In the period of unconsciousness between the shortest day and the day after, his mind had been made new, and in the bed at the Swan a new and brilliant idea had occurred to him. An idea that would combine in a single project his two great loves: photography and the river. He would make a book of photographs that would take the reader on a journey from the source of the Thames all the way to the estuary. Or perhaps just to London. Though in fact, it might have to be in several volumes and the first might go only from Trewsbury Mead to Oxford. The essence was to start. To do it, he needed two things: transport and a darkroom. The two things could be one. While his face was still shades of green and black and purple with a scarlet thread running down his lip, he’d made his first visit to the boatbuilder to explain what he needed. As it happened, there had been a boat in the yard, almost completed, whose buyer had been unable to make the final payment. It was just what Daunt wanted, and needed only finishing and fitting out to meet his requirements. Today, nearly three months later, his skin was its usual hale colour and the scar a pink line with pairs of almost invisible dots where the stitches had been – and he had the keys to his investment in his hand.
All the way upriver, Daunt and his boat met with curiosity. Her smart navy-and-white paintwork and her brass-and-cherry fittings were reason enough, but there were originalities to this boat that had never been seen before.
‘Collodion?’ asked those who could read. ‘What kind of a name is that?’
He pointed to the yellow-orange of the decorative flourishes that framed his name and profession painted on the side of the boat. ‘This is the colour of collodion. It’s lethal. I’ve known it burst into flames, explode even, with no warning at all. And if you inhale too much of it, woe betide you! But apply it to glass, expose it to light and then – ah! then – you have magic! Collodion is the ingredient that unlocks all my art and all my science. Without it, there can be no such thing as a photograph.’
‘And what’s all that, then?’ people called across the water, gesturing to the brackets and boxes attached so neatly to the cabin walls, and he explained that this was his photographic equipment.
‘And that contraption?’ they wanted to know. Secured to the cabin roof was a quadricycle, painted to match the boat.
‘For getting around inland. And this box here doubles as a trailer, so that I can get my kit to wherever I want to be by road.’
The sharp-eyed noticed that there were internal shutters as well as curtains.
‘It’s a darkroom,’ he explained, ‘for a single ray of light is enough to destroy a photograph in the making.’
He stopped so often for conversations of this sort, handed out so many business cards and made so many appointments in his diary, that by the time he got upriver as far as Buscot and Radcot, he thought Collodion was well on the way to paying for herself already. But he had debts to repay before he could start this new phase of his business: he had come to thank the people to whom he owed his life. He had come to the Swan, and before that, this place.
It was a quiet spot on the river where a small, neat cottage stood. The garden was tidy, the front door painted green, and smoke was rising from its chimney. There was suitable mooring some twenty yards on. He tied up, came back, slapping his gloved hands together to keep them warm, and knocked.
The door opened to reveal a symmetrical brow over a strong, straight nose, flanked by distinctive angles that formed a jaw, cheeks and temples.
‘Miss Sunday?’ He hadn’t envisaged this … He shifted slightly to the side, curious to see how the light fell differently with the change of position, saw shadow flood the plain of her cheek. He felt a stir of excitement.
‘Mr Daunt!’
Rita stepped forward and lifted her face to his with an intentness in her expression, almost as if she were going to embrace him, but she only trained an assessing squint on his scar. Next she placed a fingertip to his skin and traced the scar to check how raised it was. She nodded. ‘Good,’ she said firmly, and stepped back.
His mind was preoccupied with visual matters, but he finally found his tongue.
‘I’ve come to say thank you.’
‘You have already done that.’
It was true. He had sent money in payment, thanked her in a letter for her care, and asked for information about the girl who had died and lived again. She had written in return a letter of model clarity, thanking him for the money and telling him what she knew of the child’s progress. That might have been the end of it, but his mind was unsettled by this woman who was still a visual mystery to him, for one of his assistants had come to collect him and take him home while his eyes were still swollen shut. It had occurred to him that the people at the Swan might appreciate a free photograph as a thank-you for their hospitality and that it would be entirely natural to call on the nurse at the same time.
‘I thought you might like a photograph,’ he said. ‘A thank-you gift.’
‘You’ve chosen a bad day to come,’ she told him, in the calm voice he remembered. ‘I’m busy.’
He noticed the pool of shade at the side of her nose, had to repress the urge to darken it by taking her head between his hands and turning it fractionally. ‘The light is too good to waste.’
‘But I’ve been waiting for the right temperature,’ she said. ‘Today’s the day. I can’t afford to miss it.’
‘What is it you need to do?’
‘An experiment.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘Sixty seconds.’
‘I need fifteen. Surely we can find seventy-five seconds in the day if we look hard?’
‘Presumably your fifteen seconds is exposure time. What about your setting-up? And the developing?’
‘You help me and I’ll help you. It’ll go quicker with two.’
She put her head on one side and gave him an appraising look. ‘You’re offering to help with my experiment?’
‘I am. In return for a photograph.’ The photograph that had first been conceived as a gift to her had become something he now wanted for himself.
‘It’s possible. Even preferable. But whether you’d want to …’
‘I do.’
She eyed him and a subtle alteration in the planes of her face told him that she was suppressing a smile. ‘So you will be the subject of my experiment if I agree to be the subject of your photograph – is that right?’
‘It is.’
‘You’re a brave and foolish man, Mr Daunt. It’s a deal. We’ll start with the photograph, shall we? The light will fluctuate, whereas if the temperature does it won’t be by much.’
Rita’s sitting room was a white-painted box with many bookshelves and a blue armchair. By the window, a simple wooden table held more piles of books and sheafs of paper densely covered with swift, fluent script. She helped carry boxes from Collodion, and watched with interest as Daunt set up. When all was ready, he seated Rita at this table, with a featureless piece of wall behind her.
‘Lean towards me … Try with your chin on your fist. Yes, that’s it.’
There were none of the dainty accoutrements his paying clients would have wanted: no silver brooch to catch the light, no white collar, no lace cuff. What little you saw of her dress was dark and plain. There was no embellishment of any kind and none was needed. There was only the symmetry of the line where her temples met her hairline, the strong arc of her brow, the shade that pooled in her orbit, and the depth of her thinking eyes.