‘Do you have anything with you?’
‘Well,’ Aubrey says, hesitantly pleased, ‘as a matter of fact I do.’
‘Will you show me?’
Aubrey disappears, and returns to the desk with a large, leather-bound portfolio. Hal takes it from him. He had been prepared to be underwhelmed. Photography of Aubrey’s speciality – personages and fashion models – has never interested him. And yet, sifting through the pages, he finds images of great beauty. More than this, he discovers images that disturb and move him. There is a dark-haired woman standing on a station platform, her arm raised toward the train in greeting or, possibly, farewell. No doubt her pose and the setting are intended to display the silver fur coat to its best advantage, but nevertheless it speaks to Hal. The next image shows another brunette woman, her face framed by the shoulder of the man with whom she is dancing. Her eyes are cast down. The image makes a convenient frame for the jewels at her ears, the rings that glitter on the hand that grips her partner’s back – but Hal sees in it something more than that. It is a melancholy image. To him she appears trapped. Impossible to tell whether that is the intention, or his own projection. All the women have a particular look: pale skin, dark hair, fine bones. They are not the same model – though at a glance they could be mistaken as such.
‘Aubrey,’ he says, and looks up to find the photographer watching him intently.
‘Yes?’
‘These are wonderful. They’re … they’re really something.’ It feels inadequate, but it seems to be enough. There is something rather touching about Aubrey’s expression of delight. He is a celebrated artist, and must be used to receiving his fair share of compliments. And yet Hal’s clumsy praise has evidently found its mark.
‘And,’ Hal says, ‘I wanted you to ask you something. The subjects … they all share similar features. I thought they were the same woman, at first. I suppose I was wondering if there was some reason for it.’
‘My sister,’ Aubrey says.
‘Ophelia?’
Aubrey nods. ‘They all look like her. I don’t always manage to pick my model, of course – and sometimes a brunette is not right for the image. Take Mrs Truss, her blondness so perfect next to your darkness in that image with the yacht. But I only keep the images like this in my portfolio.’
‘Your sister must be a beautiful woman.’
‘She was, yes.’
‘Oh,’ Hal says, wrong-footed. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘She’s alive,’ Aubrey says. He sighs. ‘It’s a rather strange, sad story, I’m afraid.’ He grimaces.
‘And you don’t have to tell it to me, if you don’t wish to.’
‘No. Perhaps I had better not.’ He sips his drink. ‘To the very journalist writing an article about us all.’
‘It’s not that sort of article – as I’m sure you know.’ He recalls the Tempo editor’s words. ‘It’s about what Giulietta has for breakfast – what Earl Morgan has for a nightcap. Though’ – lowering his voice – ‘that will involve some artistic licence. More importantly, I’m not that sort of journalist.’
‘But what is “that sort” exactly? Would any journalist admit to being it – even the lowest hack? People are ever so good at deceiving themselves into believing that they are somehow superior, set apart. I’m as guilty of it as anyone – it’s probably why I make such a fuss about those parasites following us about with their flashbulbs.’
‘Well,’ Hal says, ‘perhaps. But I can assure you, I have too many secrets of my own to risk revealing anyone else’s.’
‘That,’ Aubrey says, raising one long finger, ‘is logic I do understand.’ He peers at Hal. ‘What is it about you? You’re good at asking questions, but you aren’t so good at answering them yourself.’
‘I’m not sure you’ve asked me any.’
‘No, perhaps that’s right. I am ferociously self-interested.’ Hal wonders if this is absolutely true. He witnessed the care with which Aubrey had supported the Contessa as they began the descent.
There is a long pause, and Hal realizes Aubrey has closed his eyes. At first, it almost looks as though he has fallen asleep. But then, in a tone that has lost all of its archness, he says: ‘I told you, earlier, that my sister was a great beauty.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t mean,’ he opens his eyes and looks up at Hal with surprising fierceness, as though challenged, ‘I don’t mean in the usual sense, you understand – not in the way in which prettiness is sometimes described as beauty. She was beautiful in a way that shocked people, that caused strangers in the street to turn and stare.’
Hal nods, because some response is apparently expected of him.