Where the Light Falls (9 page)

‘You're going to be back in Berlin next week, right?' Her voice echoed as though she was speaking through a tin can.

‘Yes, I'm coming back,' he said. ‘But I still haven't spoken to Kirsten's parents. I'm going to see if I can contact them tomorrow.' He heard his voice as he spoke and it sounded foreign to him. There was a note of falseness to it, the voice of a person trying to convince himself as he spoke. ‘I just need to find out more about it.' He had the sudden feeling of speaking from outer space, floating there alone, his voice bouncing between satellites, across the sky and back to her.

‘Sorry, what happened? I can hardly hear you. I'm on the U-Bahn. It's snowing heavily here and I'm on my way to class. You'll be back the day after me though, won't you?
In Berlin, I mean.' Her voice climbed higher.
He thought of her in her jeans, with her long black boots pulled up over them, her cloche hat and long green coat. He loved that image of her, walking carefully across the snow, the crunch of it beneath her, a sound like finely ground glass.

‘Yes, I think so. I guess it depends. Also, I might be able to take some photos for the exhibition while I'm here—of a young girl I found a few days ago.' His voice had grown unsteady. He hadn't heard from the girl's mother and he wouldn't in any case have time over the next few days. If she did get in touch with him, he might have to delay his flight.

‘Can you call me back later so we can talk? I can't hear you properly at the moment.'

‘Okay,' he said. ‘I'll call back in a few hours.' He waited for her reply, but she was already gone.

By the time he called back, he'd lost the nerve to speak about his father's death; instead he let the conversation drift towards easier things. They spoke about her classes in Cologne, the students she was growing attached to and he was so happy to speak to her about comfortable things, he didn't raise the possibility of delaying his return flight.

12

Even after he and Kirsten broke up, he'd continued to sleep with her for almost ten years. To other people they were no longer a couple, but in secret they continued to share their bodies at night.

There was a comfort in the sex they had together afterwards and it was sex without emotion. The longer it continued, the more it became about their simple, physical needs and in the end, before he left for Berlin, it became sex that admitted its own violence. He craved it, and no other encounter during that time satisfied him sexually. The feeling he had when he was inside her was one that sat close to anger, as though he was frustrated that his attraction towards her continued.

At this time, what passed between them was much
darker, with a coarser and more manipulative intent. The stakes were higher after they'd separated, their feelings exposed and unprotected. What they felt could no longer be discussed and, in order to keep seeing each other, it could surface only in their brief and urgent acts of sex. He knew it was unhealthy, but he still felt drawn to Kirsten.

They both saw other people. They spoke on the phone from time to time and she would say things, small suggestions that might have meant nothing, but he knew her well enough to know that her words were baited hooks.

‘I just got out of the shower,' she would say. If he called her at night, she would speak breathlessly. Or she would talk about a man she worked with, her words slow and heavy. Sometimes, if he left her a message, she'd call him back and say, ‘I've been out,' her words elusive, hinting at something, designed to provoke jealousy in him, but all he felt was sadness.

Sometimes she would arrive at his apartment in the middle of the night, drunk. Often he was already asleep and he woke to the abrupt buzz of his intercom. He'd stand at the door of his apartment in his underwear to let her in and they'd both collapsed into his bed together. Those nights weren't even about sex. They simply held each other and the smell of alcohol from her breath filled his apartment as they slept.

The marks on her arms persisted; they became thicker and more pronounced, noticeable at a casual glance.

‘Kirsten, what is this?' he said one night, holding her arm up to the bedside light.

She tugged her hand back and rolled over away from the light.

‘Sometimes I worry about you,' he said to her back. Her singlet was twisted across her shoulders.

She didn't reply and stayed facing the wall. That night she left while he was asleep and he didn't see her again for months. It troubled him that this was the only way Kirsten had found to express her feelings, the only outlet for her pain. He tried to encourage her to draw again, but she said she'd lost interest in it or that she was too out of practice to start again.

They kept seeing each other this way until he found himself in his early thirties without a stable relationship and still tied to Kirsten. For many years he wanted to end it, but then he would have to face the reality of confronting his mid-thirties alone in the world. And in truth, though she was difficult, he cared too much about her to hurt her.

•

The last time he saw her—not long before he left for Berlin—they'd met for dinner in a Thai restaurant in Newtown. He got off the bus on the other side of the street and as he stood at the lights, waiting for them to change, he saw Kirsten through the restaurant window. King Street was congested with cars, buses and bikes
weaving in and out of traffic, exhaust fumes making everything appear dirty and used. Behind the glass Kirsten looked still; her only movement was to lift a small porcelain teacup and hold it to her mouth as she took a sip. From that distance, her skin was white and waxy, and as he watched her, he thought of a woman in an old Dutch painting, the expression on her face, the look of uncertainty about what she was doing there and the melancholy that clings to a person who does not know they are being observed. There was a ghostliness about her as she sat behind glass. Seeing her there, he felt a brief stab of regret that he was leaving for Berlin soon.

On entering the restaurant, he'd stooped down and kissed her on the cheek. She leant in towards him and pressed her cold cheek against his. There was a sickly comfort to the feeling, as though he was performing a habit he'd already outgrown. He sat down and poured himself a cup of tea from the warm pot on the table and the smell of jasmine rose from the steam. When the waitress arrived at their table, he ordered pad see ew with extra chilli. He liked that type of food, chilli, ginger and lemongrass, flavours that made his whole head tingle.

Normally when she saw him, Kirsten asked what he was working on, about his exhibitions and what he'd seen in the places he'd travelled to since they'd last met, but that night something had changed. She sat opposite him stiffly, her smiles small and compressed. After they'd ordered he asked, ‘So, how's work?'

Kirsten never had resumed her degree. She deferred and deferred and finally withdrew. All he knew about her job was that it was essentially administration. She typed and she answered phones. She worked for a barrister in the city and earned more than Andrew did. He couldn't understand it, this impulse she had to give up on herself before she'd really started.

‘Oh, fine. I'm fine.'

‘That's great. Getting some drawing done?' Kirsten had that rare and unusual thing, exceptional natural talent. Many people have some level of ability, something that could be worked on and developed, but she had a gift. All he did was point a camera and take a shot, his art was produced by an act that was essentially mechanical. His only skill was in finding the right subject, of being able to look at a person and know what they would look like framed.

Her mouth formed a hard shape. ‘No, I hardly draw these days. To be honest, I don't have time anymore, working full time.'

‘Then you should make time.'

‘Why bother? Why struggle for years and years to get nowhere? And it becomes too hard. I mean, it starts off and I'm enthusiastic about the work, but then to get it right becomes such a chore.'

‘Well, you definitely won't succeed with that attitude.' He noticed, suddenly, that the restaurant around them had become too loud. The group beside them
seemed to be yelling, their laughter pealed down the table like screams. The waitress placed their meals on the table. The broccoli was a sharp green, the sliced red chillies on top scattered seeds over his noodles.

When he looked up again, Kirsten's eyes were focused on him and there was a sharpness in them that he hadn't seen before.

‘So, have you found any more
strange
people to photograph?' Her words were small and sharp, aimed at him like darts.

He bit into a chilli, coughed and reached for his glass of water.

‘Strange people?' he tried to say, but his voice was weak and tears streamed down his face.

‘That's your thing, isn't it? That's what you do. You find someone who has something wrong with them and you take their photograph.' Her mouth was small and punishing.

He pressed a paper napkin to his eyes to stop them from watering. He continued eating his noodles, forcing himself to finish what was on his plate, as though not finishing might amount to some concession of defeat. She was being cruel to him and it wasn't the first time. Sometimes he thought she enjoyed this power she had over him; other times he wondered if he derived some secret pleasure from her cruelty too. Maybe he even believed he deserved it, because he wasn't able to give her what she wanted from him: a normal, domestic life.

And at some level, he knew Kirsten was right. He photographed other people's faces and traded off them. It was a background worry he always had about his work—that he was seeking out people who were in some way damaged and exposing them to light. All of his successes, he felt, owed more to his subjects than to his skill.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence and when they were out on King Street, he felt his whole face throb with heat. Kirsten waved at him, took a step back and left him alone on the footpath. He never told her he was leaving for Berlin and he'd never heard a word from her again. He had wanted to help Kirsten and the fact that he was unable to made him feel he had failed her.

13

As he lay in bed the next morning, he heard the phone ring and he thought for a moment about leaving it, letting it ring out and transfer through to voicemail. In the mornings after he woke, it always took him some time to warm to the world. But not many people had his telephone number here and it could be Dom calling. He threw off the covers and rummaged through his bag for his phone.

‘Hello?'

‘Hi, my name is Pippa Davis. I, um, looked you up?'

He didn't immediately recognise the voice.

‘Pardon?' He looked back at his bed longingly. The sheets looked soft and inviting.

‘You wanted to photograph my daughter? We met outside her school last Friday?'

‘Oh, yes. I remember now. Sorry.' The memory of the girl with the lopsided face returned to him. The thought of her produced a shudder of recognition, that he often had when he identified the future subjects of his work.

‘I looked up your website. Your photographs are—' she hesitated ‘—beautiful.'

‘Beautiful?' he said. There was something about him, some small fault in the way he was wired, that made him more comfortable with criticism than with praise. No matter how much experience he'd had, how detached and professional he could make himself sound, his photographs always made him feel awkward. Seeing his own work was like looking at his reflection—all he saw were the faults, the things he thought could be better.

‘Maybe
truthful
is a better word,' she said after a pause, and he felt more comfortable with that appraisal. ‘I'm still not entirely comfortable, though. I just worry about Phoebe and the way she looks. Sometimes I think she doesn't understand how different she is to other people. I'm not sure photographing her is such a good idea.' She sighed. ‘But Phoebe wants to do it. She's at that age, I guess. She's curious about her own looks.'

‘I've photographed many children her age. I try to involve them as much as possible in the process. Most of my models enjoy being involved.' Listening to himself speak, he sounded like a salesman reeling off a pitch.

‘But Phoebe is different to most children,' she said.
‘Because of her face.' She cleared her throat. ‘Is that why you want to photograph her, because of her face?'

‘Well, yes, I guess it is.' He wasn't used to being asked questions so directly. ‘But it's not the only reason.'

‘What do you mean?' Pippa asked cautiously.

‘I mean, it is her face. I don't know how to explain it.' He thought for a moment, wondering how to express his meaning. ‘Her face lets you see inside her.'

‘Oh, I see.' She was silent for a moment and he thought he might have offended her. He felt relieved when she spoke again. ‘Well, what is it you had in mind?' she asked.

‘I probably need her in the studio for a day or two. I usually rent a studio space in Chippendale.' He wondered if the same studio would still be available.

‘I mean, what do you intend for the photos of Phoebe? We've never been involved in anything like this before.'

It always sounded strange, whenever he tried to explain his work to other people, and it rarely made any sense to him until it was finished. He thought of the girl's face, tugged at on one side, how he'd seen her in the playground in the late afternoon light and immediately knew he wanted to take her photograph without really understanding why. He could already tell, just from watching her in those moments, that she was too self-aware to be photogenic; she seemed almost to wince at the world. The way she held on to the broken hat carefully but firmly, not as though it was something
damaged, but as though it was something that still needed to be taken care of.

‘It would be a fairly simple photograph,' he said. ‘The important part will be getting the details of the shot right, the lighting and so forth.'