Despite being displayed in an area surrounded by tower blocks and boarded up buildings, the photographs are all about nature and natural forms. Louisa's are mostly very beautiful (this is my opinion even without the gun she has to my head) ghostly, silvery shots of the Thames Estuary, though what the Norwegians are shooting, I couldn't say with any conviction - until, unfortunately, they start explaining them, in long, slow, pained, very pained, halting, heavily accented English.
I drag my daughter through the swinging door on a hinge so tight it threatens to eat us as it clamps us shut in its gummy jaws. I can hear a deathly almost-silence as I reach for the glass of warm white on an almunium tray, narrowly avoiding one that's been half drunk and replaced, with a lipstick mark imprinted on the rim. Daughter doesn't drink. Fool. She doesn't know what she's in for. You need alcohol to stop you screaming at the endless, earnest Q&A which I can't really begrudge the artists, since they have poured their body and soul into their work. but nevertheless, I do. Deeply, deeply begrudged. The alcohol numbs the pain but doesn't, however, stop the tears of boredom trickling out of the corner of my eyes as though I'd been cutting onions, rather than yawning so hard it hurts.
I spot Liz and Geraldine huddled as far out of earshot as possible, near where the till would have been when this was a shop that sold stuff people actually wanted instead of empty and abandoned to arty high res pictures of loofahs at point blank range.
'I thought we'd arrived late enough to avoid the speeches.' Liz hissed wearily into my ear.
'Me too. I saw the ambassador's car driving away so I figured we'd missed the formalities. My daughter's going to kill me if this goes on much longer. I only got her here by promising I would go Salsa dancing with her afterwards.' Liz's eyes widened momentarily as she struggled not to look surprised/shocked/appalled at the vision developing in her head of a mother and daughter Salsa outing. But she's a journalist and used to looking impassive when being told strange things. 'It's a class not a club,' I added, trying to reassure her.
Not sure it worked.
We huddled together while my daughter, well brought up girl that she is, went around the room to examine the loofahs.
A short rosy faced Norwegian woman in a caftan, wearing very white socks and rugged sandals was talking about her photographs: '...em, yes, I em, cut up the prints, em, but not with the scissors, but with the hands, and then I exposed them, em, a little bit...to the elements...'
Lots of nodding and stroking of invisible beards, except for one man in stonewashed denim who actually did have one.
'Louisa has some bloke here,' whispered Liz.
'Yes he asked me what my measurements were, can you imagine the cheek,' said Geraldine, 'I nearly said to him, as big as your d...'
'...id you always work with landscape?' A silver haired man with a remarkable resemblance to Leonard Nimmoy without the Spock ears, wearing a sixties ensemble of white jacket and black rollneck sweater asked, sticking his microphone under the nose of another photographer. This one was dressed in several clashing shades and patterns of livid green, with the same ruddy complexion. These Norwegians spend a lot of time outside in the elements judging by their complexions, either that or they are all drunk too.
'...em, at one time I worked with... em the fire until em... the town firemen were em... thinking em... the house was burning and they came with the axes.'
I looked hopefully at the door. No firemen.
More sage nodding.
'So who's the man she's brought - it's not the one she met at the clinic is it? He was Norwegian.' I muttered.
'What clinic?' Ah... Liz doesn't know that story, I realised, moving swiftly on...
'What about the old guy she's seeing - the one who's 69 but still has hair?'
'No, he hasn't arrived yet. It's the ecologist - remember, the one who has been messing her around for mothers. He's always standing her up with the lame excuses. The one she cooked the pheasants for and he didn't turn up. There he is,' she pointed to the one in the stonewashed denim jacket with the little beard and smug expression.
We all turned and examined him.
'Pratt.' we hissed in disapproving unison, and glowered. If it was a modern interpretation of Hamlet with the three witches wearing Salsa shoes and twirly skirt (me) floral frocks, red stillettos (Liz) and - Geraldine dressed like Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary, then we would be perfectly cast.
'I wish they would stop speechifying long enough for me to slap him.' I said.
We continued glaring at him.
Even Louisa looked wearied by the speeches but seeing us pinning our laser beams of destruction on her ecologist love-interest, rallied and beamed back at us from the far reaches of the room, where she was wedged behind more ruddy (in the florid sense) Norwegians.
She waved and the ecologist turned and smiled at us.
I was reminded of a married friend telling me over the weekend that she and her husband were involved in a massive DIY project which was making him, shall we say a tad, irritable.
'So how's it going,' I asked when she came round to my house for a tea break rather earlier one morning than I usually see her.
'Well, I gave him breakfast this morning and as I said to him, "Darling, would you like another piece of toast?" and then as handed him two slices, buttered, with strawberry jam, smiling sweetly, I thought to myself - I hope they bloody choke you.'
Ah marriage - as Chris Rock says 'If you haven't contemplated murder, you ain't been in love.'
I raised my glass in a mock toast and smiled back.
That also applies to listening to your girlfriends talk about their lame lovers. Hell hath no fury than the friend of a woman scorned.
