A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson Read Free Book Online
Authors: Suzanne Joinson
silent. My sister sat on the other side of the room like a fulgurite, her eyes fixed on a point in the distance, refusing food, cradling her camera on her knee as though it were her own babe, looking as incongruous as I felt. I wanted to lean across to her, as we did when children, at night across the ocean of the nursery floor so that we were not alone and our fingers would touch.
    ‘Regardless of the house-arrest I believe that there have been a number of powerful signs indicating that we should set up a Mission in Kashgar.’ Millicent blew smoke into my face. ‘Don’t you agree?’
    ‘What signs do you mean?’
    ‘Well. The child delivered directly into our arms, for one.’ She blew smoke again, away from me.
    ‘But to be stuck in this terrible desert. Surely there is a better spot?’
    ‘Have you looked around?’ Her voice grew louder. ‘There are immense possibilities for our missionary work here.’
    I coughed, trying to get Lizzie’s attention, but she would not meet my eye. That Leica! I should like to stamp on it, that box of images, its trickery. I am still appalled that she used it to photograph Father as he died. I remember raging at Mother in the drawing room: why should she be allowed to photograph him? What about dignity and peace? Poor Mother sighed and stroked my hair, agreeing with me, but said that this was Lizzie’s way of coming to terms with death and we could not take that away from her.
    As Father grew weaker she talked of capturing the transformation of his body from flesh into spirit and then Mother even agreed to a dealer visiting from London. In he came, with his cases, an elderly German gentleman, placing his various photographic models across the dining-room table as if precious jewels, emitting a long-drawn-out whistle-wheeze each time he exhaled. His assistant, I remember, was a squat piggish man called Jones (I don’t recall the name of the dealer) who winked at me as he polished lenses and pointed to each model as the elderly man talked through the various components of the folding vest cameras. The Leica was a limited edition, a prototype, extremely technically advanced; needless to say the most expensive. Lizzie pretended to be interested in the inferior models, but she had already seen it, already wanted it. Aunt Cicely was mortified, and not just at having a German in the house, but Mother was too faded and shrunk with exhaustion at that stage to argue so agreed, with a wave of her small pale hand, to the purchase of the most expensive model on the table that had the advantage of being used with or without a tripod – the perfect thing for a traveller.
    I remember watching this new zealous Lizzie fluttering about Father’s bed, examining the quality of the light, impervious to his pain.
    ‘Where did she catch it?’ Mother asked the room at large in Southsea. Ours is a family of gentle Anglicans with a strong Fabian streak of educationalist reform; Mother is a believer in suffrage for women and progress in general.
    ‘An Anglican is one thing,’ I remember her saying, ‘but an evangelist is another.’
    The day Father died the afternoon light was thin, as if worn down in anticipation of his departure. Or perhaps it was a trick to be played on Lizzie’s photography. Aunt Cicely cried unprettily into her handkerchief but Mother had more restraint, simply holding his hand and rubbing at his gold wedding ring with her finger. I stood at the door as quietly as I could, leaning my head against the oak panel. Lizzie fretted with the aperture on the camera at the end of the bed and the shutter click-clacked as her finger repeatedly pushed at the button. Father was barely there. He hadn’t spoken for a fortnight, he certainly hadn’t recognised us for perhaps a month; for weeks he sang to the stars and the nurse gave him laudanum. What made me the angriest was that it was just like Lizzie to steal that moment from him and make it her own.
    Millicent called out to me as I

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