Jerry clattered away in the kitchen as I held contact sheet after contact sheet up to the light.
When the serving hatch opened and a tray of percolated coffee and mugs appeared, I held up a laminated front page of the New York Times. ‘This Sudan picture one of yours?’
A tiny starving girl, no more than a bag of bones really, hunched naked in the dirt. Behind her, watching her every move, stood a vulture. It wasn’t just the picture that was fucked up. Beside it was an ad for a multi-thousand-dollar Cartier watch.
Jerry leaned through the hatch. ‘I wish. It’s one of Kevin Carter’s. He’s dead now. He won a Pulitzer for it.’
As I stood to collect the tray, a key turned in the lock.
‘They’re back.’ For the first time, he sounded just a little bit anxious.
I let him get on with family stuff and went over to the sofa, dumping the brew on a packing case. I could see into the corridor.
Renee wore jeans and a long, thick, hairy nylon coat, a sort of bluey-green colour. She shushed him as he went to kiss her. Chloë was asleep. As Jerry started to unstrap the baby from the stroller, she shrugged off the coat and came towards me. Her smile broadened but she kept her voice low. ‘Well, hello!’ She had a happy, homely face on a small skinny body. Her brown hair was gathered at the neck, and she wasn’t wearing makeup. ‘I’m Renee.’ She held out her hand. It was soft and stained with paint.
I hoped the fumes cancelled out the stench of margarine I carried around with me, and put on a big smile of my own. ‘I know, he’s told me all about you.’ It was a corny thing to say, but I didn’t know what else you did in these situations. ‘I’m Nick.’
‘I know all about you, too. The guy who saved Jerry’s life in Bosnia.’
She led me proudly over to the carrycot as Jerry gently placed the baby in it and disappeared back into the kitchen. ‘And this is Chloë.’ I looked down but couldn’t see much. She had a woolly hat on and was up to her ears in duvet.
The pain in my chest had disappeared as we drove here. Now it was replaced by a different feeling. Maybe it was jealousy. They had everything I thought I wanted.
It seemed time to whisper a few of the right noises. ‘Aww – she’s beautiful, isn’t she?’
Renee leaned into the carrycot, her eyes fixed on the sleeping face. ‘Isn’t she just?’
We settled down with the coffee and she apologized for the mess. ‘We keep meaning to get a table.’
I thought I’d better make an effort before I took the first opportunity to get through that front door and out of there. I gestured towards the packing case and smiled. ‘Last place I moved into, I had one of those. I got to rather like it.’
Jerry joined us with another mug.
‘So what do you think of DC?’ I said. ‘A bit different from Buffalo . . .’
‘It’s fine.’ She didn’t sound too convinced. ‘Maybe in another month or two we’ll get sorted out, and Jerry will get the job he’s after at the Post.’
She passed me a black coffee. Her lip had started to quiver. I sensed there was tension in the air. ‘But he’s going off on one more crazy trip before that . . .’
Jerry was doing his best not to look her in the eye.
Whatever was going on here, I wanted nothing to do with it. This was my opportunity. ‘I’m sorry.’ I tried a sip and put the mug down. The coffee was too hot. ‘I really should be going. I was a bit tight for time anyway when I bumped into Jerry.’
He had other ideas. ‘Come on, Nick, stay a little longer. Chloë will be awake soon and maybe we could all go for something to eat.’
‘No, really, I—’
Renee looked up at me. ‘We’ve made you feel uncomfortable.’
‘No, no. Not at all.’ I hoped I sounded more convincing to them than I did to myself. ‘But I do have to go. I was only popping into the gallery for five minutes. I’ll get the Metro, it’s fine.’ I didn’t have a clue where the Metro was, but it didn’t really matter.
Jerry tapped me on the arm. ‘Least I can do is walk you to the station.’
There was no avoiding it: I didn’t want to stand there all day arguing. I said my goodbyes to Renee and we left the flat.
Jerry was all apologetic in the lift. ‘I’m so sorry about that. Things have been pretty vexed with the move . . .’
I nodded, not wanting to get involved. Their domestic stuff didn’t interest me.
‘Renee is right,’ he carried on. ‘I’ve got responsibilities now. I will go and work for the Post.’ He paused, looking slightly sheepish. ‘It’s just that I haven’t quite got around to applying for the job yet. There’s one last thing I’ve got to do before I shoot beauty pageants for the rest of my life.’
I smiled at the thought of him bobbing around at a beauty pageant trying to project a message through the image.
The lift stopped in the lobby. We walked out on to the street and turned left. Jerry seemed to know where he was going. He was looking a bit more relaxed. ‘Listen, Nick. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I really want to thank you for what you did for me in ’ninety-four. I was young, I didn’t have a clue what was going on, it was a total fuck-up. If those Serb fucks—’
I chose my words more carefully this time, to make sure he drew a line under it. ‘I’m just glad that you’re alive and happy, you’ve got a great family and things have worked out all right.’
‘I know it, but still – I’ve got this one last thing to do.’ He had that Jehovah’s Witness look again. ‘In Iraq.’
‘Iraq?’
‘It’s just one final picture. The shot of my life. Remember the guy—’
I found myself going into a rant. ‘How are they going to feel if you wind up with a bullet in the head? Or get it cut off, live online for Renee to watch? You’ve got to be there for them. Believe me, you never know what you’ve got until you lose it.’
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. ‘For fuck’s sake, Jerry, grow a brain. You’ve got everything. Why risk losing it?’
Jerry looked away. ‘You’re right, man. But this isn’t Bang Bang. This is Korda’s picture of Che Guevara. Hou Bo’s picture of Chairman Mao. The guy bending over “Chetnik Mama” – I want my picture of him on the cover of Time.’
17
I had to speak up to be heard above the roar of the traffic. ‘What’s he doing in Iraq?’
We started to cross at a junction. ‘He’s not there yet – gets into Baghdad this Thursday for about a week. He’s going to give the Iraqis a wake-up call. He’s saying that the Sunni and the Shia need to unite, start controlling their own destiny. Believe me, Nick, this guy’s on his way to being Islam’s answer to Mahatma Gandhi.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Hasan Nuhanovic. He’s a cleric. Even the Serbs were worried about him. He survived the whole Bosnia thing, and he’s still walking on water. But only just – a lot of the “give war a chance” brigade, on both sides, want him dead. He’s very bad for business.’
I shrugged. ‘Still don’t know him.’
‘Exactly!’ Jerry beamed. ‘That’s the whole point. He shuns publicity. He’s not a personality-cult kinda guy. But his message is good, and I really believe that the right kind of picture will get it on to the world stage. You know he went to Pakistan and started a Coke boycott? Thing is, doing stuff like that, he ain’t gonna be breathing for much longer. I gotta be quick. I’ve been trying to track him down in Bosnia, but it would be easier to arrange tea with Karadic. In Baghdad he won’t have so many gatekeepers.’ He gripped my arm. ‘One last job, Nick, that’s all I want to do. Renee’s dead set against it, but it’s not a frontline shot. The picture of Chairman Mao was taken on a beach. Nuhanovic on the banks of the Tigris. No problem, no danger. A walk in the park.’