The middle-aged couple finally chose a frame for their painting of ducks flying from a green pond and once they had gone the woman moved to the counter.
A thick woollen ruff on her sweater held her jaw high and tramlines of green wool ran over her slight breasts and hugged her waist. Pleats fanned out from her cream-coloured skirt and reached below her knees. It was clingy and tantalizing and yet oddly demure and oldfashioned. Beneath it her calves were on the slim side and she wore white sneakers. Her mouth was wide and thin, the top lip slightly askew, slightly down-turned. Her face was firm, her nose prettily upturned, her cheekbones prominent and her jaw-line solid. Black hair trailed down to the small of her back.
She moved easily, gracefully, accustomed to the flat heels, her long thighs moving against the cream. She was five ten or eleven but looked even taller in her slender frame. There was something youthful about her, her features, her movement, her fitness, which made her seem even younger than she was, which Mr Lawrence put at around the late twenties, and there was a sign of perplexity in her bright eyes, as though this moment was perfect but the next uncertain.
On her long finger were two rings, an engagement and a wedding, and as she placed her slim, almost bony hand, on the polished counter, he noticed that they were slightly worn, fifteen or twenty years old. Mr Lawrence gave them a long look and shrugged before looking up to meet her.
Her fixed gaze softened to a perfunctory yet nervous smile and in a voice that was full of London she said, “Mr Lawrence? Can you help me?”
Of course he could.
“Photographs lie,” he told her.
As he made his way to The British, hugging the pavement beneath the slate-grey sky and the grey slate roofs and the stacks of clay chimney pots lined up like advancing soldiers, he reflected on the encounter. Photographs lie; the shadows give a false impression. They find form where there is none and nothing of subtle form. And what is more, they will never probe beneath the surface for hidden expression, they will never explore a sensation or the temper of either the artist or his subject. There is no art in a reflection. If there were then a mirror with its reflection would be a work of art. The art lies entirely in the passion behind the image, the discovery of the truth, or the lie.
She frowned, puzzled, and threw him a look that indicated his sentiments were wasted.
But he continued.
A camera will give you the moment, something that might bring back the memory, if you like, but nothing more. And what is more, it will not give you the truth of the moment, or the lie, and it won’t live and breathe and excite you. And what is even more, ultimately it will leave you cold, wanting more.
They'd already discussed the fee and it didn't seem to bother her. She'd offered a deposit that wasn't necessary.
“I understand you take on commissioned work,” she had begun. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes, when I am not busy.”
“Well, are you busy now? My friend Helen…”
“Mrs Harrison.”
“Mrs Helen Harrison,” she agreed. “Showed me the painting you did for her. My husband liked it, rather. I thought, perhaps, it would make a nice Christmas present.”
“Ah, Christmas, yes, it's coming. But my dear, the oil wouldn't dry in time. We'd be pushed to get all the sittings in.”
She seemed downhearted.
He scratched his chin and said, “On the other hand, perhaps…” “Oh, could you?”
“The portrait of Mrs Harrison turned out rather well. I was rather pleased with it.”
“Well then, will you fit me in?”
“I will have to check my diaries.”
“You have more than one?”
“Dear girl, you might not know this but there is an increasing demand for original work. People are fed up with vacant prints and copies. Framed in expensive frames it is only the frame you pay for.” Another couple in the shop looked across as he turned up the volume. The thought of prints had always raised his voice.
They discussed sittings and arranged the first. He wrote it carefully in one of his diaries.
“What shall I wear?”
“Wear? Clothes?” Now Mr Lawrence looked downhearted.
“Oh, you didn't think…? Not like Helen, for goodness sake?” She blushed. He hadn’t seen an Indian blush before and it tickled him.
He said sombrely, “I see. Or rather, I shall not see.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Low heels,” he said.
She walked from the shop. The pleats of her cream-coloured skirt swayed gently with each certain step. The old-fashioned bell rang out her exit and a block of chilled December air came in to fill the space. On the cold road to The British a Jehovah’s Witness or some other such nonsense stopped him in his tracks, a spotty teenager in a cheap suit. His bright smile and wondrous eyes offered to share the secret of life. “Can I show you the way to true happiness, Sir?” An American or Canadian accent came at him from between flashing white teeth. “Don’t be absurd.” Mr Lawrence made to push by.
But the boy persisted. “Have you ever thought about our Lord Jesus, Sir?” As Mr Lawrence groaned, lost for real words, the youngster saw something in his eyes that unsettled him and he at once stood aside. “Have a nice day, Sir,” he said then moved away, quickly.
On the road to The British Mr Lawrence thought of the girl again; she kept coming back like a tickly cough.
“You said your husband liked it, rather. Is that rather than you?” Her eyes had narrowed fractionally; each held the glossy mahogany-coloured reflection of her prey. Her lips parted in a sudden smile and revealed a line of straight white teeth. These people from the subcontinent and Africa have such wonderful teeth, thought Mr Lawrence, as he tightened his lips. People from the USA had wonderful teeth too, but they paid for theirs.
She had said, “Yes, I liked it too. You caught her expression just right.”
“Which expression was that?”
“The one on her face.”
“Of course.”
When she walked from the shop the cream pleats of her skirt swayed gently with each step. The cloth, tight on her boyish behind, clung to her every move. The old brass bell rang out her exit and the cold air rushed in and he shivered even though in his chest there was something beginning to beat again.
He made a decision. It would be Madras tonight, after the pub. The girl had left him with the curious flavour of India.
Much later, when he ordered, he was still thinking about her. “Chicken Madras with Sudan One, Para red, Orange Two, Rhodamine B and red chalk dust.”
“Ahhh! You are speaking of illegal additives, isn’t it? That is a very fine English joke, Sir.” The waiter leant forward and in a conspiratorial tone added, “You will be noticing that I am serving the salt in these very small dishes. That is because somebody has stolen all my salt-cellars, isn’t it?”
Once a week he closed the shop at noon. His usual custom was to have lunch at The British then go off to spend his hard-earned, Brown-taxed pound, but the woman was due for her first session and that meant everything was going to be hurried. Still, it meant a change to the routine: shop first and then lunch.
The way women change your life. A little flash of the eyes, a beguiling smile, a hint of coyness… The colonel was right. They should come with a health warning.
Beyond The British, perhaps a hundred yards or so, was Robot City, a supermarket owned by one of the country's richest families but it didn't sell much kosher food. Maybe they didn't shop in their own shops. Maybe they knew something. In Robot City, with its forty tills and plastic merit cards that kept a note of what you ate and how many times you defecated – assuming that you used the average seven point four squares of Andrex a time – the robots shopped. They shopped for buy-one-and-get-one-free and nutritionally balanced diets containing all the additives and chemicals that were absolutely safe for human consumption.
As he paused by the fish counter he wondered whether the fish farmed around Sellafield tasted any different, perhaps hotter, and whether one day they might leap from the Irish Sea as a ready-cooked meal.