was a rare portrait.
She sliced the edge of the shovel into the sand, placed her foot on its shoulder, and stepped down hard, then leaned back to get her weight underneath it and turn the whole thing upward, hopeful of revealing more buried clams. She soon became reabsorbed in her task, enjoying the feeling of her muscles working and the satisfaction of uncovering the shellfish. She forgot about Wilkie being there and was caught unawares as she straightened up, shielding her eyes from the rising sun and staring directly into the camera.
“Oh brilliant!” he called out. “The light’s just perfect. Say what you like about the Huns, but they make bloody good cameras.” He clicked the shutter and wound the film on before coming closer. “It’s a Leica. Got it when I was in Italy, from an RAF reconnaissance chap. Doesn’t require a great deal of technical know-how, so it suits me to a tee.”
She picked up her bucket, resting the shovel over one shoulder, a worker at the end of a shift. Wilkie refocused, clicked the shutter again and then wound the film on to the next frame. “Much obliged, Mrs. Durrant.” Of all the men, he was the only one who insisted on formally addressing her, despite her insistence that he do otherwise. “It makes a welcome change to have such a pulchritudinous subject. I have to confess I am a little bored with birds and wildflowers. And you catch the light far better than they.”
“You mean those?” She pointed toward the sea campion, the delicate white petals of which dotted the grasses that rolled down toward the beach. “But they are quite pretty are they not?”
“Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” he said with theatrical flair.
“Oh come now, Wilkie, you do but flatter me beyond the point of reason,” she laughed.
“Madam, I think you mock me,” he replied, getting into the Shakespearean swing. “But seriously.” His voice returned to normal. “It’s all about the light.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’ve noticed. When you think no one’s watching you. I can see that you’re trying to find the light, just as fiercely as you were digging for those clams. But you know the real trick is to contain the darkness.”
She knew he wasn’t talking about photography.
“You have to make it a place that you can return to, but—and this is the key—one that you can leave,” he said. “Make it a shadow room in your mind if you like. Put all the sadness, the anger, the sheer impotence there. Otherwise it’ll take over your life, poison everything.”
“But that’s not what the doc does.”
“No, he walks into the room with us.” There was a long pause and Esther noticed a shadow pass over his face. His eyes took on a far-off gaze and it seemed as if he were somewhere else.
Eventually, he began to speak. “The first war. Nineteen seventeen. Passchendaele. Heavy rain and mud. So much blasted mud. Couldn’t get any of the artillery close to the front, too damned boggy. I was only a second lieutenant. Still wet behind the ears, too young to be scared until it was all over. Captured an enemy pillbox that was giving us some jip. Shot two gunners and forced the rest of the poor buggers to surrender—ten of them. They had to find me a new uniform after that—it was shredded with bullet holes but somehow they all missed me. Still get the nightmares. There’s never been anything as bad as that since.”
Esther murmured her sympathy. “How do you keep on going?”
“Beauty.”
“Beauty?” she echoed.
“Even when it seems there is none to be had, you must seek it out. Find a way to dream again, to believe, believe in the beauty of life, however fleeting.”
Esther wasn’t sure she could ever achieve this. “Is that what brought you here?”
“Not really. I spent over three years as a prisoner of war. Changi. They reckoned if you were there for more than three years you went around the bend. I guess ending up here is proof of that.” A short bark of a laugh escaped him. “It’s easier for those with actual physical wounds. People think we should just snap out of it, or that we are two wafers short of a communion, or malingerers, or even worse . . . cowards.” The word hung in the air between them.
Wilkie drew a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered her one. She shook her head. He tapped one out, lit up, took