experimenting; using the phone for still life: half-eaten toast, muddy trainer, dishcloth kicked into a corner.
For years pictures had been the only thing she believed in. To tell a story, to shape the world, to change lives. Take Bill Brandt, or Brassaï’s night photographs of the underbelly of Paris. Or Weegee, so keen to get his crime-scene shots that getting punched was simply part of the job. Famines, migrations, stories of human survival. A part of her envied the old hacks with their press cameras. The photojournalists, drunk on cheap beer, stoned on cheap drugs, and wired on adrenalin and lack of sleep as they brought in the photographs that took America out of the Vietnam War. Pictures made history.
Helen was proof of that. One photograph had given her a career. Another had changed her life irrevocably.
Helen’s pictures had always been of people.
The human cost. Consequences, not conflict. Aftermath.
Big moments in otherwise small lives, or what remained of them. But now … she wasn’t sure she could ever bear to photograph another face because of what she saw there. Innocence of how the world really was. Apart from those who had the misfortune to know, of course. Seeing that knowledge reflected back was even harder.
Helen was so deep inside her thoughts that she barely noticed when she left the road. She came to halfway across a field, instinctively giving the walkers’ trail a wide berth. Grass squelched beneath her trainers, mud oozing into grooves as she cleared the field. It was dry now, but the air was damp, seeping round her windbreaker and under her sweatshirt. If her hair wasn’t tied down it would be getting bigger by the second. The weather out here on the Dales was deceptive. Light that looked forgiving from behind a kitchen window hid a biting wind that chafed her face as she paced herself up the hill to the Scar, her head full of the faces that had haunted her pictures.
Taking out the iPhone, she switched it on, wondering if she would be able to get a signal on the cheap pay-as-you-go SIM she’d persuaded the shop owner to throw in for the price. Before she started, she dipped into her windbreaker for the scruffy Moleskine she’d taken from her nearly empty photo bag and scrabbled backwards through its pages until she found the number she wanted.
Ms Harris, Caroline Harris the consultant, answered the phone herself.
That was more luck than she deserved.
‘Helen, good to hear from you,’ she said, doing an excellent job of not sounding surprised. She was a busy woman; working both for the NHS and in private practice; appearing in court occasionally as an expert witness. Very busy. ‘How are you?’ Caroline asked. The enquiry was genuine. She’d become, not quite a friend, but almost, over the years; which was why, Helen told herself, she was prepared to risk trusting Caroline now.
‘Been better,’ Helen said truthfully. ‘Been worse. Just come through a migraine.’
Caroline sighed. A sigh Helen knew she was meant to hear. They had an ongoing difference of opinion about whether what happened to Helen in the fugue state could medically be called a migraine. ‘Where are you?’ Caroline asked.
Grinning, Helen told her the truth. ‘Standing on top of a huge outcrop of rock staring down over a patchwork landscape.’ Helen could almost hear her consultant wonder if that was literal or a description of her state of mind. Deciding her call had gone on long enough to be traced, Helen cut to the chase. ‘I’m out of pills.’
‘Since when?’
Helen counted back in her mind. ‘A couple of weeks. A month.’
‘Long enough. When do you want to come? Tell me and I can make myself free,’ Caroline said. ‘Provided it’s not Friday, that’s operating day.’
They both knew she meant free for Helen. Caroline Harris’s time was like gold dust. A minute later Helen had an appointment for the following Monday, plenty of time to decide whether to drive herself or take the train.
For years pictures had been the only thing she believed in. To tell a story, to shape the world, to change lives. Take Bill Brandt, or Brassaï’s night photographs of the underbelly of Paris. Or Weegee, so keen to get his crime-scene shots that getting punched was simply part of the job. Famines, migrations, stories of human survival. A part of her envied the old hacks with their press cameras. The photojournalists, drunk on cheap beer, stoned on cheap drugs, and wired on adrenalin and lack of sleep as they brought in the photographs that took America out of the Vietnam War. Pictures made history.
Helen was proof of that. One photograph had given her a career. Another had changed her life irrevocably.
Helen’s pictures had always been of people.
The human cost. Consequences, not conflict. Aftermath.
Big moments in otherwise small lives, or what remained of them. But now … she wasn’t sure she could ever bear to photograph another face because of what she saw there. Innocence of how the world really was. Apart from those who had the misfortune to know, of course. Seeing that knowledge reflected back was even harder.
Helen was so deep inside her thoughts that she barely noticed when she left the road. She came to halfway across a field, instinctively giving the walkers’ trail a wide berth. Grass squelched beneath her trainers, mud oozing into grooves as she cleared the field. It was dry now, but the air was damp, seeping round her windbreaker and under her sweatshirt. If her hair wasn’t tied down it would be getting bigger by the second. The weather out here on the Dales was deceptive. Light that looked forgiving from behind a kitchen window hid a biting wind that chafed her face as she paced herself up the hill to the Scar, her head full of the faces that had haunted her pictures.
Taking out the iPhone, she switched it on, wondering if she would be able to get a signal on the cheap pay-as-you-go SIM she’d persuaded the shop owner to throw in for the price. Before she started, she dipped into her windbreaker for the scruffy Moleskine she’d taken from her nearly empty photo bag and scrabbled backwards through its pages until she found the number she wanted.
Ms Harris, Caroline Harris the consultant, answered the phone herself.
That was more luck than she deserved.
‘Helen, good to hear from you,’ she said, doing an excellent job of not sounding surprised. She was a busy woman; working both for the NHS and in private practice; appearing in court occasionally as an expert witness. Very busy. ‘How are you?’ Caroline asked. The enquiry was genuine. She’d become, not quite a friend, but almost, over the years; which was why, Helen told herself, she was prepared to risk trusting Caroline now.
‘Been better,’ Helen said truthfully. ‘Been worse. Just come through a migraine.’
Caroline sighed. A sigh Helen knew she was meant to hear. They had an ongoing difference of opinion about whether what happened to Helen in the fugue state could medically be called a migraine. ‘Where are you?’ Caroline asked.
Grinning, Helen told her the truth. ‘Standing on top of a huge outcrop of rock staring down over a patchwork landscape.’ Helen could almost hear her consultant wonder if that was literal or a description of her state of mind. Deciding her call had gone on long enough to be traced, Helen cut to the chase. ‘I’m out of pills.’
‘Since when?’
Helen counted back in her mind. ‘A couple of weeks. A month.’
‘Long enough. When do you want to come? Tell me and I can make myself free,’ Caroline said. ‘Provided it’s not Friday, that’s operating day.’
They both knew she meant free for Helen. Caroline Harris’s time was like gold dust. A minute later Helen had an appointment for the following Monday, plenty of time to decide whether to drive herself or take the train.
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