Burning Photographs

Burning Photographs. Endgame.

Thomas made a little pile of wood on the hard ground. The January air
was icy and the trees at the back of the garden were spartan, naked
branches pale with frost. He hated January, the dark mornings, the way
the dampness seeped into the house. It death re-embodied. The
superficial glitter of Christmas soon overcome by the biting New Year
winds. He felt it acutely, the sadness of it made worse now by the odd
hollowness he felt inside, the sense that, after everything, after the
story had unravelled, it was still an unfinished thing. He thought that
today he might put an end to it.

He'd left all the photographs in a box by the kitchen door. Vanessa in
all her incarnations: casual in colour, ironic in black and white.
Secret pictures, her eyes provocative, her body making shameless curves
on the crumpled sheet. He would burn them all, one by one or in groups,
erasing her, reducing her to ashes in the cold earth.

He struck a match and held it to the kindling. The little flame curled
golden and licked the wood, a fine thread of smoke rising into the
still air. Thomas inhaled, breathing its acrid woodiness, allowing a
slow sadness to rise. He could finally understand the cheapness of the
dream. The flames crackled and began to spread, consuming the bundles
of paper and generating a meagre heat. The wood caught. Thomas, sure
that the fire was really burning, trudged towards the house to where
the photographs were waiting. He grabbed a few and folded them,
careless of the damaged he caused. He pulled a few more from a buff
envelope and headed back to the fire. There was no feeling in what he
did. Tearing the pictures into pieces and throwing them into the flames
he watched coldly. They lay for moment, unharmed before succumbing.
Then parts of her were scorched brown then ashy black, busting into
brightness and falling quickly into cinders. There was nothing to
feel.

He took more of the photos and tore them up, adding them to the pile,
watching the fire take them. Breasts and a hand in monochrome. Then
another in colour. Her face sunlit, the sky behind her a deep summer
blue. 'You've caught the sun'. Her words were always in his head
moving, the glitter of sun on the water..

The fine ash blew away in powdery grey eddies. He added more wood,
kindling freshly chopped that morning, then returned to the box. Birds
shrieked overhead and he stopped to look, staring up into at the
sailing through the high air.
Thalia appeared in the doorway. She looked thin, her pale face sharper
than before. She gave him a wan smile. There was a package in her white
hands.

'This came for you in the afternoon post.'

She sounded cheerful but he knew she was pretending.

'What is it?'

'Well. I don't know. You'll have to open it, won't you?'

He took the package from her, recognising the baroque handwriting
immediately. A chill passed through him as he felt the delicate weight
of it in his hands. Thalia gave him a strained look then became
brisk.

'I've got to get on, Tom. I still got that report to write. Shout if
you need me.'

She disappeared back into the house. Thomas carried the package back to
the fire, cradling it as if sudden movements my make it explode. The
fire crackled, a chilly breeze embers blew into mad spirals. He broke
the seal and ripped open the envelope.

'What is it?' Thalia was curious.

Thomas showed the video tape, his name written carefully on the label
in green ink. He felt shaky, afraid of whatever was on the tape but
unable to resist playing it.

'It's from him.'

Thalia bit the chapped skin of her lower lip. Then she affected
indifference.

'It's all over now. Finished.' She kept her voice light. 'Perhaps we
should just throw it away, forget about it.'

'I have to play it. I have to know.'

He pushed past her into the sitting room.

He slid the tape into the machine. Aware of the course texture of the
plastic. The flicker of a nerve in his cheek. He pressed play and
waited. The screen went black. .white line of interference moved then
disappeared. He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Thalia
standing timorously in the doorway. She said nothing. They both stared
at the screen, waiting. The blackness stabilised and in a few seconds
resolved itself into an image. A midnight street in black and white,
neon lights unusually bright and baleful, dense shadow between them.
Thomas felt his breathing falter. He recognised the place. Thalia moved
to switch off the machine.

'No, I want to see.'

The image on the screen was still like a photograph and remained so for
several seconds. Then a car by passed, soundlessly, its pale headlights
illuminating the crouching figure of a man. He was still for a moment,
his face invisible. The he scuttled along the pavement glancing
furtively behind him. The image froze. A soft voice spoke from inside
the machine. Raphael's voice.

'Do you know yourself, Thomas? Can you recognise yourself?'

Thomas examined the contours of his own face, neon-lit and secretive.
The shame seeped up in him. He could hear Thalia's soft breathing
behind him, shallow as if the air was getting thin.

'Let's not watch anymore.' There was a futility in her voice that tore
at him but he kept his eyes fixed on the screen. The image changed.
Seamless edits revealed him crawling through Vanessa's garden.
Different angles exposing his furtiveness as he passed through areas of
light and shadow. Raphael spoke again, a curious electronic edge
draining the humanity from his words.

'Patience and watchfulness. The eye always open.'

Thomas felt nerve in his eyelid twitch. The skin on his face felt hot
then cold, something dying inside.

'And my eye is always open, always watchful'

The image changed again, shivered and fragmented, and he saw himself
frame by frame, from unnatural angles, through the lenses of a number
of cameras, throwing the eggs at her window. The humiliation he felt
was deep and sexual. He could felt Thalia's silent presence behind him
with a creeping. The exposure was agonising.

His memories were wisps of grey, frail things that glimmered in muted
colour. Moving out of the dark like blown smoke, carrying with them a
trace of regret. They passed quickly through his mind, bringing sounds
sometimes: music, snatches of conversation, before vanishing again into
the black. His life. He felt the pressure of Thalia's hand on his
shoulder. Its warm, solid contact was comforting.

'Well, Tom, it's all over.' Her voice sounded as always did, brisk
with her old irony, even now. 'We might actually be able to get on with
things.'

'Yes.'

He turned to her, accepting her kiss. The winter had taken the colour
from her face, made the lines under eyes seem deeper.

'I need something to drink. Shall I make some tea?'

'There's Earl Grey in the - '

'Just tea today, Thalia.'

In the hall he stopped and peered curiously into the mirror. He looked
tired. His eyes were dim and black-rimmed but it was still his face. In
it he could still discern all his younger selves. As a child he'd lain
in bed, hours after everyone else was asleep, Listening to the Late
Show on the radio, reaching his hands out into the darkness in front of
his face. Pale hands, blue darkness. The tiny light on the radio
glowing faintly. He was reaching still, stretching his white fingers
into the dark, reaching out and finding nothing.