The Girl Behind the Lens

She looked at Oliver’s house. There was a single light on in the hall, but otherwise no sign of life. She wondered if the woman was his girlfriend and was surprised that with that thought came a pang of disappointment. For some reason, she had assumed that he was single. She supposed it was his quip earlier about ‘a man alone tending to let things go’. She wasn’t his wife, then; but he was an attractive man and she shouldn’t have been surprised that he might have just as attractive female callers.

After a sufficient time had passed since the woman’s departure, Joanna got out of the car and made her way up the driveway. She rang the bell, a musical ding-dong, and waited. There was no sound within. She rang the bell again, but still there was silence. Oliver must be out, she thought, and in that case, the woman she had just seen leaving had either been there when he left, or she had her own key. Joanna sighed and traipsed back down the driveway. As she did, she saw a glove on the path. She leaned down to pick it up. It was a red wool glove that the woman must have dropped on her way out. Joanna put it back where it was, closed the gate behind her and got back into the car.

She wondered what to do. She could wait, but there was no telling what time Oliver might return. And what if the woman returned instead? She didn’t want to make trouble. She would just have to wait until tomorrow to get the USB back. There was nothing for it but to go home and begin scanning her photos again.

Joanna gathered her collection of photos and took them up to her room to scan. Her mother had still not returned home. The landline rang when she was about half an hour into the work and she went to her mother’s room to answer the extension. It was her mother’s friend, Pauline, asking to speak to Angela.

‘Mum? No, she said she was going shopping with you. Oh really? Maybe I got that wrong, then. She said something about going to buy a dress for a wedding, that wasn’t with you? Okay, Pauline. No worries. I’ll tell her to give you a call.’

Joanna put the phone down, puzzled. She was sure her mother had said it was Pauline she was meeting. A few minutes later, she heard her mother come in. She went into the landing and shouted down the stairs.

‘That you, Mum?’

‘No.’ It was her mother’s customary reply.

Joanna went downstairs. ‘Pauline just called,’ she said. ‘Did you not say you two were going shopping together today?’

Her mother looked up. ‘What?’

‘Pauline, I thought you said you were meeting her today but she’s just been on the phone.’

‘No, I said I was meeting Helen.’

‘Really? I was sure you said Pauline.’

‘Oh, maybe I did, I meant Helen.’

Joanna looked at her mother’s lack of shopping bags. ‘Did you not see anything you liked?’

Her mother shook her head. ‘I wasn’t really looking for anything – I just tagged along. Did you get yourself something to eat?’

‘No, I was out. I was thinking of maybe ordering something in. Do you fancy it?’

‘No, I’m okay, I grabbed a bite with Helen earlier. Get yourself something.’

Joanna nodded. She wasn’t sure she believed that her mother had mixed up the names of her two friends. Certainly, she knew she hadn’t misheard. But if she hadn’t gone shopping, where had she been? Rather than confront her about it Joanna decided to let it go. Maybe it was something and maybe it wasn’t; her mother’s lies had broken all trust between them. She missed the closeness they’d shared before Rachel had dropped her bomb. The distance wasn’t helped, she knew, by her own omissions. She would have liked to tell her mother about the afternoon she had spent with Oliver Molloy, about him taking her to see the place where Vince’s body had been found, but she wouldn’t. She would hide the fact and the photographs she’d taken from her mother because she knew that if she told her she wouldn’t understand.