A Division of the Light

by Christopher Burns

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

It begins on a quiet city street. A young woman is robbed, with the crime witnessed by a man holding a camera. In the aftermath, victim and voyeur meet. It ends six months later, by which point both their lives - and the way they choose to live them - have changed irrevocably. This is the story of what happened in between.

Release date: March 1, 2012

Publisher: RiverRun

Print pages: 214

Sample

It begins with a sudden blow, a young woman hurled onto a pavement, a waiting motorbike being revved in a quiet city street. A simple but efficient robbery is carried out on a stranger, and this takes place twenty paces in front of a man with a camera. The man is there only by chance, but he immediately takes his opportunity.

He does not focus on the riders in their beetle-black helmets as they speed past in a clamour of acceleration. Instead his concentration is on how the hard-edged shadow of a tall building bisects the woman’s body. She is sprawled face down but has broken her fall with hands that are folded up beneath her. One leg is stuck out at an ungainly angle and a shoe hangs from the foot as if she has pitched forward whilst trying it on. Just beyond her grasp a pair of dark glasses gleam on the brightly sunlit paving.

It is not the crime that excites the photographer’s attention, but a chance configuration of shape and texture – the smooth opacity of the lenses, the knotty tension in the victim’s hands, the summer clothing rubbed along the ground. These, and the dishevelled hair that screens a face he cannot quite see and that could so easily have smashed into the pavement.

Only after he has taken several rapid photographs does the man turn to look down the gently sloping street and focus on the thieves. In that instant the stolen bag is lobbed from the pillion as if it were an empty carton, and then with a brief flash of red the bike tilts and swings out dangerously into traffic. Squealing brakes and angrily punched horns momentarily clash with the clatter of its exhaust and then everything disperses into a rumbling hum.

The narrow side street has become eerily quiet now that the thieves have gone. Both victim and photographer are motionless for a few seconds. Sultry heat slides down between the tall office blocks in an invisible layer and presses on the scene.

Later, Gregory will consider what might have happened if someone else had been present. If they had been, then they could have made sure that the woman was unharmed. They might even have contacted the police. If there had been another witness – anyone – then his own life would not have been changed so unalterably. Gregory’s natural instinct was for avoidance and observation, not involvement. He had taken his few sly photographs and that was enough. The chances were that the sprawled woman did not even know he had done this. But there was no one else nearby; at the mouth of the street the indifferent traffic moved along the broad embankment, and no witnesses could be seen peering from the mirrored windows in the high buildings.

Conscience took hold of Gregory. The victim was struggling to her knees and reaching forward for her glasses with arms that seemed too loosely articulated. The building shadow fell across her like a burden. Only now could he hear the shocked, convulsive sound of her breathing.

He studied the woman with a professional eye. The lightweight olive trousers, ripped across one knee, had been dragged down a couple of extra inches to expose the pale skin at the base of her spine and the scalloped upper edge of white underwear. The woman was slender, a little taller than average, probably in her early thirties. Gregory considered it his job to notice such things. Just as he had noticed that beneath the open lightweight jacket her white T-shirt had been scuffed across the bust by contact with the unswept pavement.

He bent closer, holding his camera bag close to his hip. The Canon swung in front of him like a sensor. The woman pushed her hair back with her left hand. It had been lightened to a reddish blonde but was darker red at the roots. She wore no wedding ring.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Are you able to stand?’

She pushed the glasses high up on a slightly prominent nose so that her eyes were shielded. Behind the large obscuring lenses her face was a pale oval. As if she were a child on the verge of tears, her lower jaw quivered noticeably.

He stretched out a hand. ‘It’s all right, you can trust me.’

But Gregory knew that although some women would claim that he had many admirable qualities, he had never inspired trust.

She did not take his hand but remained kneeling, as if the ground were a penance and she a supplicant. Gregory knew the pavement must be hot. He could feel sweat gather on his forehead. Perhaps it made him look menacing.

‘I—’ the woman began, and then stopped, her lungs still robbed of air. After a few seconds she put the shoe back on her foot in an odd, almost absent-minded gesture.

Gregory reached out a little further, this time with both hands. The camera was a barrier between their two bodies.

‘They threw away your bag further down the street.’

She did not react.

‘We can go and find it, but they’ll have taken whatever was valuable.’

The woman accepted his grasp and got to her feet with her weight pressing on his hands. The skin of her palms was roughened and he realized she must have scraped them along the ground. As soon as she was steady the woman pushed at the bridge of the dark glasses with one finger so that they rested even closer to her eyes. Then she tugged at the waistband of her trousers to adjust them on her hips. Gregory could see the outline of a white bra beneath her cotton T-shirt.

‘You took a hard fall. Are you hurt?’

‘Did you see them? How many were there?’

Her voice was classless, educated, a little stunned.

‘Just two. The pillion passenger was the one who hit you and lifted the bag. It was all in one movement. His friend was the escape rider. They must have singled you out. You’re probably not the only victim they’ll get today. I know that won’t make you feel any better.’

‘What about your camera? Did you photograph them?’

He did not trouble himself by debating how he should answer.

‘I only had time for one shot. It won’t help identify them. Listen, if you can walk all right, then we can go down there and try to find your bag. But if you’re still shaky then just stay here, I’ll go, and if I can find it I’ll bring it back.’

The woman said nothing.

‘I won’t steal it again. Promise. One theft is more than enough.’

‘I can walk. Thank you.’

‘Do you want to lean on me?’

‘No. No, I’ll manage.’

They set off together along the pavement and through the motionless air. A set of spiked black railings in front of blank walls gave way to a second office block with smoky glass. The woman walked unevenly as if a stone had lodged in one shoe. Gregory feared that without warning she could topple to one side and he would have to catch her as she fell. If she did then he would have to be careful not to touch her breasts.

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

‘I’ll survive. Could you recognize them again?’

‘Not with those helmets. They’re no fools. They make a living out of this.’

The woman shook her head and he registered the way that her hair moved.

Two men in business suits walked towards them, deep in loud conversation, jackets slung over their shoulders, and did not look up. Gregory realized that the men had probably walked past the stolen bag and simply ignored it.

‘I feel so stupid,’ the woman said. ‘I always carry that bag across my shoulder on the inside, away from the traffic, and yet today I didn’t. I don’t know why. And this is what happens. I didn’t even plan to be walking down this street. Usually I take the busy one, just a block along.’

‘You were unlucky, that’s all.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘You shouldn’t think that. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘But maybe it was meant to happen.’

This, Gregory thought, was an irrational comment made under stress. He ignored it because he had no reason to believe in fate.

A little further on they came to an entrance to the building. There was a broad, shallow flight of half a dozen steps beside a disabled ramp with a metal handrail. Two women were standing on the ramp in the shade. The taller one had taken the higher position so that she appeared even taller than her colleague, and they were both smoking cigarettes that were almost finished. The taller one also held the missing bag at the end of two fingers of her free hand, delicately, as though aware that she should not presume to hold it any closer.

‘Is this yours?’ she asked as they approached.

‘It’s mine,’ the woman said.

‘We came out here on a smoking break and those bikers threw it away. We usually stand leaning on that rail but it would burn your arms off in this heat so we stood back here. We thought something bad must have gone on. Same thing once happened to a cousin of mine. But with her they ran away on foot.’

‘Some of those young bastards would steal from their own mother,’ her smaller colleague announced.

‘I picked this up from where they threw it – just down here. Almost at our feet. I haven’t looked inside. Sorry, love, but whatever’s missing, they took.’

The shorter woman quickly confirmed that neither of them had looked inside. And as the victim took the bag and examined it, the smokers began to ask for detail on exactly what had happened.

As Gregory had expected, the woman’s wallet and mobile phone were missing, but all the other items were untouched.

‘I’ll ring the police,’ he said, producing his own phone, ‘although they probably won’t be all that interested.’

He was right. To the police it was just another street robbery, the kind that happened several times a day. Gregory handed his phone across for the woman to speak to an officer whom he imagined to be filling in a form at a desk and concerned that he get the details correct. She gave her name as Alice Fell and quoted an address. The smokers each lit another cigarette. In the still air a nicotine smell wreathed around everyone.

After the report Alice turned back to him. ‘They say I have to get in touch with my bank straight away about any credit cards.’

‘Of course. Do you know their numbers?’

She shook her head. Sunlight smeared the dark lenses. Gregory wondered what colour her eyes were.

‘They’ll take you for whatever they can,’ he warned. ‘Tell me which bank you use and we’ll do what we can to limit any damage.’

The smokers brought tea in plastic cups from a dispensing machine and would not take payment; meanwhile Alice used Gregory’s phone again. As she talked, he began to wonder what would happen if his own daughter were attacked and robbed and there was no one there to help. At the end of the street an unbroken stream of traffic moved past.

‘I owe you for these,’ Alice said when the last call was finished.

‘It’s all right. You owe me nothing.’

At this moment she appeared to become disoriented again.

‘I’m at work,’ she said. ‘I should get back there.’

‘Go on home,’ the tall smoker said, collecting the empty cups. ‘You can’t go back to work in the state you’re in. Besides, look – those nice trousers are all torn at the knee.’

‘She’s right,’ Gregory agreed.

Alice looked unsure. ‘They’ll be expecting me back. This is my lunch-break and . . .’ The sentence tailed away.

The smokers were ever eager with advice.

‘Report in sick, love, that’s what you should do.’ The tall one turned to Gregory. ‘Give her back your phone so she can do it – go on.’

Alice did not need further persuasion. She dialled a number and told whoever answered that she had been attacked and robbed but would be all right soon. When she handed the mobile back to Gregory she told him that her employers had advised her to take the rest of the day off.

‘What did I tell you?’ the tall smoker said. ‘You should get a taxi back home. It’s not right you standing around like this. It’ll make you feel better to get those dirty clothes off and have a shower and relax.’

‘Besides, you could go into shock real easy,’ her friend added.

‘She’s right. You could start to shake all over and not stop. That wouldn’t do you any good.’

‘I’ll walk,’ Alice announced.

‘You should do no such thing.’

‘I have to. All my money’s gone.’

‘Your friend here will lend you some cash – won’t you, darling?’

The smokers fixed Gregory with challenging stares while Alice hid behind her dark lenses.

‘Don’t say you’re going to say no,’ the tall smoker accused him.

‘We can get a taxi easily at the end of the street,’ Gregory said.

Alice moved her head like a blind person reacting to noise. ‘Thank you. I can pay the driver when I get home.’

They walked to the end of the street and were surprised to find that the smokers accompanied them. Evidently they were not yet prepared to relinquish their part in the drama of the robbery. Gregory was sure that within a few short minutes they would be back in the office eagerly telling their colleagues what had happened.

In the distance a taxi with an illuminated sign appeared and he hailed it.

‘Give her the fare,’ the tall smoker said. ‘Go on.’

Alice shook her head. ‘There’s no need.’

‘Course there is. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘I don’t mind,’ Gregory said. There was little choice. He asked the driver approximately how much the fare would be. There were lots of hold-ups on that route, the driver said, and a few diversions; it all depended.

Gregory took a twenty-pound note from his wallet.

‘It could be a bit more,’ the driver said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Gregory answered. He passed the note to Alice. She folded it several times and then closed her fist round it.

‘I’ll pay you back. Give me your address and I’ll send the money. Honestly.’

As she settled into the back of the cab Gregory handed over one of his business cards. In the dim interior Alice had to lift her glasses slightly to read the print. For just a second he saw that her eyes were puffed up with weeping. She had not cried since he had helped her up from the pavement. It must have been happening just before the attack.

Alice lowered her glasses again.

‘Should I know you?’ she asked. ‘It’s an unusual surname.’

‘Maybe you’ve seen it in print. When you get home will there be someone to look after you?’

She hesitated for longer than he expected before she answered. ‘Yes, there will be.’

Gregory closed the door and nodded at the driver. He expected Alice to say something else, or at least look at him as she was driven away, but instead she looked down, like a mourner at a funeral.

The smokers surveyed him with the satisfaction of matchmakers.

‘Lovely woman, that,’ the tall one said.

‘Lovely,’ the shorter one echoed.

Gregory nodded, said thanks, and began to walk away.

‘You won’t have seen the last of her,’ the tall one added. ‘I know.’

‘We can tell,’ the shorter one said.

But Gregory did not expect to see the woman again. His life was filled with brief meetings and casual encounters. He believed that Alice Fell had been one of those. And besides, if he wanted, there were always other women.

From across the city there was the sudden noiseless flash of summer lightning.

Alice topples like a felled tree, her arms flung out like spreading branches, the lost shoe parted from her like a root left in the ground by the stroke of an axe. Gregory’s photographs testify to the force that propelled her body forward with a single blow. He studies them on a monitor, weighing their virtues and failings, and it is not long before he begins to manipulate them. Because of the high contrast between sunlight and shade they have unintended limitations. However, adjustments that are merely necessary soon become creative.

Gregory drains the images of colour. He contracts the margins. He enlarges sections until their texture becomes granular. One of the frames he crops so severely that all it contains is Alice’s tumbled hair parted into shadowy roots and the fallen sunglasses that have darkened to jet. Her body is abstracted into balances of shape and texture. When he has finished, Gregory puts his visual rearrangements on a slideshow program and assesses them even more critically.

He does not put his shot of the escaping thieves on the slideshow, although unexpectedly he has come to regret that there are no means of identification to be found within it. Indeed, the picture contains so little information that no arrest could ever be achieved from its content. Gregory understands that it is impossible that he should become an agent for justice, and yet to him it is also inexplicable that he should fantasize about being thought of as a kind of saviour.

In almost a week he has not heard from Alice. Although at first he assumes that she has merely been delayed in returning his money, he soon begins to believe that she has never intended to. This does not prevent him from thinking more and more about her.

After seven days he was due to leave on his next assignment and still he had heard nothing. Her silence was disappointing but perhaps inevitable. Gregory told himself that he, too, had been robbed of cash, but only of twenty pounds, and not by opportunist thieves but by a woman who had probably simply decided that there was no moral need to return a stranger’s kindness.

Nevertheless he wanted to hear from Alice. The money was not important. He was willing to forget that. At one point he checked the call log of his mobile and discovered her work number. When he rang it an unfamiliar voice answered and quoted a company name. Although he had intended to ask if Alice Fell was there, he immediately closed the connection when she did not answer.

He told himself he should think no more about the robbery. And besides, he was leaving within the next few hours. And yet when his daughter Cassie rang on the landline Gregory realized that he had wanted the call to be from Alice. Disappointment hit him as a sudden ache across the lower line of his ribcage. This was both irrational and reprehensible; he had, after all, been expecting Cassie to phone.

After the call was over Gregory felt guilty about his crazy hope that it could have been Alice. He was also uneasy that Cassie might have registered the evident deflation in his tone. Perhaps she could have learned more than he had wanted to reveal.

For three days each week his daughter worked as his assistant, secretary and unofficial manager, and on the other two days she worked for a national cancer charity. Gregory had grown dependent on her abilities. She organized his contracts, diary, correspondence, and accounts, and often she helped out in the studio. On occasion she had even taken photographs instead of him.

Although he had told her what had happened Gregory had not confessed that he had given money to Alice Fell. Instead he used the robbery as a cautionary tale of how easily one could be attacked on a city street in broad daylight. Cassie’s reaction had been so offhand that he felt it necessary to repeat how risks could be minimized. He recognized that she and Alice were about the same age, and he could easily imagine Cassie being struck between the shoulder blades in the same callous manner. Furthermore, Gregory could picture how his daughter would look if she were unable to break her fall and instead smashed her head against the pavement. He did not want to have to photograph those injuries. As always, Cassie had allayed his fears with a breezy confidence.

Twenty minutes later he had just picked up his bag and was about to leave when the landline rang again. Gregory paused by the door. His own voice rasped from the answerphone. The caller hung up without saying anything.

He wondered if he should go back and check the incoming number, but then decided that this would be madness. If the call had been important then either a message would have been left or he would have been phoned on his mobile. Gregory closed the door and tried to put the incident out of his mind, but all the way to the airport he wondered if he had done the right thing.

The flight was delayed and made unpleasant by turbulence. By the time it landed Gregory could feel the tensions of the journey in the muscles at the back of his legs. He was jaded and cynical and felt that he was getting old. Around him the airport was featureless and unwelcoming, with armed security guards in illfitting uniforms and a luggage carousel that creaked and squealed as if about to seize up completely.

Carla from the agency was waiting in Arrivals. Her name was all that he had been told about her. She was in her early forties, had angular features and an unwavering stare, and spoke English as if she had spent time in the States. An ignition key was held in her hand like a valued possession.

A shower of heavy rain passed across the airport before they reached the car. Droplets pocked the grey dust on its surfaces so that they resembled NASA studies of lunar plains. Gregory sat with one camera on his lap and the equipment lodged behind the passenger seat. He was already telephoning his journalist contact as Carla drove away from the airport.

Within a few minutes Gregory knew that they would spend most of their long journey in a silence that both he and Carla understood, just as he was confident that she would offer him the opportunity to sleep with her that night. He was not sure that he wanted to. Even if he did, he wondered if he would be doing so just because it was expected of him. Perhaps it would be wiser to remain alone in his hotel room and hunt through the satellite channels.

In this part of the world even the best roads were narrow. Military vehicles moved along them in short convoys, but so did overloaded lorries that left a smell of burned diesel. . .