was almost exactly the same predicament as in Sophie’s Choice.
‘It’s fine,’ I announced to the empty kitchen, placing the card back on the worktop and twisting my hair into a dodgy topknot. ‘Gives me another day to get to grips with the camera.’
And if the worst came to the worst, I still had a spare day at the end of the week to play around with. Gloss was a proper magazine with proper contingency plans made by proper planning-type people. They just didn’t have a proper photographer. But they didn’t know that. Regardless, what this really meant was that I had a completely free day in Hawaii …
The beach was deserted and utterly silent when I ventured outside. Instead of a starchy white shirt and badly fitting black trousers, I was wearing one of my super-soft T-shirts and a pair of denim cutoffs that had previously lived life as my ‘painting jeans’. It felt good to be out of uniform. The breeze from the day before had vanished and the sun warmed my bare skin through in a heartbeat. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t too humid – it was just right. Goldilocks weather.
‘Must remember you’re here for a reason,’ I reminded myself, sliding the wide, webbed camera strap over my head. ‘Must take pictures. Pictures must be good. Or at least good enough for a professional to Photoshop.’
There was no one anywhere to be seen on the beach or up by the house and so I began to wander. Everything looked so calm, so peaceful. Either the entire island was medicated or Kekipi had slipped some Xanax into my coffee the night before. Tiny red-crested birds fluttered around me as I walked along the beach, the floury sand sticking to my feet like little white socks, and I took deep, full-to-the-bottom-of-my-lungs breaths of fresh, flowery air to wash away the grey smog of home.
‘Hi.’ I nodded politely at a little white bird who was jogging along the edge of the beach, his little head bobbing back and forth. He paused for a moment, looked at me with his head on one side, and then went about his business. I was officially a million miles away from London’s scabby one-footed pigeons.
After not really very long at all, the backs of my calves began to burn from walking in the sand. It was time to sit down. Somewhere between the cottages, the ocean and the middle of nowhere, I found a comfortable spot, checked for random men running down the shoreline, and once I was certain I was alone, I turned on by beloved camera. She clicked, whirred and flashed into life, blinking at me as I found my grip.
Trading my camera to Vanessa in lieu of rent had broken my heart, but at the time I hadn’t had any choice. And as my mum liked to tell me all the time, what was the point in wasting my time taking pictures when I should be worrying about my work? But now, with my camera back in my hands, the strap rubbing against the back of my neck, it didn’t feel like it was going to be a waste of time. And it wasn’t just because I was sitting on a beach in Hawaii and didn’t have a job to worry about anymore – it just felt really, really good. I fiddled with the settings for a moment, changed the lens, tinkered with the exposure and the shutter speed and then held the viewfinder up to my right eye. The camera had a digital screen on the back, but I still loved to line everything up myself.
‘Let’s do this,’ I mumbled, focusing the camera on a small sailing boat out in the bay and pressing the shutter button. There. I had taken my first photo. It was blurry, overexposed and basically terrible, but still, it was a photograph taken in Hawaii. Baby steps.
For the next couple of hours, I wandered up and down the beach taking photos of everything I came across. Happily, Hawaii was a very giving subject. Everywhere I looked, there was something else that was ridiculously beautiful. Before I knew it, I’d filled an entire memory card with warm-up shots.
‘Having fun?’
And before I knew it, I’d tripped over a man sitting in the middle of the beach. I hit the deck hard, managing to hold my camera aloft but dropping to my knees with a force that would definitely leave a bruise. The camera strap jarred on my neck, and, completely incapable of controlling myself, I started to cry.
‘Oh dear, oh. Oh don’t, please.’ The man jumped to his knees, sprightly for an old fella, and placed an awkward hand on my shoulder. ‘There, don’t cry. Really, I can’t bear to see a woman cry. I’m very sorry. Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ I gasped for air. I felt like a five-year-old who had skinned her knees. ‘It, doesn’t, really, hurt.’ I choked. ‘I just, can’t, stop, crying.’
My human tripwire gave me another pat on the shoulder and waited for me to stop making a complete show of myself before speaking again. Once I had wiped away the last tear and was able to press my hand over my raw kneecap without weeping, I gave him a smile and he sighed with relief.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.’ I held out my non-bloody hand and he shook it heartily. ‘I didn’t kick you or anything, did I?’
‘No, no,’ he replied, still shaking my hand. ‘I’m the villain of the piece. I saw you coming along but you seemed so engrossed in your pictures, I didn’t want to interrupt. I just assumed you wouldn’t actually walk into an old man.’
‘Never assume,’ I said with a mock serious expression. ‘I am quite stupid.’
Taking a better look at my beach buddy, I realized he wasn’t joking. He was an old man. Dressed in a washed-out blue Nike T-shirt that had probably seen the tumble dryer a thousand times since 1989 and a pair of granddad-appropriate shorts, he looked like Father Christmas on a senior’s beach getaway. A big and impressively full white beard obscured a lot of his face, but what I could see of it was pleasantly wrinkly and he had white panda eyes from wearing sunglasses in the sun. He had to be in his seventies, but if it weren’t for his white hair and wrinkles, you would never know.
‘Oh, I don’t believe that for a second,’ he said, finally letting go of my hand and gesturing for me to give him the camera. Reluctant but too polite to resist, I handed it over. ‘I’m Al – pleased to meet you. You’re on holiday?’
‘Working, actually.’ I watched him flick through my morning’s snapshots quickly. ‘I’m Vanessa.’
I tried not to be a little bit sick in my mouth as I said it.
‘And what are you working on in Hawaii, Vanessa?’ he asked with a mixed-up traveller’s accent, handing back my camera. ‘They’re very good, by the way, your pictures.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, turning my baby off to save the battery life. It hadn’t been great five years ago; it wasn’t going to be any better now. ‘I think it’s probably hard to take a bad picture out here, though, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Al squinted into the sunshine. ‘Even the most beautiful woman can look ugly if you’ve got the wrong man behind the camera.’ He waved a regal hand towards me. ‘Or woman, of course.’
‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ I replied, nursing the camera in my lap as the throbbing in my knee died down. ‘I’m here taking photographs for a magazine.’
‘A shutterbug, are you?’ He combed his fingers through his magnificent beard as he stared out at the ocean and I fought the urge to reach out and give it a tug. He made the Santa in Selfridges look like an amateur. And I would know because Amy made me go and sit on his knee every bloody year. ‘Wasn’t sure if you were just at this for fun. And what are you taking pictures of?’
‘I’m doing something for this fashion magazine called Gloss? I’m taking pictures of Bertie Bennett?’ Now I was going up at the end of my sentences, just like nobhead Nick. ‘He owns this beach, actually. Do you know him?’
‘Know of him,’ Al said. ‘He’s a character.’
‘He’s a character that’s cancelled on me twice since I’ve got here. Fingers crossed he’s not avoiding me.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t know what a pretty young thing you are,’ he said, giving me a twinkly grandpa grin. ‘I’m sure he’d be happy to sit for a snap or two if he did.’
I