Nostalgia: The Sights and Sounds of Monaco

No other photographers were elbowing beside me or jockeying for position because there were no other photographers.  Nothing happens at Rascasse - we use the corner to leave the paddock and access other parts of the circuit, where things do happen.  The first corner, where cars crash; the opening of the tunnel, where cars flash into the shadowed entrance; the chiccane past the exit of the tunnel, where cars brake too late and bounce the kerbs or collide; the swimming pool, where the cars appear to be aiming directly at the camera lens until -- at the last moment -- they jink right and then left into the short straight-the short straight that leads to Rascasse.  Good for nothing but local colour.

The lower lip of the viewfinder was pressed hard into my cheekbone.  The girl had undone the top button of her jeans and her smile had faded, replaced with a look of vague concentration.  She slipped her left hand inside her waistband, her fly pulled open a little.  The girl's knuckles began to move discreetly.  I couldn't capture a movement like that on camera.  I had to concentrate on what I could capture.

In 1988, Ayrton Senna led the first sixty-six laps of Monaco, from pole position on the grid.  On lap sixty-seven, he lost concentration just before the entrance of the tunnel and clipped the Armco, breaking no one's ribs but ending his race.

Monaco is unforgiving.  Overtaking is nearly impossible, the slowest corner on the track can bring the cars to a near standstill.  These cars are designed to drive fast, not crawl around sloping hairpins.  Even the start/finish straight has a curve in it.

She's going to make herself orgasm, I realised.  I could see that from the tension that was forming around her mouth.  And the boy, I think, could see it too, because he put his hand against the small of her back.  For support or encouragement -- it was the hand he had used to unbutton her shirt.

I wondered how many exposures I had left on my roll of film.  There was no point in switching to my back-up camera, because it had a wide-angle lens fitted and with the distance of the track between us, the girl and her flat brown stomach would as good as vanish.

So if I was to change the lens, I might as well change film.  But trying to jam in a new roll would be the interruption that snapped this elastic moment.  If it wasn't the hurried motion, it would be the revelation that I had eyes behind the lens.

I guessed I had three shots left.  Instinct, a thousand previously changed rolls, the internal clock and counting system that lets me set an alarm for seven thirty, and wakes me up at seven twenty-five.

The girl, but no car.

Late May is when the F1 calendar hits Monaco.  When the coastal sky is blue and cloudless, the May sun beats down hot enough to burn.  That's why the older Eurotrash women have faces as cracked as Monte Carlo's harbour walls, wrinkles meshed around their eyes and mouths like the chain-link fences that protect them from flying tyres and suspension bars.

I could feel the sun on me.  My t-shirt was stuck to my back and I could feel the strap of my camera bag shifting on my shoulder, sliding on the sweat.

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