I nod and she switches on the light. Her room is transformed into a glowing cave. The red bulb is like a campfire throwing shadows that turn her spider plant into a giant arachnoid on the wall, while a cactus creates a dark towering shadow over the painting of the hare. ‘Let’s do this.’
Making black-and-white photos like this is done in two stages: first we create a negative paper print, then repeat the process for getting the positive.
We take out the first sheet of paper and slide it into the developer solution, then both of us peer in. I’m not going to lie, I was expecting some sort of fizzing, spooky bubbling, but the process of developing photos is fairly slow. Gradually, though, shapes emerge within the blackness; a lattice of straight white lines.
‘Bricks,’ Meg whispers.
I feel myself grin as the outline of Nanny Bet’s house materialises before us in black and white. The first photo I took.The vision in which nothing really happened. I sigh and Meg shrugs. We watch the house appear in a weird reversed negative. After two minutes she lifts it with tweezers and puts it in the stopper solution for about thirty seconds, then puts it in the fixing solution.
The final negative image is really confusing. Dark and light are switched around and I can’t make out much detail.
‘I thought it would be clearer,’ I say as Meg rinses the image and hangs it up on the line.
‘It’s just the negative, don’t worry.’
We repeat the process with the other pieces of paper. I make out what is probably the girl outside Uncle Tommy’s house and try not to look too closely at what I know will be the baby in the cemetery. The funeral image is a stark contrast, but I can see figures in the rain.
Once the negatives are dry, Meg puts each one against a fresh piece of photographic paper and places them under a piece of glass from a picture frame. ‘Now we expose them.’
She sets up an anglepoise lamp and turns it on above the paper for another thirty seconds.
Once that’s done, we develop the positive photos. This time when it’s in the developer solution Nan’s house appears in black and white with the crow on the wall and the car (that should be green) parked nearby. The photo is grainy, but not like the noise – the blurs – you get with images taken in low light. This is like looking at something through a sandstorm.
Figures appear in the image.
Meg gasps. ‘It’s me.’
She’s looking straight at the camera, her pale skin shining brightly against the door behind her.
‘That’s pretty cool, actually. Is it ready?’
‘I think so. Stick it back in the stopper before it overexposes. You wanna do the honours?’
I carefully lift the photo by the edges of the paper, letting the solution drip back into the tray. I focus on the living-room window in the picture. It’s dark but something’s starting to emerge.
‘Go on,’ says Meg.
There’s a pull at my chest.
‘Wait a minute.’ The chemical reaction is still working. The image is getting lighter and lighter. I stare at the window, at the flash of white. White hair…
‘Oh, it’s just my nan.’
I slide the photo into the stopper solution, the image freezing in time, followed by the fixer solution. Meg takes it out and hangs it on the line with some clothes pegs.
‘Right, let’s get the next one going.’
We repeat the process. I have no idea which photo it’s going to be until I see the light hair.
‘It’s the little girl outside Cormac’s house.’
Her dungarees emerge from the darkness. Hands balled into fists, staring at the house next door being raided. Her eyes are narrowed, her teeth bared.
‘She’s seriously pissed,’ says Meg.
As I stare at the child there’s a tingle beneath my eyes and a weight in my chest. A deep sadness fills me and I close my eyes. My ears fill with a pulsing beat and muffled shouting. The soldiers. The people in the house…
‘Michael!’ Meg’s voice is small. ‘What is this?’
