Where the Light Falls (26 page)

Only the gallery staff remained and they had started packing away the tables and chairs around him. They moved quietly and swiftly, in a hurry for the night to be over. Marten Smythe was seeing the last guests down the stairs. It was a night that did not belong to them. Why did he put himself through this? For these fleeting moments of glory, after which everyone went back to their own lives and he was left to himself?
He longed to speak to Dom.

He walked to a wall and looked up at one of his photographs: a woman whose lips didn't quite meet when her mouth was closed. He'd already sold three prints. It had taken him years and years of work, gradually learning how to take a photograph like that, with hours and hours of practice to perfect his technique and passing through every disappointment, every rejection, in order to come through the other side. The only thing that mattered to him was that he could find a way to keep doing this.

The woman from the gallery walked towards him. ‘Should I call you a taxi?'

He nodded. He couldn't avoid it any longer. There was no reason for him to stay. She helped him down the stairs, her arm under his, and out to the cab, like he was a very old man being assisted to his last chair.

•

The taxi stopped outside his hotel, but he didn't go in. He walked instead to the Thames, navigating by some instinct his body had to find its way to water. The air outside was frigid and dry. When he reached the Thames, he walked along beside it, the water a dark and listless void. It was still light, although the sun had set, the city lights illuminated the night sky. A jogger wearing white paced towards him and offered a nod as he passed. Andrew looked at his watch. It was after ten. He wondered what such an existence was like, working hours so long you had to squeeze these ordinary activities into the corners of your life. That was one way to live and he had chosen another and he couldn't even say that one was preferable to the other, but at least he lived with the choice he had made.

On the opposite side of the river, Westminster was rimmed with light, its stony walls seamed and ornate. Ahead of him, the London Eye loomed, small capsules on a round wheel, shimmering and still. On the water a boat glided by, silent and sparkling with light. These were all photographs to him; pictures from postcards. But he understood now that photographs were a necessity to him, that every photograph he took was a protest against the type of silence Kirsten had taken to her grave.

•

That night, he slept better than he had expected to, a sleep that was thick and dark as though unfolding behind
a heavy curtain. When he woke, he realised it was almost eleven in the morning. He stood and opened the curtains; light flooded in. Cool, creamy European light. The light he loved to take photographs in.

He showered and went downstairs for breakfast, and when he entered his room again the telephone was ringing.

‘Hello?'

‘Andrew?' It was Marten Smythe. ‘We were worried you might have left the country already,' he said. Andrew couldn't tell whether or not he was joking. ‘You weren't answering your mobile.'

He picked up his phone from the bedside table; the screen was blank. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘The battery must be flat.'

‘Never mind,' Marten said. ‘Have you seen the paper today?'

‘No,' he said, wondering whether there had been some sudden catastrophe he hadn't heard about, a cyclone or tsunami on the other side of the world. Perhaps Marten wanted to warn him of it in case he was heading to the airport.

‘There's a great review in
The Guardian
,' Marten said.

‘Oh, okay.' He looked at his unmade bed as he spoke and felt a sudden urgent need to straighten it. He tugged the sheet up over the pillow as Marten read from the review. He listened, but he couldn't make sense of the words.

‘I don't want to talk it up, but sales are strong, especially the one of the girl. I think we're going to sell every
edition before the week is out,' Marten Smythe said before he ended the call.

Andrew went downstairs and asked for a paper.

‘Which one, sir?' a young man with red hair said. Even his eyelashes were orange.

‘
The Guardian
, if you have it.'

‘Certainly,' he said and disappeared, reappearing with the folded paper.

Andrew read the review on the way back to his room. The photograph of Phoebe had been printed with the review and seeing it there shocked him; to see it on a gallery wall was one thing, but to see it in a newspaper meant it was available for all the world to see. It was a whole new level of exposure and he felt he had to show this to Pippa and Phoebe.

He read the review through. There were two sentences he read over again.

Spruce's subjects are flawed, but the broken faces that dominate his work are in their own way perfect. He gives his subjects careful attention, assiduously rendering each face. When you finally turn away from his photographs, it is conventional beauty that starts to seem strange.

It was true that the flaws were what he loved. He saw the flaws around him, in Dom, in his mother, in Phoebe, in Pippa and even in Kirsten, and he felt he was somewhere he belonged. To him there was more honesty in broken things than in things that looked shiny and new.

He took a photo of the article on his phone and sent
it to Pippa by email. He felt he had to own up to what he'd done.

He decided he'd go to the airport and see if he could take an earlier flight to Berlin, not really thinking beyond the fact that he wasn't prepared to wait any longer. He packed his suitcase so quickly that, as he took the tube to Heathrow, he was worried he might have left something behind. The stations as they slipped past sounded familiar: Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Knightsbridge, names that sounded miniature and playful, like words that had been taken from a children's verse. It was after four and, around him, the other passengers were silent. They were commuters, dumbstruck from their day at work.

At the airport, he wheeled his bag to the sales desk, where he asked whether there were any flights to Berlin. There was one seat available on the next flight and he pushed his credit card across the counter. By the time he held the boarding pass in his hand, all he could think of was Dom.

30

He boarded the plane and sat in his seat by the window, watching as the bags were loaded below, impatient to take off. Taking the magazine from the seat pocket, he flicked through the slippery pages containing advertisements for luxury goods. People felt their richest when they travelled. He looked at the photos designed to seduce. He was glad he had freed himself from having to take pictures like this, telling small but inviting lies about the world.

As the plane lifted from the ground, he felt a sudden lightness, as though he was now, after weeks of procrastinating, on his way to solving all his problems. Optimism flooded through him like warm mead.

A little less than two hours later, the plane was circling over Berlin. He could just make out the cranes,
yellow and orange struts perched next to buildings. It was a city permanently under construction, building and rebuilding itself, always conscious of the ruins from which it had come. From above, the Spree, silver in the sunlight, sliced through Berlin like a corrugated blade.

He retrieved his baggage then boarded a bus to the city centre. There was something comforting about moving through streets he knew and the familiar voices around him.

Instead of going straight to their apartment, he got off at Alexanderplatz and walked through Mitte, seeking out the familiarity of the streets there. He wanted to visit his studio first, the place where he'd spent most of his time in Berlin. He wanted to regain that sense of belonging he'd had before he left. How fleeting the feeling was; it came and, the moment he got used to it, he lost it again. Around him, Berlin was a patchwork of ugliness and beauty, a city that had survived a terrible history and had become something different and good. He loved this broken city.

When he reached the Spree he looked down at the water, which was dark and still. The metal rail along the edge felt frozen cold. He couldn't imagine wanting to submit to that darkness, the way Kirsten had submerged herself in the lake. He started walking towards his studio and on his way a group of young Australian girls with long hair passed him and their easy accent broke his concentration.

He walked through the front door and up one flight of stairs. He could never reconcile the grey exterior of the building and its sharp, definite lines, with the expansive spaces inside. The rooms in the building were big, cavernous and cool, ideal for studios. When he worked there, he liked being able to hear the movement of other people in the rooms above and beside his studio. He often thought when he was there of bees in a hive, working separately but together, towards a common purpose.

He unlocked his studio and the room was as empty as he'd left it. As he looked around he saw it contained no trace of him. He came here each day, he laboured, agonised over photographs or ideas he had for them. He failed constantly and he hated himself for it. And then, each night, he returned home to Dom. Her love gave him permission to fail.

His phone rang.

‘Hello?'

‘Andrew? It's Pippa.' He felt suddenly nervous, worried that she'd be angry at him for allowing Phoebe's image to be printed in a newspaper. ‘I got your email.'

‘The review?'

‘Yes. Phoebe was impressed too. It sounds like the exhibition was a success?' There was a sudden quavering in her voice.

‘Yes, I suppose it was.' He shut the door of his studio and walked out into the shadowy hall.

‘Aren't you happy?'

‘Happy? I don't know if that's the right word. Maybe more like relieved.' There were old glazed tiles lining the walls around him, a pattern of creams and a crimson so dark it might have been drawn from blood.

‘Yes, I think I know what you mean.'

‘You weren't upset, then?'

‘About what?'

‘That they put Phoebe's photo in the paper?'

‘I suppose I was aware something like that might happen.'

He sighed. ‘I didn't tell you, but I was thinking about not exhibiting Phoebe's photographs at all. In the end, though, I felt I had to go through with it.'

‘I'm glad you did. The photos are striking. Sometimes when I look at them I think it doesn't even look like Phoebe at all.'

‘I guess. I don't know.' He said his next words without really formulating them; they were words he had been thinking around. ‘I used to think photographs were my way of speaking.' He wasn't sure why he was telling her this; for some reason he thought she'd understand.

‘Your photographs are a beautiful language.'

‘I thought photography could be everything I needed. But they are no substitute for conversation. Or laughing. Or touch.'

‘I suppose not.'

There was a pause. Neither of them spoke, but there was no discomfort in their silence.

‘Phoebe's here. Would you like to speak to her quickly?

‘Sure,' he said, switching the phone to his other ear.

‘Hello?' she said, as though the word were a question.

‘Hi, Phoebe. How are you?'

‘I'm good. My photograph was in the paper.' She sounded much younger on the phone than she did in person.

‘It was, I'm sorry. I didn't know that would happen.'

‘I don't mind. I like the photo.' She was quiet for a moment. ‘I've been using the camera you gave me. Mostly I've been taking photos of plants. I really like leaves, the under-side with all the veins.'

‘Leaves? I'm not sure I've ever photographed a leaf.'

‘I think I understand why you take photos now.'

‘Oh yeah?'

‘Like the photograph of me. I'll never be like that again, will I? I'll always be changing,' she said.

‘Yes, you will.'

‘Because I'm living and it's not. I like the camera, but maybe I won't be a photographer when I grow up. Maybe I'll be something else instead.'

‘What sort of thing?'

‘Still something like what you do. Something that lets me say what I feel,' she said, loudly and clearly.

He closed his eyes and smiled, looking at the ceiling where watermarks had gathered in unusual shapes.

When they were finished talking he stood up and
moved towards his old Rolleiflex, still sitting there on the shelf. He picked it up and it felt metallic, the surface rough. The camera was a box of mystery given to him by his father that he hadn't been able to put down since.

Speaking to Pippa and Phoebe he understood he'd caused no permanent harm. Maybe he'd even in some way helped.

•

He took the U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor and walked the familiar path to their apartment, his suitcase bumping along the grooves in the cement as he pulled it behind him.
Thud, thud, thud
, it sounded at regular intervals, like a measuring wheel. He'd walked this street so often he had the feeling that he was doing nothing unusual; he was returning home after a day's work and Dom would be as happy to see him as she always had been.

He crossed the street, walking on a diagonal. Since he'd been there last, the earth had tilted on its axis, moving back towards the sun. A feeling rose in him, a good feeling, a warm one. Such happiness in these moments before he had suffered disappointment, such bliss when all he had at his disposal was hope.

Not far away, the train thudded over its elevated track, the racket of metal and bolts that held it together. Along the side of the apartment building he saw graffiti, large swollen letters in green and silver, painted there
in the black of night and now catching the last light of the day. What would Dom say to him now? Would she allow him to resume their love?

He buzzed the apartment instead of using his key. The noise was sudden and crude. Through the intercom he heard a voice, but one so far away it sounded like the trace of a voice, carried off by the wind.