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Craig never shared my fascination with castles, their stories, nor the idea of the past living on through heaps of stone, grassy mounds and windswept cobbles. I could hardly blame him; it was why I wasn’t surprised by going our separate ways. However, I hadn’t expected the rebound to happen so quickly on his part.
I probably wasn’t cut out for sharing my life with anyone. What would a fun-loving guy make of a feckless daydreamer who carried a camera wherever she went, glued to her like an unnatural appendage?
Two
He wiped the dust off the varnished cedar, emptied the contents of the box, and checked the tips of the brushes. He discarded the frayed ones. One by one, he sorted the small tubes of paints into colours, and noted the gaps. He wrote down what he needed to order from his supplier. Satisfied with the list, he repacked the box and closed the lid.
The lightweight easel wasn’t in good shape. He leaned on it, and it creaked painfully. Folded, however, it was perfect for carrying.
There were other preparations to make, and he would stretch them out from one day to the next until it was time to go. The stack of paper required careful handling. He trimmed each sheet to size and sandwiched them between two boards. A roll of adhesive tape was dropped into a khaki rucksack, along with a staple gun, and a few wooden wedges for stretching canvases. From a shelf he selected the inks, and out of a drawer, a range of pencils. And the knife for sharpening them – an easy choice.
The telephone trilled sharply. He located it under a dust sheet. The phone call lasted longer than he would have liked. He pressed hard for more information and none of it was forthcoming. The plan was in motion, he was told, but beyond that he was required to wait. Constantly frustrated by his contact, the artist had kept himself busy with his usual routine, and circumvented questions from his curious colleagues. Most had Easter holidays in mind. He didn’t envy them. He was content to follow a different path.
On the spur of the moment he climbed the ladder into the attic and rummaged through the discarded heaps until he found what he was looking for behind the water tank. It would need a decent airing. For the first time he felt excited, almost relieved by the anticipation of leaving home for an extended period.
The arrival of the contract heralded the start of the next phase of his project.
Three
Coalville
Icouldn’t criticise my parents for the lack of opportunities. They had carried me through childhood with carefully managed finances and muted optimism. They had given me everything a child needed in a kind, nurturing environment. Everything except adventure and holidays abroad. The reason I had failed to escape home wasn’t their fault. I was the one who had to break out of the comfort zone of living with amenable parents. My brother, Richard, had managed it; why couldn’t I?
The answer had to lie with proper motivation and not magical fantasies initiated by what exactly? The lady at Ashby had called it a gift. I should have forgotten what she’d said, but I couldn’t. If I hoped to establish a career, I needed to concentrate on the tangible, believable things in life, like my self-taught photography skills. For technology was fast moving and I’d had little opportunity to experiment with the latest digital cameras that had just come on the market. It was bad enough having to safely store the rolls of exposed films, negatives and photo albums. My bedroom was an archive filled with shoeboxes and cartons stacked on shelves. When I showed my parents my pictures, my kindly mother and father admired them and smiled sweetly. Occasionally Dad asked about the camera settings, nodding gravely at the explanation. Not a token gesture, he listened attentively, but the art wasn’t one that he shared with me. He preferred fishing rods.
Who decided that ambition was a necessity for life, and who decided if you were successful or not? I had constructed a career plan at school: earn enough to rent a place that had potential for a studio and dark room; turn a hobby into an industry, and from there, I’d make a name for myself as a photographer. Those ideas fell apart quickly. I hadn’t the money, nor had my family, and when I touted my skills, amateur admittedly, to local studios, they only wanted the baby pictures and assistants for weddings. Photographing reluctant babes with chubby cheeks and drool was not even a halfway house to where I wanted to go. Hence, hotels with their shifting sea of people who should have told me where to go, what to see, and who to meet.
The silver lining remained the trips out, the odd adventure to a crumbling historical site, an abbey or picturesque somewhere village. I had my favourites, ones I returned to over and over, to relive the smells and sounds. Yvette, perhaps, out of all of my friends understood the lure.
Yvette was an oddity. The declaration was my own perspective and nobody else’s. I clung to the perception for one simple reason: Yvette, armed with a first-class honours and plenty of job offers, had found one locally, as in the middle of England and far from the epicentres of art appreciation. I had been dumbfounded. Instead of delving into past secrets of great artworks, Yvette designed marketing brochures for a fashion house, admittedly haute couture, and niche, but still, it wasn’t what her friends or family had anticipated. What about London? I had asked her three years ago, when she returned after her graduation ceremony.
‘It’s not necessarily where all the talent is,’ she had replied with a slightly indignant tone. ‘You should know that. Anyway, I realised I was being dragged into academia, which just isn’t me.’ The nail polish and lip gloss had shone as brightly as the clothes she wore, fresh off some catwalk. ‘I could never do what’s expected of me. You understand, surely?’
I thought I did, and yet my idea, on the surface, was hardly unoriginal. After all, people travelled; alone too, if that was necessary. But they most probably didn’t base their travels on a romantic idea of seeing the past come to life in ruined structures. I needed to connect, to meet people with similar interests; Coalville wasn’t helping me find them.
Yvette had a grander view of what I might achieve and had thrust an idea upon me that I should try again to exhibit my work at a local art institute. The last time we had spoken about it at the pub, we’d both been exasperated and tired, and perhaps I had been too defeatist. According to her, I was missing a golden opportunity. It was hardly my fault; I really wasn’t qualified to enter a prestigious art exhibition.
‘What’s the point?’ I had said. ‘Two years I’ve tried to get in, a third year is bound to fail.’
‘Not this time,’ she’d said.
I hadn’t shared her optimism. ‘There’s no point, honestly, it’s like I’m so far off the mark for the entry level, I might as well send my pictures to Blue Peter.’
She had sighed and before replying, and with abundant ease, had quaffed a mouthful of Burgundy wine. ‘Utter rubbish, Robyn. And you know it. Trust me, darling, things happen when you take risks.’
The darling didn’t grate. It was Yvette in her work mode. All lovey-dovey mannerisms coupled with a hard-nosed business mind. No wonder she had shunned an academic life.
The deadline for applicants was four days away, just before Christmas. Yvette insisted three times was the lucky charm. And, yes, I agreed, my portfolio had improved, and I had more chance with the recent batch of pictures.
‘It’s about putting out feelers,’ she said sagely. ‘Finding others with similar projects. Artists, historians, authors. Better still, a sponsor, a kind of patron of the arts. You’re going to have to be passionate about what you do. Consider your photography an art, not something you do with a camera. It’s about expressing yourself. Tell a story. The transition of time, that’s your thing. Time and place.’ Her enthusiasm effervesced in her voice.
The word passionate haunted me after that conversation. Was I passionate? Was photography a distraction or something I couldn’t live without? Without a camera, would the castles I yearned to visit, and the stories attached to them, retain the same level of interest? Did I really view my photographs as a means to bring those castles back to life, like my daydreams? The truth was, beyond storing them, I’d done nothing creative or truly tangible with the photographs – Yvette considered my negligence a big waste.
I lay on my bed in my overcrowded bedroom, reached over to the bedside stand, and picked up an envelope. Inside were the blank spaces of a printed form. I’d failed again to complete the entry application. Yvette would not be pleased. She was convinced this was the best way to secure a patron. But what exactly would I do with one anyway?
She would ring again soon to ask if I’d posted the form, and I knew what she would say. She’d said it at the pub.
‘Just fill the damn thing in. The world of creative arts is full of rejection letters. It’s what gives you backbone.’
