Jean-Claude’s voice was reverberating outside in the corridor and Clee threw off his thoughts about Capa and went to see what was wrong, if anything.
‘Hey, guys, what’s going on?’ he asked, striding out, closing the door behind him. He headed toward Jean-Claude, who was talking excitedly, and Michel Bellond, a partner in the agency and a photographer of talent and courage.
‘Rien,’ Michel said, and winked at Clee.
‘He is right, it is nothing, really,’ Jean-Claude said and grinned. ‘We were just discussing the merits of various restaurants, trying to decide where to have the dinner for Steve,’ he explained, referring to another partner in Image.
‘Let’s hear the choices,’ Clee said. ‘Perhaps I’ll cast the deciding vote.’
NINE
It was drawing close to dusk when Clee finally left the Image offices on the rue de Berri, that time of day when the sky has changed to twilight colours but has not yet turned to black.
He lifted his head as he walked towards the Champs-Élysées and looked up at the sky. Tonight it was a deep pavonine blue, almost peacock in tone, and it had a soft incandescent glow to it, as if it was softly illuminated from behind.
Magic hour, he said to himself, using the movie term which best described this time of day, and which movie directors and cinematographers loved with such enormous passion. It was especially effective on film.
When he reached the Champs-Élysées he drew to a standstill and gazed up that long, wide boulevard, his eyes focusing on the Arc de Triomphe in the distance. The Tricolore was suspended inside the arch from the top, and inventively illuminated with spots so that it was bathed in light. It was blowing through the arch in the wind and looked unusually dramatic at this moment. Clee thought the arch was the most moving and magnificent sight he had seen in a very long time. But then the whole of Paris was particularly glorious right now. This was because a large number of the impressive, ancient buildings had recently been thoroughly washed, carefully cleaned up for the bi-centennial celebrations taking place this year.
Turning left, Clee strolled down the Champs-Élysées, enjoying the walk after being cooped up in the office all day; he generally felt slightly constrained when he was inside and not out on assignment. But, in any case, he enjoyed walking in Paris more than any other place in the world.
This was his city. He had first come here when he was eighteen, and had fallen in love with it. At first sight. He had wanted to come to Paris because of Capa, who had lived in the French capital for so many years, and had founded Magnum, his photo agency, there in 1947, with ‘Chim’ Seymour and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Capa had been his hero since he was fifteen and growing up in New York. That year, 1965, he had read an article about the late photographer in a photographic magazine, and ever after this he had searched for anything and everything that had been written about Capa.
Clee had first started taking pictures when he was nine years old, using an inexpensive camera his parents had given him for his birthday. Even as a child his pictures had been so extraordinary everyone had been taken aback and amazed at his talent. His mother and father, and sisters Joan and Kelly, were his willing victims, and had allowed themselves to be photographed day and night doing every conceivable thing, and were his models on special family occasions.
Naturally gifted, sensitive, intelligent, and with an exacting eye, he was completely self-taught, and had never had a lesson. Photography had been his great passion and his whole life when he was a teenager; nothing had changed much in the intervening years.
It was in 1968 that Clee had discovered Paris for himself, and instantly fallen under its exciting and seductive spell. That summer he had made up his mind that he was going to live here one day, and he had returned to New York determined to become a great photographer. He wanted to be another Robert Capa if that was humanly possible.
At the time, Clee had been working in the darkroom of a portrait photographer in Manhattan, and he had stayed on for only another year. Through a connection of his father’s, he had managed to get a job on the New York Post as a junior photographer. Very rapidly he had made a name for himself on the paper, and he had never looked back.
During this period he had taken himself off to night school several evenings a week to study French, which he knew was an absolute necessity if he was ever to achieve his ambition and live in Paris. By the time he was twenty-one he was fluent in the language. He was also a far better photographer than some of the most seasoned veterans in the news business.
A staff job on the New York Times followed in 1971, but when he was twenty-three Clee left the paper. He had decided to become a roving photojournalist covering Europe, and worked as a freelancer for a number of American and English magazines.
Naturally, he had chosen to base himself in Paris, and two years later, when he was twenty-five, he had started Image. Banding together with two other photographers, he had hired three darkroom assistants, a secretary, and Jean-Claude, who managed the agency.
Michel Bellond, a Frenchman, and Steve Carvelli, an American of Italian descent, were his partners. Less than a year after Image had been founded, Peter Naylor from London became the fourth and last photographer to join the co-operative as a partner.
Right from the outset, Image had been successful, quickly garnering big international assignments, commanding high fees for the star photographers, and soon winning a clutch of awards. After fourteen years it was still going strong with the four original partners, several staff photographers, and additional darkroom assistants and secretarial help. And it had become one of the most prestigious photo agencies in the world.
Clee was well aware that his family had been dismayed, even distressed, when he had become an expatriate and settled in Paris. At the time, he was regretful of this, but he had never had any intention of changing his life. It was his own to live the way he saw fit. In the early years, his parents and sisters had come to visit him frequently, and whenever he had gone back to New York he had spent as much time with them as he could. And he still did, whenever he was there.
Despite the fact that he had defied his father and had not gone to college, choosing instead to plunge into the world of the working photographer, they had, nevertheless, remained truly good friends. Second-generation Irish, with an analytical mind, a golden tongue and the gift of the gab, his father, Edward Donovan, had been a successful, well-known attorney in Manhattan, and highly respected in the field of criminal law.
His father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1981, and Clee had felt the loss most acutely. As indeed had his mother and his sisters, for Ted Donovan had been very much a family man, a devoted husband and a loving father.
To Clee’s considerable relief, his mother had managed to cope with her grief rather well, and quite bravely, he thought, thanks in no small measure to his sisters’ offspring. Both Joan and Kelly were married, and between them they had three daughters and one son. Martha Donovan’s grandchildren had become her life, and she appeared to be at peace with herself these days.
Clee’s thoughts stayed with his mother as he hailed a passing cab, got in and gave the driver his address. He must call her this weekend to let her know he would be in New York in late July, tell her that they would be seeing each other soon. This would please her as much as it pleased him.
They had remained close over the years, and he knew she worried about him a great deal, especially when he was in a combat zone. This was only one of the many reasons he stayed in constant touch with her wherever he was.
Within a short time the cab was turning into the rue Jacob in the sixth arrondissement, that charming part of Paris known as the Quartier Latin. It was here that Clee lived in a fourth floor apartment of a handsome old building.
***
Clee sat on the sofa in the living room, the lights dim, the Mozart disc on the player turned low. He nursed a beer, lost to the world as he pondered his personal life.
Nicole Wells. He repeated her name
to himself in the silence of his head. She had become a problem. A nagging problem, as it so happened.
For two years they had been copains—best buddies in the truest sense. In Beijing he had saved her life and everything had changed.
She was no longer simply his best buddy. She was a woman he cared about as a woman.
He had realized this when he had put his arms around her on the steps of the Martyrs’ Monument in Tiananmen, after flinging her away from the approaching tanks. In fact, he was so filled with relief she was safe, for a moment all of his strength had seemed to ebb out of him. Momentarily undone by this surge of unexpected and unprecedented emotion about her, he had been incapable of saying a word.
Nicky had thanked him for saving her life, and he had turned her face to his and looked into those cool, appraising blue eyes. Suddenly he was brimming with feelings he did not fully understand.
Ever since leaving Hong Kong he had tried hard to shake off these feelings without much success. Off and on, they had continued to both confuse and trouble him, but he was aware of the reasons to some extent.
He and Nicky had drawn closer and closer, had grown to love each other like brother and sister. Now his emotions were engaged on a different level, and he was not sure what to do about it. To begin with, he did not want to get seriously involved with any woman because he did not want to care so much for someone that he would feel bound to make a commitment, get married and eventually have children. For most of his adult life he had believed that this would be unfair, in view of the dangerous life he led as a war photographer. And certainly he was not prepared to give up that life of travel and excitement. Besides, he enjoyed his freedom. He had no desire to be pinned down by marital obligations. If he was honest, he was a bachelor at heart.
And then there was Nicky herself. She was perfect as a friend, but hardly the most suitable candidate for a lover. She was too complicated, too complex by far. She was a woman with myriad problems, though carefully concealed they may well be. And then there were the very obvious, glaring problems… she lived an ocean away and she had one of the biggest careers in American television. Hardly the right ingredients for a harmonious love affair with him.
Also, for a long time Clee had been convinced that she lived out her life on various battlegrounds… the battlegrounds of the wars she covered, the battleground of network politics, the battleground of her damaged heart.
Furthermore, he could not help thinking that she was still in love with Charles Devereaux, as futile as that was, even though she had never made a single reference to the guy in the entire time he had known her. This omission had always struck him as odd, in as much as they were best friends.
Arch Leverson had partially filled him in, and therefore he had a fairly good picture of what had happened. In his considered opinion, and Arch’s, the guy had behaved like a louse. But then brilliant and successful women such as Nicky were not necessarily discriminating when it came to men. Very frequently they picked the wrong ones, the bastards.
The clock on the white marble mantelpiece chimed nine and Clee sat up with a jolt, realizing that he had been thinking about Nicky ever since returning from the office.
What the hell am I going to do about her?
The question hung there for a while, and then all of a sudden it occurred to him that he did not have to do anything. She had absolutely no idea that he was harbouring these strange new feelings for her. If he was smart and did not reveal them she would be none the wiser. Very simply, he would go on treating her as a pal. This was the ideal solution, the only solution to his predicament. When he was with her he must behave exactly as he had in the past and everything would be all right.
Considerably relieved that he had finally solved a problem that had hovered over his head since Beijing, Clee got up and went to the kitchen, took another bottle of beer out of the refrigerator and opened it.
As he was crossing the foyer the phone began to ring and he hurried through the living room to answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Clee, it’s me.’
‘Nicky!’ he exclaimed, so happy to hear her voice he felt the smile of pleasure sliding onto his mouth. This sudden rush of euphoria so startled him he sat down heavily in the nearest chair.
‘So what’s happening down there?’ he asked a bit lamely, and fell silent. He was amazed at his reaction to her tonight, and glad that she was hundreds of miles away.
‘It’s very quiet here, but it’s been wonderful for me these last few days,’ she said. ‘Sunny and peaceful. And you were right, I did need the rest. By the way, I love the farm. It’s just beautiful, and so comfortable. You made a wonderful job of it, Clee.’
When he did not immediately respond, she said quickly, ‘I hope I’m not calling at an inconvenient time.’
‘No, no,’ he assured her, finding his voice at last. After clearing his throat, he said, ‘And I’m glad you like it there, Nick. My sister Joan will be delighted, she’s the one responsible for the farm. She restored and decorated it for me.’
‘And here I’ve been thinking you’ve got hidden talents,’ she said, and laughed her throaty laugh which suddenly sounded very sexual to him.
He muttered, ‘How long are you planning to stay in Provence?’
‘I don’t know. Originally I thought a week, but maybe I’ll stay on for a while. Clee?’
‘Yes, Nick?’
‘I was wondering if you might come down for a few days? Keep me company, if you don’t have anything better to do?’
‘I’d love to, Nick, but I’m jammed. The agency’s flooded with jobs.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sorry, babe.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Look, I’m just in the middle of something I have to finish. Let me call you back later,’ he said. ‘Or will you be going to bed early?’
‘No, that’s fine. Talk to you later. Bye.’
She hung up on him before he could say another word, and he felt rotten for being so abrupt with her. Then he laughed. He had been having the occasional erotic thought about Nicky lately, and he had begun to feel self-conscious, ill at ease on the phone with her just now.
Nicky was a baffling woman in a variety of ways. When he had first met her in Beirut two years ago he had thought she was the classiest looking blonde he had ever seen. Beautiful, elegant even in her battered safari suit, and very photogenic. At that time he had categorized her in his mind as a Grace Kelly for the eighties and nineties. She had that very poised, cool exterior which could be so off-putting to some men, but which he was sure concealed great warmth. Eventually he had come to believe that deep down she was romantic and passionate by nature, but that she had been so badly hurt by Devereaux she was frozen cold when it came to men.
None of this had mattered to him before, because they were platonic friends and nothing more. In any case, when he had first met her he had been heavily involved with another woman and had not been interested in Nicky as a lover.
But it mattered now. Everything about her mattered now. But it mustn’t. I have to care about her as a friend, and that’s all, he cautioned himself.
Jumping up, Clee went back to the kitchen where he tore a piece off the fresh baguette on the table, and made himself a salami sandwich. Then he wandered around the kitchen, pacing restlessly, munching on the sandwich and taking an occasional swig from the bottle of beer.
And try though he did to put her out of his mind, his thoughts continued to turn on Nicky Wells.
***
At ten o’clock he called her back, and he went out of his way to be warm and friendly.
They chatted for about twenty minutes; he told her about Marc Villier and the interview planned for the following morning; they discussed his trip to the States for Life Magazine. And, as they usually did, they touched on the subject of Yoyo, of whom there was still no news.
Just before he said goodbye, Clee murmured, ‘I’m sorry I can’t come down to the farm, babe. There’s no
thing I’d like better than a few days in the sun, a chance to relax with you. But duty calls, I’ve just got too much work.’
‘Please don’t worry about it, Clee,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Honestly, I do understand.’
As he hung up he was not so sure that he did.
Clee sat for a moment with his hand resting on the phone, his face reflective. He had nothing planned for the next few days, other than the meeting with Villier tomorrow and the date with Mel on Saturday night. He could easily cancel Saturday and go down to Provence for a long weekend.
A small sigh escaped him as he thought of Mel. He was forever cancelling dates with her for one reason or another, and that was damned unfair of him. Still, if nothing else, he supposed this told him something important about the status of his relationship with her. She was lovely but his feelings for her were not particularly intense. If he was truthful, he was only mildly fond of Melanie Lowe, and this would never change.
His thoughts veered back to Provence. There was no reason why he could not go down there. Not true. There was an excellent reason. Nicky Wells.
He was also forgetting his decision of a short while ago… to keep his relationship with Nicky exactly the way it had been from their first meeting. Platonic. He had absolutely no intention of changing that. Nor did he have any intention of going to the farm this weekend. Why expose himself when he felt vulnerable to her at present? Surely it was better to get a grip on his feelings, wait for them to change, to settle down and normalize before he saw her again.
He would be with Mel for the weekend, and for as long as they both wished to continue their pleasant liaison. Mel suited him fine. She was sweet and loving and undemanding. Furthermore, he liked being with her, enjoyed her wry sense of humour, her easy-going ways, and her brightness.
And Nicky would remain his comrade-in-arms with whom he shared so much on an entirely different level. She was ideal to have as his best buddy, and he knew he must never do anything to jeopardize their friendship, which he cherished.