The other side

Jesus on the Cross

At U-Turn. Tracey wants to take a picture of Jesus on his Cross outside the local church. We are on walkabout, doing photography. She can’t take the picture because her hands shake as she holds up the camera, and Jesus slips in and out of the frame. ‘I’ll help you,’ I say, steadying her hands. She has Dave Tracey tattooed on her arm.

Shel, Tracey’s sister, is with us too. She wants a picture of Jesus on the Cross for her boyfriend. ‘Our men are Catholics,’ she says. Their other sister, Susie, has gone to spend £1,700 social back-pay on the crack pipe. The money arrived today.

‘They’re drug addicts, Susie and her boyfriend. They just disappear into the bedroom with the pipe,’ Shel says.

It’s cold outside but Tracey’s only got a T-shirt on. She’s 43, having hot flushes, the change of life. Her hair is steel, edged with white.

‘Can you take a picture of Jesus for me?’ she asks. ‘It is for our boyfriends. They’re Catholics.’

‘You can do it,’ I tell her.

‘No, I can’t. I can’t do it.’

‘You can. Here, let me help you. Come on.’ I take her closer to the statue and hold her hands around the camera, framing Jesus. I have to be firm to steady them.

‘Press the button,’ I say.

She’s pushing on another part of the camera. I wait for her finger to find the shutter. ‘Now. Press now,’ I say.

Look. It’s Jesus suffering in the sun. Low-contrast Autumn light.

‘It’s lovely.’ Tracey looks at the image. Shel looks at it.

‘You did that,’ I say.

‘I never done that before,’ says another Tracey, ducked-under quarter smile.

‘Look what you did. It’s beautiful,’ I say.

Trust

I am working in London again, teaching writing and photography at U-Turn women's centre. U-Turn supports women sex workers, many of whom are homeless with drug and alcohol dependency. Our project, Change the Picture, was set up by charity PhotoVoice.

I have a long conversation in the garden with Emma. She doesn’t trust her mental health worker. It is evident from her diary, which she wants me to read, how much Emma likes photography and writing. She says that she writes for me, because I ask her to. She trusts me. Ever since we went upstairs to the therapy room and worked on her writing, just the two of us, she feels that I am her teacher.

I’m touched and encouraged to see how much our attention can mean to the women. I tell her how pleased I am that she is writing consistently. I show her my notebook, the one I carry round with me, and tell her that I write every day too.

‘It’s therapy,’ she says. I can only agree.

Emma has to defend herself even from the workers who are supposed to help her, especially in the hostel where she lives. Emma looks after herself, and doesn’t trust anyone there. She thinks that her mental health worker and other professionals are doing it for suspect reasons, maybe they’re not right themselves. Privately, I agree. My experience of the social welfare system is that a variety of damaged individuals find refuge in ‘caring’ for others (abusing by default).

Working in prisons, I saw how those at the bottom of the pile suffer, helpless, their ‘carers’ like their torturers. I remember this as we talk. I remember jailors and police laughing at the ‘scum’ in their care when I went to represent my clients. Emma has been in prison too, although she refers to this only in passing. The hostel reminds her of prison.

Emma has made a list of people she likes. This includes 'the nice security man with the glasses'. There is a gold star next to some of the names.

Nita will agree

Nita sits next to me on the step in the garden. She has eight chocolate Bourbons on a plate balanced against the earth, a little stony, of the vegetable garden that the women grow.

‘You like biscuits,’ I say.

‘Yes I do. I eat a lot of them. At the hostel – we get biscuits and cakes and I don’t cook. We’re supposed to cook but I need someone to come with me to Tesco’s so I eat biscuits and cakes instead.’

Nita has a cup of brick tea in a saucer. Whatever you suggest to Nita, Nita will agree.

I suggest she takes photographs of the flowers. She liked the picture I gave her of purple and yellow scrubby ones in the early sun.

Nita has a red T-shirt, she has pink shoes. In between is a track-pant, faded blue. Close to her you get sweat – old sweat, not new. You’d have to go some time not washing to smell like that. But Nita’s not on the street any more, her home is Hopetown now. Hopetown, where Floor 3 is for crack and smack. Keep trouble in one place. I hope Nita’s not up there, on Floor 3.

‘How long is it since you’ve seen your family,’ I ask.

‘10 years.’

She has not teeth, exactly, but a mouthful of crunched nicotine and broken black.

‘Do you miss them?’

‘Yes.’ But it is half a word, shrugged into her chest. She weeps. I am inches from her blue eyes in which inside corners rests yellow sleep.

Nita turns to me. Her hair is black with grease penetrated by threads of grey. Why is it 10 years since she’s seen her family? I do not know. I can not ask.

‘They say I’m stupid. I shouldn’t do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘The women ask me for money for their drugs and I give it to them. Off my dole.’

Not enough money for food. £7 a week in rent.

‘My social worker told me not to. I’m stupid aren’t I?’

NITA wants to take pictures of herself to send to the family back home. Home is across the sea and 10 years away. Nita has no kids.

It takes a few minutes with the camera, only minutes and already a picture has been made.

‘I’ve never done photography before.’

She makes pictures of the flowers. Close up, the flowers have white sun patches and often seem to speak. We will print them for her room. She’s hoping to get some clothes today as well. She heard they give clothes here too.

‘I’ll just get a cup of tea,’ Nita says when I look the other way. She carries eight chocolate Bourbons in her hands. I want her to use the camera so I fetch a plate.

I take pictures of Nita laughing in the sun. She takes pictures of Shelly sitting on the step. Nita is happy. She forgets the Bourbons and takes the camera inside.

‘Look, I took pictures of Shelly,’ she holds out the camera.

‘Maybe you can take pictures of things you like and send them to your family too.’

Nita agrees. Nita will agree with whatever suggestion you make.

How old is Nita? I can not tell. I know that when I sit very close she does not move away, and when she weeps and I touch the blade beneath her cherry shirt, she does not flinch.

Nita has pink shoes. She loves her shoes. They’re from the market - £1, but someone said they’re like shoes from a proper shop. We take pictures of her shoes. And her cherry shirt. Her friend gave it to her; it’s the colour that she likes – or maybe it’s the cat on the front.

Nita has an album. We gave it to her. It’s got her name on it. It is hers. She stuffs her photographs between the leaves.

Nita in profile laughing. Did we make her laugh? How old is Nita? I can not tell. Her breasts hang low beneath her shirt, her skin is not that old.

Nita in profile laughing.

Shelly on the step.

Tracked bruised bloodied arms. Black shadow eyes.

Nita in profile laughing up on the pinboard. Nita wants her picture there. She pins it up. She could have chosen any one of her pictures – the flowers or her shoes – but what Nita wants is herself up laughing. Her name in thick black pen.

Her family says she shouldn’t be so unhappy.

Nita laughing on the board for everyone to see.

Change the picture

Erasure

 

Outreach with the U-Turn project in London. 10pm. I am on the streets, driving in a four-by-four, with the founder of U-Turn, a drop-in centre for women sex workers – aka prostitutes. We’re in East London. These aren’t courtesans, they’re not luscious, made-up sex artistes. They are young women with nowhere else to go. For £20, £30 a time, they will get into a stranger’s car, to keep it all together, from day to day.

Some of them sleep in cupboards or lift shafts: they are homeless, came from somewhere else – maybe ran away. Maybe their mother’s boyfriend raped them, or someone fell in love. But it doesn’t matter now. The reason – the origin – is lost, possibly in crack fear or heroin haze. What matters now is living – survival – from day to day.

These are invisible women. Erased. Nobody wants them, nobody knows.

They drain society of its poison: buy our drugs, provide sex without demands, and service the secrets of male child-abuse.

This is where it ends. If you think you’re glamorous, snorting some snow in Soho; if you think you’re cool, learning to dance round a pole. If, somehow, you admire the babes on MTV, here is where it ends. If you bareback a woman but don’t want her child, here is where it ends – your pleasure does not come free. Some woman, somewhere, pays the price.

We’re on the streets. It’s night time, after dark. We offer condoms, have a chat – how are you? How’s it going? Want to come to the centre? Have a shower, something to eat. Maybe later… Got to keep working. If I don’t work tonight I’ll wake up in a state tomorrow, have to get some cash.

There is a shadow man standing across the street, watching as we talk. Here is someone who wants them, someone who knows. He says: I love you darling. Be a good girl, go out there, get me what I need. He is called a ponce.

One woman just had her child taken away. Another is pregnant – if she can’t get off the streets they’ll take the baby at birth. She is beautiful – meets my rolled-down window with a sweetheart smile. We note names and streets, so next week, if somebody’s missing, we can ask around.

I’m part of Change the Picture, a photography project for women sex workers, run with charity PhotoVoice. Every week for 10 months, from May, we’ll run a workshop at U-Turn, in which the women can participate if they want. We’ll teach about making pictures and using words – talk about cameras, memory and image; help the women take another look.

We do not have to accept the words others use to describe us. We do not have to submit to the images that they make. Pictures and words of our own can change the view.

Invisible women drain our poison. Find a way to see.