minutes ticked past, she had seen the change happen in him that she’d been gently prodding for – the studied poses and eager willingness to perform for her gradually yielding to something less contrived and conscious, the novelty beginning to pall, boredom to surface, until the camera was no longer something to play to but to endure. The eyes had flattened, becoming harder, the jaw had relaxed, and steadily the act, the public persona, had fallen away until it was just her and him, even the camera being forgotten. They had been connected by the lens, divided by it, as he fell back into being the man of his private moments when he moved unobserved. Unjudged. It had been like watching a wax figure melt, blue-eyed chiselled distinction blurred out so that only the core remained. It was the moment she always strove for – naked truth. Basic humanity. Shared experience. Equality.
Lee had taken this box-fresh housewife’s hero and recast him into something so much more than a stud in a suit. If he wanted Bond, this was his golden ticket. Or Hamlet. Or Atticus Finch. Or Mr Darcy. Doors were going to open on the strength of these images.
‘Hmm,’ she said with a pleased nod, straightening up and walking briskly towards the door. ‘Not a bad day’s work. Who’ve we got next?’
‘The last one, you’ll be pleased to hear. An author. He’s the new . . . hmm.’ Bart thought for a moment, trying to pigeonhole their next subject. ‘A. A. Milne meets Eckhart Tolle.’
‘Who?’
‘Mindfulness, Lee – gratitude, acceptance, kindness. It’s a thing,’ he said wryly.
She rolled her eyes, not needing to be told. She’d seen quite enough of the schmaltzy quotes being passed off as deep insight on social media to know what he was referring to. Insta-wisdom.
‘So he’s on Monday morning, ten o’clock start; then you’re done – unless they want a re-shoot of Haven, the “new Billie Eilish” girl. I know there’s not supposed to be any editorial interference but her management can be very tricky . . .’ He pulled a face.
‘Ugh.’ She used to creep through jungles and over burnt-out cars to show the world images that mattered. How had she ended up pandering to the ego of an eighteen-year-old singer who hadn’t even been alive when she’d bought her coat?
‘Bills, Lee,’ Bart murmured, reading her mind.
‘. . . Yeah.’ She sighed and turned away again.
‘Talking of which—’
‘No!’ she called over her shoulder, knowing exactly what he was going to say: the gallery again. She was in a good mood, but not that good. ‘See you tomorrow, Bart.’
The doors closed behind her and she stepped back outside. It was dark already, the city lamplit to an amber glow and looking postcard-perfect in its night-time guise. It always fascinated her how the city, with such a mannered masculinity by day – all lean lines and sombre colours – switched to a more expansive mood by night: lights glowing on the water, threaded through the trees, arching with the bridges and pooling on the cobblestones, the famous narrow, multi-windowed buildings now as pretty as gingerbread houses.
She unlocked her bike, giving her daily prayer of thanks to the Bike Gods that it was still there, and pushed off over the cobbles. The air was crisp, the first notes of a frost beginning to lace her breaths, and she felt her cheeks grow pink, her good mood bloom further as she pedalled. The cold was still something of a novelty for her and maybe always would be; it had been one of the things she had missed most in her old life and part of why she’d been drawn back here. She had swapped red dust for rain and slush, quite deliberately. She had wanted an opposite existence to her old life.
She glided past the townhouses’ overly large windows like a shadow, silent but for the whirr of her wheels, feeling lighter than she had on her way in this morning. It was a struggle for her to feel accomplishment after these intense days in the studio, to feel that any of this glossy, airbrushed reality she helped create actually mattered. Today had been different though; she had captured something real through her lens and made contact – a transitory but honest connection – with another human. It wouldn’t change the world but it had shifted hers, just a little.
She smiled, the gold streamers Jasper had begged her to buy at a Christmas market last year fluttering and