The instructor stopped for a second, leaning away from the microphone to cough. “Sorry,” she croaked. “Water,” she added, before wandering off to the edge of the stage.
Everyone stood, waiting. Tom looked down at Daisy’s hand still resting in his. Should he let go? He didn’t want to cause any offence by dropping her hand the moment he could, but he didn’t know if it was weird to keep holding it when the lesson had paused. He didn’t dare look across at Daisy. If she was thinking the same thing, he couldn’t sense it in her hand. It rested in his as though it were a perfectly normal way to stand with a man who you’d met on the bus and only started hanging out with after he got smacked in the face. His heart started beating faster.
“Sorry about that,” the instructor said, returning to the stage. “Okay so you’re going to walk forward two steps, then back two steps...” It took a long time for his heart rate to slow, but that had to be the surprise cardio. Definitely not anything else.
At one point Tom’s watch asked him if he wanted to recordan indoor run, that’s how high energy a ceilidh was. The thing he enjoyed the most about it was that it was near impossible not to smile while doing it. Each jig meant that whether he wanted to or not, he would sort of hop rather than walk, his knees rising with the beat. And as he swapped partners and spun his way around the school hall his face broke into a grin, his neck muscles at the back of his head aching through the strain.
“I’m going to sit this one out. Take some pictures,” he said when he refound Daisy after the last dance. He pulled his camera out of his bag which was sitting at the side of the hall and put it around his neck, noticing, as he always did, the familiar weight of it. It was the first time in months that Tom had picked up his camera outside of a studio. He used to take it everywhere with him, as though if he had his camera around his neck, he had a reason to be there.
He lifted the Canon up to his eye, his right hand on the shutter and his left on the lens. He took a few steps to the side, twisting his left hand until Daisy came into focus. She was leaning her head back, laughing as she and her three partners got the move entirely wrong, hands in the middle and skipping clockwise when it was supposed to be anticlockwise. He pressed his finger down, taking frame after frame of Daisy, eyes sparkling as the light caught her face, shining against her right cheekbone.
He pulled his camera away from his face, staring down at the screen to flick through the pictures he’d taken, eyes squinting slightly as such a different version to bus Daisy appeared. A rush of energy ran up his body. This is what it felt like when he took a good photo. This was the feeling he’d been missing since he started taking on nonstop editorial work. There was less magic in those shoots. He’d forgotten that in different environments he knew right away when he’d captured something perfectly. It wasn’t necessarily that he could see it, but he couldfeelit. Itwere as though the moment was bigger than him, and he just happened to be the person holding the camera.
Walking around the room, he started taking more and more pictures, making sure to keep his camera up high and to focus on faces. Wild hair, red cheeks and glistening foreheads, eyes that shone and toothy grins on display. He was in the zone now. Everything else around him faded into the background. Aside from the subjects he was pointing his camera at, the rest was a blur, the music now just a gentle hum. There was so much joy in the room and he was just happy to be present for it. Click went his camera as one girl in a Big Uterus Energy T-shirt spun around the room, cackling. He was so into it that when the music finally stopped, it felt a little like he’d been shocked, his body fizzing. He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. Maybe years.
Daisy appeared beside him.
“I’m a feminist but...” she said. “If I have to do one more dance, I willdie.” She held out her phone. “Shall I take a photo of you so we can leave?”
Tom frowned, staring at her phone. His brain was still back on the scene he’d just shot of three women, all wearing Fueled by Caffeine and Feminist Rage singlets, their face expressing the direct opposite of rage.
“For your... Instagram?” she prompted. “For Sophie.”
“Fuck! Yes. Of course,” Tom said, putting down his camera and running a hand through his hair. He’d completely forgotten, for a moment, why he was there.
Later, back at his one-bed flat he and Sophie used to share, Tom stared at his Instagram notifications, waiting. He knew it was ridiculous, but Daisy’s certainty that it was worth a shot had somehow merged into something else by the time he got home. Something closer to hope.
He’d posted the photos after 11:00 p.m. after going throughall the ones he’d taken, editing and posting a selection of his favorites. It was a stupid time to do it. Sophie religiously went to bed at 10:00 p.m., but he didn’t want to rush it. He wanted to choose the very best ones he took. He’d put the photo Daisy took of him amongst them all, as some sort of throwaway that wasn’t important. So what that he’d been there; it was about the other photos.
The comment icon appeared and he immediately clicked on it.
These are fantastic, mate. Some of your best!
It was Ralph, ever the cheerleader of Tom’s photography career.
The likes and comments started to ramp up quickly.
There he is!
Yes, mate!
So. Much. Joy.
Bloody love a ceilidh!
When the likes reached over fifty, Tom stared down at his phone, looking again at the images one by one. He hadn’t used any of Daisy. For some reason that felt too personal, even though they were definitely his best. The others weren’t far off though. There was something so special about seeing that much joy on people’s faces. It wasn’t often you got to see strangers that happy. It was like being invited into a secret club, and just looking at them made Tom feel happy too. Happier than he’d felt in a really long time. Squinting, he flicked back and forth through the photos, an idea forming. He was so used to being booked to take professional shots of models and actors he’d forgotten howmuch he loved shooting strangers. Not only strangers, but those in-between moments he’d been thinking about before. The moments where people lost their inhibitions and their guards came down. The idea began to take shape. What if he set himself a project, just for fun? He could start trying to take photos of people being joyful. He could carry his camera on his early bus journeys and jump off somewhere different each time, see what he found. Wasn’t it better than feeling uninspired?
A heart appeared at the top of the screen.SophieGreenlees.Tom’s heart thumped so hard against his chest that he wouldn’t be surprised if his shirt shot forward like they did in old cartoons. She’d seen his post. She’d seen it at... 11:38 p.m. Just as quickly as he was filled with delight at Sophie having seen it, something else took its place. Worry. Panic. Because why? Why was she up so late? She’d only be up this late if she’d been out for some reason. Say... on a date. Nowhewas the one worrying abouthermoving on. Was this whole plan to get her back too late? It felt so unfair that he couldn’t just ask her. That he wasn’t allowed to just send her a message, checking in on whether he should keep trying.
Her first Instagram comment since they broke up.
These are beautiful, Tom.
Chapter Nine
Daisy
Zack worked at the hotel on Saturdays, and since Dan was away, Daisy had been using it as an opportunity to catch up with her mum, who always answered on the first ring.
