Chapter 13 #2
Owen nodded. “Digital cameras, home printers… Then the kiosks turned up in supermarkets where you could print photos yourself.” He cleared his throat again. “I think I need more coffee. And maybe another flapjack.”
“Me too, please.” Matt went back to rifling through the boxes, trying to build up a picture of Owen’s life.
In the box from 1997, he found pictures of Owen and Cyn’s wedding, the usual family gatherings, cutting the cake…
From 1999, he found photos of Owen gingerly holding a baby, obviously taken by Cyn at the hospital, and Owen’s awed expression brought a lump to Matt’s throat.
There were holiday photos, business award ceremonies, holiday snaps with Ben… All images that showed Owen loving somebody. None of the photographs hinted at the man who’d calmly described parties where sex was as ordinary as the food and wine.
Then Matt noticed something. There were boxes missing, numbers twenty-three to twenty-five to be exact.
When Owen came back into the room, carrying a tray with mugs and a plate of flapjacks, Matt pointed out the discrepancy.
Owen flushed. “Ah. They’re upstairs.”
Matt frowned. “Why?”
He was quiet for a moment. “A different period, that’s all.” Matt arched his eyebrows, and Owen let out a sigh. “You might as well see those too. Give me a minute.” And with that, he walked through the door at the rear of the room.
Matt helped himself to a flapjack, doing his best to ignore his quickening pulse and the tingling at the base of his neck.
There’s a mystery here.
Owen returned, carrying the three boxes. “I don’t know why I kept these separate. I mean, they’re just photos.”
Matt did a quick calculation. “They cover 2011 to 2013?”
He nodded. “I was thirty-seven, Cyn and I were divorcing, I’d come out… I’d spent sixteen years pretending to be someone else, and I’d finally stopped pretending.” He grinned. “Then I may have overcompensated.”
Matt arched his eyebrows.
Owen laughed. “Put it this way... if I’d collected Air Miles instead of phone numbers, I’d have flown around the world twice.”
So far, Matt felt as though he’d met three different Owens.
The young man his parents remembered from university.
The husband and father in the family photographs.
And the quiet man standing beside him now, content with casual relationships and a peaceful life.
Somehow they were all the same person.
He was suddenly eager to discover the Owen hidden away in those boxes.
They sat on the couch, the boxes at their feet, and Matt opened the one from 2011. It was filled with loose prints, and most of them were portraits.
Hundreds of them.
Men laughing, dancing, wearing leather, in harnesses.
A Pride parade.
Someone asleep on a sofa with a cat. Two men kissing outside a pub. A group in front of Brighton Pavilion. Someone in drag. Friends around a barbecue. Someone wearing nothing but tiny shorts, washing a car.
There was a photograph of Owen, laughing with a drink in his hand.
Matt stopped dead. “Look at you.”
Owen merely grinned.
Then it hit him.
These aren’t photographs of hookups.
They were photographs of people.
Friends laughing until someone happened to press the shutter. Chosen family. Men who looked at ease being themselves. Based on Owen’s initial reaction, Matt had expected photos that were a lot more lurid.
What he’d found instead was life.
Owen traced his image with a finger. “I said yes to everything back then. Pride, weekends away, a visit to a leather club, even camping.” He swallowed. “I was terrified if I stopped moving I’d think about everything I’d lost.”
Matt’s chest was suddenly tighter.
He sifted through the boxes, drinking it all in.
One in particular disarmed him totally. Someone had taken a picture of Owen laughing, and he seemed so…
radiant, so alive and confident, that it robbed Matt of breath.
It took him a second or two to work out why.
The Owen Matt knew smiled just as much, but there was always something behind it.
Matt stared at the photo. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so free.”
Owen didn’t speak for a moment, and when he did, his voice was quiet.
“I wasn’t free.” Matt turned his head to gaze at him and Owen gave that same sad smile. “I just thought I was.”
And in that brief capsule of time, Matt understood.
Owen hadn’t been chasing sex. He’d been chasing the life he’d never been allowed to have.
His throat seized, and he went back to working through the photos.
At last he found his voice. “I think this is my favourite one of you.”
Owen stood with half a dozen men, and everyone was laughing. One guy was kissing Owen’s cheek, someone with bunny ears standing behind him. No one was posing. It was pure chaos caught on camera.
Matt smiled. “You look happy.”
Owen stared at it for a long time. “I was. Again, I thought I was.”
Now Matt could see the differences in the Ben era photos. There was no leather, no nights out. Instead, there were pictures of a garden. Ben cooking. Christmas. The two of them walking out in the countryside. Walking. Ben reading. Ben sleeping.
Matt’s breathing hitched. “You stopped taking photos of crowds.”
Owen nodded. “I’d found the person I wanted to photograph.”
Matt glanced at the last box in the pile, number thirty-two. Which made it 2020.
He glanced at Owen. “And then you stopped taking photos altogether.”
Another nod. “I stopped carrying a camera.”
That one line said so much.