the guards came. They’d found his body in the canal, trapped beneath the ice. Some man out walking saw him.’

Joanna moved further down the stairs until she was almost in the hallway.

‘What happened? Did he fall in? Jesus, I … Did you see the body?’

‘No … Patrick went to identify him … he said it was better if I didn’t … the body had been in the water for at least a week, they said. It’s not how I want to remember him.’

Joanna listened, but she heard no comforting words from her mother. Instead there was silence, broken finally by the other woman. ‘That’s … that’s her isn’t it. That’s …’

‘Joanna, yes. My daughter.’ Ice in her mother’s voice. Then: ‘Why have you come here, Rachel?’

‘Because I thought you should know … because of her … it seems like the right thing, doesn’t it? I mean now that …’

‘Now that he’s gone, you mean? No, I don’t think it does. She need never have known, but you’ve decided to see to that, haven’t you? I think that’s why you’ve come here … to cause trouble … some kind of revenge, now that you don’t have Vince to stop you. My God … have you been saving it up all these years?’

Joanna descended the last few steps of the stairs. She had never heard her mother so angry. She wanted to intervene, to know who the woman was, and why the death of this man should concern her. She stood in the hallway and stared at the living room door, reluctant, yet willing herself to open it.

‘How could this possibly be revenge?’ Rachel Arnold said. ‘He’s dead, Angela. Don’t you get it? If you must know, then yes, there is a reason why I’ve come. It’s because of this … it was among his things and there’s only one place he could have got it.’

‘I don’t know anything about it.’

The woman said something else, but Joanna didn’t hear. There was silence then for a few minutes. Joanna wondered what they were doing, her mother and the woman. Were they carefully avoiding each other’s eyes? Was the woman wishing she’d never come?

‘What’s this?’ she heard the woman ask.

‘They’re Joanna’s. She studies photography. She’s putting a collection together for an exhibition.’

‘They’re good, very good. Did you encourage her?’

‘No. Must be in the blood, mustn’t it?’

‘Will you tell her?’ the woman said.

‘I don’t have much choice now, do I? If I know Joanna, she’s probably already heard half the conversation.’

Joanna moved back from the door and furtively made her way up the stairs. She was trying to understand what she’d heard. She had a feeling that she knew who Vince was, but she needed to hear her mother say it. She sat on the top step of the stairs and waited to hear the living room door open. She wanted to listen to the rest of the conversation, but she didn’t dare. It was unlikely that the two women had much more to discuss now that the woman had said what she’d come to say.

When the door eventually did open, Joanna withdrew into the shadows of the landing. Her mother spoke in a low voice as the woman stepped into the cold night.

‘I’m sure you wish I hadn’t come,’ the woman said.

‘Too late for that now, isn’t it?’

‘He’s being released tomorrow. The funeral’s on Tuesday if you want to tell her … I don’t expect you to come.’

‘No, I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t.’

The woman said nothing to deny it, and the next sound Joanna heard was the woman’s shoes on the tarmac before her mother closed the front door. Joanna waited for her to call her, to say something, to explain, but there was silence from downstairs and when she looked down through the banisters, the hall was empty.

Slowly, she descended the stairs. Her mother was sitting in her armchair in the living room with her head in her hands.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Joanna said.

Her mother shook her head and looked at her hands clasped in front of her.

‘How did you know this Vince then?’

She waited for an answer. Her mother cupped her hands to her mouth and exhaled a breath that she must have been holding. It hissed through her fingers and a sound like a sob broke from her throat.

‘He was your father,’ she said.