Corduroy Mansions

95. A Real Job

‘I was hoping that I’d see you again,’ said Tim Something as he perused the bistro menu.

Caroline smiled. ‘I’d actually decided to come here for lunch anyway,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why - I just did.’

Tim Something caught the eye of the waiter. ‘Fate,’ he said. ‘Our lives are made up of random events that determine what’s going to happen to us. I’ve always thought that.’

‘A rather bleak view, surely?’

Tim did not agree. ‘Well, take us, for example.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes. We met by chance, didn’t we? I happened to be assigned to take your photograph for the mag. They could have chosen somebody else - in fact, I almost didn’t answer the phone when they called. But I did, and I took your photograph.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘And then,’ Tim went on, ‘I saw you here totally by chance. I almost went somewhere else for lunch that day. But I didn’t. I came here.’

Caroline shrugged. ‘I don’t see . . .’

‘Finally,’ Tim interrupted, ‘I saw you in front of that bookshop. What are the odds of bumping into somebody in this city just by chance? How many million people live in London?’

Caroline did not know.

‘Well, the odds must be millions to one against a completely random meeting with the person one wants to . . .’

He did not complete the sentence. The waiter had arrived at the table with his notebook open. Caroline studied the menu with renewed concentration. The person one wants to . . . What had he in mind? The person one wants to ask out?

They gave their orders and the waiter headed back into the kitchen. Caroline looked up from the menu.

‘I wanted to see you,’ said Tim Something. ‘I wanted to see you about a job.’

Caroline hoped that her disappointment was not too obvious. It was another of his assignments. Perhaps he wanted her advice; perhaps it involved art.

Tim suddenly reached across the table and laid a hand on hers. ‘You are going to be looking for a job, I take it, when your course finishes?’

It felt strange to have his hand on hers - it was not unpleasant, but it did feel odd.

‘I suppose I will. In fact, I definitely will. But it’s not easy at the moment, especially in my field - or what I would like to be my field.’ She thought of James and his interview, and felt vaguely disloyal that she was having lunch with Tim Something when James was undergoing his ordeal with his would-be employers.

Tim looked sympathetic. ‘It’s never the right time to get a job. I remember when I started, I wondered whether I would ever get anything. I did - and now I have far more work than I can handle.’

Caroline moved her hand slightly. ‘You’re lucky. You’re obviously good - to be in demand like that.’

The compliment seemed to be well received. ‘There are people who like my work. But what I really want to do is to go in for something more . . . more stretching. That’s why I’m going into partnership.’

She was not sure what the implications of this were. Presumably they were positive, as Tim’s mood seemed quite buoyant.

‘Who with?’

‘You probably won’t know anything about him - people never look at photographers’ bylines, they take us for granted - but you’ve probably seen his work.’

‘Well, I’m very pleased for you.’

He took his hand off hers. ‘Now, this is where you come in.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, this other photographer has an assistant. He wants me to have one too. Apparently there’s going to be more than enough work to justify it.’

She had not expected this, and yet the offer, not yet spelled out but already clear enough, was immediately attractive. Caroline had never before been offered a job - she had never worked - and it seemed immensely flattering to her that somebody actually wanted her to work with him.

‘A real job?’ she asked.

Her question amused him. ‘Just because it’s creative work doesn’t mean that it isn’t real. Of course it is. With pay.’

He was waiting for her to say something, but she could not think what to say. Could she be a photographer?

‘Twenty thousand a year to begin with,’ he said. ‘It’ll go up. And there’ll be the opportunity for some freelance work of your own - if you want.’

The waiter returned with their first course. ‘I don’t know what to say, Tim,’ she began. ‘It’s very sweet of you, but . . . but I’d never thought of becoming a photographer. I don’t have any training in it . . .’

‘I’ll train you,’ he said. ‘It’s something you can learn on the job. There’s no need to go off to a college and study the history of photography. You’re artistic - that’s all that counts. And—’

‘Doing a degree in the history of art is not the same thing as being artistic,’ Caroline interjected. She was puzzled as to why he should offer the job to her. Surely there would be plenty of people more qualified to do it - graduates of photography courses who knew all about composition and depth of field and how to use light? And the history of photography too.

‘But you must be,’ he said. ‘To be able to write about painting you must be artistic - otherwise you’d be doing something else.’

‘But why me in particular?’

He reached for his glass of water and took a sip. ‘Do you want me to be honest?’

‘Of course. Who would want anybody to be dishonest?’

‘Not me. That’s why I’ll tell you. I like you. It’s that simple. I like you a lot. I’d love to work with you.’ He paused. ‘I think you’re fun.’

Had she disliked him, she would have been embarrassed by his directness. But she had decided that she liked him now, whatever her feelings might have been in the past, so she felt instead a flush of pleasure.

‘I like you too,’ she said.

‘And what’s your answer?’

‘You’d have to tell me a little bit more about the job.’

He nodded. ‘It’ll be great fun. I promise you that. And there’ll be bags of travel. My new partner goes to Kenya, India - places like that. He does features for travel magazines. He specifically wants me to take some of that off his hands.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘And lucky you?’

‘All right.’

There was one last question, and she looked at him directly as she asked it. ‘Is it a good idea to work with somebody . . . you like?’

He misheard her. ‘Somebody like me? Don’t you trust me?’

‘No. Somebody you like.’

He answered as if there were only one possible response. ‘Naturally.’