Johan turned, and instinctually held up his camera to check the lighting.
‘I guess that confirms it,’ Opal said, pulling the sheet further over herself.
‘No, sorry, I can’t help myself.’ Johan put the camera down as a peace offering. ‘You don’t fall into either category, Opal. You’re not that kind of woman – surely you know that?’
Opal blushed.
‘You are neither business nor pleasure, although you’ve been excellent for both. You … defy expectation, and you wear yourself so honestly in the world. That’s what I’m attracted to, as both an artist and a man.’
‘It’s peculiar to hear you say that, because I don’t think of myself as an honest person at all. I think I’ve spent a life pretending, playing a role that suited me so well for so long that I forgot it was a performance.’
‘Well, as someone who’s no stranger to pretence, I can onlyassure you that the camera does not lie, and I know that you saw it too, when you looked at those photographs. I think you finally saw yourself as you really are, and you liked it.’
Opal shook her head, not dismissive exactly, but pensive. ‘Perhaps,’ she said finally. ‘Are you going to take this photo then?’
Johan worried that she might change her mind if he didn’t seize the moment, so he nodded. Directing her to lie back and close her eyes while he arranged the sheets around the curves of her body. She was so still that Johan wondered if she was sleeping. When he had finished, he admired his handiwork, her hair laid out in sunrays around her peaceful face, the fine sheets clinging suggestively to her breast, the deep yellow glow of the light from the bedside lamp.
‘Did you want me to open my eyes?’ Opal asked quietly.
‘However you want, I’ll take some as you are and then we can try a few options.’
Opal was compliant as he snapped away. This is why he shouldn’t make a habit of mixing business and pleasure, he thought. The artist in him was slightly distracted with questions about whether Opal was all right, whether this was really the right time to be doing this. He brushed them aside, but they kept creeping back into the periphery of his mind.
When he asked her to open her eyes, he knew it was the money shot immediately. They were ever so slightly rimmed with the red of tiredness, but they were also bright against the muted hues of the room. They seemed to emit light.
Johan tried to contain his excitement, but he was sure that the photo would be magnificent, the perfect completion of his triptych. The grieving Madonna resurrected as whore. That’snot how he’d explain it explicitly to Opal, or the others, but the pictures would speak for themselves. They told the story of a woman facing death and choosing to live, casting off the shackles of sex as the conception of her grief and reclaiming it as hope.
‘Do they look OK?’ Opal sat up on her elbows.
‘We won’t know for sure until I develop them, but I have a good feeling. What can I say? The camera loves you.’
‘I’m not sure I’d describe any of the portraits you’ve taken as “photogenic”. I barely even recognised myself in the one you took; in fact that whole night is still a bit of a blur.’
Johan tried not to react, but it didn’t work.
‘What? What’s that look mean?’ Opal asked.
It felt silly to try and keep it from her now. ‘I may have slipped some … spiritual lubricant into the wine that night.’
‘Spiritual lubricant?’ Opal raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh you know, everyone seemed so uptight and pissed off with each other, and I just wanted to … spread the love a little.’
‘What did you put in my drink, Johan?’
‘Not just yours! Everyone had some, just the smallest smidge of ecstasy …’
‘Christ, Johan, what the fuck?’
Johan was slightly taken aback. He hadn’t heard Opal swear before, and it was confronting. She seemed angry.
‘It was only a tiny amount. I wasn’t trying to get everyone to trip out, just, soften everyone up a little bit. It wasn’t easy to get hold of, let me tell you. It’s cutting-edge stuff …’ Johan had been sure that he would be able to play the whole thing off as rascalish behaviour, but from the look on Opal’s face it was clear that he’d miscalculated. She looked bereft.
‘So, that wasn’t Emma that I could feel, not really. It was just … the drugs.’ Opal spoke so quietly that Johan wondered if she’d meant to say it out loud at all. ‘It was stupid of me really to believe. I should have trusted my instinct that something was … off.’ The sadness in Opal’s eyes took on an edge of something closer to fury.
He took her by the shoulders and waited until she looked him straight in the eye. ‘I’ll admit that I was sceptical about all that mysticism bollocks, but what I saw in that room was real. Emma will always exist within you, so it’s not so outlandish that sometimes, with a dash of chemical help, and a guiding hand, you’re capable of reallyfeelingher.’ Johan sighed. She didn’t look convinced. ‘I’m sorry, Opal, I hope you can forgive me.’
He really did, although that wasn’t to say he regretted what he’d done.
