you want a quick look,’ he said, bringing them up on his phone to show her. Lee squinted. The gallery’s previously standard white walls had been painted a deep, lustrous plum colour and lacquered to a glossy finish. It was a rich, opulent shade, but with an old-world glamour too, matching the Belle Époque formality of the ballgowns the women were wearing in the images.
‘Yes,’ she said again, feeling pleased. ‘I love that. The white would just have been too stark, don’t you think? I really want these images to be treated and hung like paintings. I wanted them to feel grand and formal and enduring.’
‘Well, you’ve done that all right. If John Singer Sargent was alive now, he’d have a camera in his hand and be shooting portraits just like that.’
For different reasons, though, Lee thought to herself; she wasn’t in the flattery game. They rose to standing again. ‘Okay, well, if they’re ready for us, let’s load these up and get over there. I’ve done the running order on a flat plan, so once we’re happy it works, I’ll leave you and Julia to the installation.’
‘Why? Where are you going?’ he asked, watching as she picked up her faithful Hasselblad 501C. It was an entirely different beast to the Nikon Nikkormat, which had been her first ever camera and remained her favourite even now. She’d never shot another image with the Canon 5D since that last day in Syria; she’d bought the Hassy just a few months after arriving in the city, a token of her fresh start. She zipped it into its bag, checking the correct lenses were packed and slinging the strap across her body.
‘To the hospital. Sinterklaas is visiting the wards today, remember?’ She gave a rueful grin. ‘Honestly, spending an afternoon with a bunch of overexcited kids and a man in fancy dress? Give me the Taliban any day. And I’m not even getting paid for it! I must be mad.’
‘You must be nice.’
She winked at him as she pulled her hat onto her head, making sure her cat ears were straight, and they walked out of the studio. ‘Yeah, well – don’t tell anybody.’
The light was always tricky here. Strip lighting did no one any favours, much less those battling diseases that ravaged their immune systems.
‘Is this one your favourite?’ Lee asked, picking a small furry tiger from the assorted collection of toys on the bed. She was sitting on a chair to the side, trying not to be overwhelmed by the number of tubes coming out of the child’s body, fretting that with every move she might pinch or dislodge one.
‘This one,’ little Amelie said, holding up a pig. It had a beanbag body and weighted trotters. ‘I like how it feels when I go to sleep,’ she said in a small, weak voice, carefully arranging the toy across her chest in a demonstration.
Lee smiled, knowing just what she meant. ‘It makes you feel held?’
The little girl nodded.
‘Yeah, I like that too. It’s a nice feeling.’ She wondered when the poor mite had last had a ‘nice feeling’. Lee hadn’t seen her on the ward before and one of the nurses had said she’d been transferred from Rotterdam, awaiting a new heart. ‘Are you excited about seeing Sinterklaas?’
She nodded again. Talking was clearly tiring for her.
‘What do you hope he’ll bring you?’
‘Some cat socks.’
‘Cat socks? That’s it?’ Lee wrinkled her nose. ‘I think you should be thinking a whole lot bigger than just cat socks.’
‘They’ve got pictures of my cat on them. She had to go live with my granny because her fur makes me too sick. Granny sends me videos of her, but I miss her.’
Lee’s heart broke a little. ‘Oh, well, that’s different then – socks with your cat on them would be pretty cool. What’s your cat called?’
‘Nibbles.’
She grinned. ‘Cute. Did you name her?’
Amelie nodded. ‘When she was a kitten, she would take these tiny little bites of her dinner and her nose would twitch.’
‘What a character—’ She looked up as one of the nurses came through, clapping her hands excitedly.
‘Hey kids, guess who’s come to see you all today?’
Lee looked back at Amelie with excited eyes, giving her a wink. She rose and readied her camera as the children all sat up in their beds expectantly. The doors swung open and Sinterklaas came through, carrying his signature big book of names and followed by a procession of kids in wheelchairs and on crutches, plastered limbs jutting out at