Bright Air - Barry Maitland [52]
The address was a converted industrial building, grubby brick walls hemming a narrow laneway. Inside, past a flashy little logo, the old structure had been given a veneer of white minimalism. From the entrance lobby we could see through to a dazzlingly lit studio space in which two girls were posing in swimwear. Through another opening, seated models were having their hair and make-up worked over. I saw the expression of bemusement on Anna’s face as she took it all in, as if we’d wandered in on a freak show.
A woman came past us, heading for the make-up room, and I said, ‘Excuse me?’
She stopped and turned to me, disconcertingly pretty, but not quite real, a life-size china doll. The industrial brick and steel of the surroundings made the butterfly-bright fabrics and the tanned flesh and the impossible hair seem blatant and somehow embarrassing, even to me.
‘We’re meeting Sophie Kalajzich,’ I said. ‘Would you know where she is?’
‘That’s her.’ The woman indicated the model in the yellow bikini. ‘I think they’ve nearly finished. Take a seat.’
I thanked her and we did as she said. There were magazines scattered on a low table beside us. Anna picked one up, touching her hair self-consciously. I was watching Sophie being posed by her photographer across a striped deckchair. She was very thin. Another kind of phasmid.
Eventually she finished and wrapped herself in a robe and came towards us. We introduced ourselves, and she said she could only give us ten minutes before she’d have to get changed for the next shoot. ‘This isn’t some legal thing, is it?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Legal?’
‘You know, insurance or something. Only I don’t know anything about the accident really. I wasn’t there.’
‘Oh, no!’ I smiled brightly. ‘No, no, nothing like that. What it is, we’re old friends of Luce, and I’ve been in London all the time since it happened.’
‘London? Oh, you’re the boyfriend, are you?’ Her eyes lit up with interest.
‘She mentioned me?’
‘Only briefly. We were discussing men.’ She grinned.
‘Ah, well … anyway, when I got back we decided, Anna and I, to try to remember her on the fourth anniversary of her passing with a little book of memories, of people who knew her, especially in that last month. Something for her family to have, you know?’
Her very full lips turned down as if she’d tasted something unpleasant. ‘Oh, right. That’s really … sweet.’
‘Yeah.’ I gave her a sad smile. ‘So if you have one or two memories of her, a shared laugh, a special thing you remember about her, that would be really great.’
‘Um, well, let me see.’ She put a perfectly shaped long nail to her chin and stared upward in thought. ‘She loved her birds, the seagulls, you know? Said she wanted to be as free as them, high up in the air all the time, never coming down to land.’
I was writing dutifully. She came out with a few more fairly banal memories.
Then she said, ‘She showed me your picture, standing on the edge of that cliff, you know? And one day I met her out walking, and she asked me to take a photo of her standing in the same sort of position, with the sky behind. I think she wanted to stick it onto your picture, so it would look like they’d been taken together.’
I stopped writing, a lump in my throat.
‘Oh, sorry,’ she cried. ‘That’s so tactless of me!’ She reached out a hand to touch my arm.
‘No … it’s okay, Sophie. It just catches me sometimes, you know.’
‘Yes, of course! I’m so sorry. I still have a little cry about her sometimes too.’
‘Do you? It must have been terrible for you all when it happened.’
‘Oh yes, everyone was devastated. And the boys! Being there when she fell! Watching her … They were a mess. They locked themselves away that night and got totally smashed. Well, you couldn’t blame them.’
‘No,