There are lamb cutlets with peppers and charred shallots, a tart with glossy green olives and a jug of home-made lemonade glinting in the sunshine in my parents’ garden. ‘It’s all making me hungry again,’ James remarks.
I smile, aware of the insistent rhythm of my heart. ‘That’s the idea!’
‘They’re all so natural,’ he adds, studying a picture more closely. ‘As if they haven’t been set up or arranged, but everything just happened to be there.’
He’s exactly right. That’s what I love to do; to make things look as if they werejust there.But even though I’m still scrolling through my food photos, I know we’re not focusing on them anymore. They could be an old pair of pants lying in the gutter for all the attention we’re giving them. Because something is happening. I can sense it, and James can too. We both know the mood is different tonight.
I place my phone on the table and look at him. He has tanned golden brown and his eyes seem even bluer than when he arrived, looking a little stressed and distracted back then, I realise now – and not just because, rather than enjoying a stroll through the forest, he’d found himself administering CPR to an elderly dog. He’d also just had that awful to-do with his daughter and had barely recovered from that. James seems so capable and together but I’ve discovered that he’s also sensitive and worriesperhaps a little too much. But then, I worry too. Even though Charlie is virtually a man, I fret about his future, and how he’ll make new friends and a young adult life for himself. I wake in the night worrying about it and wonder, will I be like this when he’s thirty? Or forty-five? I’m fairly confident that his dad has never lost a second’s sleep over anything to do with our son. That doesn’t seem right either. But surely there’s a happy medium?
Corsica has been good for James. That’s obvious now. He seems so much more relaxed, and looks even more handsome than when I first set eyes on him. I can imagine that many of his clients, coming in with their cats and dogs and guinea pigs, have a crush on him. The handsome vet with a heart-fluttering smile; I bet they’re delighted when Rex’s vaccination time rolls around.
‘So …’ I start.
‘Yeah.’ He nods.
‘Home tomorrow.’
He exhales. ‘Wish I was here for longer.’
‘I do too,’ I murmur, leaning into him. Gently, he touches my hair.
‘I’ve had the best time,’ he says.
‘Me too.’ I turn and see his eyes glinting in the flickering candlelight. It feels so right being together. And that’s why I tell him everything, right from the beginning, when I first learnt to take photos.
It’s a clear night tonight. The cloudless sky is filled with stars, the sea shimmering in the moonlight. Taking his hand in mine, I start to tell him how I fell into this job that I love so much. In a way, it was the result of a not entirely positive situation – like James being determined to prove that he could pass his veterinary exams. But also, like with him, something very good came out of it.
With his arm around my shoulders now, I tell him thatI’d never intended to take pictures for a living. Frank, Charlie’s dad, had been the photographer in the family – and a successful one at that. Fashion was his thing: ad campaigns, which were the most lucrative, and glossy magazines, which were more about artistic control and prestige, getting his name out there in the right places.
‘He was deluged with work,’ I explain. ‘It was his whole life really. We never took a holiday, not even after Charlie was born, because there were always jobs he couldn’t turn down. So I started going away with my friend Kim and her family, and of course Charlie and I would also come here every summer …’
Already, I’ve swerved off track. But James’s kind, attentive expression reassures me that it’s okay to spill it all out. ‘Whenever I was away,’ I continue, ‘and I suspect at other times too, Frank was seeing other people. Having affairs, I mean.’ I catch myself. ‘D’you really want me to tell you all this?’
‘I do,’ James says. ‘But only if you want to, if you feel okay about it …’
I nod and sip my wine. ‘I do feel okay about it.’
‘So …’ He pauses. ‘Did you know all along? What was happening, I mean?’
‘No, not until later. Until after we’d split up, I mean. Things came out then – gossip and comments. But whatwasobvious to me was that Frank’s, um …lifestylewas affecting him and his ability to work.’
‘Lifestyle?’ James asks.
I nod. ‘Drink and drugs, copious amounts, which isn’t exactly unusual in that kind of world. But the trouble with fashion photography is that there are other people and an awful lot of money involved. And you’re expected to show up on time and be in a fit state to … y’know.’
‘To work?’ he suggests.
‘Exactly. And more and more, Frank wasn’t. He’d have been out on a bender all night and then show up late for a job, looking knackered. Clients started getting pissed off. He got, I suppose …’ I grimace ‘… a reputation. It’s okay being wild and fun and a bit of a character – people love that. But when it tips over into chaos …’ I pause and glance out to sea. ‘Frank was getting fewer calls, less work. He had to give up his studio and his assistant. And, as his career seemed to be stalling, he started to hammer it even more.’
James exhales slowly. ‘That must’ve been a tough time for you.’
‘It was a bit of a blur,’ I say truthfully. ‘Charlie was only three or four at the worst of it, and I was trying to get some freelance work going. At the same time, Frank started taking on some still-life photography. You know – objects instead of people. Accessories, homewares – anything really. He was good at it and it kept the money coming in.’
‘Did that seem strange? I mean, when he’d been so successful with his fashion photography?’
I consider this. I haven’t talked about any of this since it all happened, and only my closest friends know. I never even told my parents – although I suspect they knew he was pretty chaotic – and thankfully Charlie was shielded from it because nothing ever happened at home. Frank was hardly around anyway. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a hands-on dad, although he’d always been great at the boisterous games and revving up Charlie to a peak of excitement, just when it was time to wind down for bed. As for Frank’s grown-up games, these took place in private members’ clubs with his fashion friends, where everyone would be elegantly off their faces as opposed to stumbling out of pubs with puke on their shoes.
I glance into the restaurant and realise we are the last customers here. Although she’s too polite to say, I know Camille will be ready to close up and head home. So we hug her goodbye and take a taxi to James’s hotel. I don’t know what the stern-looking reception lady thinks, when she sees that James has brought a friend tonight. I half expect her to shout, ‘Excuse me! Are you booked in here?’ Or even chase after us and grapple me to the ground, shouting, ‘Are you planning to sleep with this man? Inmyhotel?’ We speed-walk past her, avoiding eye contact – probably looking as if we’ve stolen something – and I can’t help laughing as we step into the old-fashioned cage lift.
