Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

“Your ignorance a’nt worth the effort of response.”

“And that’s a manoeuvre as well, isn’t it? Turn the other cheek but still score a hit. Is that what the Craft’s all about? Dried-up women with nothing to live for but the thought of damaging others’ lives? A spell here, a curse there, and what does it matter because if someone gets hurt only another member of the Craft will know. And you all hold your tongues, don’t you, Rita? Isn’t that the blessing of a coven?”

She continued washing one glass after another. She’d chipped one nail. The polish was scarred on another. “Love and death,” she said. “Love and death. Three times.”

“What?”

“Your palm. A single marriage. But love and death three times. Death. Everywhere. You belong to the priesthood of death, Mr. Constable.”

“Oh, quite.”

She turned her head from the sink, but her hands went on washing. “It’s on your palm, my boy. And the lines don’t lie.”

ST. JAMES HAD BEEN AT A LOSS the previous night. Lying in bed and gazing through the skylight at the stars, he thought about the maddening futility of marriage. He knew that the slow-motion, running-towards-each-other-along-thebeach-for-the-passionate-embrace-before-fadeout celluloid depiction of relationships led the romantic in everyone to anticipate a lifetime of happily-ever-after. He also knew that the reality taught, inch by merciless inch, that if there was a happily of any kind, it never came for an extended stay, and when one opened the door to its ostensible knock, one faced the possibility of admitting instead grumpily, angrily, or a host of others all clamouring for attention. It was sometimes extremely disheartening to have to contend with the messiness of life. He’d been at the point of deciding that the only reasonable way to deal with a woman was not at all when Deborah moved towards him from across the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered and slipped her arm across his chest. “You’re my number-one bloke.”

He turned to her. She buried her forehead against his shoulder. He put his hand on the back of her neck, feeling the heavy weight of her hair as well as the childlike softness of her skin.

“I’m glad of it,” he whispered in return. “Because you’re my number-one bit of fl uff. Always have been, you know. Always will be.”

He could feel her yawn. “It’s hard for me,” she murmured. “The path’s there, isn’t it, but it’s the first step that’s difficult. It keeps messing me up.”

“That’s the way of things. I suppose it’s how we learn.” He cradled her. He felt the sleep start to take her. He wanted to call her back from it, but he kissed her head and let her go.

Over breakfast, he’d still maintained caution, however, telling himself that while she was his Deborah, she was also a woman, more mercurial than most. Part of what he savoured about life with her was the unexpected. A newspaper editorial alluding to the possibility of the police manufacturing a case against an IRA suspect was enough to send her into a fury out of which she might decide to organise a photographic odyssey to Belfast or Derry to “find out what’s what for myself, by God.” A report about cruelty to animals took her to the streets to join in a protest. Discrimination against sufferers from AIDS dispatched her to the first hospice she could fi nd which accepted volunteers to read to patients, to talk, and to be a friend. Because of this, from one day to the next, he was never quite certain what sort of mood he might find her in when he descended the stairs from his lab to join her for lunch or for dinner. The only certainty about life with Deborah was that nothing was particularly certain at all.

He generally revelled in her passionate nature. She was more alive than anyone he knew. But living completely demanded that she feel completely as well, so while her highs were delirious, infused with excitement, her lows were correspondingly empty of hope. And it was the lows that worried him, making him want to advise her to rein herself in. Try not to feel so deeply was the counsel he always found himself ready to voice. He’d learned long ago to keep that prescription to himself, however. Telling her not to feel was as good as telling her not to breathe. Besides, he liked the whirl of emotion in which she lived. If nothing else, it kept him from ever being bored.

So when she said, finishing up her grapefruit wedges, “Here’s what it is. I need a direction. I don’t like the way I’ve been fl oundering about. It’s time I narrowed my fi eld of vision. I need to make a commitment and go with it,” he made a vaguely supportive reply as he wondered what on earth she was talking about.

He said, “Good. That’s important.” He buttered a triangle of toast. She nodded vigorously at his approval and, with gastronomical enthusiasm, tapped her spoon against the top of her boiled egg. When she didn’t appear to be forthcoming with any additional information, he said, in a tentative reconnaissance of her meaning, “Floundering makes one feel as if there’s no foundation, don’t you think?”

“Simon, that’s just exactly it. You always understand.”

He mentally patted himself on the back, saying, “A decision about direction gives the foundation, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely.” She munched happily on her toast. She was looking out the window at the grey day, damp street, and bleak, sooty buildings. Her eyes were alight with whatever obscure possibilities the icy weather and dismal surroundings promised.

“So,” he said, walking a fi ne line between expansive conclusion and information gathering, “what have you narrowed your vision to?”

“I haven’t entirely decided,” she said.

“Oh.”

She reached for the strawberry jam and plopped a teaspoonful onto her plate. “Except just look at what I’ve been doing so far. Landscapes, still lifes, portraits. Buildings, bridges, the interior of hotels. I’ve been eclecticism personified. No wonder I’m not developing a reputation.” She smeared jam on the toast and waved it at him. “It’s this. I need to make a decision about what sort of photography gives me the most pleasure. I need to follow my heart. I’ve got to stop striking out in every direction whenever someone offers me work. I can’t excel at everything. No one does, really. But I can excel at something. I thought it would be portraits at first, when I was in school, d’you know. Then I got sidetracked onto landscapes and still lifes. Now I’m just dabbling in whatever commercial assignment comes to hand. But that’s no good. It’s time to commit.”

So during their morning walk to the common where Deborah took the ducks the rest of her toast, and while they examined the World War I memorial with its solitary soldier, head bowed, rifle extended, she chatted about her art. Still lifes presented a wealth of opportunity — did he know what the Americans were currently doing with flowers and paint? had he seen the studies of metal scored, heated, and treated with acid? was he aware of Yoshida’s depictions of fruit? — but on the other hand, they did seem rather distant, didn’t they? Not much emotional risk involved in shooting a tulip or a pear. Landscapes were lovely — what a treat to be a travel photographer and go on assignment to Africa or the Orient, wouldn’t that be smashing? — but they demanded only an eye for composition, the skill for lighting, the knowledge of fi lters and film, all of it technique. Whereas portraits— well, there was an element of trust that had to be established between artist and subject. And trust required risk. Portraits forced both parties to come out of themselves. You took a picture of a body, but if you were good, you captured the personality beneath. Now there was real living, didn’t he think so, engaging the heart and mind of the sitter, earning his trust, capturing his realness.