“My tape recorder.” I winced. “Shit! I forgot—”
Aphrodite’s thin eyebrows lifted. “You left it in your car?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my forehead. “Back in Burnt Harbor.”
That was a lie: until now, I’d never even thought of bringing one. I rubbed my hands on my thighs and stared at them. My computer was five hundred miles away in my apartment. I didn’t even have a spiral notebook.
“Well,” I said quickly. “I guess we can do it the old-fashioned way. I can just write everything down.” I nodded at my bag. “I have my camera—”
Aphrodite stared out the window. The full daylight on her face showed her age; her white skin looked as though it would tear if you touched it with a fingernail.
“No,” she said. “I don’t allow myself to be photographed.”
She didn’t sound angry or disappointed. Her expression was resigned, as though when all was said and done, she’d been expecting no better than this. She turned, and I could see where the corners of her mouth twitched slightly upward in an ironic smile, just as her son’s had. For a moment I felt as though this had all been some kind of bizarre, over-elaborated joke. Then she stood.
“I have some things to take care of.”
“Wait!” I got to my feet and without thinking reached for her. She recoiled.
“Your photos—I mean, you know what they are.” I didn’t care if I sounded crazy or just pathetic. “They changed everything for me. When I first saw them—it was like I’d never seen anything before that! It made the whole world look different, everything. Deceptio Visus—that book? It’s what made me want to be a photographer.”
“A photographer.” Her lips curved in a thin smile. Her gaze was hateful. “Is that what you think? Every dilettante I ever met was a photographer. Every little vampire. Every little thief.”
She spat the last word. “Deceptio Visus,” she went on. “You never could have seen those pictures.”
“The book,” I repeated weakly. “I have the book—the original, not the reprint.”
“They were all shit.” She stared at me as though daring me to argue. “Nothing was like the originals. Nothing.”
She slashed at the air so violently she lost her balance. I reached for her again. This time she hit me, so hard I staggered back a step.
“Don’t you touch me,” she whispered. “I never let them touch me.”
I rubbed my arm. Her dark eyes had grown distant. Or no, not distant: they seemed to focus intently on something in the air between us, something I couldn’t see. What Phil had said about her paranoia suddenly made sense.
Without another word she turned and headed from the room.
I called after her. “Your photos.”
She didn’t stop, but I had nothing left to lose. “Deceptio Visus. I won’t touch them. I just want to see them. Please.”
She stumbled in the doorway. It was the first gesture of hers that seemed to belong to an old woman. “Gryffin will show them to you.”
She was gone. Bam, just like that.
I’d blown it.
“Fucking hell,” I said.
I drew a deep breath. I shook uncontrollably as I sank back into the chair, a chair worth what I earned in six months. I felt the same surge of rage that had come when I’d hit Christine, my hands burning like they’d scorch right through the chair’s arms, right through anything they touched. I clawed at my jeans and felt five hundred dollars’ worth of fabric tear.
A door slammed. A moment later three sleek gray forms streaked down toward the cove, followed by a slender figure in a barn coat. I sat with my head in my hands until I heard another door behind me. I looked up and saw Gryffin Haselton, carrying a laptop.
“Oh. Hey.” His brow furrowed. “Where’s my mother?”
“Gone.” I stood unsteadily and looked away. “I fucked up. I forgot a tape recorder. I guess she doesn’t like that.”
“She doesn’t like a lot of stuff. I wouldn’t worry about it.” He set his laptop on the table and plugged it in. “Don’t worry, I’m not sticking around. Just recharging.”
He fiddled with the computer then glanced at me.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here,” I said. Something about him made me feel calmer, or maybe I was just exhausted. I ran a hand through my filthy hair. “Christ, what am I doing? You saw me last night! Why the fuck didn’t you tell her I was coming out to talk to her?”
He looked at me, bemused. “I don’t know you from Adam. But even if I had told her, she wouldn’t have let you in.”
“Whatever.” I sighed. “She did say you could show me her pictures. If you don’t mind.”
“No. I don’t mind.” His voice made him sound younger than he was. “I just flew up for a few days to deliver something.”
“You live here?”
“Chicago.”
“Your mother said you’re a book dealer.” I hesitated, then said, “I work at the Strand.”
“Yeah? I don’t do much business with them anymore. Too expensive. The internet’s ruined it for everyone. That’s why I had to close my shop.”
“You don’t do photography, then? It’s not the family business?”
“Christ no. I’ve never wanted to know anything about what she does. Not that she’s done much of it since I’ve been alive. She blamed me for it.”
“For…?”
“You name it,” he said. “Her marriage. Her work. Her drinking. All of it. She needed an excuse. I was it.”
I digested this. After a moment I asked, “Why are you here, then?”
“Business,” he said tersely. “And just because she’s a bitch doesn’t mean I have to be.”
He turned to stare out the window. Aphrodite’s slight figure walked along the water’s edge. Behind her, the deerhounds ran and leaped across the mossy slope like figures escaped from a medieval tapestry.
“Wait till after lunch, maybe she’ll be better then,” said Gryffin at last. “After a few more drinks.”
“I doubt it. She seemed a little—paranoid.”
“She is. And the alcohol makes it worse. Actually, I was surprised she opened the door. If Toby hadn’t been with you, she wouldn’t have. But come on. I’ll take you upstairs.”
He stood.
“So the drinking’s a problem,” I said.
“Sure is. It’s why she stopped working. Or maybe she stopped working and then she started to drink. It changes according to who she’s pissed off at. It was after my father killed himself. None of this is breaking news, so don’t bother taking notes.”
He held open a door for me. “Watch your head—”
The stairwell was dark. At the top Gryffin opened another door, and I stumbled after him into a long, sunlit gallery. At the end of that hall, more steps led up to another narrow corridor.
“Sorry it’s so cold,” said Gryffin. “No central heat. I think there’s a space heater in your room.” He stopped in front of a closed door. “The pictures you want are in here.”
Cold stale air surrounded us when we stepped inside. On the far wall, two small windows looked across the water to the islands. “I assume these are what you meant. Deceptio Visus.”
I nodded. For a minute I couldn’t speak.
“Jesus,” I finally said. I felt as though I’d been holding my breath for years, waiting for this. I started to laugh. “Holy shit, this is amazing.”
They hung on the walls, each photo framed and numbered as in the book. Some had been shot from a promontory looking out across the bay at distant islands; others were views of Paswegas. I crossed the room, shivering again, but not from the cold.
“Amazing,” I repeated in a whisper.
Close up, the colors looked like prismatic syrup poured onto paper: indigo and blood red sky, cadmium sunlight smeared across cobalt water, pine trees like emerald stalactites. The paper was thick, and there were tiny flecks of pigment on the white borders, as though someone had flicked a paintbrush. I brought my face so close to the prints that my breath fogged the glass.