‘See this photograph? There, that’s my mother, Faith, coming up the path between the lilac trees. It’s not a good photograph – the sun is behind her, so you can’t see her face.’
Eleanor was kneeling amongst packed cardboard boxes, with the helpless expression of someone who has meant to get through a lot today, but has instead spent the morning re-reading old letters, trawling the past.
She looked down at the photograph in her hand. ‘She’s so small and slender you might think she was a boy in those trousers, with her open-necked shirt, but it was how she dressed. All the other mothers wore skirts and jumpers.’ She spread out the faded snaps like a fan on the floor. ‘It’s the garden at Pitcairn. I found this packet of photographs tucked away in an envelope at the bottom of a box of books. Look, here’s one of all of us – all except my father. He must have taken it. I look about nine or ten, don’t I? My fringe is too long, and I’m frowning. That’s Marion just behind me, and David of course. Two well-behaved sisters, standing together staring at the camera, and David, refusing to be the right way up, trying to walk on his hands.’
Eleanor gathered up the remaining photographs, tapping them together like a bunch of cards. ‘I associate that day with Aunt Alice, for some reason. And the fire – did I tell you about the fire at the Mackies’? In the barn? That was the big drama of our childhood – well, it seemed like it at the time. I must have told you. Anyway, it had been really hot, and I think this day, the day the photos were taken, it was thundery. There was a storm in the afternoon, and everyone said, if only it had happened the night before, the fire wouldn’t have taken hold. Maybe it was Alice’s camera, she doesn’t seem to be in any of the pictures.’
She picked out another, looking at it again. ‘Here we all are on the bench at the back door – Aunt Mamie too, so Aunt Alice must have been somewhere about. And David, hanging over the edge, spoiling it again.’
She sat back on her heels, dreaming, thinking how strange it was that a photograph could tell the truth about a single moment, and yet was no more than another lie in the tight weave of their lives. The false picture.
‘What?’ She looked up, startled out of memory. ‘No, you’re right. It’s not a good idea, to go through old photographs at a time like this. It’s only a house move or a death that makes you do it, eh? When there’s more than enough disturbance already.’
Eleanor tucked the photographs back in their yellow envelope, faded with age, one corner torn.
‘Right, that’s that. I’ve had enough of stirring up the past – let’s put them back in the box.’