last one before they died – life was only
real through the lens: she only felt a moment in the fraction after the ‘click’; she only remembered it when she saw it on film – even her last image of Matt before he’d
disappeared through airport security had to be confirmed on the display screen before she could actually believe and process that he’d gone.
She walked down to the shore, camera poised at her eye as she framed the landscape, making sense of it in neat circles, adjusting the focus by single degrees as it pinned on the plovers that
wheeled in the sky, the dot-dot-dash of the wind over the water. The zoom lens found a dog chasing a frisbee into the surf, and as she tracked its leap through the air, droplets from its coat
shining like crystal in the blue sky, she picked up on something else beyond: two young children standing by the shore, throwing something into the water.
They looked like ebony cameos from her vantage point, but Ro could see one was a girl from her dress billowing behind her in the wind. Their chins were tucked down, their hair lifted off the
backs of their necks as they watched something floating in the water in front of them.
Ro started clicking automatically, loving the way their silhouettes were picked out in such high definition against the sparkling water behind, tiny ambassadors of childhood with their duck
curls and plump limbs. The shutter came down repeatedly like a fluttering eyelid – black, image, black, image – the children oblivious to her presence or the way the camera tracked
their movements.
But Ro was as lost as they were; she didn’t see the man racing towards her, his fists clenched, the sand kicked up in plumes behind him, and when, in the next moment, everything went
black, Ro jumped back in alarm.
The man had clamped his hand across the camera lens and was staring at her with a trembling, pinched fury.
‘Who the
hell
,’ he said quietly and ominously slowly, ‘do you think you are?’
Ro stared back at him, open-mouthed and too shocked to reply. Who was he? Where had he come from?
‘Why are you photographing my children?’
She blinked at him.
‘You think it’s OK to intrude with your goddam camera? A
pretty
scene, is it?’
Ro literally couldn’t find her voice. The anger in his eyes was terrifying. He looked wild and barely restrained, his dark brown hair blown forward like a nimbus around his face, which was
angular and planed, his blue-shock eyes red-rimmed and unblinking.
‘Give me the camera.’ His hand was still on the lens and his grip tightened round it, no longer merely obscuring the view but trying to pull the camera away from her.
That was enough to bring back her voice. ‘What? No!’
‘You are not keeping those images. Give me the camera.’
‘I bloody well won’t!’ Ro cried, trying to step back, but with the strap still round her neck and a full-grown man attached to the camera lens, she was stuck. Her neck bent
forward from the jolt and she winced. The man released the camera at once and she stepped back, out of reach immediately, rubbing her neck with her free hand to make a point.
‘This is a £3,000 piece of equipment. Over my dead body am I handing it over to some bully boy like you,’ she said fiercely, adrenalin beginning to surge through her now.
‘Bu-
bully
boy?’ the man demanded incredulously. ‘You take photographs of my kids without consent and I’m the bully boy?’
‘I couldn’t see your damned kids. They were just silhouetted. They could have been cardboard cut-outs for all I could see. And what’s so bloody special about your kids, anyway,
that people need to sign some kind of consent form to photograph them on a public beach?’
He stared at her contemptuously, as though he didn’t believe she could possibly understand. ‘Is it digital?’ His forefinger pointed to the camera.
‘What?’ Ro brought both hands to it. ‘Of course it is.’
‘Delete the images. I want to see
real through the lens: she only felt a moment in the fraction after the ‘click’; she only remembered it when she saw it on film – even her last image of Matt before he’d
disappeared through airport security had to be confirmed on the display screen before she could actually believe and process that he’d gone.
She walked down to the shore, camera poised at her eye as she framed the landscape, making sense of it in neat circles, adjusting the focus by single degrees as it pinned on the plovers that
wheeled in the sky, the dot-dot-dash of the wind over the water. The zoom lens found a dog chasing a frisbee into the surf, and as she tracked its leap through the air, droplets from its coat
shining like crystal in the blue sky, she picked up on something else beyond: two young children standing by the shore, throwing something into the water.
They looked like ebony cameos from her vantage point, but Ro could see one was a girl from her dress billowing behind her in the wind. Their chins were tucked down, their hair lifted off the
backs of their necks as they watched something floating in the water in front of them.
Ro started clicking automatically, loving the way their silhouettes were picked out in such high definition against the sparkling water behind, tiny ambassadors of childhood with their duck
curls and plump limbs. The shutter came down repeatedly like a fluttering eyelid – black, image, black, image – the children oblivious to her presence or the way the camera tracked
their movements.
But Ro was as lost as they were; she didn’t see the man racing towards her, his fists clenched, the sand kicked up in plumes behind him, and when, in the next moment, everything went
black, Ro jumped back in alarm.
The man had clamped his hand across the camera lens and was staring at her with a trembling, pinched fury.
‘Who the
hell
,’ he said quietly and ominously slowly, ‘do you think you are?’
Ro stared back at him, open-mouthed and too shocked to reply. Who was he? Where had he come from?
‘Why are you photographing my children?’
She blinked at him.
‘You think it’s OK to intrude with your goddam camera? A
pretty
scene, is it?’
Ro literally couldn’t find her voice. The anger in his eyes was terrifying. He looked wild and barely restrained, his dark brown hair blown forward like a nimbus around his face, which was
angular and planed, his blue-shock eyes red-rimmed and unblinking.
‘Give me the camera.’ His hand was still on the lens and his grip tightened round it, no longer merely obscuring the view but trying to pull the camera away from her.
That was enough to bring back her voice. ‘What? No!’
‘You are not keeping those images. Give me the camera.’
‘I bloody well won’t!’ Ro cried, trying to step back, but with the strap still round her neck and a full-grown man attached to the camera lens, she was stuck. Her neck bent
forward from the jolt and she winced. The man released the camera at once and she stepped back, out of reach immediately, rubbing her neck with her free hand to make a point.
‘This is a £3,000 piece of equipment. Over my dead body am I handing it over to some bully boy like you,’ she said fiercely, adrenalin beginning to surge through her now.
‘Bu-
bully
boy?’ the man demanded incredulously. ‘You take photographs of my kids without consent and I’m the bully boy?’
‘I couldn’t see your damned kids. They were just silhouetted. They could have been cardboard cut-outs for all I could see. And what’s so bloody special about your kids, anyway,
that people need to sign some kind of consent form to photograph them on a public beach?’
He stared at her contemptuously, as though he didn’t believe she could possibly understand. ‘Is it digital?’ His forefinger pointed to the camera.
‘What?’ Ro brought both hands to it. ‘Of course it is.’
‘Delete the images. I want to see
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