Time of Blood by Robin Jarvis

Author:Robin Jarvis [Jarvis, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Egmont

Four of the yard’s women were sitting in front of the Gales’ cottage, with a great basket of fresh mussels between them. They chatted freely as two removed the flesh from the shells and dropped it into basins, while the others mended fishing nets. They took no notice of the outlandish contraption pointing at them. The photographer was a common sight on the East Cliff and the novelty had long since evaporated for them. Nannie Burdon refused to come out of her front door. She was superstitiously wary of boxes that could capture your likeness, and didn’t trust them to show the truth, so she remained by her fire, feeding George his favourite dish of cold porridge.

‘Here’s my friend, Mr Sutcliffe,’ Martha told the photographer. ‘Can she be in it as well?’

The man looked Lil up and down, like a painter appraising the suitability and possibilities of a vase in a still life. Then he pointed to the far space between the seated women. Martha pushed Lil into place and stood beside her.

Lil almost laughed. Here was the celebrated photographer, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, about to take one of his famous photographs. Just about every home in the Whitby she knew had one of his prints on its walls. This moment was going to be frozen as the photograph that Cherry would one day show to her. She had forgotten this had to happen at some point. Grinning, Lil made sure the witch badge was clearly visible on her shawl.

‘What do you do this out here for?’ Martha asked him as he ducked under the cloth. ‘You got a place over in Flowergate, haven’t you?’

‘A studio, yes,’ came the muffled reply. ‘But it’s really only a vacant jet works, not ideal. I need larger premises.’

‘But them rich folk what stay in the hotels,’ Martha continued. ‘They pay proper money for to have their pictures made, don’t they?’

‘Fortunately, yes, but not nearly enough – alas.’

‘You don’t sell the pictures you make of us ordinary folk though, do you?’

‘No.’

‘So why do it, Mr Sutcliffe?’

He reappeared from beneath the cloth. ‘Sometimes I exhibit them,’ he told her. ‘Although that can be problematical.’

‘I heard the church weren’t happy with one.’

‘The clergy simply doesn’t understand art and what I’m trying to do. Excommunication was a ridiculous overreaction.’

‘What are you trying to do?’ Lil asked, genuinely curious. ‘It’s not just about the artistry is it? There’s another purpose to your work, isn’t there?’

He regarded her with astonishment and she wished she hadn’t said anything. That wasn’t something an ordinary East Cliff fishergirl would say. She really should be more guarded.

‘Don’t mind her, she’s from Middlesbrough,’ Martha explained, seeing his baffled reaction.

‘No, it was an insightful question,’ he said. ‘And deserves a considered answer. The world we know, this world I have loved, and prize most dearly, is changing. It has become an age of steam and noise and metal wheels and pistons. This tranquil little town, this centuries-old humble way of life, will soon be washed away by the roaring tide of progress.

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