The Girl Behind The Photograph

Where exactly it had come from, I couldn't be sure. A framed monochrome picture of a Hawker Hunter, donated to me at the zenith of childhood interest. Though, what benefactor I could no longer say. Had it been the enthusiastic, but unfortunately named, Uncle Dick? A man from a time when this kind of thing was still acceptable, a man who'd spent a short time, green faced, in the front of a Handley Page Type O.

It had been a long time ago.

If you could think past the hiatus of teenage conformism, where such precious things were rejected for sake of beer and immature women. Past university aswell...

Though actually, maybe not that far.

And some time around then, the glass in the frame had been broken. As if by some other luck, the photograph had not been lacerated by the radiating shards. Through that, rather than follow me into the abyss, it stayed in the same wardrobe and gathered dust.

Was it a decade later? From thoughts of shipping and long term storage, the action to replace the frame.

The masking tape had left a slightly sticky brown residue, but the brass plates and pins, still held the backing in place. Fifty years of service, to be undone.

On the back, as if to confirm the authenticity, to validate the paintbrush retouching you could see. On the back, a stamp, the words “Armstrong Siddeley” still visible at the top. Written in place below, a pencil reference number, and the date: 14^th September 1953. Some rooting around confirmed the situation. PW202, the third prototype, powered by an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire, built in Coventry.

This was history you were holding by the edges. From a time when my Dad was still a baby.

There's a level for the unexpected in all of this. That between a photograph, and some backing. That you might find something unexpected.

A child, a little girl in shades of grey. Sat on a stool, like the one I'd sat on at my grandparents house. Grasping the legs of it, not really smiling. A big white bow in her curled blond hair. Ballerinas shoes. There was a pencil border drawn around the photograph, broken only for an illegible signature. The name was underlined with a quick flick of the wrist. For what purpose I could not say...

There was more illegible pencil writing on the back. And an ink stamp, of a specialist in child portraiture, with a studio in Leamington Spa.

How old she was I could not say. Her attire made it difficult to place. She might be dead by now.

Or maybe dead already... Dead for a long time...

Somewhere, you had to concede that the girl clutching the stool, had parents. This much must be true, or the situation might have severe religious implications.

My surviving family have no idea who she is. A mystery. There is no date on the photograph. A young girl eclipsed by a prototype of an early jet fighter. What follows is conjecture, the truth lost in the mists of time.

Was this girl killed in the blitz? Killed at the same time when my other grandparent had burned his arms fighting the fires sparked by the countless incendiary bombs? Killed by this, snatched away from a family who never came to terms with this event. From a father who had to cover the photograph up with a Hawker Hunter?

There could be a thousand explanations here, and no one could say if any were the truth.

Reposessed

They evicted my neighbour while I was away.

Some faceless men came and changed the locks. Their inhumanity multiplied only by the photocopied notice which they'd posted onto the door. Stuck there using the same tape as they'd sealed the postbox, emblazoned with the words "do not use".

Where she and her child had gone, I could not say. No longer just across the way. Now she was gone it was impossible to say where.

When her electricity bill had been excessive, she'd asked me if it was right. Which it was when I showed her the meter reading. Such was the price of keeping a baby warm. The same one that ate her mothers cigarette butts from the ashtray. Sometimes she'd even knock on the door to ask for some sugar. All entirely benign and there wasn't much going on.

Had it been the money? I don't think so. That with all the state dole outs for single mothers, it seemed implausible for her not to keep up with her rent.

Though for the first time in ages, the fire door had been closed. Not wedged open for the buggy.

The 'For Sale' sign gave it away in the end. It had been the landlord all along.