THE OTHER SIDE.
© Jon Horne 2000*
It only happens a couple of times a year, this effect with the mist on the water;
billowing downstream and then hanging above the surface, cotton-white, and soft as
the inside of an eiderdown. You feel as if you could bounce your way across, like
a puppy in a cornfield. Magical. But it never lasts long. Soon enough, the fog rolls in -
real thick stuff that makes you choke and sends you back indoors.
I'd been sitting quietly in the shadows for maybe twenty minutes, and it was already
getting a bit soupy. The floodlit towers and spires of Freedom Park were starting
to fade into the murk. Soon, even the neon slogans on the big black screen by the
riverbank became hard to read; that, at least, was a blessing. Anyway, I had my picture.
Before making my way home, I nipped down a side-alley and stepped into the shell
of a building, burned-out in last year's riot. Checking first that it was properly
dark - and that no one else was lurking - I wound the film back, eased it out of the camera,
opened the false heel of my boot and slipped it inside. Of course they would find
it, if they really looked, but I'd only once been given the full going-over, and
I hadn't been carrying anything that day; thank God.
When I came out of the alley-way, I pretended to be doing up my flies. Then, striding
along Radcliffe Road, I fixed a little grin onto my face - the anticipatory smile
of someone who can't wait to get home to a roaring hearth. I don't know if that was
what it looked like, but it's the effect I was going for. Not that it mattered by then;
the fog had come down too heavily to see anything.
These precautions that I take: I don't know if anyone else does it. You can't really
ask. Perhaps it's normal to be as paranoid as this. Or not. For all I know, people
may not worry about who is spying or whispering, collecting facts and rumours, compiling files.
That said, you have to trust someone; otherwise, what would be the point? I trust
Mrs McIlvanney, a childless widow of sixty-odd, who lives next door to me. Barring
a couple of overly-groomed cats, she lives alone; just as I do. My art, such as it
is, couldn't exist without Mrs McIlvanney. Every other day, she has me in for a cup of tea,
and lets me use her bathroom, so I can do what I do and still stay clean. My bathroom
is a dark-room. I keep a computer in there, too, with a scanner and a printer. Obviously, none of this is allowed.
I make copies of my work. Other people make copies of the copies. Somewhere, I must
have a network of fans, because I see my pictures all over the place, on illegal
posters, on the little cards that get dropped through your letterbox at night. Sometimes
the pictures are cropped and captioned; other times, they're just left as they are,
little pieces of art that say whatever they have to say to whoever wants to listen.
Sometime, they're going to trace these pictures back to me, and then I'll be for the
high jump. I'm not exaggerating my own importance; it's just that my 'agent', as
he likes to call himself, is nothing more than a smuggler. Aside from distributing
artworks, he deals in American cigarettes, Scottish whisky and probably much worse besides.
In fact, it was him that sold me the computer. When they catch him, anyone he deals
with is going to be fair game for the authorities. Occasionally I think about bringing the trouble upon myself - opening the house up as a gallery, exhibiting my work with
a bit of care for a change, rather than seeing over-exposed photocopies pasted haphazardly
on crumbling walls. The picture of the mist on the river would be lovely as the last thing people saw on their way out of the show. It would send them home with
a bit of mystery to ponder, and hope to hold onto. At least, that's what the photo
does for me.
Of course, it would all be closed down before the day was up. I'd be carted off to
Headquarters for psychological evaluation and a good kicking. The pictures? Burnt,
perhaps, or more likely sold for export. South British art is quite the thing these
days, apparently. Northie television did a programme on it last week. They used one of
my photos, with an anonymous credit. It was a sunset landscape, not one of my best,
being dark and disturbing, but quite poorly composed. I suppose that's the sort of
thing they expect from us - bleak and awkward art, from an oppressed people, under foreign
occupation.
The thing is, I'm quite happy. I do a job that wouldn't keep a chimpanzee interested,
but it gives me eight hours a day in which to daydream. I creep about at dusk and
dawn, taking photographs of things that I think are beautiful, and spend half the
night mucking around in the dark-room, surrounded by my own work, infused with the chemical
smells which tell me that I'm home, doing the thing I love best.
I admit, it would be nice to see what's on the other side of the river. Mrs McIlvanney
says that there used to be bridges that went across, and you could go on them without
permits or papers - even without paying - although that part might be her memory
playing tricks. She says that people used to go over the river every day, right the
way into Nottingham, and beyond. There wasn't any border, so there weren't any guards
or fences, or any of that. Freedom Park hadn't been built yet. It must have been
the strangest thing, mixing with Northies all the time, and not giving it a second thought.
Still, there's no point in dwelling on a past that I don't even remember. I've just
made a big print of the mist-on-the-river picture. I've decided to call this one
'The Other Side', and I'm going to frame it and keep it for myself. Soon it will
be twilight; I can go out on the streets again, camera hidden under my coat, searching out
places to lurk and scenes to capture. There are worse ways to spend your time.
- - -
* This story was written for a competition in the Nottingham Evening Post, so it might be © them.
It didn't win. In fact
I don't recall anyone winning...
Anyone know what happened?
- - -
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