Where the Light Falls (11 page)

He put the photographs back inside their plastic sleeves, because he was worried, now, that he might cry, knowing he upset the woman with whom he'd finally found a love that he could sustain. He looked up into the gaping space over this cubicle that stored all the things he owned and hadn't taken to Berlin. He felt something in his throat each time he swallowed, like a piece of broken china lodged where his Adam's apple should have been.

When he looked up again, a young boy was standing at the door of his cubicle. He was wearing yellow from his neck to his feet, a baggy outfit like a sack that was not fitted to his body. He was playing with something in his hand that was connected to a cord and he had a collar of fur around his neck. It took Andrew a moment and a tilt of his head to understand the boy was wearing a lion's suit. The boy couldn't have been much older than six or seven, but Andrew could already see in his face the
trace of the adult he would become; the man he would grow into was already waiting to devour him. He found himself wanting to tell the boy to make sure he enjoyed this time he had as a child, to make sure that he was aware of it, because he couldn't know how quickly it would pass.

‘Are you going away too?' the boy asked. His hair was parted to one side, brushed that way while it was still wet. Andrew could see the teeth marks where the comb had been run through his hair. His hair was the white sort of blond that cannot stay that way. When the boy moved closer to him, he smelt clean and alkaline, like soap.

Andrew shook his head. ‘I live on the other side of the world. I'm only back here to visit.'

‘Where do you live?' the boy said, sceptical, and he reached for the photographs of Dom in their plastic sleeves. Andrew had forgotten what it was like to be a child, to believe that all the world belonged to you.

‘Berlin, in Germany,' he said. He wasn't sure he should be having this conversation with a child now. At that moment, he wasn't sure he could muster the energy he needed to be kind.

‘My pop's from Germany. He was born there. He came to Australia on a boat.' This was a child's world, a world in which everything refers back to you. ‘We're going to America to live. My dad's got a new job there.' He pulled the hood up over his head and there were two triangles on top with smaller, pink triangles inside. A
lion's small ears. ‘He doesn't know how long for, though.' He looked at Andrew uncertainly.

‘That's a long way. I hope you're taking a plane?'

‘I've flown before, you know.' As though the boy suspected him of assuming he had not. ‘Sometimes they give you chocolate and it's in the shape of the plane,' he said and turned his head, looking at something that Andrew couldn't see from where he stood.

‘Wow. I've never had chocolate like that before,' he said, taping the box of photos closed. When he looked up again, the boy had left.

He had all he needed: one saucepan, a frypan, some cutlery, a few bowls and plates. He could live this way. As it turned out, he hardly needed anything at all. He sat in his mother's car, unable to turn the key in the ignition. The car smelt of synthetic strawberry from the fragrant cardboard leaf his mother had hung from the rear-view mirror.

He was aware that he had made a decision to leave Berlin suddenly and this decision was one he now regretted. He wondered, sitting in his mother's car, whether this was why he'd taken those photographs of Dom. Whether he had known in advance that one day he might sabotage his own happiness. Maybe he didn't trust himself and he'd taken these photographs in order to be able to hold on to Dom in this one, significant way.

He drove out of the warehouse, negotiating the ramp with a thump, and he saw the boy in the lion's suit standing
beside the boot of a car with a man. The boy gave him a curious look as he passed and he understood his sadness was confusing to a boy of that age. For the first time in his life, his own feelings frightened him. It was about Kirsten and now it was also about Dom. Everything he thought he knew about the world, the things he had relied on, seemed to be collapsing around him.

It rained on his way back to Leichhardt in his mother's car; the downpour was so heavy that the water sluiced across the windscreen between the strokes of the wipers. He could see the red tail-lights of the car in front of him and every time he stopped at the traffic lights, he found his eyes had filled with tears.

15

He called Stewart that afternoon. In the background was the heavy thud of a jackhammer working through cement.

‘Hey, Stew, it's Andrew. How are you?'

‘Andrew? Good, man, just at work.' He imagined Stewart on site, in his hard hat and business shirt.

‘Just wondering if you've got time for a beer before I head back to Berlin?'

‘We're busy over the weekend, mate. Could we make it next week instead?'

‘Next week should be okay; I'll let you know the day. How about you come over to my apartment in Darlinghurst? I'll be there for a few days before I fly back.'

‘Sure, man, sounds good.' Stewart sounded friendly but distracted, and Andrew couldn't bring himself to say that all he really wanted from Stewart were the contact details for Kirsten's parents. He didn't feel he could ask for those details over the telephone.

•

On Saturday morning, he called Pippa to find out Phoebe's dress size. That afternoon, he walked around level six at David Jones. Among the racks of small clothing, the shorts and jumpsuits in pastels for babies and primary colours for toddlers, he felt conspicuous. He felt large and grotesque, as if with every move he might be about to knock something from its place.

‘Can I help you, sir?' a woman asked. She was wearing a black jacket and a pencil skirt that made her movements look restricted. Her eyebrows were drawn at two sharp angles over her eyes.

‘Oh, I'm looking for a dress,' he said.

‘Did you have anything particular in mind?'

‘Well, I'm thinking of an off-white colour.'

‘Well, let me see. How old is your daughter?'

‘Oh, it's not for my daughter. But she's eleven.' His cheeks flushed with a heat that felt visible. The woman's face went blank, as though she was trying to find some other reason for him to be looking at dresses for girls. ‘It's for a photo shoot. I have to take a young girl's
photograph,' he said and she looked at him as though she'd just bitten into something she didn't like the taste of very much.

‘I see.' She led him around the shop floor and showed him some dresses, lifting the plastic hangers from their stands and holding the dresses against her body to show him how they might look, but she turned her face away from him as she spoke. Her mouth was set in a serious line.

In the end, he settled on a cream dress with a lace collar. He thought the texture would prevent the photograph from appearing too flat. As he walked away from the counter after paying for it, he could feel the woman's eyes on him, aware that the world was less forgiving of him than it had once been, less prepared to assume his good intentions.

•

He had booked the studio for Monday and Tuesday. He woke early on Monday morning and packed his equipment into the car he had hired. The morning light was sparse and cast no shadows. At the studio, he had already set up the screen and lighting. He'd used his old lights and screens, the first equipment he'd ever owned, and the pieces had a battered look about them, scarred from overuse. The walls and floor of the room he'd hired were concrete, and the echoes of him shifting equipment returned to him off the walls. Until he had his
equipment unpacked, until he had the lights arranged in the way he wanted, he could not work, he felt uneasy. When the studio was finally set up, he could believe that it might happen, that the idea he had for the photograph might become something tangible and real.

He took the parts of his camera from the case, twisting the cool metal lens until it snapped into place. His movements were quick and reflexive, like a soldier assembling a gun. He had started taking photos in quick succession, to check the lights and the set-up. It settled him, being reminded of how the camera could give attention to things, ordinary things, objects which are usually given little regard.

He set the camera up on a tripod and held the lens in his hand until he felt it turn warm. He always waited for this moment, when his camera felt like an extension of his own hands. The camera made a crunch when he pushed the button down; there was something so certain about that sound. The jolt of the flash each time he pressed the button, striking the walls with its white, sanitised light. No matter what else was happening in his life, he could always count on what the camera would do; it would always take the world, flip it upside down and restore it again the right way up on paper.

He'd asked Pippa to arrive at ten, to give him time to set up and talk to the assistant he'd hired for the day, a woman who had been recommended to him by a photographer he'd been in a group show with. He would
need her to monitor the laptop for the test shots on the digital camera, changing the film in his camera, holding up light screens and moving lights. But fifteen minutes early, he heard a knock on the metal roller door to the studio, the clash of metal as the door shook in its frame.

‘Hi,' Pippa said, standing with a hand on her hip, her sunglasses still covering her eyes. Pippa was not much taller than her daughter and from a distance, in a certain light, the two of them might have been sisters. Phoebe was wearing jeans, standing behind her mother, and when she emerged, he noticed something new about her, an expression that hid some submerged anger that must have been directed at him. This was the conflict people felt when they had their photograph taken: curious to see an image of themselves, yet aware that a camera isn't always kind.

‘I'm afraid today and tomorrow could be very boring for you,' he said to Phoebe as he led them into the studio. ‘Photography is a lot of fiddling. Taking the picture is actually the quickest part. And you should drink as much water as you can because the lights can be hot to stand under.' He unscrewed the plastic lid from a bottle of water and handed it to her. She hesitated before she took it from him.

The assistant arrived ten minutes late, a short, sturdy woman with dark hair. She was carrying a large coffee in her hand. When he shook her hand, her grip was firm. He directed her to the laptop, then produced the dress he
had chosen for Phoebe. The dress had a low neckline. He had the idea that he would include her shoulders in the shot; he wanted to expose the tenderness of her young skin.

Phoebe and Pippa went to the bathroom together so Phoebe could get changed and a wave of nerves took hold of him; he was aware of how easy it would be for things to go wrong. The difference between success and failure in his profession was a very fine line.

Pippa came out first. She moved close to him and spoke in a low voice. ‘So, you are going to give us the chance to look at the photographs first, aren't you? Before they're exhibited?' Her voice rose in pitch as she spoke.

He nodded. ‘I can give you a week, but then I'll need to send them to my gallery. The exhibition is in March and I can't keep the gallery waiting.'

‘Okay, a week should be enough time to decide.' She turned her head as Phoebe walked out of the bathroom. The girl had her hands folded over her chest.

‘Is it the right size?' he asked.

‘It's a bit baggy,' Pippa said, straightening the dress across Phoebe's shoulders from behind.

‘That's okay, I can fix it with clips at the back,' he said.

‘It looks
gay
,' Phoebe said, looking at the concrete floor with the hostility of a person who resents doing something they don't understand. In her eyes were needles of doubt.

‘Phoebe!' Pippa said. ‘Sorry, she picks up that sort of language from school.'

‘Do you mind?' he said, moving towards her. ‘I'll pull the tags off.' He placed a hand on her shoulder and felt her melt beneath him, like a small animal that offers no resistance to being held. He broke the plastic tags in his hands.

‘Take a seat on the stool there if you wouldn't mind, Phoebe,' he said.

In her dress, under the lights, her limbs were pale, skinny and as supple as green wood.

‘Okay, Phoebe, could you put your hands on your lap for me?' He demonstrated for her.

She arranged her hands, but she still looked prim, like someone who should have been wearing a shirt buttoned all the way up to her chin.

‘I'll take a few test shots. The light will be quite bright at first.' There was a blitz from the strobe and the slow whine of the recharge. He checked the test shots on his laptop behind him.

‘I need to sharpen the focus,' he said over his shoulder to the assistant, who was kneeling in front of the laptop.

He closed the aperture down and focused on Phoebe's eyes.

‘Okay, looking at the floor for me,' he said. ‘And push your shoulders back.'

She sat slumped, the way all self-conscious children did, defending herself against the world. Phoebe looked
towards her mother and then did what he'd asked. He took a few shots that way. While he was talking to his assistant again, checking the pictures on the larger screen, Pippa had moved closer to Phoebe. He stepped back behind the camera and her presence in front of the lens sent a ripple of annoyance through him. He was so used to being in control of the situation.

‘Okay, Phoebe, could you look over to the right for me? At the wall and then slowly turn your head and look at the camera.'

She looked at her mother again.

‘It's okay, Phoeb,' Pippa said. He could hear the strain in her voice as she tried to sound reassuring.

When he was back behind the lens he saw again why he wanted to photograph the girl. The left side of her face drooped, as though that half of her face had been anaesthetised, but the other side of her face remained unaffected. He thought whatever it was that made her face that way must have happened when she was young, because she didn't appear to be aware of it. Her eyes were green rather than hazel, a colour without impurity, like glass held against light.