“Is your hair really this colour?” he asked at last.
She touched a stray yellow strand. “Do you like it? Or is it just the Rapunzel look? Because the rest of me…” She stretched her legs out from under the table. Her purple Wellies had grass caught in the sole and the hand-painted flowers were a mottled red. “Doesn’t really say ‘fairy tale princess’.”
“What the lens doesn’tsee,” – He mimed a square frame like a photo – “doesn’t hurt the picture. There’s only this amazing hair flying in the breeze over the wall of the tower.”
“How did you know the lens would make me look like that?”
“Photography isn’t really about the camera; it’s about your imagination.” His gaze danced over her face as if imagining something. A slow smile pulled the corners of his mouth. “You see, it’s where you position yourself to find an image that only you can dream of, until …” He mimed clicking a camera. “Until you make the instrument catch it. Relying only on your camera is lazy photography, and usually results in boring pictures.”
Considering the near-death adventure that morning, Gabriel was no lazy photographer. “Can I see my Rapunzel picture?”
“You will. I’ll get it printed properly on photo-quality paper. Give me your address and I’ll send it on to you.”
“Good. Remind me when we’re finished lunch, and I’ll give you my contact details. And I should take yours too, in case. Are you a professional photographer?”
A wistful look passed over his face, like a lost dream. “No.” He shook his head. “I’m a taxi driver.”
It surprised a laugh out of her. “I’d never have guessed. You remind me of the students from film studies at Nottingham.”
“Let me guess.” He looked her over: the hair, the dyed scarf, the hand-painted Wellies. “You’re an artist?”
She giggled. “Wrong.”
Interest sharpened in his face. “Now, this is a challenge. If not art, then I’d guess something completely different.” This time his eyes settled on hers and he held her gaze, as if reading her mind. “Ecology?”
“Getting warmer.”
“Geology? Geography?” He waited a beat. “I’ve got it, civil engineering!”
She had to laugh. “You’re not even trying.”
The lunch platter arrived; the smell of grilled cheddar wafting all the way from across the café. The enormous plate was stacked with cold and warm sandwiches, pastries and sprinkled with cress leaves.
“You can’t eat until you guess.” She wagged a finger at him as he reached for sandwich.
“Oh Rapunzel, how can you be so heartless?” He put his hands to his chest as if stabbed in the heart.
How could she resist? She pushed the platter towards him. “Okay, Okay. Social Anthropology.”
He thanked her by shoving an entire sausage roll into his mouth.
She watched him chew then wash it down with a long gulp of tea.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I was thinking that you seem a lot more than a taxi driver. I don’t know anything about you.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
“I asked first.” She gave him a cheeky grin and helped herself to a crab sandwich.
“Are you going to make me work hard for your name?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know in old legends, names were power? You have to earn it before I tell you.”
His face took on a pathetic look. “Please?”
When she pointedly ate another small triangle of her sandwich, he gave up. “All right. I’m twenty-eight, six foot and half an inch, 160 pounds. I was born in the Lincolnshire Wolds, and after an ordinary school education, I went to Leeds University. Film and Multi-media. But…” The humour faded from his face and was replaced with an odd expression, like an apologetic twitch around his mouth. “I left about eight years ago. Half-way through my second year.” He tried for a half smile. “No degree.”
