Stephen Dedman - Never Seen By Waking Eyes.pdf - NEW EBOOKS - ivo7er

Never Seen by Waking Eyes

by Stephen Dedman

They say that we Photographers are a blind race at best; that we

learn to look at even the prettiest faces as so much light and

shade; that we seldom admire, and never love.

Lewis Carroll, A Photographer's Day Out

The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the logician and photographer and

lesser-known mirror image of Lewis Carroll, first met Alice Liddell

when she was three. John Ruskin, a fellow lecturer at Oxford, was also

smitten with young Alice, and later became obsessed with twelve year old

Rose La Touche. Edgar Allan Poe married his thirteen year old cousin

Virginia. Dante fell in love with Beatrice when she was eight and a

half.

If you expect me to add my name to this list, you're out of your mind.

* * *

"He was terrified of the night," she said, softly. "Terrified of

dreaming, I think. Even beds frightened him."

I nodded. I don't remember any night-time scenes at all in either of the

Alice books, or Snark, or even Sylvie and Bruno, and the only

mention of a bed to come to mind was 'summon to unwelcome bedA

melancholy maiden! We are but elder children, dear, Who fret to find our

bedtime near.' The hunters of the Snark 'hunted til darkness came on',

with not a word of what happened afterwards, and Sylvie and Bruno

Concluded ends (and not a moment too soon) with the stars appearing in a

bright blue sky. True, 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' is set at

midnight, and features an oyster-bed, but the sun stays up the whole

time.

"How did you meet?"

Alice smiled prettily, without showing the tips of her teeth. "In

London, outside a theatre -- the Lyceum, I think. I'd seen him before,

but I had no idea who he was. When I told him my name, he said, 'So you

are another Alice. I'm very fond of Alices.'"

"When was this?"

"Winter. I don't remember the year, but he was about thirty, and he

hadn't written Wonderland yet, and I think Prince Albert was still

alive. 1860, maybe." I nodded. Dodgson was a compulsive diarist, but

many of his diaries disappeared after his death, like his letters to

Alice Liddell, and all of his photographs and sketches of naked little

girls.

* * *

I suppose it started in the darkroom, at home: developing old,

half-forgotten rolls of film is the safest form of time travel; you

don't need a license, or even a seat belt. This roll had been in the

Nikon for at least a year, and when I finally sat down with the proof

sheet and a glass of Glenfiddich, I was ready to see anything. Forty

minutes and two glasses later, I was still wondering why the Hell I'd

taken five shots of Folly Bridge. Granted that it's where the famous

rowing expedition and the story of Wonderland started, and that I don't

get up to Oxford as often as I'd like, it's been photographed more often

than Capa shot 'Death in the Afternoon'.

There was nothing mysterious about any of the other shots, at least to

me. On the proof sheet, they all look harmless enough -- a busy street

in Bangkok, far enough from Patpong to be safe; a beach near Townsville;

a park in Tokyo; the Poe Cottage in Philadelphia; a slum in Brasilia or

Rio. An extremely observant eye (such as Poe's) would notice a

particularly beautiful little girl in almost every shot -- never in the

centre, but always perfectly in focus. She isn't the same girl. She's

always the same girl. She always has dark hair, black or almost black;

pale skin; large eyes. Small, slight, almost elfin. The girl in

Townsville is probably no older than ten; the girl in Bangkok may be

twelve or twenty or anywhere in between. She isn't the same girl. She's

always the same girl. And her name is

I stared at the photographs of Folly Bridge; five shots, from slightly

different perspectives, but all from the St Aldates side. Long shadows

-- evening, probably just before sunset. And no girl. Where the Hell did

she go?

I slept badly, that night, but without disturbing anyone. My dreams were

obscene; you don't need the details, except that the girl from Folly

Bridge was . . . there.

Stephen Dedman - Never Seen By Waking Eyes.pdf

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