Free The Photographer's Wife by Nick Alexander Page B

She smiles to herself and stretches with cat-like contentment. It’s the first time in her entire sixteen-year life that she has been on holiday and though they only arrived by train late last night, she’s already loving the sensation of a different bed with different sounds. She thinks about getting up to look outside but instead falls asleep again. Lie-ins are rarely permitted at home.
    When she awakens next, the sun is streaming in through the salt-splattered bay window and Glenda, wrapped in her dressing gown, is silhouetted against the blue sky beyond.
    “Morning,” Barbara says, through a yawn.
    Glenda turns her head to look back at her. She looks puffy and indistinct without her makeup but also a little less severe, a tad more friendly.
    “It’s a lovely day,” Glenda says. “I think I’d like to go swimming. Before breakfast. What do you reckon?”
    “Ooh! Yes!” Barbara says, sitting sharply upright. “Let’s do that!”
    There isn’t a single cloud in the sky as they cross the main road from the Sea View (No Vacancies) and descend the few steps to the pebble beach. “Will it be cold, do you think?” Barbara asks.
    “Freezing,” Glenda says. “But I don’t give a damn.”
    “Me neither.”
    Barbara swivels her head to take in the vista: the sun rising to the left, the vast, empty pebble beach before them, the pier to the right... It’s all so crisp, so clean, so refreshing after London. A simple change of vista can, she is discovering, make you feel like a completely different person.
    They remove their dresses revealing the one-piece swimming costumes they wriggled into before leaving, then linking hands, they run shrieking across the painful pebbles and into the murky, green water. It is indeed freezing. The morning dip is short-lived but exhilarating.
    After a fried breakfast complete with bitter, over-stewed tea and watered down orange juice, the sisters head back out and walk along the seafront in the direction of the pier.
    “I love the seaside,” Barbara announces. “I think I’d like to live here one day.”
    “I know what you mean,” Glenda replies. “But I think you’d get bored. There’s lots more to do in London that in Eastbourne.”
    “I suppose,” Barbara says, even though she can’t think of a single thing that she would prefer to “do” in London than simply being here today.
    Halfway along the pier, just after the candy-floss booth with the organ music, they are approached by a young, blond beach photographer. “Come on girls,” he says. “You’ve got to have a picture to take home to Mum.”
    And because he’s about her age and good looking with it, (Barbara loves men with beards and they’re pretty rare in 1950s England) she asks, “How much?”
    “For you lovely ladies, a shilling,” the man says. “And I’ll take three for the price and let you choose your favourite. I promise you’ll look like film stars.”
    “A shilling!” Glenda laughs. “We can get lunch for that.”
    “Oh, come on,” Barbara pleads, looking into the photographer’s blue eyes. They seem to contain a hidden smile. “It’ll be a present for Mum when we get back.”
    “We can’t afford it,” Glenda says. “You know we’ve got just enough for the—”
    “Please?” Barbara pleads.
    “Sixpence, then,” Glenda says, addressing the man. “Not a penny more.”
    The man’s mouth slips into a cute grin.
    “And we get to keep all three photos,” Glenda adds. “They’re of no use to you anyway.”
    “All-right, all-right,” he says. “You drive a hard bargain girls but because you’re both so gorgeous, I’m gonna let you have what you want.”
    Once the photos have been taken – two leaning against the railings with the wind blowing Glenda’s hair around and one posing with a fake, full-sized bull (thoughtfully provided for this exact purpose) – the man hands the girls his card, then, as an afterthought, tags along as they start to walk along the