Chapter 9

Tony made Andrew drive on the journey north and west. He was in the passenger seat and Maggie was stretched out in the back. It was dark, there was no sign of the dawn at all. That far north in December, it was only a week until the shortest day, the sun didn’t rise until after 8.30. Andrew had two lists of his ideas for shoots to go through with them but it was pointless trying to read anything in the car until much later.

“Since it is too dark to read the lists why don’t we chat about how this friendship is evolving. There is nothing that is an issue but at the same time it feels weird what we are doing. Do you mind talking about it because I am, if not confused then.”

Andrew stopped and tried to find the right word.

“Okay I am confused.”

Maggie laughed from the back.

“I think it goes back to when I first met you, more than six years ago. Good grief the time flies quickly. Anyway. You were this scrawny little schoolboy, at that posh private school of yours. It was fun to tease you, to pull you into the girls. It was probably a bit cruel looking back on it, but it was meant as harmless fun. Then I discover that you, clever clogs that you are, had figured out how to develop the colour film from the camera club meetings. At first I was scandalised, you were only 12 for god’s sake. But you were this quiet, funny kid who had solved even that issue by only developing the rolls, not printing them.”

She paused here.

“Then you got sick. My grandfather had died of cancer three months earlier and you getting cancer hit me hard. Not just you, I hardly knew you, but it made me miss my grandad and the two reinforced each other. And you weren’t getting any better. So when you went into remission I was really pleased. Again not just for you specifically but as someone who had defeated cancer, which had taken my grandad. After that things just gradually got more relaxed. You went from the bald little skeleton to a normal kid and then you started growing. After you were so cool when you met me with some of the people from the Council, we started to hang out, sit and chat over a coffee every now and then. I don’t know why I was happy chatting to a 15 year old kid but it was easy.

“Now there is no restriction on what age a photographer has to be, it is only the model. But your 16^th birthday seemed to be a real watershed and I figured I would pose for you as a birthday present. Now when I first started to think that way, and when I started to tease you with the prospect, it was back to when you were 12. There was a teasing quality to it, but I also wanted it to be a big deal in your mind. Boys had been trying to get me naked, or at least topless, all through school. In my mind this was going to be a big deal for you. I don’t know at what moment it all changed. It is pretty clear that there wasn’t a single moment but just lots of little things. First of all, and most importantly, you became my friend. We chatted away and it goes back to all the revelations at the end of the summer. You are frighteningly good at keeping secrets and I had no idea of what you were doing, and how successful you were being at it. But you listened to me, didn’t judge me, which is always a huge concern for me, and in a lot of ways adopted my own attitude. You are always quoting it back to me, ‘what’s the big deal?’.

“So then when we get to the shoot those two idiots get all he-man and fuck up most of your shots, your time with me. But, looking back, it was a lucky break. Because when we did a second shoot where it was just the two of us I was so relaxed. You were my friend first and the photographer after.”

Maggie stopped again and Andrew squinted into the rear view mirror to check she was okay.

“For six months or so, maybe a little longer, I wondered about you and I, and having sex. I could tell I was a better model for you than anyone else, and at the same time you were just growing constantly into this huge hunk of a man.”

Andrew looked round at Tony with a worried expression.

“Relax, we have talked. Keep listening.”

Easy for him to say.

“I realised that I valued your friendship more. I think it was at the end of your 5^th year at school, so what’s that 18 months ago, and you were talking about those university visits, London and Cambridge. I can’t remember if it was before or after the trip, it doesn’t matter, but I realised that you were going to be off in a year’s time. So rather than risk our friendship I just let that go. I am seven years older than you so I stopped my cradle-robbing fantasies.”

They all laughed.

“Tony and I had known each other ever since I started modelling and because you and I always modelled at his studio I was around him more. Things changed between the two of us and we started going out. He doesn’t seem to mind that I am seven years younger!”

More laughter.

“I don’t want this last bit to sound icky because I don’t mean it the way it sounds but you are like my brother now Andrew. That you are not my brother is obviously important but I don’t know how else to describe it. I love to pose for you, there is no doubt about it. Tony and I have talked about this while you have been away. A lot of what we are talking about today is because Tony has been so great with me. We both can see that I am different with you than with any other photographer. I don’t know why, I have tried to explain some of the background but at its core there is no way to know for sure. I love posing for you, mostly because it is you, but also because the shoots we have done have been so different. Your brain is wired differently than other people I have worked with. I don’t know if there are other equally creative photographers but among the people I have worked with you are unique. We talked about it when we drove down the coast in September. You talked about seeing a tourist walking down the street wearing a coat like I wore on Blackford Hill. Anyone could have visualised that coat as a prop for a shoot but it was you. I wear that coat all the time, although I tend to also wear jeans when I am out and about.”

They all laughed.

“But it brings really positive memories. So I enjoy posing for you, more than anyone else, and Tony enjoys watching me pose. And again, I don’t know how you do it, but you included Tony in the shoots. Standing behind me while you were off to the side, God that made me so hot. You tap into that fantasy of everyone seeing what I am doing. I hear the shutter release and know that Tony is standing directly behind my arse.”

The sun rose early that day in Scotland Maggie’s smile was so bright.

“Same with the windbreaker. You photographed me coming right there on that beach. As you said, tell me what Tony is doing to you. And it was all with just my face.”

Maggie did an Andrew shrug.

“You have made me a better model, made me happier and have helped me fulfill some fantasies in really creative, yet safe ways. Again, this is going to sound weird. You, Andrew McLeod, make me hot, you being there turns me on, but I don’t want to do anything with you. Which when I say it out loud seems very selfish. I went you to spend time, heck yesterday you spent more of your money, design all these crazy shoots for me and then watch me drive off with Tony.”

Andrew had to laugh.

“I think I will cope. Thank you for explaining all that. I have thought about this on and off as well. For me, I feel like you did a couple of years ago, this is my illicit secret, not guilty, but something to keep hidden from everyone else. It is one of the few things in my life that I don’t talk about. I think I told Leslie about the first shoot, my ‘birthday present’ but other than that I have nothing.”

Tony spoke for the first time.

“That ties in nicely to what we were talking about last week. Would you work with another model to see how it goes?”

“We talked about that, even if it is a great shoot and that I do have a way of connecting with models that is different than normal, what does it prove?”

Andrew would look back and wonder if some of his business sense, his acumen, came from Tony Brown. Because Tony again showed he was always thinking about making some money.

“Maggie and I have been talking about seeing if there is a small business working as a glamour photographer. She has posted adverts on all the little noticeboards in the camera shops and studios where she works, and has got the word out that she is looking to set up a modelling agency. She has done this for years and has spoken to a lot of people during that time. Edinburgh is small and provincial, it would be nothing but a stepping stone for the women but we thought we would give it a go. I would be the main photographer but I wanted, we wanted, to see if you could do some shoots as well. If we have a model who wants her work to appear in print and you capture a shoot the same way that you do with Maggie then it would help, be more likely that she would have success.”

Wow. Andrew sieved that through his brain. Working with Maggie was not a job, anything but, it was hanging out with his friend foremost. Andrew wasn’t sure he wanted to a glamour photographer, even only an amateur one. But then he thought about Harry and Doug and Brian and even Tony himself and all the help and support, the mentoring they had given him. Karma.

“We will talk through all the specifics I am sure, but yes I will do several other shoots. I don’t know if you are able to get any set up over this break but I am happy to work with other models. It will be interesting to see how it is with someone I have never met, whether they are more standoffish, whether I am more standoffish. We will have to see.”

Tony smiled and patted him on the arm in thanks and Maggie wrapped her arms round his shoulders from the back seat. The sun hadn’t risen yet but the sky was lightening sufficiently that they should be able to read the lists within half an hour. Andrew had been pushing the speed on the way north as the last part of the journey was at the mercy of narrow roads and there was bound to be some farmer taking his tractor out for a spin. They were now driving along the side of Loch Laggan with snow-capped mountains to their right, the north.

“We should be able to talk through the list by the time we get to Fort William but let me tell you about one of my more impractical ideas. I don’t read the papers in detail, there never seems time but I did see something on one of the weekends where I got the chance to actually read the article. It was about what they call Munro-bagging.”

“What is Munro-bagging?”

“Let me tell you. So there are 282 mountains in Scotland that are over 3,000ft, and they are called Munros after the first bloke to categorise them. If you climb to the top of a mountain more than 3,000 ft. you have climbed a Munro, you have bagged it. You know what people are like, if you give them a list they will try and tick everything on it. It is the same with this. It is now part of the mountaineering scene, people specifically climbing mountains so that they can say they have completed the list. After our exploits at all the hills in Edinburgh I thought about Maggie doing the same thing, but she would be naked at the top of the mountain. I even thought we could get a mask for her. Can you imagine the outcry if we published the photos. It would be an instant best seller.

“Now before you say anything, like I said it was a momentary flight of fancy. Never mind publishing a book, look up at the hills. I had this thought half way through the article and it had been extinguished by the end of it. Firstly, it takes people, on average, close to 20 years to complete all the mountains, and I don’t know that you will want to be flashing the world in your 40s. And the other more serious one is it is dangerous. Ice, fog, cloud, getting closed in, falling off cliffs, they wrote about six people that died in the Cairngorms in the early seventies. More than 20 people have died in the mountains every year for more than a decade. So it was but a momentary idea.”

Both Tony and Maggie remembered the 1971 tragedy, it was children from an Edinburgh school that died.

“I don’t think that idea is realistic. I remember reading about that awful trip when it happened. There were lots of explanations about the weather being a real issue in the Scottish mountains. Although the heights are really low compared to Europe the weather can be ghastly. It is too dangerous, there is risk even in the summer. So a nice dream but never going to happen. I like the idea though, if we do get up into the hills then we can take some summit shots, but I think they are all going to be much lower heights, well below the snowline.”

Maggie had been silent and Andrew could see her chewing her lip.

“Are you okay Maggie?”

A big sigh.

“Oh I am fine Andrew. I was wallowing in a particularly delicious fantasy that’s all.”

Andrew had to keep his eyes on the road but Tony’s head whipped round, a large smile forming on his face.

“Well don’t tease us, what was it?”

“I was imagining one of those coffee table books with 282 pictures of me naked on the top of all these mountains. As usual with me it is never going to happen but just thinking about it, dreaming about it, got me all excited.”