A Dark Dividing Read Free

pausing in front of a shot of a darkened room with brooding shapes that might have been shrouded furniture, but that might as easily be something more sinister. The outline of tree branches beyond a window formed themselves into prison-bars and one branch had broken away and hung down, giving the false image of a coiled rope, knotted into what might be a hanging noose. Harry stared at this last one for a long time, the noise of the party fading out.
    ‘Do you like that one?’ said a voice at his side. ‘It isn’t exactly my favourite, but it’s not bad. Oh—I should explain that I’m not trying to pick you up or anything. I’m Simone Marriot and this is my bit of Thorne’s Gallery so I’m meant to be circulating and making intelligent conversation to the guests.’
    Simone Marriot was the second surprise of the evening.

    ‘I thought you looked as if you might be easier to talk to than most of the others,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure why I thought that.’
    They were sitting on one of the narrow windowsills by this time, with the sun setting somewhere beyond the skyline and the scents of the old house warm all around them. The party downstairs seemed to be breaking up, and Angelica Thorne’s voice could be heard organizing some of them into a sub-party for a late dinner somewhere.
    Simone had longish dark brown hair with glinting red lights in it, cut in layers so that it curved round to frame her face. She wore an anonymous dark sweater over a plain, narrow-fitting skirt, with black lace-up boots, and the only touch of colour was a long tasselled silk scarf wound around her neck, in a vivid jade green. At first look there was nothing very outstanding about her, she was small and thin and Harry thought she was very nearly plain. But when she began to talk about the photographs he revised his opinion. Her eyes—which were the same colour as the silk scarf—glowed with enthusiasm, lighting up her whole face, and when she smiled it showed a tiny chip in her front tooth that made her look unexpectedly gamine . Harry found himself wanting to see her smile again.
    ‘I like your work very much,’ he said. ‘Although some of it makes me feel uneasy.’
    ‘Such as the barred window and the tree that might be a hangman’s noose?’
    ‘Yes. But I like the way you identify the darkness in things, and then let just a fragment of it show through. In most of the shots you’ve disguised it as something else though. A tree branch, or a piece of furniture, or a shadow.’
    Simone looked pleased but she only said, ‘I like finding a subject and then seeing if there’s a dark underside.’
    ‘Isn’t there a dark underside in most things?’
    She looked at him as if unsure whether he was baiting her. But she seemed satisfied that he was not; she said, ‘Yes, in almost everything, isn’t there? That’s the really interesting part for me: shooting the darkness.’
    ‘Can I see the photographs again? With you as guide this time?’
    ‘Yes, of course. Hold on, I’ll refill your glass first.’
    She hopped down from the windowsill. She was not especially graceful, but she was intensely watchable and Harry suddenly wondered if she had inherited the quality that had put that wistful note into Markovitch’s voice when he spoke of her mother.
    They moved along the line of framed photos together. ‘I like comparing the kempt and the unkempt as well,’ said Simone. ‘When I was doing this sequence over here—’
    ‘National Trust versus derelict squats.’
    ‘Yes. Yes. When I was doing those I saved the really decrepit shots for the last. Like when you’re a child and you eat the crust of a fruit pie first and save the squidgy fruit bit for last. This one’s Powys Castle. It’s one of the old border fortresses and parts of it have hardly changed since the thirteen-hundreds. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Ruined but glossily ruined, and the ruins are being nicely preserved so there’s a bit of the past that’s