Chapter 11

Although Andrew’s flat was empty there was a presence to it. Suzanne was not a big wearer of perfume but she had a favourite soap, a favourite shampoo, he could smell and feel the presence of her even although she was not there. Andrew was a day late, he had hoped to be back in Edinburgh around that time the previous day but the extra night in Martinique had screwed all that up. There was a note from Suzanne on the dining room table letting him know that she was out finishing her Christmas shopping and hoped to be home for dinner. It also said there was dinner with her parents on the 23^rd and at Leslie and Julian’s on Christmas Eve. He shrugged. He pottered around the flat for an hour. Just domestic tasks that needed done, sorting out laundry, going through all the mail, making some lunch. Andrew stood at the bay window in the living room looking off down the street as he ate his sandwich. He wasn’t even really thinking, just enjoying the quiet and relaxation. He knew that the modelling was done until the summer, maybe with a weekend in Lent Term.

Andrew thought about Christmas, now less than three days away and realised that he was looking forward to some time on his own. The thought of silence, and no need to do or say anything, that appealed. The week in Martinique had not been relaxing, sure he was in a villa in the Caribbean in December so nobody was going to give him any sympathy, but he had felt a tension the whole time. So his thoughts, such as they were, were all over the place. And it wasn’t even that he was home, he really didn’t know if he had a home any more, it was the people, Leslie and Julian, Tony and Maggie, his Grandma, and most of all Suzanne. He would see her that evening so he contemplated the afternoon. He called his Grandma but she had made an early start to the sherry so they agreed, without ever saying it, that it wasn’t the best day to visit. She had a church lunch the next day and so he said he would be over to see her on Christmas Eve. He had seen Leslie and Julian just two weeks earlier so decided to head over to the shop. It would be busy in the run up to Christmas but hopefully Tony would have time to chat.

Although it was a Monday afternoon the schools had all finished the previous Friday and so the store was busy. As he slipped past everybody he could hear lots of conversations. A significant number of shoppers were children in with one parent buying a present for the other one. The pfaff factor was high and Stacey, Tony and two people he didn’t know were all busy. Tony grimaced as he went past.

“I will get through as soon as I can. Give Elspeth a call, she is beside herself to talk to you.”

She was indeed very excited when Andrew called and told him she would be down to the shop as soon as possible. She asked him to meet her outside as they needed to talk. Now some ‘we need to talk’ conversations, indeed most of them, are not good news. The tone Elspeth used was very much the opposite. So Andrew restocked the shelves while the other four kept serving and then left to chat to Elspeth when he saw her standing outside. As soon as they were out of sight of the shop Elspeth went all boa constrictor on him and tried to squeeze him to death in a hug.

“They all sold.”

Andrew had guessed that one of the sets had sold, but not all 12.

“Bloody hell. Good work.”

Elspeth slipped her arm into his and they started walking. She scurried them over to George Square, almost empty with all the students away and they found a bench.

“I can’t really talk to you up there when we are walking.”

Elspeth put her hand on his for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to get herself calm.

“You called it completely right Andrew. Donnie and I had tried really hard not to get too carried away. But what you said about there being not many models my size who would pose the way Ursula did, that was spot on.”

Andrew noticed she called the model Ursula, as if she was a third person.

“I sent the details to both publishers, two of the magazines are published by the same company. They both wrote back as soon as they saw the contact sheets for the sets. We ended up selling the photographs to the company that publishes the two magazines.”

Andrew was in danger of going blind Elspeth was smiling so brightly.

“That is fantastic news. I can tell you are delighted so I won’t say anything.”

She knew what he meant. He could also see that now that she had told him the news she was calming down.

“I am beyond delighted and out the other side. They sent me details of the size of the prints that they want. They have selected 20 shots per set that they want enlarged. They tried it on and requested the negatives but Mhairi had taught us all long ago how to deal with that. I also only licensed them for publication in West Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.”

Elspeth was miles ahead of Andrew. He realised that this was her day to day job but he would have made a million mistakes. He also saw a morning in the darkroom doing all the enlargements for final submission.

“How is Donnie? Equally excited?”

She nodded.

“He is. But you did another good thing by making us think about, and talk about, different people. It can be a bit silly when he is talking about what Gunther would want to do and I am talking about Ursula. It is like there are four people in our bed.”

She giggled.

“But with Ursula, and I suppose Gunther for him, I can let go. The photos that we are selling to this company could not be published in Britain, they would be illegal. And yet I really don’t care. Between the wig, the contacts, the fake rings, the transfer pretending to be a tattoo, and the different name, I feel anonymous and free.”

“You didn’t want to take a more gradual approach?”

Elspeth sighed and looked at him.

“No. If I hadn’t seen the third magazine, the really explicit one, then I would have just posed like the first two, naked and open legs. But I did see the third magazine, something that cannot even be bought in Britain. I never realised that I could be like that. Fat isn’t sexy, fat people don’t get naked, fat people don’t fuck, fat people don’t pose like that, get photographed like that. Or so I thought. But that one magazine shattered that myth.”

She sighed again.

“When you have been fat your whole life, have heard nothing but snide comments, put downs, fat jokes your whole life, then the opportunity to do something different, yet not have to change, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. And I know that I don’t have to pose that way, I could just be a regular nude model but I have denied things my whole life. So it is probably swinging too far the other way but Ursula doesn’t care.”

She smiled.

“And neither does Elspeth. My husband likes my body, he always has. Although he has been channeling his inner teenage boy for the last two years.”

They laughed.

“People won’t waste good money to buy that magazine to make fun of the pictures of women they have never met, and never will. So people who are buying the magazine are buying it because they like big women. If there are three magazines being published then there are a lot of guys that get off looking at pictures of people like me, well Ursula. You know what I mean.”

Andrew was struck by how eerily similar it was to Suzanne and her submission. It was an utterly different context but it was almost identical. If someone was selling this then someone had to be buying it. There was no difference.

“And that was the key thing. It wasn’t like I was submitting the pictures to Playboy for their ‘fattie of the month’ feature. So that I could be mocked and compared to the 20 year old centrefold. I was told that the pictures of Ursula are almost certainly going to be used as a centrefold one month. All the women are bigger, some of us are chubby, some are fat, some are comparatively demure, some of them get fucked in the pictures. I am somewhere in the middle, about as explicit as I can get on my own. But the men who are buying it will be fantasising about me. And that is an incredible rush, an incredible feeling. It is the best Christmas present ever.”

Andrew did not have any reservations before that afternoon chat, but now? Time for some more photographs.

“When is Gunther free?”

Elspeth smiled, her nostrils momentarily flaring.

“He is off until the day after Boxing Day, so Friday.”

“I don’t know what is happening on all the different days yet. I have your number so I will call you tonight or down at the office tomorrow. I don’t think it will be tomorrow but it could be but I will let you know tonight obviously. Could you shoot on Boxing Day?

“Yes, that would be the best day I think. Donnie and I would say we were going through to Glasgow or something like that. The kids are old enough to be on their own, they won’t even notice we are not there. Friday would be perfect Andrew.”

“I will get it sorted out and let you know. Come on, let’s head back.”

They were an odd pair strolling back to Nicolson Square. Elspeth got back into her car and headed off and Andrew returned to the shop. Tony was through the back.

“I shouldn’t be upset about making so much money but it has been busy out there all day. How are you? Good to see you.”

“Glad to be back.”

Andrew told Tony about the delay due to the pilot illness.

“I will save the rest of the stories about the shoots until Maggie is around. Save me telling you both twice.”

Tony nodded.

“Business good?”

Tony snorted.

“Remember when you first pitched up, I was hobbling around on my busted ankle. Stacey might have been working part time, but it was her and me and I had the darkroom and the studio and they were used on and off. But the shop and the flat were paid for and I had a good life. That was not even 10 years ago.”

Tony shook his head.

“I am sounding upset but I am not. Stacey runs the shop, Stu runs the studios and the darkrooms, Elspeth sells to, well at times it seems like she sells to every publisher in the country. Alex is keeping track of all the money. Stacey has assistants, Elspeth has an assistant, I have two assistants, well I will have starting in a couple of weeks, when did I decide to become a mogul?”

Andrew thought Tony was upset at first but had started to smile as Tony went on and on.

“We both know exactly when.”

“Yes, I blame her too. Things are great, I worry they are too great to be honest. Alex has been a big help, she has laid everything out so that we can see how each part of the business is really doing. I worried that one part of the business was making money but the rest were just okay. From talking to mates, like Danny that runs his own HiFi shop, rent is a significant cost. I never had that, Dad never had a loan or a mortgage on either the shop or the flat. So the studio, darkrooms and shop all make healthy profits. The two studios upstairs are also doing well, not as well as the main studio because of the money we spent on them that has to be. She used an accounting term, but even taking that into account they are doing fine. Maggie also didn’t wreck the place when we got it converted. If they start to not be used as much, due to the new studio or competition or whatever, then the space can be converted back into a flat and then sold. The old photographs we are buying from auctions, they are ridiculously profitable. We get them for peanuts, and Elspeth’s mum and her cronies sit and sort them all out. Elspeth has two students working part time, storing and filing all the prints and negatives. One of them comes through from Glasgow one day a week.”

“Glasgow?”

“Strathclyde University has a course in Library Studies, she is a student and this is great experience for her. But the costs are all small. Alex keeps track of all that and then when we licence a set of prints it goes against these costs. But it is nice and steady, ticking over, and we are not stressing the pensioners. That is what is stopping us trying to do more. It is through them identifying stuff from the past that we make the money. If we did the same thing in other cities then I think we could make more money, but it is that kind of reckless expansion that worries me. Too many people, too much cost, not enough money to be found in the pictures.”

Andrew nodded, it was finding someone local to manage it in the different cities that would be key.

“What about your own work?”

“I am doing well enough that I am starting two assistants once I get up and running in the new studio. I am going to get them to alternate between helping me and developing the film in the darkroom. It was developing all the film that was the time soak. You saw how many rolls of film I had after the two weeks on the boat, not counting all the pictures you took of Maggie. I am going to hire them for a year, see if I am still making money. But Alex costed it out for me and I can afford it for a year, even if I don’t sell much.”

“You keep mentioning Alex.”

Tony smiled and nodded before his smile faded.