"I finally got one!" cried Felicity, shaking her Pentax excitedly towards Joanna. "Oh, it will be beautiful, Jo. I can't wait to show Andrew," she gushed, then instantly burst into tears. Joanna stepped away from the rail and enfolded her friend in a comforting embrace.
"There, there," she soothed, "It's okay, it will all be okay. Come on, Fliss, let's sit down." The two women walked the few paces back to their deckchairs and settled down beside Jo's husband.
"Bernard, be a dear and fetch us a couple more G & T's," Jo prodded. He raised an arm, preparing to call over a steward, but Jo flashed him a sharp look and rolled her eyes towards her distraught friend. "Fetch" she mouthed silently. Bernard grumbled under his breath at having to leave his seat, but still headed off towards the bar, leaving the women to talk in peace, or at least as much peace as the liner's crowded sun deck offered.
"Oh, Fliss, I promise, it will get better, with time. I know it sounds hard now, but life does go on you know."
Felicity had heard that many times recently, even said it herself to others on occasion, but this time she couldn't believe it. Not now, not since Andrew died. She would never show him another picture, she would never stage another slide show for him back in the vicarage, there would be no eager audience waiting for her to return with tales of wonder and images of beauty. There was no life left to her.
But this she couldn't explain to her dearest friend. She had become Andrew's eyes on the world, and now he wasn't there to see.
Joanna placed a pudgy hand over hers, and slowly Fliss reeled back the sobs, taking an occasional deep breath, until at last she was able to speak once more.
"It was my life, Jo. Andrew, the photos, it's what we shared more than anything."
"I know, Fliss, I know. But remember it was just your job before you married Andrew."
It was true, of course, it was what had brought the two friends together all those years before. Jo, the reporter, and Fliss, the agency photographer. Their paths had crossed in Beirut during the civil war. Cowering together in the basement of the hotel to sit out a three-day artillery bombardment, they had talked for hours, each discovering that the other had chosen her job for the travel, the chance to see the world and be paid for the pleasure. Yet Beirut had been no pleasure, and the new friends had vowed to find a better outlet for their talents than covering wars and disasters. Once their respective contracts were over, and they met up again in England, they had settled on the plan which had since made them household names.
It had been a hard and slow beginning, but once their first illustrated travel guide had been published, and the royalties began to trickle in, they realised they had hit upon a winning formula.
Fliss and Andrew had been an unlikely couple, yet he had been an ardent fan of her photography long before they actually met. The day he walked into Felicity's life, at a book-signing in a small, independent bookshop in Chichester, he was not wearing his dog-collar. If he had been, Felicity readily admitted, their love would never had grown as it had. In the event she saw a quiet man, with a passion for the world that exceeded her own, even though he had seen so little of it. It had been her photos, he had told her, that brought the world to his doorstep, and Jo's words, he'd added, diplomatically.
That all seemed so far away, so long ago, now on the cruise that Jo had suggested as a way to soften Fliss' lingering grief.
"Here you go," grunted Bernard, handing over the gin and tonics before slumping back into his deckchair with his beer and his trashy paperback novel.
"Shall we go back and watch the dolphins some more?" Jo suggested to Felicity, who nodded and almost instinctively grabbed for her camera. "Let's leave that here for now, hey?" said Jo, softly, and placed the camera back upon the deckchair as Felicity stood.
"Coming, Bernard?"
"What? Nah - seen one cetacean, you've seen them all."
The two women took their drinks back to the rail, between deckchairs and sun loungers, weaving a path between the bronzed and wrinkled sunbathers that habitually cluttered the deck. Arms crossed against the rail, the warm Aegean breeze drying the last remaining tears from her red eyes, Fliss let out a long melancholy sigh and gazed down at the churning water of the bow wave.
"There are so many of them, Jo. I never realised."
"They are beautiful, aren't they?"
"Yes. Yes, they are."
"And all the more so by not being framed in your viewfinder?"
Jo had tried hard, very hard, to persuade her friend to leave her cameras at home for the cruise, but to no avail. Fliss was determined to see the world at one remove, framed, behind glass. And to always see Andrew with every shot.
Felicity took a stiff mouthful from her glass before answering. "I suppose you're right. But I just keep thinking what a marvellous picture it would make."
"I know, dear, I know. But do you ever hear how much you swear each time you miss a shot? Old Mrs Cromarty yesterday blushed like a beetroot! It certainly doesn't sound like you're enjoying it. You should just take the time to stand and watch ... ooh, did you see that one?"
Fliss nodded quietly. "They are so elegant," she added after a while, "and I've never really noticed."
"No. Sometimes I feel like you don't really know what we've seen on our trips until you get home and have your films developed."
Ice tinkled against glass as Felicity took another deep gulp. "I've never told you this before, Jo, but sometimes I can't remember even seeing things I've photographed. There are places I don't recognise, people I'm sure I've never met, and wildlife I can't name."
"It never used to be like that, did it? You used to get so excited you'd forget to take the photos! Now look at you. What changed?"
"Andrew."
"Andrew? How so?" prompted Jo.
"He loved my photos so much. I guess he lived through me, because he could so rarely leave the Parish himself. And for my part, I began to live for him, to be his eyes. Neither of us had a complete life."
Another clink of ice, and Fliss' gin and tonic was drained, all but the melting cubes and the wilted lemon slice. "Thanks, Jo. I needed that."
Jo, in sympathy, polished off the remains of her own glass. "Me too! Let's spoil ourselves and have another."
"Why not?" replied Felicity, and Jo was relieved to see a hint of the wicked smile that made her love her friend so much. She turned and gestured to Bernard, holding up her empty glass with one hand and extending two fingers with the other. This time Bernard did call a steward, then walked over to join the women at the rail, peering down at the cavorting pod on the bow wave.
"Told you," he laughed. "That big guy was on the cover of National Geographic last month. See one, you've seen them all."
"Oh, Bernard, you're so cynical sometimes," Jo retorted, not entirely offended. She and Bernard had married young, whilst still at college studying journalism, and knew and accepted each other's different outlook with a practiced tolerance. She had been the adventurer, always a freelancer before becoming an author, whilst Bernard was the company man, having worked his way up from sports correspondent on the local rag to his current Fleet Street news editorship. Jo could never be sure which had come first - his cynicism or his job. Which had determined the other?
"And you, my dear, are far too romantic. These creatures are juvenile delinquent trans-sexual gang-rapists, you know. The males gather in large groups, hunt down and isolate solitary females, and ..."
"Yes, alright, dear. We get the picture." Jo.
"And they aren't picky either, if there are no females to be had," continued Bernard.
"But even so, you can surely appreciate their grace and beauty?"
"I see them for what they are, love, nothing more or less. Appearances don't come into it. They're like politicians - only interesting when they are misbehaving," he concluded.
"And that's why you never spend time watching sunsets, or dolphins, or spending time with friends, unless you're all down the pub getting drunk after work," she jibed, a little more sharply than before.
Finding the conversation cutting a little too close to the bone, Bernard turned to Fliss. "So, Felicity, what do you see? Fluffy beautiful little creatures, or delinquent sex offenders?"
Felicity's brow furrowed slightly as she pondered Bernard's question, and she was forced to admit that it was neither. "Usually, I see one of my most difficult subjects. They're so difficult to follow in a viewfinder, impossible to tell which one will jump next, and they're so fast. It's like it's always the one just out of shot that does the most amazing thing."
"That's why she swears so much," Jo laughed. "But, Fliss, you're always so tied up trying to get the perfect picture that you miss the beauty amidst all that frustration."
"I know," she whispered dolefully. "But I'm a photographer. That's what I am."
"No, Fliss," interjected Bernard. "That's what you DO."
"It's true. What you ARE is so much more, but you have to feed it, feed your soul. You've been Andrew's eyes for so long, you've just treated the world as subject matter. Life DOES go on. Your life. But it shouldn't just be a record of where your camera has been. You have thousands of beautiful photographs, but how many beautiful memories?"
Felicity fought back the tears, knowing it was time now to let go of Andrew, of the life she had led on his behalf.
The steward finally arrived with more G & T's, and another beer for Bernard. Fliss proposed a toast.
"To beautiful memories." All three raised their glasses.
"Now let's watch the dolphins awhile," she whispered, almost, but not quite, sobbing.
No comments:
Post a Comment