The Carer

By Bronia Humble
Historical Fiction/Crime/Thriller

Prologue

May, 1937

The safelight glows through the ruby glass, wrapping the darkness in a red velvet shroud. Hope Urquhart feels for the loop of smooth metal at the base of the camera. She turns it until it gives with a gentle click and the roll of film drops into the cup of her waiting hand. She smiles, curls her fingers. It settles in the nest of her palm like an egg.

With skilled hands she coaxes the film from its roll, raises her scissors. Snips. A single brutal moment of detachment. She unfurls the film gently, lays it bare and bathes it in the bowl of warm water until it is pliable and soft; yields to her. The expectant thrill makes Hope’s fingers tingle and she imagines this is how a composer feels, itching in his seat, as the curtain raises on opening night.

Her craft was honed here in Father’s darkroom. On the shelves above her sit the old plate tanks, the Kodak scale and weights. Beside these the earthenware jugs, the broken Stanley clock. Twelve brown bottles, fat and squat, cluster like a silent cult, their wide mouths plugged with cork. They guard their chemical secrets behind labels like insignia, each one marked with Father’s elaborate scrawl.

Father is everywhere in this room. It is a comfort to Hope that his spirit is here, though he is five months buried. The grief is like grit in her mouth. She shakes her head against the intrusive thoughts and in the acrid vinegar perfume she catches that brief elusive top note of sweetness. It reminds her of childhood, of India, of night-blooming Jasmine on a warm breeze.

In front of her on the granite worktop three trays lie ready. Holding the film by each end, she bends it to her will until it hangs like a dangling necklace. A catenary curve to be seesawed, back and forth, in the liquid; every inch must be agitated through this chemical soup.

A shiver travels up her spine as images begin to appear on the film. Alchemy, this. Pure magic. She takes a steadying breath: she is an artist making brush-strokes, a potter applying glaze and she must focus now, study the depth and strength, the light and shade. She will not look at the images themselves - that thrill of discovery is yet to come, she must not spoil it. In a swift motion Hope moves the film on, douses it and with a flourish, submerges it in the final tray. The fixer. Now she waits. The process must not be rushed. Hope is patient. She will know when the time is right.

As she subjects the negatives to their final wash and hangs the strip to dry she allows herself that first, tantalizing, merest glimpse of the image. Her heart skips a beat. She thinks it is there. She thinks she has the shot.

It is only later, hunched over in the warmth of her lightbox, fists clenched in silent celebration, that she allows herself to believe it. There is work yet to be done, printing, burning; but, like a victorious hunter, she knows it will be good. She has caught the beast and skinned it. It is ready for the pot.

Hope stares once more at the negative. Light is dark and dark is light; an image inverted. But it is there, in the middle. That face. It is so like her own and yet not. Captured. Recorded. A moment of triumph, a moment of violence. Gloriana.

Chapter One

Brighton, October 1984

My shift was drawing to a close when I felt it first, that primitive crawling of skin. On my knee, I held Mrs Clifton’s photograph album. I gripped it tightly as the back of my neck grew hot.

Behind me the day-room languished in sleepy afternoon stupor. I pictured in my mind the well-worn, over-stuffed furniture, the faded patterns of floral and stripe, the faces of the residents, reading or sleeping or staring. There was the soft whisper of pages being turned, a gentle, breathy snore. Somewhere a television burbled.

In front of me Mrs Clifton stirred, chin lolling on chest, mouth slack in sleep. The blanket slipped from her sparrow legs and I darted to catch it. Dwarfed by the armchair she looked like a tiny wizened child.

That afternoon had been like every other. Together we’d looked through her photograph album and with a trembling finger she’d pointed at her handsome son: ‘April, you must meet him. A nice girl like you and no man.’ I’d smiled, nodded, turned the pages, kept the truth inside. It was my job to make her comfortable, to minimize her pain. Not a lie, exactly, but an omission. What use was the truth when she would only forget? Her son took shrapnel on the beach at Dunkirk. He was forty years dead.

I tucked the blanket tight around her legs; my hands were shaking. Mrs Clifton slid quietly back to sleep and I took a steadying breath. There was nothing here that could hurt us. At The Palisades Nursing Home we dealt with life and death, but that was the natural order of things. And yet my skin prickled. Where was the threat? I lifted the photograph album from my lap and placed it on the coffee table beside me. I turned to face the room.

Our eyes locked. She was a tall woman, grey-haired but not old. She stood, ramrod straight, her hand on the back of a wheelchair. For the briefest moment she held my gaze before bending to the woman who sat regal in the wheelchair, addressing a rushing torrent of whisper to the elderly ear. A second pair of eyes, pale and watery, rose to meet mine; confused then widening, questioning, surprised. Her mouth worked, chewing on air, digesting. She tilted her head and leaned in, the better to hear the tirade.

This time it was me who broke the gaze. A single, swift nod from the wheelchair signalled their decision. The chair was turned, they moved away. I was struck then with the singular disquieting truth, a poisoned dart of a thought: They know who I am.