Free Away With The Fairies by Kerry Greenwood Page B

McAlpin flatly. ‘Don’t argue, Miss Herbert. Miss Fisher’s idea will do, yes, it will do. Who will handle the remodelling?’
    ‘Madame Fleuri,’ said Phryne. ‘I’m sure she’d be tickled pink. Nothing a French dressmaker likes more than the chance to save a little money by ingenuity. We’ll have to get rid of all that torn net, but the beading is magnificent. Well, that’s settled.’
    ‘Indeed. We might even have the fashion feature ready for the next month before this month’s is done, which is, let me tell you, Miss Fisher, unheard of in our profession. Well, I must be off. Miss Nelson? Can you take the tripod? And the slides? Good.’
    ‘Where are you going?’ asked Phryne.
    ‘To try and get a good picture of the St Paul’s stained glass. I’m hoping that with a reasonably empty church, a long exposure and a strong afternoon light, we might actually manage an impression of them. Miss Nelson is going with me as my assistant. Someone else will have to get afternoon tea. Well, goodbye for now. Nice idea, Miss Fisher. Really quite a nice idea indeed.’
    Still looking like a Ladies’ Auxiliary worker, Mrs McAlpin hefted her camera in its case and followed her tripod out of the room. They heard her reproving Miss Nelson for banging the tripod against the stairs in the calm, concerned tone used by a nursery governess to a fractious child.
    ‘Have we got any of Mrs McAlpin’s photographs?’ asked Phryne.
    ‘Over there,’ said Miss Herbert, still pink with mingled joy and fear. Miss Alice Herbert! A model! In a national magazine! But what would her mother say?
    Phryne saw three large photographs on the far wall. One was of a burning house. Dark shadows of people were running in front of the flames. A man was being held back by three others as he strove to run back into the fire. A small child clutched a struggling cat in its arms. Water from a fire hose arced across the leaping pattern of flames. It was fierce, immediate and tragic. But what sort of cool mind could adjust a tripod and consider lenses while that was happening in front of her?
    The second was a study of the waterfront. The huge blurry side of a liner formed one boundary of the photograph. Against it was a moving tide of immigrants, some running to embrace their relatives, some collecting luggage, looking at watches, patting their hair and calling after scampering children, intoxicated with all that space after weeks of being onboard. Just at the forefront was a man. He had a European overcoat down to his heels and a carefully brushed hat which had seen better years. At his feet was a leather suitcase with polished brass locks and a handle mended with string. He seemed young. The curve of cheek and shiny-bare chin seen under the hat brim were taut, even hungry. He was looking down at a piece of paper in his gloved hand.
    Phryne blinked. She had been approached by such men, fresh off Station Pier, with almost no English, who thrust forward a bit of paper with an address on it and said, ‘Miss? Pliss?’ That address, usually in Carlton, was their only link with someone who might help them in an entirely alien land. What a photograph. Achingly vulnerable, but proud and hopeful.
    The third picture was taken from a hill. It showed the broad, out-of-focus sweep of a bay, somewhere like Queenscliff or maybe Portsea. The arms of the bay embraced the beach on which children were playing. The light was soft, hazy, protective. The naked babies toddled down to the edge of the kindly sea with their buckets and spades, watched by doting mothers and fathers reclining on blankets. It told a whole story. They would play in the sea until the sun grew too hot. Then they would retreat into the shade of small, cement sheet houses and eat a salad lunch and drowse away the afternoon in the scent of ozone and eucalyptus. The evening would bring a sausage and chop grill cooked over an open fire, or fish if anyone had caught some, and a few beers until the night