He takes my hand. He speaks softly.
‘Come on. Come upstairs.’
PART THREE
Chapter Seventeen
My new camera arrives. It’s a Canon, a single-lens reflex, not quite top of the range but smaller and lighter than the one I’ve been using for the last few years. I researched it online and ordered it a few days ago. I don’t need it, it’s an extravagance, but I want to get out more, take more photographs on the street, like I used to. It was Hugh’s suggestion that he buy it for my birthday and he looked delighted with himself when he handed me the package on Saturday.
I opened it later that day, upstairs, and alone, and then took it out, on Upper Street, around Chapel Market and the Angel. I tried a few test shots, and as I brought it to my eye the action felt intuitive, instinctive. When I looked through the viewfinder it felt almost as if this is how I prefer to see the world. Framed.
I take it out again now, slung round my neck, with a zoom lens I ordered at the same time. It’s very different taking pictures on the move. I have to spot a potential shot among the chaos, and then wait for the perfect moment, all while trying to stay inconspicuous and unobserved. My shots on Saturday were poor; I was indiscriminate. I felt rusty, like a singer who’s spent years in enforced silence.
I tried not to be disappointed, though. I told myself that once I’d regained my confidence I’d find my subject; for now I just need to take photos and develop my eye. The joy of these shots is in their taking, less so in how they end up.
But then, that’s how it always was. I think back to the pictures I took in Berlin. It was easy, there. The friendships we forged were deep, people were drawn to us, our place quickly became a refuge for the rootless and abandoned. It was filled with artists and performers, with drag queens, junkies and prostitutes; they came for a few hours, or a few days, or months. I found I wanted to document them all. They fascinated me: they were people for whom identity was fluid, shifting, something they chose themselves, without being constrained by the expectations of others. At first some treated me with suspicion, but they soon realized that, far from trying to pin them down, I was attempting to understand and document their fluidity. They began to trust me. They became my family.
And always, in the centre, was Marcus. I photographed him obsessively. I took pictures of him as he slept, as he ate, as he sat in a bath full of cool water that ended up looking like sludge, as he worked at a canvas or sketched on the war-scarred streets of what used to be the East. We cooked dinners for everyone, huge pans filled with pasta, served with tomatoes and bread, and I took photos. We went to the Love Parade and took ecstasy and danced to techno with the other freaks, and still I took photos. All the time. It was as if I didn’t consider a life lived unless it was also documented.
Today I’ve come to the Millennium Bridge. It’s mid-afternoon and very hot – on the walk here the city steam seemed to rise from the streets – but at least here on the bridge there’s a breeze.
I crouch down to make myself as small as possible and set up my equipment. I drink some of the bottled water I picked up on the way here, then my hand goes back to my camera. I’m scanning faces, looking for the shot, waiting.
For what? A feeling of otherness, of the extraordinary that resides in the mundane. For a long time I see nothing that interests me. Half the people on the bridge are tourists wearing shorts and T-shirts, while the rest sweat in suits. I take a few shots anyway. I change position. And then I see someone interesting. A man, walking towards me. He’s in his late thirties, I guess, wearing a shirt, a jacket but no tie. At first he seems unremarkable, but then I pick up on something. It’s intangible, but unmistakable. I feel a tingle, my senses are heightened. This man is different from the others. It’s as if he has a gravity, is disturbing the air as he moves through it. I bring my camera to my eye, frame him in my viewfinder, zoom in close. I focus, wait, refocus as he comes towards me. He looks right at me, right down the lens, and although his expression doesn’t change, something seems to connect. It’s as if he both sees and doesn’t see me at the same time. I’m a ghost, shimmering and translucent. I squeeze the shutter release, then wait a second before squeezing it again, and then once more.
He doesn’t even notice. He looks away, over my shoulder towards Tower Bridge, and keeps on walking. A moment later he’s gone.
I stay for a while longer, but even without looking at the pictures I’ve taken I know it. I have my shot. It’s time to leave.
I go through the lobby and up to the room. Lukas comes to the door in a towel; as usual, he’s poured us both a drink – a beer for him, a sparkling water for me – and once we’ve kissed he hands me mine. I breathe him in, the deep, woody smell of his aftershave, the faint trace of the real him underneath, and smile. I put my camera down on the table. It’s the first time I’ve brought it with me.
‘You took my advice.’
‘I did. An early birthday present to myself,’ I lie.
‘It’s your birthday?’
‘Next week. Next Tuesday, in fact.’
He kisses me again. Tuesday. It’s become our day. We haven’t missed one yet, and in between we chat online. It’s almost as good, but not quite. We share each other’s lives. We describe the things we’d like to do to each other, with each other. We tell each other our most private fantasies. But Tuesday is the day we meet.
‘I should’ve known that. I should know when your birthday is.’
I smile. How could he? It’s something else I haven’t told him, something I’ve kept for myself, along with my husband’s real name, and the fact that I have a son.
But I have told him the truth about Kate.
I hadn’t intended to, but last week he was telling me how he’d known from the moment we first began chatting that he wanted to meet me. I felt guilty.
How could I reply? I only met you because I thought you might have some connection to my dead sister.
‘It’s not that simple,’ I said, instead. I decided to be honest, to tell him the truth. There’d been enough lies. ‘I have something to tell you. My sister, the one I told you about? She didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.’
That familiar look of shock. He reached out to touch me, then hesitated. ‘But…?’
I told him what had happened, that the only thing taken was an earring. I even described it to him. Gold drop, with a tiny dreamcatcher design with turquoise feathers. I told him about going to see Anna, the list of names I found in Kate’s things, the first time I’d logged on to the website. Encountrz.
‘And that’s why you came to meet me?’
‘I’m sorry. Yes.’
He held me close. ‘Jayne, I understand. Maybe I can help.’
‘Help? How?’
‘There are other sites. Your sister might have been on those, too. I could try to find her.’
It was tempting, but it felt futile, and I wasn’t sure I could go through it all again. I told him I’d think about it.