Ben turned and walked back to me. ‘It’s partly picking up the basics – lighting,composition, that sort of thing so, yes, I could teach you some of that, but the rest is just experimentation. You never know what’s going to work until you try it. And sometimes the picture is good, and sometimes it’s awful, but even if it is, I’ve learned something in the process.’
‘You’re not afraid to fail,’ I said, and it was more an observation than a question.
‘Not really. Like I said, sometimes I learn more through failing than getting things right.’ He let his camera drop and came and stood close to me. ‘Get your phone out, and I’ll give you some tips.’
When we finished our lesson, he took a few more shots of the nose on the wall then stowed his camera back in his rucksack. ‘That’s the last of them …’ He checked his watch. ‘Still time to fit a couple more things in before I have to head off to the airport. Something different.’
We listed off the things we’d already done that day. ‘No more gardens,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Got two of those already. Unless you can think of somewhere nearby with a maze. People love mazes, and they’re so interesting to photograph – all those clean shapes and lines.’
I shook my head. ‘Wish I did. There are a couple on the fringes of the city – a big one in Crystal Palace Park, but it’s hardly a secret, and another one in Bexleyheath, but both are a bit of a trek.’
‘Pity …’ We began to stroll in the direction of Covent Garden Market and Ben threaded his fingers through mine again, making my breath catch. He did it as if he almost hadn’t thought about it, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘Did you know there’s a secret to solving a maze?’
‘What? A particular maze?’ I asked.
‘Any maze.’
I gave him what I hoped was my best ‘don’t bullshit me’ look. ‘If you say so …’
He laughed. ‘No, really! Look, I’ll prove it to you.’
And that was how I found myself standing in front of the famous yew hedge maze at Hampton Court Palace about an hour later. ‘Go on, then, genius,’ I said, nodding to the wooden gate that marked the entrance. ‘How do we do this?’
He just grinned again. ‘Left or right? Pick one.’ I raised my eyebrows, not quite able to hide my smile. He was beingsococky. ‘Pick,’ he said, giving me a faux stern look that turned my insides to custard.
‘Okay … Right.’
‘Fine. I’ll take left. All we have to do is keep one hand – you right, me left – on the maze wall and follow it until we get to the centre.’
I laughed. ‘You’re kidding. It can’t be that easy.’
‘Wanna bet?’
‘Okay.’ I knew I was going to do it, and I knew I didn’t even care if I won the stupid bet or not. When had I last had fun like this? Pointless, purposeless wonderful fun? ‘What do I get if you’re wrong and I’m right?’
He grinned. ‘Loser buys the ice creams.’
Chapter Three
MY RIGHT HAND hovered lightly over the prickly, blunt-cut yew hedge as I jogged through the dirt paths of Hampton Court’s maze. It had seemed like a fun idea to have a race when Ben had suggested it, but then he’d shot off like a greyhound at the races, and I’d been left standing there on my own.
It couldn’t be as easy to find the centre as he’d said it would be. I’d be stuck in this stupid maze for hours, and where was the fun in that? We only had a short time until he needed to head off to the airport, and I didn’t want to spend those precious minutes apart.
I couldn’t believe I’d met someone like him. And by chance, too. Just because I’d had a random urge to escape the house to mope about my problems instead of doing it in my bedroom.
My first year at music school had been a disaster. I’d felt like a fish out of water from day one. What was a council house girl from Penge doing in a place like that? I thought I’d arrived at a place where talent was the only thing that mattered, that I’d finally be able to mix with ‘my people’, who understood and shared my love of music instead of bullying me for being ‘weird’ and ‘up myself’ because I loved to play the violin,but instead of reverse snobbery, I’d found actual snobbery. There had also been jealousy.
Like me, Charlie Banister, one my classmates, was from a less-than-privileged background, but instead of seeing this as a reason to support each other, he’d decided I was his direct competition and he’d taken every chance to cut me down, which only made my nerves worse. It was a horrible, vicious cycle, and my self-appointed nemesis was the eye of the hurricane. I’d barely made it through the end-of-term performance, and I’d been having nightmares about sitting in the violin section in a concert hall all summer.
Why couldn’t I be more like my sister? Tough, sensible, letting nothing faze her? She would have told Charlie Banister in no uncertain terms where he could insert his violin bow, and then wouldn’t have thought twice about him again.
I’d just about come to the decision that I was going to pull the plug, tell my parents the extra jobs they’d taken on since I was little to pay for my music education had been for nothing, but then Ben Robertson, Travel Photographer, had crashed into my life and turned everything upside down.
I had a crush on him as big as the London Eye. It really was quite sad. I ought to give myself a stern talking to. Because that’s what it was, right? A crush? It couldn’t be anything else. Not if he was jetting off this evening and didn’t even know when he might be back in the UK.
Just as I thought I would go round and round in the stupid maze forever, one green hedge blurring into the next, the space opened out in front of me, and I realised I was standing in the centre. It had worked! It really had worked.
And there was Ben, waiting for me, wearing a pleased-with-himself grin that should have been annoying but was actually just delicious.I wanted to kiss that smile away, I decided, and if I didn’t do it now, maybe I’d never get another chance, which would result in me kicking myself for all of eternity.
