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‘Lucky you.’ His voice was bleak. ‘I was five when I was first bitten.’
She stole a look at him but his gaze was fixed unseeingly elsewhere. Poor little boy, a pawn in his parents’ destructive lives. ‘It was such a shock when it happened, seeing myself on the front pages. I felt so exposed. I know it wasn’t clever.’ She traced the brand name on her camera case, remembering, the need for freedom, the urge for excitement, the thrill of the illicit. ‘But most sixteen-year-olds play hooky just once, try and get a drink underage somehow just once. They just don’t do it under the public’s condemning gaze.’
One set of photos, one drunken night, one kiss—the kind of intense kiss that only a sixteen-year-old falling in love could manage—and her reputation had been created, set in stone and destroyed.
‘You couldn’t have stuck to the local pub?’
He was so practical! She grinned, able to laugh at her youthful self now. ‘Looking back, that was the flaw in my plan. But honestly, we were so naive we couldn’t think where to go. The village landlord at home would have phoned Dad as soon as I stepped up to the bar. The pubs nearest school seemed to have some kind of convent schoolgirl sensor. We all knew there was no point trying there. Tana and I decided the only way we could be truly anonymous was in the middle of the city. We were spectacularly wrong.’
‘Tana?’
‘My best friend from school. I was going out with her brother and she was going out with his best mate. Teenage hormones, a bottle of vodka, an on-the-ball paparazzi and the rest is history. I don’t even like vodka.’
‘So as the camera flashes followed you down the street you thought, I know, I’d like to be on the other side?’
‘At least I’m in control when I’m the one taking the photos.’ The words hung in the air and she sucked in a breath. That hadn’t been what she had intended to say—no matter that it was true.
She shifted her weight and carried on hurriedly. ‘After school kicked me out I had no qualifications so I went to the local college where, as long as I took English and maths, I could amuse myself. So I did. I took all the art and craft classes I could. But it was photography I loved the most. I stayed on to do the art foundation course and then applied to St Martin’s. When they accepted me it felt as if I had found my place at last.’
That moment when she looked through the viewfinder and focused and the whole world fell away. The clarity when the perfect shot happened after hours of waiting. The happiness she evoked with her pictures, when she took a special moment and documented it for eternity.
A chill ran through her and it wasn’t just from the stone. She felt exposed, as if she had allowed him to see, to hear parts of her even her family were locked out of. She pushed off the column, covering her discomfort with brisk movements. ‘What about you?’ She turned the tables on her interrogator. ‘When did you decide you wanted to stand in a lecture theatre and wear tweed?’
‘I only wear tweed on special occasions.’ That quirk of the mouth of his. It shocked her every time how one small muscle movement could speed her heart up, cause her pulse to start pounding. ‘And my cap and gown, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Daisy tried not to dwell on the disparity in their education. Sure she had a degree, a degree she had worked very hard for, was very proud of. But it was in photography. Her academic qualifications were a little more lacking. She barely had any GCSEs although she had managed to scrape a pass in maths, something a little more respectable in English.
The man next to her had MAs and PhDs and honorary degrees. He had written books that both sold well and were acclaimed for their scholarship. He had students hanging on his every word, colleagues who respected him.
Daisy? She took photos. How could they ever be equal? How could she attend professional events at his side? Make conversation with academics? She would be an embarrassment.
‘I don’t think anyone grows up wanting to be a lecturer. I thought we already established that I wanted to be an outlaw when I was a child, preferably a highwayman.’
‘Of course.’ She kicked herself mentally at the repetition. Say something intelligent, at least something different.
‘But growing up somewhere like Hawksley, surrounded by history with literally every step, it was hard not to be enthused. I wanted to take those stories I heard growing up and make them resonate for other people the way they resonated with me. That’s what inspires me. The story behind every stone, every picture, every artefact. My period is late medieval. That’s where my research lies and what I teach but my books are far more wide ranging.’
