Tom let out an involuntary laugh. “That last one is like when you go to a job interview and they ask what your greatestweakness is and you say you’re a perfectionist. It’s a hidden positive.”
“Thank you for the critique. So what were Sophie’s?”
Still his dad didn’t look at him and Tom felt his jaw tighten as he tried to think. “She wasn’t a morning person and could be quite frightening until she’d had a coffee,” Tom said, a wave of guilt rushing through him at having said anything bad about her. He wanted to marry her, to spend the rest of his life with her. He had teamed up with a stranger on a bus in further desperate attempts to win her back. He was doing it all because she was the absolute best person for him and he loved everything about her. That wasn’t a bad thing, was it?
“I’m going to start calling Laura at nine every night, just to annoy her,” Tom said instead, pushing some steak into his mouth. It was much more fun to think about all the reasons his dad’s wife was terrible than to try and think of one negative aspect of Sophie.
“She’d still pick up, and she’d be warm and friendly, because she’s also an incredibly good person,” his dad said, making it much less fun again. He locked eyes with Tom, a smirk on his face. He knew it made his son uncomfortable to talk about Laura and either he did it on purpose, or he didn’t care. Probably both.
“I suppose she makes good children,” was all Tom could say in response.
After lunch, Tom and his dad wandered to Hampstead Heath, something they used to do a lot more before Martha came along. And Tom’s work got busier. And then Sophie broke up with him and took away his desire to be in nature... or actually, really, if he were honest with himself, his desire to do most of the things he used to enjoy.
They turned into the park, his dad strolling with his hands in his pockets as he looked around, pointing out the ducks onthe pond or the shape of one of the trees. Two dogs approached a picnic blanket, stealing a tub of cocktail sausages as the owners started shouting after them to come back, echoes of “Jesus Christ, my sausages” ringing out across the park.
Tom immediately reached for the smaller camera in his jacket pocket that he’d taken to carrying with him at all times. His dad leaned back with his hands still in his pockets, barking a laugh into the open air. Tom caught every frame. The squinting eyes and the open mouth. The arched back as the sun shone off his dark hair, making it glisten. An array of trees in the background, their late autumn leaves framing the shot. Tom peered down at his screen, feeling that familiar rush. It was as though the more he sought out happiness, the more of it there was to find, and it wasn’t in the big moments like he thought it might be. It wasn’t Tom having to shout out something silly and set it up; it was just there, filtered throughout life.
The two on the picnic rug were now crying with laughter. One of them would say, “Jesus Christ, my sausages,” and it was enough to set them both off, over and over again. Tom took a few photos of them too, handing them an invite in return for their consent to use the pictures.
“What are these shots for then?” his dad asked curiously.
“It’s for an exhibition I’m putting on in December,” Tom replied and his dad turned to him, smiling.
“What kind of exhibition?” he asked, and Tom explained to his dad his very loose theory on happiness and the smaller moments you find it in.
It was as though everyone on the heath that day had conspired to prove him right, because the farther they walked, the more scenes of quiet everyday happiness they stumbled upon. A group of students playing rounders. A woman who’d got coffee froth all over her face and was trying and failing to lick it off, much to the amusement of the rest of her family. A toddlerwho’d dived into a puddle and lay right in the middle of it, splashing and chuckling. If Tom was going to have a problem with this exhibition, he feared it might be that he’d have too many photos for the space and he had no idea how he was going to select the best ones.
“I can’t wait to see it,” his dad said, squeezing Tom’s shoulder with his strong grip. “I’m glad you’re doing more of this stuff again. If you were to define happiness, I’d say this is yours. You’ve always been in your element taking snapshots of other people’s lives. Nosy little bugger, you are.”
When Tom got home, he added all the potential pictures he had into a folder, pausing on one of Daisy at the ceilidh. In all the time he’d known her, he had never seen her look that way, except in that one frame. In fact, over the last few days he’d felt as though she were as far removed from that photo as it was possible to be. The light seemed to have gone from her eyes, and despite the way she tried to hide it, Tom could see something wasn’t right.
It was weird, he thought, staring at the photo of her, that she hadn’t started quizzing him yet about the wedding photos. He hadn’t done many weddings, but the ones he’d had he’d regretted immediately due to of the number of meetings the brides and grooms had requested in advance. They wanted to instruct him on gettingnaturalshots so nothing seemed forced, while listing all the different group photos they wanted to make sure he’d take, but, “obviously while making it natural.”
Not Daisy though. Since Tom had agreed to be (or rather insisted on being) the photographer, she hadn’t brought it up once.
He clicked off the photo of her and to the left, where one of Sophie appeared. Of course he had to include her. A Tom Riley exhibition wasn’t a Tom Riley exhibition without at least one photo of Sophie. He had a different eye for her now, andit was making it more difficult for him to choose the image he wanted. For example, in the past, he’d definitely have selected this one of her with a giant grin on her face and one of Martha’s tiaras on her head, but if he zoomed in, he couldn’t see the smile in her eyes. Not enough. Interrupting his thoughts, his phone started ringing and he picked it up, only realizing after he’d swiped to answer whose name had been on the screen. Sophie. Realizing only moments after what he had thought next: that he couldn’t wait to tell Daisy.
Chapter Fifteen
Daisy
“This is huge!” Daisy leaned forward and hugged Tom, his camera pressing against her as it sat, the way it usually did now, around his neck. “What did she want?”
They’d met at the Southbank Centre for a live storytelling night called The Moth. Daisy had sent Tom the link, along with a quote fromOrlando.
“We write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person.”
They were at the bar ordering drinks while they waited for Clara, because Daisy had wanted to be able to look Zack in the eye when she told him where she was going. It had felt better, at least, to tell a half-truth.
“She was asking if a pair of her shoes were at mine and if she could somehow get them.”
Daisy snorted, then covered her nose.
“What?” Tom asked, laughing.
“She clearly wanted to hear your voice.”
His eyes widened in surprise, which amused Daisy further.
