Drawing with Light (6 page)

7

‘When developing negatives, the film must be kept in complete darkness until the fixer is added. It can still be affected by the red “safe light”, so it is placed in a light-proof bag before being extracted from the film canister . . .'

Rachel reads my notes out loud. She hasn't written hers up yet. We've been learning how to use cameras with film, as well as digital, and how to develop our own negatives (black and white). I love the magic of watching images slowly appearing on the strips, and how everything is the opposite of what you'd expect: dark where it will eventually be light.

My trees, and the river sequence, and the birds in flight have come out well.

‘What's this one?' Rachel holds up the black and white photo of a blurred figure.

‘I'm experimenting with movement,' I say. ‘That's someone running along the riverbank.'

She peers at it more closely. ‘Who, exactly?'

‘Just some random person!' Why do I lie, exactly? I'm not sure; perhaps because of the way Rachel doesn't let things go. Or because it's such an early stage of me knowing Seb, it feels special and secret. There's nothing for her to get hold of in any case. Not like her and Luke, practically an item now.

Mrs Almond is taking this lesson, not Mr Ives. She's going round the tables, checking our themes for the AS-project coursework. She flips through my notebook, and then picks up the pile of new photos I've just developed and checks through them.

‘Lots of good work here, Emily.' She smiles at me. ‘You've done well to keep your project log up to date too. Some people,' she looks at Rachel, ‘would do well to take a leaf out of your book.'

Rachel sighs dramatically. ‘What kind of a mate are you? Showing me up all the time.'

‘The trees are particularly interesting, technically speaking,' Mrs Almond says. ‘They'd make a good study. Those silver-birch trunks, the willows and the back-lit beech tree. Stunning compositions. And perhaps you could contrast them with trees in more urban settings. Have a look at the work done by photographers like Graham – he's Canadian. And Adams, of course. You need to show the examiners you've researched the field. And find your own emotional connection to the material. Your original “take” on it.'

‘How can they expect us to be original?' Rachel grumbles. ‘We've only been doing Photography for about ten weeks!'

I spread out my new pictures over the table. I rearrange them, in date order of taking them. I think about doing a series of time-lapse studies: one tree, over a whole day. Or I might go back at the same time each week, from now till Christmas, and see how the light changes, and the tree too: the leaves will all have fallen by then. But what's my own connection to the material, like Mrs Almond said? The emotional link?

I work at it.

I suppose the beech tree is special because it's right next to our new house, and because it is so huge and beautiful. The birches, I just liked the look of, the way the slender trunks made silver lines, almost an abstract pattern. But there's a poem too, about birches, we read in English last summer, which I love. And Dad used to read me a poem about stopping in woods, in the snow . . . Perhaps I could cut out bits of poems about trees, and use words in some way, with the photos?

Later, waiting at the bus stop at the end of the school day, I'm still getting ideas. I'm looking at the line of sycamore trees up the school drive and that makes me think about their seeds: sycamore keys, that hang in bunches in the summer. There were sycamore trees next to the primary school and when we were in Year Three or Four we used to take the seeds and stick them on our noses and pretend to be dinosaurs.

I start remembering other things: Kat and me, making a den under an oak tree in some woods near the house we lived in when I was about nine. We piled logs up against the trunk, and wove bracken in and out like a lattice, and sat inside in the dry, listening to the patter of rain on leaves and felt happy and safe . . . Now I start thinking about it, trees have always been special to me.

I'm so busy daydreaming I don't see him till I'm actually stepping on to the bus: Seb, waving at me to join him on the seat at the back. I'm so taken by surprise I go and sit down right next to him, and before I can stop myself I've blurted out: ‘What are you doing here? Can't keep bumping into you like this!'

As soon as the words are out of my mouth I'm thinking how stupid and clichéd I sound. But he doesn't make a sarky comment or even give me his usual ironic look.

‘I'm stalking you!' He laughs. ‘Not really!'

‘Oh, well, good, I suppose. That you're not a stalker, I mean!'

‘I guessed you'd get this bus,' Seb says. ‘I was about to catch a bus back from town, but I worked out you'd be on this one after you finished school. So I waited. I want to ask you something.'

‘What?'

‘I'm taking my driving test, Friday. If I pass, do you want to go somewhere with me? In the car?'

‘You've got a car?'

‘My mum's car. So, do you?'

‘OK. Yes. Where, exactly?'

‘A film or something?'

‘OK.'

‘So what's your mobile number?'

I tell him. He gives me his. I can hardly believe it. Seb is exchanging phone numbers with me! I don't even mind the two Year Eight girls in the seat in front of us giggling and turning round to earwig and blow bubbles with gum, making disgusting noises. By the time they get off at their stop they are practically wetting themselves.

‘What's their problem?' Seb says, once they've got off.

‘Being thirteen?' I say. ‘Being ignorant?'

‘School's full of people like that,' Seb says.

‘Not in the sixth form,' I say. ‘It's much better now. All those sort of people have left.'

‘If you say so.'

‘So, what were you doing in town?' I ask him.

‘This and that.'

‘You don't give much away.'

‘No.'

‘Got a new job yet?'

‘You sound just like my dad.'

‘Sorry.'

‘You say sorry a lot, don't you?'

‘Sorry!'

We both laugh.

The bus slows down to go over the bridge. I reach forward to ring the bell. ‘Mine's the next stop.'

‘The middle of nowhere.'

‘Exactly.'

‘What time do you have to leave in the mornings?'

‘Too early. The bus goes at five to eight.'

The bus stops abruptly and jerks me forward down the aisle. ‘See you! Good luck for Friday!'

I stand at the kerb as the bus draws off. Seb waves at me from the back seat. The bus grinds up the hill: Seb's silhouetted against the lit window, still waving. My heart's all fluttery and I can't stop smiling.

Seb asked me out.

Friday we are going out together.

Seb and Em.
Sounds funny.

Seb and Emily.
Better.

I practise, all the way down the lane to the caravan field, under the trees.

Dad's home early. He puts his finger to his lips as I come in the door: Cassy is stretched out on the sofa, dozing.

I make tea. I take it into my tiny bedroom and lie on the bottom bunk.

‘This came for you.' Dad hands me a white envelope with Kat's writing on the front. ‘You're the lucky one!'

‘What's wrong with Cass?' I ask him. ‘She's always tired. She looks terrible.'

Dad looks surprised, as if he hasn't even noticed. ‘Well,' he starts. ‘She's working hard.'

‘I think you should talk to her,' I say. ‘Make her see a doctor.'

Dad doesn't respond to that. ‘Open your letter, then,' he says. ‘Tell us what Kat says.'

‘Dad! No way! It's a private letter. To me.'

He smiles.

‘Go away, Dad!'

I take a big slurp of tea and tear open the envelope.

* * *

Dear Em
How are you????? Bet it's even more freezing now in the caravan! Actually, York is much colder than Somerset! However, you will be dead jealous to know that not only do I have my own room with bed/desk/ chair/wardrobe/en-suite shower and loo but also CENTRAL HEATING!

I am sooooo happy! I am now going out with Dan, who is this most gorgeous, über-clever guy studying Marine Biology. You would absolutely love him. He has dark hair and brown eyes and is super fit. You can look at him on my Facebook.

Plus: I got 68 for my first essay which is quite good, and 72 for the practical, which is a distinction. You can tell Dad that bit. Nothing else.

Give Cassy a big hug from me. I liked the photos you sent. You have got much better in a very short time. I showed some people here who know about art and things and they say they are really good too. You should do Photography at uni if you want to. Dad might throw a fit about it not being academic enough but it is YOUR LIFE and I think you should do a subject you really love. You can think about jobs and stuff later on. Anyway, some people get jobs taking photographs, don't they? I suppose you'd have to be, like, exceptional. But if you did it with English you could do journalism or something like that. You've always been good at writing.

A job in Polly's shop sounds cool. I have been doing part-time bar work at the students' union which is OK-ish and I need the money. Science textbooks cost silly amounts, like fifty quid EACH!!! (Don't tell Dad about the job though.)

What else is happening? Are you missing me? How is the house coming along? When will it be ready????

Have you seen that boy again at the house???? Is it nice getting a real proper-letter-on-paper from your loving big sister? Send me one sometime, or better still, a parcel with stuff in it. Dan's mum sent him one, tied up in old-fashioned brown paper and string and everyone thought it was really cool!

I might go to Dan's at Christmas/New Year. He lives in London. (But I will come back and see you too, I promise.)

Loads of love

xxxxxxxxxxx Kat

I read it twice. Just for a moment I miss Kat so much my whole body aches. I know we argue and fight sometimes but she's always been there, my whole life. I can't bear it if she doesn't come back for Christmas.

I reread that paragraph.

Dan. Last time she mentioned someone, it was Simon.

It's supper time. Dad has cooked, for once. He brings the oven tray to the table: fishcakes and chips.

Cassy sits up, bleary-eyed. ‘I don't think I want anything,' she says. ‘I'll just have some toast later. Sorry, Rob.'

‘So how's our girl?' Dad asks me while we eat.

‘She's just fine,' I say. ‘Happy, working hard, she got a distinction for some essay or something.'

Dad beams. ‘That's our clever Kat!'

Later, in bed, I pull back the curtain and stare out. The darkness looks different. I wipe the steamed-up glass with a corner of the duvet cover. Thick fog has closed in round the caravan, cutting us off from the world even more completely. It swirls like smoke. Not far off, a fox barks. The sound is muffled but still distinctive: a vixen, calling. It's an eerie, strange cry. The first time I ever heard it, when I was about six, I thought it was a person in pain, screaming. We were on holiday somewhere; a cottage in the countryside, Kat and me sharing a tiny attic bedroom with faded rose wallpaper and old-fashioned pink eiderdowns.

Kat and I sat bolt upright in bed, calling Dad. ‘What's that noise?'

‘Sounds like someone's being murdered!' Cassy said, following Dad into the bedroom.

‘Thanks for that, Cassy! It's just a fox,' Dad said. ‘A silly lady fox calling for a mate.'

‘Why's it silly?'

‘Because she's made such a noise she's woken you both up!'

‘We weren't asleep,' Kat said.

‘Well, you should have been. It's very late. It's nearly ten o'clock.'

Dad tucked us back in. He left the door open when he went back out, so the light from the hall would shine in just enough to stop me being scared.

Now, lying in bed, the mist swirling outside, listening to that strange sound of the fox calling into the night, I feel weird too. It's as if everything I know and that's secure in my life is somehow coming loose. Like a boat that's been untied from its mooring, drifting . . .

Kat's so very far away, her life taking its new shape without me. And now there's Seb. And Francesca: her shadowy presence coming closer . . .

As I slide into sleep, the cry of the fox outside in the darkness seems to move right into my head.

8

Friday, Rachel and I are having lunch in the sixth-form common room.

‘You keep checking your phone,' Rachel says. ‘Who is it? The new mystery man in your life?'

I snap the phone shut. ‘No one,' I lie. Seb still hasn't texted. Does that mean he didn't pass his test, or that he's forgotten to tell me? Or he's changed his mind about going out?

Rachel tips coffee from the jar into two mugs. ‘What did your dad say about Paris?'

‘He's going to think about it. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic. He's so mean.'

‘It's not as if it'll cost him anything.'

‘Dad won't let your mum pay for me.'

‘Why not? She wants to! She offered, didn't she? It'll be much more fun if you come with us.' Rachel picks up a disgusting old bag of sugar. The spoon hasn't been washed all term and is all crusted up.

‘You'll get food poisoning,' I say, ‘if you use that!'

‘Nah. Sugar's a preservative. No bacteria can grow in it. Scientific fact.'

‘I'll have another go at Dad. And we should get jobs anyway. I won't tell him, then he can't say no.'

‘What's up? You're not usually like this with your dad.'

‘He's an idiot. Making us live in a caravan in the winter. It's insane. It's making Cassy sick already and it's not even proper winter yet.'

‘Hey, Luke!'