Freya Read online

  Once she had calmed down she took her mother’s proffered handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

  Her mother tutted the word away and said, ‘You’re not the one who should be apologising. I think what we both need is a good stiff drink.’

  They had one in the bar of the Randolph while they waited for their guest. Freya also took a moment to repair her smudged eyes before the mirror in the ladies, and contemplated the prospect of her parents’ divorce. Another casualty of war, as broken and forlorn as any bombsite. She gazed at her reflection, at the defiant set of her mouth, and silently vowed never to inflict that mistake on a child of her own.

  Nancy arrived just as they were being seated in the restaurant. Freya, hollowed out from her crying jag, already felt light-headed with the large whisky she had bolted down in the bar. Her delight on seeing Nancy was almost possessive in its intensity; her wide-eyed gaze, her gawkiness, even the slight uptilt of her nose seemed an unconscious expression of her lovability.

  ‘Mrs Wyley,’ said Nancy, shyly offering her hand.

  ‘It’s Cora,’ replied her mother. ‘How nice to meet you at last.’

  Nancy shot a look of uncertainty at Freya, who didn’t miss a beat. ‘That manuscript I was reading down in Sussex was Nancy’s novel,’ she explained. ‘She has an amazing talent – it’s like Elizabeth Bowen, only more enjoyable.’

  Cora canted her head at an interested angle, and said to Nancy, ‘My word, you must be good! Freya hardly ever praises anyone.’

  Nancy’s face was a blushing confusion of pride and astonishment. ‘I think Freya’s just being kind. The book needs an awful lot of work –’

  ‘But you’re going to write an even better one,’ said Freya, with a confidence that seemed to embrace and exclude at once. Cora, perhaps sensing Nancy’s discomfort under this fierce glare of approval, steered her towards a conversation about her studies, and how she liked Oxford. Meanwhile Freya had seized the wine list and ordered the first bottle she recognised. She looked around the room, at the waiter’s retreating back, the carver with his trolley a few tables along, the anonymous couples facing one another, the dusty potted palms by the door, the limp brocade curtains, the smells of mediocre food being cooked – and felt a terrible crushing sadness. A line of poetry came to her – Say not the struggle naught availeth. But how mundane the struggle felt, after what they’d put themselves through, this effort to wrest back a semblance of normality; how feeble and dogged and lost we all are.

  ‘Look, there’s partridge on the menu,’ her mother was saying. ‘I haven’t seen that since before the war.’

  The waiter had returned with the wine, and Freya watched impatiently as he uncorked and decanted it. ‘Would madam like to taste …?’

  ‘No, just pour it,’ she said with a peremptory nod. The wine was barely in her glass before she had emptied it with great gulps.

  ‘Someone’s thirsty,’ her mother said. ‘So what do you girls do when you’re not at lectures? There seem to be a lot of men around the place.’

  ‘Nothing but,’ said Freya. ‘They’re either beer-drinking ex-servicemen or serious chaps in flannels smoking pipes. Though I did meet one quite presentable fellow at Balliol …’ Pleased to provoke their outraged laughter with the story of her staircase encounter with Robert, she was spurred on to a little comic embroidery. ‘When he started yarning about his scholarship I got rather fed up and dropped my gaze to what I’d just seen on display under his towel. I said, “I don’t know about a scholarship, but I suppose they might have given you an exhibition.”’

  Nancy, over her giggles, said, ‘I could never tell a story like that to my parents.’

  ‘Nancy’s a Catholic,’ Freya jumped in, for her mother’s benefit. ‘That’s why she’s having the cod – fish on Friday!’ She turned to Nancy. ‘So you never talk about sex?’

  ‘Freya,’ said her mother, more in weariness than warning.

  ‘Well, no,’ said Nancy hesitantly, ‘but it’s not just that. We never really talk about anything … intimate. My parents wouldn’t know how. Most things, they’re either understood or they’re just undiscussed.’

  ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ asked Cora.

  ‘I have a younger sister, Miriam. She’s still at school.’

  ‘That’s quite small for a Catholic family,’ observed Freya.

  Nancy nodded, and paused before replying. ‘My mother had another child, a boy. He was still a baby, not even a year old – one morning they found him dead in his cot. I was about eight, and didn’t understand what had happened. I was told that it was God’s will, but beyond that they never talked about it. If someone accidentally mentioned an infant dying a sort of blind went down – so it remains this terrible unspoken thing.’

  Freya kept a brief silence before saying, ‘If only people could talk honestly about painful things, instead of bottling them up. Wouldn’t it have been better if your parents had been open with you?’

  Nancy returned a shrug. ‘I think they must have talked to the parish priest about it. But I know what you mean – it might have helped us all if they’d been willing to sit down and talk. Instead, when the anniversary comes round the house is plunged into this gloom, though nobody will ever acknowledge it. So it goes on.’

  Freya exchanged a look with her mother that seemed to touch on their own familial turmoil: they would have to tread softly. The arrival of the food was timely, and the cloud which had been threatening dispersed. The partridge she had chosen was a bit stringy, but it was tastier than anything they served at hall in Somerville. After the relative bounty that sustained the officers at Plymouth – steaks and butter and real coffee – the return to a civilian diet had been dismal. She had forgotten how disgusting powdered eggs could be.

  ‘Isn’t it grand to eat proper food once in a while? Even that mutton they were just carving looked nice.’

  ‘I wonder where they get it all,’ mused Nancy.

  Freya’s mother arched her eyebrows and said softly, ‘The same place most of the restaurants in London get it – the black market.’

  ‘The last time Nancy and I were in London together we went to Gennaro’s.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember hearing, with your father. And I suppose you had the ice cream?’

  Freya flashed a conspiratorial look across the table. ‘No, I was in the most terrible bait with Dad at the time and I refused it, just out of pride. Of course it didn’t bother him at all, so I went without for no reason.’ Drink had made her voluble, and she was happy again. ‘But afterwards I was sulking outside on my own when Nancy showed up – carrying ice creams for both of us! She’d only walked halfway round Soho to find a shop selling them. Now what d’you think of that?’

  Cora smiled across at Nancy. ‘I’d say that’s the loveliest thing a friend ever did.’

  Her voice was lightly amused, but Nancy, not for the first time in the course of lunch, had a stunned look, like someone who had won a prize in a contest she’d not been aware of entering.

  By the time they emerged from the Randolph’s dining room the dreary autumnal weather had closed in; a gauzy mist off the river had submerged the streets and the flagstones were oily underfoot. But her mood was still flying. Nancy had gone, leaving a trail of effusive thank-yous in her wake; Freya accompanied her mother back to the railway station.

  ‘I feel a bit tipsy,’ Freya admitted.

  ‘I’m not surprised, darling. You drank the best part of two bottles – and that huge whisky in the bar.’

  Freya linked her arm through her mother’s. ‘What did you think of Nancy?’

  ‘She’s a dear, isn’t she? Such beautiful eyes –’

  ‘I know!’ said Freya. ‘That was the first thing I noticed about her.’

  ‘It’s very sweet …’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘To see how besotted she is with you – hanging on your every word.’

  Freya tipped her head slightly. ‘Do you think so?’
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br />   ‘You should be careful with her. Not everyone’s as robust as you. A tear nearly came to my eye when she talked about her brother dying. “God’s will”, indeed. Poor thing, if that’s all she had to console her …’

  Freya, who was more fascinated by Nancy’s Catholicism than she cared to admit, said spontaneously, ‘How terrible to be God. Imagine having the whole world on Your conscience.’

  Cora made a huffing sound – the sound of a stillborn laugh – and said, ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

  As they edged their way through the press of bodies a tune was coming from a gramophone in the next room.

  Freya cupped her hand to Nancy’s ear. ‘I love this song!’

  Nancy pulled an uncertain face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s “The Sheik of Araby”.’ And she tootled along with an imaginary clarinet, swinging it from side to side to make Nancy laugh.

  They had arrived at the Banbury Road party together, which in the days since the Randolph lunch was how they did most things – afternoon tea in their rooms or in the covered market, evening drinks at the Eagle and Child, bicycling up to Headington Hill, trips to the cinema or the lecture hall. On the previous Sunday morning she had even accompanied Nancy to Mass. For Freya it felt like compensation for the best friend she had never had at school. At Plymouth she had knocked around with other Wrens, and had affairs with various men, but none of them were close to her in the way Nancy was. The awkwardness over her novel had, if anything, bound them tighter together, for in those moments of hostile disputation they had both felt the warning touch of estrangement, and recoiled.

  The room where the gramophone played was smoky and beery and thronged with young men, some in earnest discussion, most of them goggling in amusement at the fellow in the middle of the floor dancing by himself. Dancing was perhaps too genteel a word for it: with his elbows flailing away, his knees going like pistons and his head twitching this way and that, he seemed as one in the throes of a possession – or a fit. He was quite oblivious of anyone else in the vicinity.

  Freya, after observing this spectacle for a few moments, said, ‘Robert.’

  The man stopped abruptly and, as if emerging from his trance, looked around. He squinted at her momentarily before a smile of recognition creased his face.

  ‘Why, if it isn’t Freya!’

  ‘I didn’t know there’d be a floor show. What d’you do for an encore?’

  Robert cackled, sweeping a dark fringe of hair from his sweating brow. ‘I can’t help it. I love this thing.’ He saw that Freya was not alone. ‘Hullo there!’

  ‘This is Nancy,’ said Freya. ‘Nancy – Robert, whom I last saw in –’ she paused, with a little smirk – ‘Balliol.’

  Robert, reading the pause correctly, explained to Nancy: ‘This is the second time your friend has caught me unawares. I can’t tell if it’s coincidence or if she lies in wait before pouncing.’

  He began ushering them through to a back room where a knot of men were crowded round a beer barrel. It had been tipped onto its side and fitted with a makeshift nozzle. He called to one of the drinkers and held up three fingers, inscribing a rough halo to encompass his guests. This bar-room tic-tac soon had the desired effect: the youth approached bearing four glasses of beer on a wet tray. His hungry glance at Freya and Nancy suggested that an introduction should be the reward for his errand. Robert drawlingly obliged.

  ‘Freya, Nancy – this is Charlie Tremayne, guide, philosopher and friend.’

  ‘And beer carrier,’ Charlie added with a little nod. He was a short, pleasant-faced boy with tortoiseshell spectacles and close-cropped, mouse-coloured hair; Freya intuited that he would be playing second fiddle to Robert.

  They clinked glasses, and Robert, blowing a strand of hair from his eyes, looked from Freya to Nancy with candid interest. ‘Your arrival has definitely raised the tone of this party. It’s been very second-rate up to now.’

  ‘Really?’ said Freya. ‘When I heard “The Sheik of Araby” blaring out back there I thought we’d come to the right place.’

  Charlie blinked in surprise. ‘Don’t often meet a girl who knows about jazz.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know much. I just like the stuff my dad plays – Ellington, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And how about you?’ said Robert to Nancy. ‘Know your Basie from your “Basin Street Blues”?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said with a little grimace of apology. ‘Vaughan Williams and Elgar are more my line.’

  ‘Nancy’s a wonderful pianist,’ said Freya loyally. ‘We spent VE night together tickling the ivories.’

  ‘Lucky old ivories,’ said Robert, waggling his eyebrows. ‘By the way, you might want a bit of this.’

  He had produced a hip flask from his pocket to hand around. Freya took a sip and tasted the perfumed sourness of warm gin. Ugh. Charlie followed suit; Nancy, she noticed, quietly declined it. Robert, having taken two long swigs, became lightly combative. Across the room a target had caught his eye.

  ‘Look at that twerp. Who does he think he is – Noël Coward?’

  The ‘twerp’ was in fact a pale-faced young man, slender as a reed, in a provocatively garish outfit of green velvet suit, gold satin shirt and buckled shoes. His blond hair, severely parted, fell over one eye, like a male Veronica Lake. He blew languid smoke rings from a cigarette clamped in an ivory holder. He made a self-conscious spectacle, though Freya suspected that what most annoyed Robert was the man’s being the centre of attention: a little group had crowded around, almost gawping at him.

  ‘He’s very exotic-looking,’ said Nancy. ‘I think he’s wearing make-up.’

  ‘I wonder who his tailor is?’

  ‘Someone the police are still looking for, I imagine.’

  ‘I think he’s rather dashing,’ said Freya, goading him.

  Robert made a disgusted hissing sound, and looked away. The velvet-suited dandy had by now twigged the vibrations of interest emanating from the other side of the room, and, discarding his circle of familiars, approached. He had a walk to match his appearance, a high-stepping lope that was part athlete, part show pony. His hooded blue gaze took hold of Freya.

  ‘Have we met?’ he said in a purring baritone.

  Freya shook her head, watching him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he persisted.

  ‘I think I would have remembered a suit like that,’ she said, with a quick glance up and down. ‘I’m trying to decide on that shade of green – sort of … froggy.’

  The gaze didn’t move an inch. ‘Chartreuse. But tell me, where might we have met before, outside of a dream?’ His eyes widened saucily on the last word.

  ‘I can’t think. I’m Freya. And you are …?’

  Again came the considering blink. ‘Nat Fane.’ He offered his exquisite pale hand in the manner of a pope expecting a kiss.

  Robert, who along with Nancy and Charlie had been ignored by the stranger, now interposed, ‘Nat? As in the insect?’

  He looked down his nose at Robert, and replied, ‘As in Nathaniel.’

  ‘Well, Nat, we’ve been asking ourselves what kind of fellow wears an outfit like yours. My money’s on – a male impersonator.’

  Charlie sniggered behind his hand, but Fane returned only a slow, pitying nod. ‘I shall presume that’s what it pleases you to call wit. To answer your question, however – I am an artist and an actor. I am a playwright and a producer; I am a writer, a critic and a composer. I am a connoisseur and a collector of beautiful things.’ He paused, and in a tone of magisterial condescension added, ‘I am also, for the time being, a student at this university.’

  ‘My goodness, isn’t that a lot?’ said Charlie sarcastically.

  ‘Indeed, I do wonder,’ replied Fane, eyeing him like a cobra, ‘how can there be so much of me – and so little of you?’

  Freya, stepping in as peacemaker, said, ‘Well, since we’re doing introductions, this is my friend Nancy, and these two are Rob
ert and Charlie.’

  Fane acknowledged them with a lordly tilt of his head. He then turned his gaze back on Freya, and said in a confiding voice, ‘May I have a private word?’

  Freya gave a little shrug to the others, and allowed Fane to draw her aside. She was more curious than ever. He offered her a cigarette – a tipped Sobranie – which she took, and lit it with a slim gold lighter. Through a cloud of smoke he said, ‘I have a proposition for you.’

  She suppressed a laugh. ‘What, already?’

  He ignored her facetiousness. ‘Do you act – I mean, have you done any acting?’

  ‘I once played Mary in the Nativity. But it was a non-speaking role. Aside from that, no,’ she said.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. To explain: I am, at present, casting my own production of The Duchess of Malfi. I have already auditioned several ladies for the title role, without success. It’s vital that I find someone with the right face, the right voice, the right … demeanour. I have an inkling that someone is you.’

  ‘And you can tell all this in thirty seconds’ acquaintance?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Freya smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m afraid your inkling is unreliable. I don’t know the first thing about acting, and I shouldn’t like you to waste your time trying to teach me.’

  He stared at her a moment, as if amused at the idea of being turned down. ‘You need a little time to consider it, I understand – the part is a challenging one. We should arrange a meeting.’

  His self-confidence was impermeable. Far from hearing her answer as a refusal, he seemed to take it as an encouragement to further discussion.

  ‘Here she is!’ There was no mistaking that parade-ground voice: Jean Markham had burst through the party crush in a cloud of Yardley. She was heading up a small gang of serious-looking women. Only then did Freya remember inviting her. Fane looked at the interloper with the bristling disdain of a peacock eyeing a parrot. He nodded at Freya and withdrew.

  ‘Jean – you’ve come,’ she said weakly.