Monday Story - 'What Love Looks Like'

So, last month's task at Writers in the Rafters was to write on the topic of love, hope, support, advice...  I got two stories out of the topic, eventually - it was a bit last-minute - and this is the one I didn't present...

What Love Looks Like

Her first show.  She was an overnight success, as the saying goes, and it had only taken thirty years…

Drinks trays circulated. Critics mused and nodded.  It seemed her photography, her silly little timewasting hobby, wasn’t quite so silly now.  She smiled behind her glass of orange juice.  Bucks Fizz was doing the rounds, so it looked like she was drinking.

‘Ms Fane, hello.’ Someone with a microphone appeared in front of her.  ‘Mary Trent, Radio Wirral for ‘Let’s Have A Look…’ I wondered if you can tell me what you’re saying here?’

‘The show is called ‘Afresh’… I wanted to take a new look at concepts we think we know well…’ Julie trotted out the official promotional line, her eyes drifting the crowd as she expounded.  ‘Emotions like love, concepts such as hope… Have they changed? Have our perceptions of them changed…?  What do they look like in the current climate?’

In the corner, Paul was talking to her mother.  He was crouched at the side of the wheelchair, bringing himself down to her level, smiling and engaged.  Yes.  That’s what love looked like; your husband talking to your mother as if he wanted to.

‘So all the photographs here…?’

‘Are trying to reflect a modern reality of love and hope and support.’

‘Thank you, Ms Fane.’ The interviewer switched off the recorder, her shoulders sinking as she relaxed.  ‘Right.  Thanks so much.  I can enjoy the show, now.  Oh, one thing… love and hope and support?  All the pictures?  Even that one?’

Julie smiled and went closer to the photograph in question. It was a monochrome of a Mersey Ferry full of summer trippers; the sepia tone took it back in time, made it archaic.

‘Oh, especially that one!  During WWII, one of the Mersey Ferries rescued over 7000 people from Dunkirk; hope and support all packaged up in one.  The ferries were vital, too, in getting people to work in the war years.  Service and courage, the quiet bravery of everyday people left to carry on without their loved ones, worrying about their safety…’

The story of the ferry was true, of course.  But the reality had been that Julie had been desperate to use an iconic Mersey Ferry in the show somehow, anyhow, not caring whether it confused the critics or not.  But within an hour of mounting the shot, she found that a logical reason for including the picture had formed in her mind.  It just went to show that everything was attributable.

Paul looked across and she thought she saw a glimpse of a ‘save-me’ in his smile.  She smiled back and steeled herself to go over.

‘I knew you’d do it!’ her mother announced.  ‘I always said you could!’

Julie’s smile became fake as she remembered…

‘You’re wasting your time, taking snapshots! And they cost money you should be spending on your children! I never wasted my money when I was bringing you and your brothers up…’  Mother had paused to light a cigarette, puffing angrily on it.  ‘Twenty four, divorced already, two kids at school and you’re talking about a photography course! Well, I can’t babysit while you go off to college…’

‘It’s one afternoon a week,’ Julie had said, knowing the battle already lost, the law laid down.  ‘Just for a couple of hours…’

‘Your place is with those kids. Until they’re old enough not to need you, they should be top of your list!’

Useless to point out that they were always top priority, of course, that she wanted to do the course so she could get a better job and earn more money. The world didn’t work like that as far as her mother was concerned…

‘Could I have a group shot for the ‘Globe’?’ someone asked.  Julie nodded and stood behind the wheelchair.  Paul straightened, and took her hand, lacing his fingers with her own.  He never put his arm round her – it was too proprietorial, he said.  Holding hands was more mutual.

‘She couldn’t have done it without me,’ Mother said to anyone who would listen.  ‘I supported her and looked after the kids and made her get on with it.  Yes, without me, she’d be nothing…’

 ‘Where’s my dad?’ Julie asked.  ‘We can’t have a group shot without my dad!’

‘Over here.’ Paul tugged Julie’s hand, led her away to where a familiar wispy-haired figure was standing in the shadows, deep in contemplation of a picture showing wildflowers growing in a municipal park. 

‘What’s this?  Weeds in amongst the bedding plants?’ he asked.  Himself a keen gardener, the thought of wildflower planting was anathema to him.

‘It’s a metaphor, Dad,’ Julie said, a smile in her voice.  ‘Come on. Have your picture taken for the paper.’

‘We’ll have to be going soon,’ Dad said.  ‘Your mother doesn’t like to be out late… something on TV she wants to watch.’

‘That’s what love looks like,’ Julie said, waving her parents off after Dad and a taxi driver had manoeuvred the wheelchair into the car.  ‘Dad giving up so much so Mum could stay at home.’

‘Do you think?’ Paul said.  ‘I thought it looked like you letting her take the credit for you being famous!’

‘What? No.  It’s all down to the people around me. I couldn’t have done it without any of you,’ she said in sudden realisation.  ‘You all supported me.  Even mother, in her own way.  If she’d looked after the boys for that one afternoon a week, I’d never have had to ask Claire to babysit… and then you wouldn’t have had to come to jump start her car when it wouldn’t start…’

‘It’s what any brother would do.’

‘We wouldn’t have met, if Mother had been more helpful, is what I’m saying.  If I hadn’t had to fight so hard to do the course, would I have kept fighting until I made it?’

Even so, without the man at her side, she’d still be entering amateur competitions once or twice a year.  It had been Paul who’d suggested, once the boys had left for Uni, that she dust off her old camera, Paul who’d comforted her when she’d lost her job in the recession.  He’d shown her how to see it as an opportunity to spend more time doing what she loved, had bought her a new camera, even though they couldn’t afford it. 

Julie felt the comforting squeeze of Paul’s fingers.  ‘No.  No, it’s more than that.  You’ve got real talent, love.’

She looked up into his face, saw the pride there.  He smiled and squeezed her fingers, the same smile he’d given her every time he caught her eyes on him.  Never mind these dozens and dozens of photographs; it was Paul.  That’s what love looked like.