He mumbles something
inane as he sips the last drops of his red wine. I agree with a ‘yeah’ even
though I decipher nothing from what he has said. I don’t feel the need to make
him repeat. I know it’s just a general comment on the state of the world, something
we both already know, about how grey it is in November, how busy this week has
been, or the rising price of ale in pubs. Although our red wine tonight is free
from the exhibition opening we both happen to be at. Bumping into each other as
it is the norm in this part of London, as we all always tend to meet and slowly
establish fickle relationships. Muted conversations built around the alcohol
units that have been consumed since yesterday and how is so and so doing? Have
you seen the new Lars von Trier movie? He clutches at his empty glass, stained
with dry specks of red wine that are now magnified by the stem. I look up at
him and I know my face is deceptively blank. He is quite tall, and he knows it
suits him. I steal a blink and a gulp. The wine is cheap, I can feel it between
us. He tells me his red woolly hat is new. He clenches his fist from the cold
and his knuckles shine white and uncomfortable. I ask about the tattoos on his
chest, he tells me Liam is working on them still, a few more negotiated
sittings and then they might be done. Maybe. He has a certain kind of charm,
mirrored in the flicks of his moustache. We both observe the silhouettes around
us, giving some time for the conversation to mature, or maybe to see if there’s
anyone else we know attending this particular event. I am comforted by his
presence. He turns to me and grins, and I smile back, maybe trying to make my
eyes look seductive, despite the cold biting at my nose and cheeks. I feel
short but in a good way. He raises the glass up to his mouth absentmindedly, he
is silently debating a refill. I start to roll a cigarette, clutching a glove
in the armpit of my coat.
I drown my plate in ketchup, and then in mayonnaise. With a potato wedge in my greasy fingers, I mix them up into a sea of pink. It is blasphemy to eat a burger lunch other than with fingers. I stuff the pink potato in my mouth. He picks up his Guinness and takes a long sip, his eyes staring vacant into the shadows of the empty pub. There is an old couple at the bar, the owner and his grey-haired wife. He picks up his burger, his long fingers wrapped around the buns. His bite is smaller than mine. I stare at him, I know he is most comfortable with silence, and that the air between us is unequal. Although I am mostly quiet, I feel loud in my brisk and enthusiastic movements. I always have. My plate is too pink, my smile too naive, my eyes too intrusive. I am not talking though I feel my volume is too saccharine sweet for his sinuous lankiness. He sits curved in the couch seat, and grabs a wedge. His plate has only red. His eyes are still blank, but I know this only serves to cloud the world around him, probably me included. But today, in this public house, I don’t give a damn. I am enjoying my cheeseburger and whiskey-coke. He finally looks at me and mumbles something only I could decode. He scrunches his nose and stuffs another wedge in his mouth. The tattoo is fresh on his wrist, crust still hanging on to most of the thick black lines. I mentally ask him about its meaning, and imagine his reply. I wonder if he guesses this in the look I inadvertently give him. I often have mental conversations with him, it’s easier. For him at least. Unless it’s about music or sex, and then his eyes light up and my inquisitiveness is satiated, but only for a short while. I’m almost finished with my plate, I eat too fast and I can already feel my stomach bloating against my belt. With a long stroke of my index finger, I dab at the pink smeared across my plate. He looks at me and smiles with a flash of gums and a cocky tilt of the head as he brings the pint of Guinness to his mouth. He teases me with a mumble. Little Arab pest, he calls me. I lick my finger.
The sun is shy, it barely strokes our
scalps as we walk along the hilly stone path of some lost village of the peak
district. His sweatshirt is tied around the waist of his cut-off denims, and
his neon hipster t-shirt jars with the pastures and cows of the flanking
meadows. I like his moustache, cut from another era, strawberry blonde not
ginger he says. He is much younger, an imperfect balance of youthful swagger
and cutthroat bookish conversation. My converse shoes shuffle next to his, both
white and muddy. For every one of his steps, I need two, a semi-jog to keep up
with his pace. I have known him for just over 3 hours. The brief muddled
introductions at 8am were endearingly awkward, all playing cool and aloof as we
huddled in his little black Golf and headed out of smog London. But I am
already charmed, I slip into the 24 year old I was, slightly in awe of the
thoroughbred Brit he is. The rockabilly tattoos protruding from under his
t-shirt sleeves intrigue me. I try to keep up with the topic at hand, reveries
of Paganism and massive phallic boulders we are now on the quest for. I am
clueless but interested. He asks about my Middle-eastern roots, and talks of
dictators, flatbread and Qatar. I answer as best I can, but here too my limited
knowledge of the Levant fails to quench his thirst. He talks History, I am all
social observation. His laugh is charming, and is followed by a gum-bearing
smile like I like them. He fondles his beard and looks ahead, slightly
frowning. I imagine his impression of me, a thirtysomething stranger tagging
along on his roadtrip. I hope I arouse some sort of intrigue, the exotic Arab,
the older woman, not just another girl. I am still not sure who I am to be on
the next 4 days of the quest. More lulling landscapes of cows and hills ahead
of us, smoking joints in the 2-door Golf, mapping our itinerary through the
morphing local variations of Radio 4. But I am intrigued and I don't give a
damn.
I focus on his gums
when he smiles. They intrigue me. The bar is crowded and he is nodding his head
to the beat. The moth antennas are just about visible above his neckline and
they flutter with the waves of his Adam’s apple. I look up at him as he surveys
the crowd in the bar. He has bought me a drink, vodka tonic with a dash of lime
and I am drinking through a pink straw. I am very aware of the way my mouth
scrunches when I take a sip. I really should forgo the straw, but for some
reason postpone the relief. I need a hug. I am thinking too much. We resume the
conversation we had started before we got to the pub. His train of thought is
clear, whereas the bass has made me lose mine. I am feeling slightly
uncomfortable, I feel too short and too deaf, I don’t like the strain of
reading lips when the music drowns out voices. I wish I were wearing trousers
instead of my long denim dress and clunky wedges. He is happy in his big black
hoodie. I wait for him to look back at me, finishing off the sentence he had
suspended seconds before. I bite at the straw, chin down but eyes wide at him.
I must look like a child, I think to myself. Again, he trails more thoughts,
voicing them as they come to his head, and I understand the gist of it from the
words I am able to decipher on his lips. I nod, and answer back with my own
beliefs. People come to us and go, say hi and disappear, exchange of numbers on
iphones and high-fives, cheers and clinks, faces and smiles, all punctuating
the conversation we are somehow able to sustain amidst the disjointedness of
the bar. It is time to go. We walk out the saloon door and the abruptness of
the fresh air sobers me up. He is smiling his gum-baring smile. He likes
London. I look at him and smile back. For a brief moment, he makes me like
London again. Just briefly. And then he hugs me. A tight hug that lasts longer
than they usually do in this city. A hug that makes me forget that my wedges
are too heavy and my dress too long. A hug that I had dreadfully craved for
since waking that morning. And then he disappears into the night as I clonk my
way to the bus stop.
I don’t know what to
do today, I say. Masturbate, he suggests. Yeah, why not? I love his dry sense
of humour, the kind that delights the mind but does not require of show of
teeth or a cackle. The pleasure of twisted wits and play of words. Or a play of
emotions. His coffee is smooth, so perfect that I cannot resist closing my eyes
with every sip. Dressed in Acne head to toe again today. No, he says, my
trainers are Margiela. So is my bag, I say. We turn to the road, the sun is
hitting the other side and our bench is in the shade. We sit in silence, but it
is always a comfortable one. He has maybe 3 minutes. A man stops by us, stares
into the shop window and walks on. Then double-takes and waltzes back into the
store. Sometimes I want to rest my head on his shoulder, and sometimes I do.
Not always. He looks back through the window, cocks his head, folds his hair
behind his ear, and sits back towards the road. So, what are you going to do
then? I don’t know, I say. Maybe some work. Or watch the new episode of True
Blood. I sigh and rest my head on his shoulder. He pats my hair, a gesture
filled with an exact equal dose of genuine affection and awkward Nordic-ness.
30 seconds to departure. The cigarette smoke unfurls in my left eye and burns a
few watery blinks. I straighten up and stare at the Tea shop across the road as
Johnny walks out with his giant dog. I hope I’ll have beautiful children when I
grow up. You will, he says. And then he gets up, wishes me a good day, and
disappears behind the coffee counter.
It is past midnight,
and we are on the bus number whatever on our way back east. The evening spent
at our Dean’s house behind us, a muddle of awkward exchanges, ego bartering and
routine questioning of where are you from, what did you do, which section are
you in. There are three possible labels, and we must all fit the mould:
illustration, design or video. He is one of the few I take note of, I am
design, he is illustration. All the others have already melted into a blur of
nationalities, express biographies and sticky accents. Students once again, we
hijack the seats at the back of the bus, as loud as we once used to be on the
class trips of our high school days, though this time fuelled by wine and
tobacco rather than Pepsi. The drunken night bus swerves in the night as the
last remaining 6 of us head to the safety of Shoreditch. I like his buttoned up
checked shirt and Magoo glasses. He is a strange mixture of posh schoolboy and
sympathetic heckler, and there is a certain uncanny maturity behind his rat
tail and skinny jeans. I try to get his attention, but I feel too clumsy, too
Arab, too old. Maybe I cannot be a student again, the thought hits me as I
catch myself looking at them all with equal parts of disdain and envy, berating
myself for my lack of British humour and witty interjections. But him, I like
him, somehow he is a source of comfort and I feel subdued by his charm. He
engages in my conversation, though I can feel it is too ordinary, for me and
for him. Pleasant, yes, but not yet exciting.. I observe him as he observes
her. She has caught his attention and I suddenly know. There is a slight waft
of static in the air and I wonder whether anyone else has noticed. Has she
noticed? It is so obvious in the twitch of his fingers and the tapping of his
boat shoes on the sticky bus floor as he smiles, beatific at her anecdotes. I
turn to the window but all I see is my reflection in the pitch black of
suburbia. I exhale a frosty mist on the pane of glass as I mentally drown out
their wine-fuelled banter.
The 36 pictures are all splayed on the
table, rough paper print outs that mark 3 years of self-portraits. 36 versions
of myself, breasts exposed in bedrooms and lounges from around the world,
vacantly staring back at us while we discuss design possibilities. I like that
he doesn't flinch at my flesh, doesn't seem distracted by the various tanlines
framing my nipples. He frowns and talks design, paper stock, cover color, and
font options, stroking his chin as he hovers around the table. I listen and
nod. I wonder if he silently judges my flesh, but I refrain from asking the questions.
We are working after all. I like that I can relinquish all the thought process
to him. I trust him. I have brought a bottle of red wine, but it sits unopened
on the studio desk. In his case, maybe business and pleasure really don't mix.
Though I would love a glass to ease my nerves. After all, I am a still a woman,
and he is still a man, looking over the varying guises of my nude body. He is
wearing navy, streamlined clothes, of the kind that betray an interest in
fashion. With his 6 foot frame towering over me, he is the perfect embodiment
of an APC man. I like his slightly salt and pepper hair, more pepper than salt.
We both speak French but his strong Parisian accent and verlan interjections
makes me muddle my words, I am too aware of my bastardized Lebanese French, an
academic, even posh variation of the language. I can only keep it up for a few
sentences before I slip back into my comfortable English and make him
follow suit. I have more control that way. We discuss the size he has chosen for
my book. I swivel on the desk chair while he opens up the files on his MAC. He
has his cheeky signature smirk, even now as he works. He asks me about my job.
The new full-time paid one, not the photography. I know he disapproves, and
although I argue my case, money, stability and whatnot, I like that he worries.
I haven't been updating my blog as often as I used to, and it's him I always
think of when the guilt starts to creep up. I assure him that I am about to
pick up a new batch of processed films and he smiles a cocky smile. 'Good. I'll
be waiting' he says with a scratch of his light beard as he turns back to the
screen. I smile and swivel a complete 360 on the chair beside him. I like that
he cares.
When I embarked on "Between 11 and Noon" (2012), I was only loosely aware that I wanted to shoot boys I knew that sparked something in me, a longing maybe. They had stubble on their face, they had tattoos, visible gumlines when they smiled, a certain aloofness in their eyes. They were only a handful, but I realized that they all bore the marks of what I sought out in the opposite sex. As a group, their amalgamation became the fantasy of the other.I made them each come to my house on a light grey morning, between 11 and noon, and strip for my lens. And while their eyes were turned elsewhere, I could scrutinize liberally. And then 20 minutes later, they left my makeshift home studio, but I had their image forever.For each sitter, I wrote a text detailing a brief past enounter, which I then narrated into an audio recording that sits alongside each portrait.
Exhibition at The Running Horse gallery, Beirut, 2012