Unsuitable (41 page)

White Balance

Eighteen
months ago

The
wet salt smell of the sea was sharp, a shock to the head like a blast of nasal
spray.  The sky was pink, only just awake.  There was a ragged fringe of weed
on the shore that didn’t hide the lethal veins of bluebottle tails. 

She
used a telephoto lens to get nitpick close to the figure against the rock
wall.  She had to be quick.  Chris was double parked, the engine idling.  He
was anxious about getting to the hospital on time and annoyed she’d wanted to
do this, of all mornings.  She was uneasy too, but this was a normality she
wouldn’t have for a while, and it seemed a small thing to want it now.

Frame. 
The man sat very still.  He looked to be asleep.  Head dropped forward.  Not a
vagrant.  Not a homeless person.  He was dressed too well, dark jeans and
boots, a light jacket.  Maybe he’d had a hard night.  Maybe he was doing what
she did in another way - being with the morning.  Though she’d not seen him
here before, and the beach had its regular cast of characters, especially at
this time of the day.  He was out of place.  Wrong clothes.  No towel.  No look
of readiness for an early swim, or satisfaction from having already had one.

Zoom. 
She invaded his privacy further. 

When
he moved suddenly, lifting his face, looking right at her, she fumbled the
camera almost dropping it.  He unfolded; stretched his long legs out in front
of him, braced his back against the seawall near the surf club.  He had broad
shoulders rolled slightly forward - comfortable or was it defeated.  He was
young.  A man in his prime.

Zoom. 

His
head kicked back, chin lifted, face tilted to the sun.   He had straight black
hair, well cut with a lick that fell forward over his forehead.  And the look
on his face - not rested, not relaxed, not with the morning.  What she saw in
him was loss and despair.  She didn’t know why she thought that.  The set of
his jaw, the fix of his lips and the line of his chest - there was something
about him that suggested anguish.

Her
eyes could touch every part of him though they were separated by a walkway, and
a wide strip of beach, but she couldn’t shake the idea he was forsaken.  If he
could see her at all, she’d be a huddled shape on the promenade.  A voyeur
intent on pilfering his image.  He was handsome.

Zoom. 

His
hands were clasped together lying in his lap.  He had long, clever fingers with
neat nails.

Focus. 

Wedding
ring.  He was somebody’s husband.

Click.

She
lowered the camera and hobbled back towards the car.  The pain was bad this
morning.  The drugs no longer helped much.  She’d grown immune to their
floating state, their, numbing ease.

“Are
you done?”  Chris was trying hard not to sound impatient, but it bled though in
the clipped words.

She
curled up on the backseat, the throbbing too bad to allow her to sit properly;
to rest her weight on her tailbone.  “Let’s go.”

He
drove carefully, like he always did.

In
the end she didn’t post the picture of the man.  It felt far too intimate, too
much like she’d stolen his soul in a moment he’d bared it.  She could’ve done
something with his hands, but even that felt like an assault on him. 

That
and Chris confiscated her camera. 

Eventually
his image went into a backup file along with a bunch of others that hadn’t
suited her mood, or were too boring or similar to photos already used.  She
rarely looked at those images, but they were too much a part of her to bin
completely.

She
remembered the man for two reasons.  The date and the way he made her feel. 
She’d found him the morning of the surgery, as though he’d been put there for
her when she’d needed to be reminded that pain takes many forms.  He made her
feel protective.  She’d wanted to go to him, ask where he hurt, soak up the
stress in his voice and hold his hand to help him get past it.

When
she met him, she had exactly the same reaction.