The Painted Bridge (43 page)

“North?” A shadow passed over his face that was not to do with the moving clouds, that came from the inside. “You are going away?”

“Yes. I am traveling to Liverpool. I’ll be working at a sailors’ mission.”

Their eyes met.

“Your husband will accompany you, I suppose.”

“No. Martha Lovely’s coming with me. We’re going together. I am not married, Dr. St. Clair. I didn’t know it but—well, I’ve found out that I never was legally married at all.”

His face changed again. It took on a hopeful look.

“The photograph is beautiful. I’d like you to have a copy. Do you have an address, where you’re going?”

Anna smiled. She breathed the scent of lilac and lifted the spray of blooms in the air between them.

“Why don’t you make another?”

*   *   *

The sun was warm on his back. Lucas felt its heat through the cloth and thought that it reflected something that had already warmed inside him. Mrs. Palmer—Anna—was in front of him. Her head floated in the sky below. Her feet, in an old pair of boots, emerged from the hem of her long skirt and the world, the green curve of it, balanced itself on them. Her eyes looked intently at something. Someone. She looked at him. She saw him through the cloth.

Lucas adjusted the dial one last time until his focus on her face was as sharp as the lens could make it. Then he rose and emerged. The light was so brilliant outside the cloth that for a moment he couldn’t see anything. He blinked and recovered himself, replaced the lens cap, and inserted the dark slide.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes. I’m ready.”

Lucas pulled the cap off the lens and stepped into the picture, by her side. He could feel her living self next to his, the warmth of her arm where it made contact with his, and his own joy at facing outward from the picture, with her.

He would not smile. If a photograph could indicate anything at all of the movement of a mind, he wanted this one to announce that this
was the moment in which they lived and had their being. And that he understood that by the time he moved back to the camera, replaced the lens cap so that only his human eye still beheld Anna Palmer, it would be gone.

With thanks to my wonderful agent, Ivan Mulcahy, without whom this book would not have been written. To Laetitia Rutherford, also of Mulcahy Conway literary agency, for all her help. To my much-valued acquiring editors, Samantha Martin and Francesca Main, and to their passionate successors, Alexis Gargagliano and Jessica Leeke. To Maxine Hitchcock for her steady support and to all at Scribner and at Simon & Schuster UK. To my friends and fellow writers Andie Lewenstein and Linda Leatherbarrow and to generous readers Lynne Wallis, Birgit Kleeberg and Cate McRae.

Above all, thanks to my husband, Mike Goldwater.

Wendy Wallace is an award-winning journalist and writer.

Her journalism has appeared in magazines and newspapers, including
The Times, The TES, The Guardian
and
The Telegraph
. In 2001, she was Education Journalist of the Year.

Her book on life in an inner-city school,
Oranges and Lemons
, was published by Routledge in 2005.
Daughter of Dust: Growing Up an Outcast in the Desert of Sudan
was published by Simon and Schuster in 2009.

Her short stories have appeared in anthologies published by Methuen and Iron Press.

She lives in London with her husband and has two sons.

Visit her website at
www.wendywallace.co.uk
and follow her on Twitter
@slangular.