Darkroom

            by Laura Cornwall

 

            Patrick pushed his way through the crowd, wondering why he’d come. There had been a message on his phone in a husky, distant voice. An address. A model for him. The voice knew he was desperate to get out of the studio, to go back to shooting in places that were real.

            So he went. The house was possibly Victorian, possibly an attempt at modern architecture, he had no way of knowing – the whole place, wood shingles and panels of sheet metal and all, was covered in scaffolding. Nervously, he walked through the ajar front door, feeling the vibrating air wash over him. It clung to his skin (this isn’t how it used to be) and nestled in the dips of his collarbone. His face tightened, and he pushed past the immediate crowd, sequins scraping along his skin.

            Further into the room perfume and smoke swirled, settling into everyone’s hair, the coiffed attempts falling apart at sweaty seams. Heavy bass lines and androgynous voices pushed into his bones. Something was wrong. He was wrong. Ripped jeans, dirty button-down shirt, padded camera bag, thick plastic-framed glasses; in one year he’d distanced himself so much that he no longer knew this life. And the voice mentioned nothing of this mess of people, all writhing and drinking and doing lines (not again, don’t look; you’re fine) in the corners, tarnished mirrors pulled off the walls. Someone dragged sharp fingernails through his shaggy hair and he bolted through to the back room, scraping against more sequins and sliding across slick skin.

            And now, this was where he was supposed to be. He clicked the door solidly behind him, leaned back against it, and closed his eyes. He forced his shallow breaths back, urging his lungs into taking slow, steady ones instead. (One, two, three. Time to open eyes.)

            It was dark. The many lamps were covered in fabric; linens, silks, possibly even velvets. The air was easier now that the walls filtered out the music. Looking around, it was as though everything of value had been shoved into this room, hidden from reckless limbs. Paintings, rugs, vases, those countless lamps, and items for which he had no names.

            On the far couch a figure lay sprawled, as though it too had be thrown in, protected only to be ignored.

            “About time.” It was the same voice, rough and enticing, sending the hint of a shiver down his spine. The figure was clearly female, though he couldn’t see her.

            Patrick pushed himself off the wall and faced towards her, his fingers latched onto the strap of his bag. “I came. I have my camera. But why did you call me?”

            “You need something new, I need something old. That’s all.” She pulled a few lamp cords and more soft light flickered on around her.

 Her red hair was a tangled mess, some locks falling gently around her face, others stiff with the remnants of gels and sprays. Heavily shadowed eyes bore into him, glitter smeared around them. Her tiny figure curled underneath a black dress (black slip, but it couldn’t be the same one…) angles softened under silk, then again under a layer of sheer… he didn’t know what. All he could see through it was endless glitter sinking into her skin; only the tops of her hands were clean.

            Her eyes, those eyes, sent a small piece of him running for cover, ducking behind walls in his mind. He ignored it and pulled out his camera. Her face twisted (smilesneerlaughglaredare no don’t make contact) and his finger clicked down before he’d had time to adjust at all. 

 

/           /           /

 

            Safely back in his Emeryville loft (“starving artists” living blocks away from the bourgeois) he took a few more deep breaths before putting his camera bag down and sinking into a tattered armchair. As he took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, he noticed that his hands were shaking.

            (Only 18 months and you throw yourself back towards the snake pit, all because of some voice. That fucking voice, you know you know it. You know you know those eyes too.) He pulled the part of him that had hid in his mind during the photo shoot back to the surface. What the hell is going on? he asked. A violent shake of the head, and the part once again ran for cover.

            He looked down into his hands, then up his arms. His fingers itched and his mind spun. He stood up. Looked at the phone. Looked at the coffee pot. Phone coffee phone coffee phone coffee. The phone was dangerous, too many ways to go; he pulled a coffee can off the shelf.

 

/           /           /

 

            He awoke on his futon, eyes burning, head rushing, mouth full of old cotton. He stood halfway up before sinking back onto the bed again. He never used to burn out after nights like… like the last one. He inhaled deeply and pushed himself out of bed.

              Once a cup of coffee had settled his body, the mind being a different matter entirely, he opened his camera bag. The roll of film sat there, tucked into its designated space, though he had no memory of removing it from the camera. The hidden voice tried to yell that no, memory was not good not good not good but he ignored it and walked into his bathroom-turned-darkroom.

 

/           /           /

 

            For the first time in ages, Patrick was satisfied with his work. Not all of it, no, of course not all of it, but he had photographs he deemed worthy of the wall. He tacked a few up and took a step back.

            She was all shadow and shimmering evocation. Almost her whole body lay shrouded, and yet every bone was painfully present. The shadows over her face were almost jagged, and the light echoed ever so slightly between hip bones, a mere suggestion of shape. He found himself yearning to discover the shape, the points and slides. What happened when she didn’t coat her face with makeup and implications. Why she had called him.

            How did she call? After dropping his old life off at that final street corner in San Francisco, he’d fallen off of everyone’s maps, his name the only thing he carried all the way through. Is that how she found him? Following some trail that his name left? (not okay not okay FUCK.)

            He was shaking again, and the container of pins toppled to the floor, sending bright plastic colors rolling, hiding their intentions behind those sickly shades. As he started to pick them up, he stepped on one, swore loudly, and started kicking them all away from him. He hardly felt a thing.

            When he looked up, the photographs were looking down at him.

 

/           /           /

 

            The next evening, Patrick noticed a large envelope in his PO box amid the notices of bills he hadn’t paid. Not wanting to open something so unknown in front of the old man watching him from behind the counter, he slid the envelope into his bag and left, the bell on the door tinkling behind him.

            He knew he needed to get away from his loft (away from her), so he took a detour to his favorite spot near the Berkeley marina. Hidden from the street by a large, gently sloping hill covered in dry California plants, he wasn’t interrupted by the swarms of small children on bikes and yuppies running with their dogs. The occasional couple strolled along the path, taking no notice of him as he sat down on a badly painted bench, facing out to the water. He dropped his bag between his feet, raising a small cloud of dust, then pulled out the large envelope and turned it over in his hands. With no return address and his name written in an almost unbearably neat hand, there was nothing to learn without opening it.

            He slit the top with his knife, carefully, as not to rip anything. Inside was a photograph, though the word didn’t do it justice. It was a black and white portrait, printed as skillfully as anything he’d ever done.

            A woman, face downcast, dark eyes staring up from beneath hooded lids. Her skin pale against her tangled hair. Her collarbone, barely visible over the edge of the film, cast in shadow. It was, of course, the same woman that had stared at him from the couch and then the wall.

            His hands tightened and the edges of the print began to wrinkle, momentarily aging its subject before he loosened his fingers and smoothed everything out again. He put the print next to him on the bench, face down, and leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking out at the ocean.

            His mind was once again reeling and splintering off in a million different directions. He clenched his hands into fists and willed all the slivers back together. (You know her you know her STOP something went wrong NO it’s starting again NO.) Nothing within could agree, the puzzle pieces weren’t fitting together, even his cliché metaphors were falling apart. He focused on the waves in front of him. In theory, they would offer a reliable ebb and flow; not perfectly even, but dependable nonetheless. In practice, the sun had set, he could see very little, and the wind that was picking up whipped the water’s surface around too much for it to be in any way reliable. So he stood up, put the print back into his bag without looking at it, and headed home.

 

/           /           /

 

            Another print came the next day. And another the day after that. Then another. Patrick pinned each photograph onto the wall, one after the other, a nonsensical black and white timeline. There was a progression, that much was certain. And the progression mattered much more to him than where it was coming from.

His shots were at the start: all were dark, sultry, veiled. Then the others: they began as close-ups that played with heavy-makeup and unconventional lighting. But as the days wore on the camera began to pull back from the subject. Soon her face was stripped of heavy makeup and her hair softened. It still hung tangled, but it settled around her instead of flying away, clearly devoid of the sprays and gels that had once held it in flight.

            Standing before the wall, he began to see her true form. She stood before the camera without pretense; looking into the lens, looking away, facing directly forward, shifting in one direction, shifting into another, never offering the stale beauty of a weary model. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure if she even was a model.  Ethereally skeletal, perhaps. But she looked too weathered to have lived for runways and magazine spreads.

            Weathered in a way he used to know. Maybe. (So gone, so completely fucking oblivious, how the hell do you know a thing?) It was a separate time, a life that he’d split off from the one he lived now. (And look what good it’s done you.)

            But that life that had split, the one sitting off to the side – it knew the woman. It had told him as much. Undoing the work of before, he searched through the remaining shards in his mind, cutting his mental fingertips on every single jagged edge, trying to cross the divide. His head began to swim and he lay down on the futon, still staring up at the wall without truly seeing it. He could feel the beginning of a headache, the headache, the one that had chased after him ever since he’d gone clean, over a year ago.

            Pushing though, he focused on the pictures, following the bridge of her nose, the line of her shoulder, the curve of her thigh. Finally, he broke completely through, finding the flood of sensory memory.

            And at that same moment, his phone rang.

            He rose quickly. Too quickly – the head-rush pushed him into the wall, ripping the latest print (hunched but staring purposefully towards the camera) halfway off the wall. He righted himself, letting the print swing from the remaining pin, and grabbed the phone off the counter.

            Hello?

            Patrick?

            Who’s this?

            I’ve been sending you those prints.

            Who the fuck are you?

            You’ve figured out the prints by now, I’d assume.

            No! I mean, yes, I mean, what do you mean?

            I guess she was right.

            Are you talking about Claire? I know they’re of Claire. Where is she? What the hell is going on?

            Yes, Claire. She’s right where you left her.

            What?

Eighteen months ago.

            Eighteen months ago what?

            That’s when you last saw her, right?

            Yes. So why all this, why now?

            You left.

            And she didn’t.

            No, she didn’t. She’s still where you left her.

            I didn’t leave her. She had the same life I did, the same choice I did. I’m not responsible for whatever choice she made.

            She just wanted you to see.

            Wait, then? Now?

            The photos – she just wanted you to see how you left her.

            Why now, now that I’ve moved on and I’m so far away from –

            She wanted to finish it.

            click.

 

            Patrick stared the phone, the empty dial tone ringing back up at him. Then he looked up at the wall, and finally, from the counter, the eyes were no longer staring at him.