Chapter 1

Suzanne having a hungover lie-in at Leslie’s house meant Andrew was up early and decided to make a start on the developing of all the rolls of film from the day before. He had been working away for a couple of hours when he heard noises indicating the shop was getting ready to open. He hung up the strips of negatives that he had developed to let them dry and walked out to see who had turned up. He was surprised to discover both Maggie and Tony.

“I thought you would be sleeping off an almighty hangover?”

Maggie winced but gently shook her head.

“Leslie was in her own home and she and Suzanne were on a mission. Tony persuaded me to head home at 10.30. What time did Suzanne make it back?”

“She didn’t. When I got back to the flat I had a message on the machine from Julian saying that they had got hammered and she was sleeping there. I assumed you were with them.”

“No, I was drunk but not that drunk. Anyway, Merry Christmas, I haven’t seen you since Christmas Eve. How was the day?”

“It was fine. There is no point in rehashing it. How about you?”

Andrew stopped.

“Are you here to help in the shop?”

“I will if I am needed but I just wanted to have some company, get out of the flat. Why?”

“Has Elspeth shown you her pictures?”

Maggie nodded.

“Yes, after she described them to me I asked if she would show me. She thought about it for a moment but agreed. She asked that I not describe them to Tony. She is working to maintain the difference between herself and her modelling persona. Just as I had Monica, so she has Ursula.”

“I am developing the shots from yesterday, well making a start. If she was okay with you seeing the pictures then I wondered if you wanted to give me a hand. I don’t feel like we have had much of a chance to chat.”

Maggie smiled.

“Let’s get some coffee and I will let Tony know to bang on the door if he needs a hand.”

Developing the negatives was a one person process, so Maggie sat on a stool sipping her coffee.

“How did your Christmas Day go? Survive it.”

Maggie considered the question, it could hardly have been unexpected.

“Before I answer let me ask you one first. You talked about how your parents grew up working class, their own parents were servants and a bus driver, a shop assistant, that’s right isn’t it? How did your grandparents react to their children trying to be more, I guess more middle class? Did they make comments? Were they supportive?”

It was an interesting question and Andrew could see the underlying issue beneath it.

“So my Dad’s two parents had this huge age gap and so his father, my grandfather died in the 1950s. Now he was already an old man but this was before Dad met Mum, so he doesn’t enter into this. My Grandma is Dad’s mother and she is my only living grandparent. All three of her children, so Dad and my two aunts, have become middle class. Dad is a teacher, so is his oldest sister and my other aunt works for Scottish & Newcastle at their Head Office. Some kind of middle management. So that side of the family has embraced education and has moved socially. And Grandma seems to be happy with her life and their life. I mean when I go to church with her, like I will tomorrow morning, she is happy to brag to all her friends about how I am Cambridge University. But I will often take round fish and chips for dinner. So she seems to be happy to be herself, go down to the bookies, bet on the nags, but at the same time be proud of what her children and grandchildren have accomplished. But that is all through my lens. I don’t know if things were different 30 years ago when my aunts were leaving home, getting married, stuff like that. But what I see now is the finished product and there is stability to it.”

Andrew had been moving film through the development process as he spoke and took a moment for a sip of coffee.

“Mum’s parents are both dead. I was not yet six when my grandfather died and had just turned eight when my grandmother passed away. So my memories of them are those of a child. I was spoiled by them, Mum is an only child, and Rowan and I were their only grandchildren. But in the intervening years our contact with Mum’s extended family has faded away to Christmas cards and not much else. Or at least that is what it was like four years ago. But I did overhear Mum bitching at Dad about her aunts, uncles and cousins. From the little that I heard there seemed to be some catty comments. And I did hear her say that the comments behind her back were ten times worse. The one that stuck in my memory was how they were complaining that Rowan and I were going to private school. That seemed to be the big betrayal. Working as a teacher or a social worker, they didn’t care about that. It was our schooling that was the problem.”

Andrew took another sip of coffee.

“Goodness, I haven’t thought about that, thought about that side of the family for years.”

He finally stopped and waited for Maggie to start.

“My family think I have married well. Sure I have been promoted twice but I am still a secretary for the Council. And they know very little about the business. But they have been in the shop and know that there is a studio and darkroom through the back. I suppose it comes back to where do you draw the line with your family. My brother is an okay guy, we weren’t close growing up, in fact I tried to avoid him. He had too many friends that never looked me in the eye. But the woman that he married is a right shrew. She had a snide comment about the Christmas presents on Thursday. Right there in the living room in the flat in front of everybody. I don’t remember the exact words but it was a dig about how little we had spent on our presents. I had spent the most ever on them, but to her, based on where we were living and with Tony running a successful business it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t going to be a flash bitch and spend loads of money on presents. Then I would have called out for lording it over them. I feel stuck.”

Andrew knew that last issue well. It was always a struggle to get nice presents, meaningful presents, without going crazy. Mind you this from the man who bought his friend a Jaguar.

“Do you think it is wrong that I don’t want to invite them round to the new house?”

Andrew had to be careful.

“Maggie, I am not sure I am the best person to ask. Remember I walked away from my parents. I haven’t seen them in over a year, haven’t had any contact in that time. I have a little brother who probably barely remembers me. And it has bugged me for years. I have replaced my mother with one person and have replaced my father with a combination of at least three people, one of whom is Tony. I am not the poster child for getting on with your family.”

“Leslie didn’t say that in so many words but she did allude to it. I am still asking you.”

“The key is your parents. If they are okay coming round, and importantly dealing with your brother and his wife bitching at them about you, when you don’t invite them over, then do what feels right for you and Tony. The bigger problem would be if your parents think you are being unreasonable. The ‘families stick together through thick and thin’ mentality.”

“I don’t think Dad would be overjoyed about it but wouldn’t make a fuss. And Mum already has issues with her so I think she would be okay. I am still nervous about showing them round the house.”

“That isn’t going to go away. But tell them the businesses are doing well and that Tony sold his flat and you are going to work hard to afford it. One of the things you should mention to deflect some of the comments is talk about how many people the businesses all employ now. Stacey is full time with four part time assistants. Tony is hiring two people to assist him. Elspeth has an assistant and will probably need another soon. There is the accountant. And don’t forget Elspeth’s mother and her gang of pensioners going through all the boxes of prints. What is that, 14 or 15 already. All these people have jobs because of the business. You can stay true to your roots, be proud of where you came from, where your parents still live, and at the same time also be proud of where you have got to. And the opportunities your children will have.”

Maggie smiled and nodded.

“Thank you for all that. I needed to hear it from someone who doesn’t know any of the people. Did you even meet my brother at the reception?”

“I don’t think so. He was out on the dance floor when you gave me the quick tour of your family. I spent most of the rest of the night with Elspeth and Donnie.”

It was a nice transition.

“How did yesterday go?”

Andrew explained the different sets he had shot.

“And Donnie was fine?”

“I checked at the end of the session. I even told him I would be checking every time. He understood. But they are doing this together. Having him as a gopher on the shoot is ideal. They have both said they trust me but I still think it helps. The total pivot point was when I brought that magazine back. She was like you, she liked being a model, and was gradually thawing, being more daring, pushing herself. But it was for herself, or for her and Donnie. The magazine opened her eyes to this whole different world. A world where someone was publishing photographs of women her size, and a lot bigger. And in the space of less than a month she went from being conscious of her weight and her figure to wanting to flaunt it. And more than anything else that attitude comes through in the pictures. I think I took a shot yesterday of her standing there naked, her hands on her hips, with a facial expression of ‘here I am, deal with it’. In fact even more it was ‘here I am, don’t you wish you could run your hands all over me’. Elspeth puts on the wig, puts in coloured contact lenses, sticks the little rose tattoo on her wrist and changes her rings, these are all physical changes to mask her true identity but even although she models as Ursula Schmidt the attitude is Elspeth Robertson. She has talked to you about all this. She was the anti you at school. She calls herself the fat girl that nobody cast a second glance at. Now she knows that there are men that want to look at her, publishers that are paying her a lot of money to pose this way, and she is embracing it. She seemed very happy yesterday, they both did.”

“Do you enjoy doing the shoots? It is another model getting very explicit right in front of you but then disappearing off with her husband. Why are you doing it?”

Andrew had often considered that very question.

“There are several parts to it. Despite being very conventional and knowing lots of people in positions of power and influence, I have a rebellious streak to me. And I think even more I have a rebellious streak against society, against societal norms. Part of that is due to my disdain for religion. I got Elspeth and Donnie to pose in her mother in law’s house while she was at Mass with their children. But with both of you there is also the very strange way that you are subverting the norms of society. Married women should not be masturbating with a dildo in front of a stranger and getting photographed doing it. And that stranger bought them both their dildos. That is not normal. Now both of your husbands are there but it is still abnormal. And so part of it goes back to the conversations we had when I was a teenager. You talked about the illicit thrill that you got from modelling. And you both still do, but so do I. I get the thrill of being the photographer, of being part of this illicit little secret. And without getting all deep into the psychology of it, you both want, and almost need, to do it. You are always going to be a complete exhibitionist, and Tony knows that and encourages you. And Elspeth is always going to be a bigger woman but she has this need to be desired because she is bigger. Not despite the fact she is 13 stone, but because she is. I told her we were going to photograph her on scales the next time, her personal demon. A huge part of this is who you both are, and you don’t have to deny it, suppress it, anything like that. You can just be free and go for it. Would 95% of the population understand, probably not but it doesn’t matter. You are hurting no one with your actions. And the final part is very personal. For many women I have been the ‘safe guy’. It was like that at school, and is still like that now, both at university and with my own modelling, so I have to accept that I like being the safe guy. Two happily married women trust me in very intimate situations and it gives me a lot of satisfaction that they trust me over anyone else.”

Maggie nodded.

“The safe guy thing is key. I hear everything else you say but for me, and I am pretty sure it is the same for Elspeth. Being able to act the way we do, pose the way we do and not have to worry about how the photographer is going to react, what he is going to say or try and do, that is key. It is something that we are both going to have to deal with after June.”

“I will still be up visiting all the time.”

“Yes, but it will be to see us, your grandmother, Leslie and Julian, see Nikki and Fran. She was lovely by the way. Such a nice lady. The visits won’t have time for you to shoot Elspeth and I all day. Never mind getting the film developed.”

“There are studios in London, you will just have to come and visit.”

Maggie smiled triumphantly.

“I am glad you asked before we did. We had come to that conclusion.”

She stopped and looked at him.

“I can only speak for myself, although I am pretty sure Elspeth is the same way. This is something that is part of me. I love posing for you. Tony loves me posing as well. Not just the memories of my modelling days but it excites us. You had to listen to him shag me all over the Norfolk Broads. It will be something you will be doing for years.”

She smiled again.

“Although it will be an interesting conversation to have with your girlfriend or eventually your wife.”

Maggie laughed at his expression. They had worked away as they were chatting and had 14 of the 23 rolls developed and printed. Andrew figured he would be back first thing the following morning and would try to get them all finished before he went to church with his Grandma. He drove over to Leslie’s house and collected Suzanne, who was looking and feeling more than a little sorry for herself. They got back to the flat, laden down with bags from her trip to the sales. Andrew hadn’t been swimming yet so they went over the road to the pool. An hour later Suzanne looked much better and after showering and getting dressed they sat and had a late lunch.