𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐫. ⁽⁽⁽ᵐᵃᵗᵗʸ ʰᵉᵃˡʸ⁾⁾⁾

image was currency.

PART ONE.

One.

As usual, I kept quiet.

Farah liked to host, more than any of us; she considered herself a tastemaker, in that she liked to think she influenced the people around her, bringing out unusual food or playing music that nobody had heard but was meant to capture our fascination. And inevitably someone would have heard it before, and then I could see in Farah's eyes that she was intensely disappointed.

Occasionally an outsider was present, some friend of a friend she had procured for the night, for all of our entertainment. I liked when this happened. It threw a new dynamic into the mix; people spoke and acted differently, trying to present a more curated version of themselves in the presence of a complete stranger. It also meant that my camera lens was no longer the only objective eye in the room. Candid shots became easier.

This was mid-autumn, just after the clocks had gone back, and the room seemed especially dim. When natural light faded, it took us a little longer to realise the lamps would need switching on at seven, not eight. It was smoky, too, with two or three joints being passed around. I perched on a fluffy footstool, my head leaning against the mantelpiece beside an old electric heater in place of a real fire.

Farah held court at one end of the sofa, clutching Eoin's elbow intermittently whenever she shrieked with laughter or shock, which was often, whilst he gazed soppily at her. It was common knowledge that Eoin was devoted to Farah, who treated him like a lapdog more than a close friend. I used to wonder if it might be kinder for someone to tell him she'd never fuck him, but I never had the heart, and he had a contact for very good, very pure coke, so nobody else wanted to cut him out either. In the armchair adjacent to Farah sat Stefan, and on Stefan's lap, sat Molly, my favourite person in the room. She caught my eye from across the room and raised a pale eyebrow laconically, which I felt duty-bound to capture with my lens.

Frankie sat beside the newcomer on the sofa opposite, and they might have matched, if Frankie's curls were less ginger and if he were less outrageously camp. Although he hardly radiated machismo; one leg was crossed elegantly over the other, and his restless hands rotated a lighter from palm to palm, the nails painted unevenly. Another quartet lined the living room, but I didn't know them so well - just an ex of Frankie's who he seemed to be on good terms with, and some old UAL friends of Farah's.

'Alma?' Eoin waved a joint in my direction, ash floating down onto the shag pile carpet. I took it from him, inhaled gingerly and held the breath for a couple of seconds before letting it out again, the smoke pluming in front of my face. It was strong, and after passing it along, I paused and stared into the middle distance until the initial light-headedness subsided. I was halfway through my first roll of film, but it was colour, and the next was black and white, so I snapped away quite freely, keen to capture the best part of the night in monochrome.

My gaze flitted from face to face, observing which ones were the most animated, or the most poised. I got to my feet soundlessly; everybody there was used to my roving, except the newcomer, who glanced sidelong at me for a moment as though he had just remembered my presence. He was quickly drawn back to the conversation at hand though, which was just what I wanted. What I needed, really, was to be invisible to everyone, past a certain point - to be merely a fly on the wall. I thought that, if my gaze was perfectly unobtrusive, my images would capture only the truth of their interactions and not their involuntary response to the camera. Of course, this was a naive ambition.