The Girls In The Woods. Helen Phifer

to his camera and buried his bead back underneath the cloth. Holding up the flash he snapped first one, then another still.

      ‘That’s it. Thank you for your patience, girls. You can leave now.’

      Flora scurried away from the girl that she had no doubt shared a bedroom with for the last twelve years; they had possibly even shared the same bed. How sad that two such close sisters should now be so torn apart by death. Still it wasn’t his place to say anything; his job was done here. He would pack his equipment away and go back to his house so he could develop the films. He would of course keep a copy for his own records; he was getting quite a collection in his brown leather book. People were dying of all sorts of diseases, and more and more families wanted their loved ones photographed before they were buried. When he’d taken up photography as a hobby he’d never envisaged that memento mori photography would prove to be such a lucrative business move. He packed up his stuff and carried it out to the waiting horse and carriage; he lived too far away to carry his equipment around town. The grandmother walked him out to the front door, leaving her sobbing daughter alone with her dead granddaughter. The other two girls had run from the room as fast as they could once they had been dismissed; it was indeed sad to watch such grief day in day out, but it was also providing his family with a way of life they could only ever have dreamed of.

      ‘How long will it be before you can bring the pictures?’

      ‘As soon as they are ready I will personally hand deliver them; it should only take two days but it depends how busy I am tomorrow.’

      ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Tyson. It is very much appreciated.’

      He nodded his head then turned and ran down the last few steps and climbed into the waiting carriage. As it pulled away from the side he looked up to see the two girls watching him from the upstairs window. Flora’s face was damp, no doubt with the tears she had finally been able to shed, but Mabel looked as if she was weighing him up. Embarrassed they had been caught staring, Mabel stepped back, pulling her sister with her, and he looked straight ahead, pretending he hadn’t noticed either of them.

      1995

      ‘Beautiful, really beautiful – that’s it, hold that position.’ The camera flashed several times. ‘Gorgeous, you look stunning. So demure yet so damn sexy. I love it.’ Heath Tyson walked towards her and pushed her head to the left, just a touch. ‘That’s it, don’t move, we’re almost done. You’re going to love these pictures; I swear you’ve never looked so good.’ He snapped a few more shots then let his camera drop around his neck and clapped his hands.

      ‘Bravo, bravo. You have been the best model I’ve ever had. Thank you so much for your patience.’

      He walked away towards his dark room, eager to develop his films and add these very special photographs to his secret album. Left lying on the chaise longue, she didn’t move to get up and change out of the long, cool, linen nightgown he’d dressed her in. She would stay there until he came and lifted her onto the makeshift trolley he used to push her to and from the freezer in his garage. When he was happy with his photographs he would undress her and put her back inside the cold blackness of the large freezer he’d bought when the village butcher had been closing down. Slamming the metal door, he would lock her in until he had no further use for her or until her body started to decompose too much, whichever came first. Probably the decomposition because he didn’t think he would ever get tired of staring at her. There was something so beautiful about death that was never present in the living. Her hands had already begun to turn black despite the freezing temperatures. He wondered why it was they did that – in his collection of Victorian mourning photographs you could always tell the deceased family member by the discoloration of their hands.

      It had fascinated him the first time he’d seen a photograph of three sisters, all no older than fifteen – he had been eight years old when he found that photograph album. Heath had been sent to bed but he could hear his father whispering on the phone; he knew he shouldn’t be listening in because he shouldn’t be out of bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He loved his granddad but today’s visit had been playing heavily on his mind; his normally fun-filled granddad had been lying in a bed in the front room of his terraced house in the busy town centre street. The smell had been pretty bad; he didn’t know what it was but as soon as he’d walked in he’d had to screw his nose up and try not to breathe through it. His mother, who refused to come into the house because she was ‘not going to be there when he croaked’, was back at home and for once he wished his father had left him at home with her. His older brother didn’t care; he had gone straight into the converted front room which was now a bedroom and stood by the frail old man who was asleep. Heath watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest underneath the covers; the rattling sound of the breaths he was struggling to take would stay with him for ever. They could hear their father in the kitchen banging around; he turned away for a split second and when he turned back his brother, who had just celebrated his eleventh birthday, was stroking the old man’s hair. Heath shuddered; this wasn’t the happy, funny man he remembered and he wanted it all to stop. Their dad came in, his tear-stained face a mask of grief.

      ‘Right you two, go in the kitchen and get yourselves something to eat. I need to sort your granddad out.’

      His brother leant down and kissed the man’s forehead and Heath tried to force himself to move towards him to do the same but he couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t move. As his brother walked past he whispered in his ear ‘Scaredy cat’. His dad came over and placed his hands on his shoulders, then pushed Heath out of the room and shut the door behind him. Finally finding his feet, he went into the kitchen where his brother was sitting eating a packet of crisps.

      ‘He’s going to pop his clogs any minute.’

      ‘How do you know that?’

      ‘I just do. You wait and see.’

      Sometimes he hated how his brother was such a know-it-all. It made him feel stupid and like a big baby. He got himself a packet of crisps out of the cupboard and they both sat on the high stools near the breakfast bar waiting for their dad to come back in. After what seemed like forever he finally did; his eyes were red and he’d been crying. Heath had never seen his dad cry. He walked over and hugged them close to him.

      ‘Your granddad’s gone to heaven now; you can both go in and say goodbye.’

      This time it was Heath who wanted to go in first – he desperately wanted to see what you looked like when you were dead – and it was his brother who lingered behind. He jumped off his stool and went to the room where the door was ajar. The first thing he noticed was how peaceful it was now that horrible sound his granddad had been making had stopped. He stepped inside. The sheets were no longer moving and he walked closer to look at the man on the bed. The second thing he noticed was how different he looked; his skin looked yellow but it was no longer scrunched up and wrinkled in pain. It was smooth, his mouth was open and his false teeth had slipped down. He’d expected his eyes to be closed but they were open slightly, staring straight ahead. Heath marvelled at how wonderful his granddad looked now he was dead – how much younger. It was amazing. Did everyone who died look like this? His foot kicked something soft and he looked down to see one of the pillows from the bed there. It puzzled him how it had got there; it wasn’t there before when they’d been in the room and his granddad hadn’t moved at all. His dad must have taken it from under the old man’s head but he didn’t understand why. He picked it up and felt a warm patch in the middle; placing it on the chair next to the bed he thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until some years later when he replayed that last scene in his head that he realised that the pillow was warm in the middle because that was where his granddad’s last breaths had gone. He had known all along that the grief his dad had shown had been filled with guilt – but he hadn’t known why until his dad’s own dying confession had confirmed the sneaking suspicion he’d always held. His dad had been the one to end his granddad’s life that morning all those years ago; he could have gone to prison but he’d decided it was worth the risk. The only regret that Heath had was that he’d had no means to photograph how wonderful his granddad looked, more wonderful than he ever did when he was alive. It was as if his true inner beauty had been revealed and it was something