IT WAS GONE MIDNIGHT by the time we arrived at Taylor’s Pharmacy in Kirkby Stephen. The town lay in complete darkness; even the usual faint light from the stars and moon was entirely muffled and obscured by cloud. It was steely cold and the streets were tarnished with wet. I was reminded of Spain: it felt like a night for the settling of scores. We parked the Lagonda some distance away from the pharmacy and made our way on foot around the back.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ I said.
‘Oh come on, Sefton,’ whispered Miriam. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘What if someone’s there?’
‘Didn’t Gerald’s sister say he was going to stay with her? It’ll be fine. There’s no one here.’
‘But what if there is?’
‘If there is,’ said Miriam, her voice hoarse with the cold, ‘we’ll deal with them.’ She could say things like that: she had no idea of what it might mean. I knew from experience that it paid to be cautious and to avoid any kind of harm. ‘Anyway, we’ll be in and out in no time.’
The back door – of course – was locked.
‘So what’s the plan?’ whispered Miriam.
I didn’t have a plan. Thinking about the photographs was as far ahead – and as far back – as I had gone.
‘We could smash the window,’ I said.
‘And wake everybody up?’
‘We could try and do it quietly.’
‘Are you mad, Sefton?’
‘Well, we’re never going to be able to pick the lock,’ I said. ‘Morley couldn’t do it.’
‘No, but Father didn’t have this, did he?’
Miriam removed the long elaborate orange scarf from around her neck – in later years she became a fanatical collector of Hermès, at considerable cost and inconvenience – and from it took a brooch. She showed me the brooch – or, rather, its long thin bent pin.
‘You’re going to pick the lock?’ I said.
‘No, actually. I’m going to rake the lock.’
‘Rake it?’
‘Rake it, Sefton, yes. Rake it. Quite different.’ She inserted the brooch pin into the lock. ‘Father makes everything so complicated, you see. Sometimes you just have to’ – she forced the pin in and rattled it around – ‘be a little resourceful and a little … rough, with it.’ And just as quickly as she had inserted the pin she pulled it back. ‘Though it takes a woman, Sefton, to know exactly how much force is necessary.’
She pulled the door open.
‘Where on earth did you learn to do that?’
‘One picks these things up as one goes along, doesn’t one? And don’t forget, Father taught me at home for years – all sorts of useful skills.’ She was whispering with her mouth up to my ear, her body pressing close.
‘Indeed.’
‘I can also fix pocket-watches, sharpen razors, restore paintings, raise hothouse fruits and vegetables, and I offer very competitive rates on fine carpentry and marquetry work, if you’re interested.’ She held the door open. ‘I can turn my hand to most things, in fact, Sefton. If I care to.’ She pulled away. ‘After you,’ she said.
At the back of the pharmacy was where all the chemicals were kept – all the good stuff. There were wooden shelves with bottles and tubs containing every imaginable chemical and compound. It was a mirror image of the front of the shop: smelling salt bottles; boxes of cosmetics; and lipsticks; and rouge; and important-looking jars with important-looking labels. In the middle of the room was a large wooden table set with areas of marble and zinc for preparing medicines. By the back door was a sink. Another set of shelves contained rows of empty cough mixture bottles, and beneath them gallon-drum containers of rosehip oil, dried concentrated orange juice, butterscotch flavour malt, and cod liver oil emulsion.
‘Wow,’ said Miriam. We were both impressed. ‘Look at all this, Sefton. I could do with a dose of something myself.’
‘Quite,’ I agreed.
She smiled at me sarcastically. ‘Shame we’re not shopping. Anyway, I got you in, but now it’s up to you. Where do we start?’
‘Give me your scarf,’ I said.
‘Why do you want my scarf? Whatever are you thinking of, Sefton?’ She looked at me coquettishly and handed the scarf to me. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, climbing onto the table and reaching up on tiptoes to wrap the scarf around the central light as best I could. I then jumped down and switched it on. Thank goodness Gerald had installed electricity. The room became lit with a soft electric amber glow.
‘Good.’
‘Nice,’ said Miriam. ‘Very classy. Rather like a tart’s boudoir.’
‘Now, I need to make three baths.’
‘Three baths?’
‘The developer … the stop bath … and a fixer – though we could probably do without the fixer.’
‘No idea what you’re talking about,’ said Miriam. ‘Modern technology. Layman’s language, please, Sefton.’
‘Just a tray will do,’ I said, looking around. There was fortunately a tray on a shelf, filled with prescription pads and pens and pencils, which I emptied out onto the table. There was also a bucket serving as a bin by the back door, and then there was the sink. So we had all the necessary receptacles.
‘Measuring jug?’ I said.
‘Here,’ said Miriam, fetching an enamel jug from a shelf.
‘Great. Now, what else do we need?’ I was talking to myself, trying to remember.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Sefton?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I’ve read about it. Your father’s keen to set up a darkroom at St George’s and I’ve been doing some research, though after Devon …’ But the less said about Devon the better.
I clicked my fingers, trying to recall. ‘We could just look at the negative, but we’re going to need a print for evidence. So. We will probably need some … rubbing alcohol, or vinegar. Lemon juice?’
‘Are we making cocktails?’
‘For the stop bath,’ I said.
‘Anyway.’ Miriam pulled a bottle containing rubbing alcohol from a shelf. ‘There you are.’
‘Good. Sodium sulphite. Potassium carbonate.’
‘Are they all going to be here?’ she asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Sodium sulphite!’ Miriam pulled down another big brown bottle.
‘I’ll also need some lithium hydroxide.’
‘Slow down!’ said Miriam. ‘What was the one before that?’
‘Potassium carbonate.’
‘And then?’
‘Lithium hydroxide.’
Within minutes we had found everything we needed – and not a moment too soon.
I thought I heard a door creak open upstairs.
‘Did you hear something?’ I whispered.
‘I don’t think so.’
We paused in silence. Nothing.
‘It’s your imagination,’ said Miriam. ‘Now, is that it? Is that everything?’
‘Well, if we’re going to print we need some photographic paper, I suppose. I hadn’t really thought about that.’
‘You hadn’t really thought about it?’
‘No.’
‘For goodness sake, Sefton!’
‘I’m just making it up as I go along,’ I protested. ‘I didn’t have it all planned out in advance!’
‘Why not? You know what Father says. Perfect preparation prevents poor performance.’
‘Well, I hadn’t planned on developing and printing film in the middle of the night in a chemist’s shop in the middle of nowhere, had I?’
‘Clearly not. Can’t we just use ordinary paper?’
‘No, no. It’s special paper that’s light sensitive. We could probably make some if we could find—’
Miriam opened a cupboard that stood by the door into the front of the shop.
‘Would Kodak photographic paper do the job?’
‘Perfect!’ I said.
‘Is that it now?’ said Miriam.
‘Almost. I just need something we could use as an enlarger.’
‘Again, no idea what you’re talking about. In plain English – we need?’
‘A lamp maybe? With a lens. Or in fact we could do without the lens. Just a light source that we can …’
Miriam opened the back door, went outside and reappeared moments later with an old carbide bicycle lamp.
‘Will this do?’ asked Miriam.
It would, and it did; and so I can safely say that my first ever attempt at developing and printing photographs was in Taylor’s Pharmacy in Kirkby Stephen, some time late at night in September 1937, using a bicycle lamp, rubbing alcohol, lemon juice and whatever other chemicals were to hand.
I have to admit that it was not an entirely successful experiment. Trying to remember the process, I sometimes became confused, though somehow – more by luck than judgement – I managed to mix and warm the chemicals to make a serviceable developer. (The ideal warmth for the developing solution is about 68 degrees – Fahrenheit, obviously – and the proportions of activating agent to restraining agent and preservative should always be carefully calculated, though what temperature we achieved that night warming the enamel tray over the gas ring by the sink I have no idea, and as for our proportions – they were entirely hit and miss. For an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide to developing and printing photographs, see Morley’s Big Book of Photographic Techniques (1939). This book earned me my one and only co-writing credit: ‘By Swanton Morley. Technical Adviser: Stephen Sefton’. My technical advice, for what it’s worth, is this: if at all possible use a professional photographic laboratory.) I managed to get the film from the camera without exposing it and into the developer, and then it was just a matter of time before placing it in the fixer that I had mixed in the bucket and the stop bath in the sink.
‘So, what do we do now?’ asked Miriam.
‘We have to get the timing right,’ I said. ‘It can’t be for too long, or too short.’
‘Well, how do you know how long is long enough?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We’ll try about five or six or … ten minutes. Fifteen? Twenty?’
‘Accurate, huh?’ said Miriam. ‘So what do we do for five or six or ten minutes? Or twenty?’ She leaned in closely towards me.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing?’
‘We just wait,’ I said, moving away and leaning up against the far end of the table.
‘I don’t like to just wait, Sefton,’ said Miriam, moving round towards me.
I edged slightly away – and she edged closer.
‘I told you earlier not to play with me, Miriam.’
‘I’m not playing with you, Sefton.’ She was playing with me. ‘Do you not believe in making the most of every opportunity?’
‘I …’
‘Do you really not like me, Sefton?’
‘I don’t not like you, Miriam, no.’
‘Is that a yes or a no?’
‘It’s not a question I can answer here and now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’
She was up against me now, nestling against me, whispering in my ear. I found myself turning involuntarily towards her.
‘Tell me honestly,’ she said, ‘did you enjoy it when I kissed you earlier? Were you very excited? I know you were excited, Sefton.’
Not as excited as I was at that moment – when the door from the pharmacy was flung open and there was Gerald’s sister, her hair in curlers, wrapped in a thick black overcoat and with an umbrella in hand. She screamed with all the force and fury of a woman being attacked by a mob, bellowing like some workhouse mistress who had discovered her unruly orphans stealing food. Goodness only knows what the scene appeared to be to her: the shaded light; the stench of the chemicals. Miriam screamed back, I yelled, ‘Get out!’ And Gerald’s sister, having taken a breath, screamed again. Miriam bolted for the back door. I grabbed the chemical tray and brandished it as Gerald’s sister came lunging towards me with her umbrella.
‘Don’t come any closer!’ I said.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ she yelled. ‘You … ungodly fornicators!’
‘Don’t come any closer!’ I threatened again.
But she did, and so I had no choice. I flung the chemical tray at her – and in the moment before doing so, as the tray and the chemicals and the film left my hands, I caught sight of the photographs that were developing. What I saw were not clear images, and they were tiny images. But in that instant, as the tiny photographs unspooled in the orange light, I saw the end of my journey with Lucy on the train, reversed, and in black and white: the dark outline of the signal box and at the bottom of the steps a bright white bicycle with a large wicker basket.
By the time I made it outside, the police had arrived. Miriam, thank God, had made it away in the Lagonda, and I surrendered without a fuss. There was no point in arguing. As I was led away I noticed a group of onlookers who had come out of their houses to see what was happening. Among them – though it was difficult to see in the darkness, and I had to look hard two or three times in order to be sure – I saw Nancy. There was a look of pure animal delight on her face: she might almost have been a cat who’d caught a mouse.