Freya (27 page)

‘True enough,' said Jocelyn, tipping his head. ‘Dicks is certainly out of the common run.'

‘That's one way of putting it,' muttered Bob, flaring his nostrils in distaste. ‘Personally I don't rate his stuff. You can't talk of him in the company of Parkinson or Beaton, for instance.'

Freya laughed and shook her head. ‘That, if you don't mind my saying, is balls.'

Bob's expression darkened as he sat up in his chair, and Jocelyn, alert to the sudden crackle of antagonism, raised his hands like a referee separating two prizefighters. ‘Ah-ah, let's keep it civil. Freya, there's no need for that. Bob was only giving his opinion. That's fair, isn't it?'

She arranged her features into an impression of equability. ‘Of course. Bob can believe what he likes, as long as I'm allowed to estimate his critical capacity below zero.'

Bob, thrusting back his chair, stood up. His face was angrily flushed. ‘You should learn some respect, missy. Think you're so smart with your degree from Oxford and your foul mouth.' His northern accent had thickened with his disgust. He turned to Jocelyn. ‘I'm not going to sit here and be insulted by …
juniors
. Get your staff in order, man.'

He stalked out of the room. The ruffled air he left in his wake created an embarrassed pause in proceedings. It wasn't that the others liked Bob much – he was a legendary moaner – but they tried not to provoke him. Into the silence Freya said, ‘I don't have a degree from Oxford, by the way.'

They carried on for a while, suggesting ideas, assigning pairs to this or that story, but the wind had been knocked out of the meeting's sails, and soon Jocelyn steered it to a close. As they were filing out of the room he asked to see Freya in his office.

‘That was neither wise nor kind,' he said, shutting the door behind her. ‘I know Bob can be a pain in the neck, but he does deserve a measure of respect.'

Freya stared at him. ‘Why? He's never shown any respect to me.'

‘Come on, Freya. Even if you don't think you owe him, you owe it to me. It's part of my job to run the ship, and I can't do that if you antagonise someone like Bob. This isn't the first time, either.'

‘I can't help it if he doesn't like me. And I don't think anyone in that meeting thought I spoke out of turn.'

‘You're wrong about that. If you put Bob in a mood, the whole office suffers.' He looked at her for any sign of remorse. The pause lengthened; then he said, in a changed voice, ‘May I give you some advice? In life, you may find that rampant individualism isn't always the best way of getting what you want. People respond more readily to the idea of collective endeavour, to being part of a team. You begin to learn how important it is on a newspaper or a magazine, that sense of togetherness.'

Freya said, somewhat concedingly, ‘I've never been one for team games.'

‘It shows,' said Jocelyn.

‘But I pull my weight. I don't miss deadlines, I don't object to working late, and I don't ask for special treatment – unlike certain people.'

‘No one would doubt the quality of your work. But in some ways you don't really help at all – you're tactless with other people, and you're dismissive of their feelings. The swearing doesn't go down well, either, not from a lady.' He looked at her, waiting for a reaction. ‘Is any of this getting through?'

Freya nodded. ‘I'll apologise to Bob, if you want me to.'

‘You don't sound very sorry.'

‘I'm not!' she said with a half-laugh. ‘I'd only do it to help you.'

‘Well, that's –'

‘But I still think you should let me write about Jerry Dicks. Joss, really, he's a one-off – and it would make a smashing piece.'

Jocelyn's look was wry, as though some point of his own had been proven. ‘No doubt. But I can tell you right now, the editor won't like it. He'll say: if this fellow's so wonderful, why isn't he taking pictures for us?'

‘From what I've heard about him it's probably a good thing he doesn't work for us – losing expensive equipment, falling down drunk. He's a liability. But he's a genius with a camera.'

‘I'll have a talk with Brian and come back to you,' said Jocelyn, who shifted in his chair and angled a look at her. ‘I saw that large bouquet on your desk. Lilies. Who were they from?'

‘I've no idea,' she said almost drowsily.

Jocelyn gave his mouth a disbelieving tweak. ‘Really?'

‘They were just plonked on my desk – the note was unsigned.'

He nodded, watchful. ‘Nice to have admirers.'

‘Lovely,' she agreed, matching his airiness, and got up to leave. He came from behind his desk to head her off at the door.

‘Are we still on for tonight?' he asked in a low, confiding tone.

‘I don't know. Are we?'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Well, I wouldn't like to put you to any trouble – speaking as a “rampant individualist.”'

He laughed, and took her hand lightly in his. ‘No trouble. I'll be at your place around eight.' She tilted her head in acquiescence, and went out.

They had been seeing one another for just over a year. Jocelyn Philbrick, born to privilege, had once been the coming man in journalism: during the war he had shown his mettle reporting in battle zones around Malta and Italy. The scorching pace he had set in his career as a war correspondent had slowed down somewhat on entering his thirties.
Frame
had poached him from a national newspaper just after the war, and he found the perks it afforded much to his liking. He was often to be seen hobnobbing at parties and clubs in the West End, and at some point had chosen to rest on his affability rather than stretch his talent. He became attached to his position of deputy editor as to a ball and chain: he seemed stuck with it.

Freya had known little about him when she'd started at
Frame
two years before. He'd treated her in the lightly impersonal manner he extended to all the staff. This changed one evening. A group of them had gone to the private view of a painter, Ossian Blackler. Tall, tousle-haired and saturnine, Blackler was on his way to becoming a name: affiliation with the Soho demi-monde had imbued his work with a sheen of outlaw glamour. Freya recalled it as a warm night, for the crowd had spilled over from the gallery rooms on Lexington Street into the narrow walled courtyard behind. Beer and cigarette smoke perfumed the air. She had found herself in a cluster of people paying court to the painter, who was batting away their blandishments with a disdain that verged on rudeness.

‘I hear the BBC want to talk to you, Ossie. What will you tell 'em?'

‘To fuck off, probably,' he replied in his flat, nasal voice. Laughter greeted this blunt retort.

‘You must be pleased with the prices your new stuff is fetching.'

He gave an irritated little snort. ‘If people are rich enough, or stupid enough, to pay 'em, I'm not complaining.'

One of his more earnest admirers then made the mistake of asking him to which school of painting he thought he belonged. Blackler turned the full glare of his scorn upon the question, mocking both the idea of
schools
(he drew out the syllable to sarcastic length) and the imbecility of the man for raising the subject at all. He made quite a meal of it. The laughter had gone from fawning to embarrassed by the time he had thoroughly squashed his victim, but Blackler didn't seem to care. As he looked around the company for fresh disputation his eye alighted on Freya, who he had perhaps noticed wasn't laughing, and was merely watching him.

‘What about you?' he said, the sneer still in his voice. ‘What
school
would you put me in?'

Freya considered for a moment, then said evenly, ‘Charm school.'

There was a split second of horrified silence before Blackler sniggered, almost childishly, and everyone joined in. His dangerous mood dissolved; the combative set of his mouth unstiffened, and he started talking to Freya in a spirit of near-friendliness. Soon another gaggle of cronies arrived to colonise the space around Blackler, and Freya melted back into the anonymous crowd. She was lining up another drink at the bar when Jocelyn appeared at her side. He had evidently been witness to the encounter in the back garden.

‘You took a chance there, kid.'

She gave a little shrug. ‘It was better than having to listen to any more of his bullying.'

His look became appraising. ‘Interesting. Those men out there were so eager to impress, but you talked to him as though he was just another feller.'

‘He
is
just another feller,' she replied. ‘He happens to have some talent, though not half as much as he thinks.'

So she thought he was overrated? Freya sensed Jocelyn's expression changing as they talked on; it was as though he had never quite listened to her before. On her part, she could see he was handsome, fairly clever, but also a little complacent, pleased with himself – and he was old, too, at least ten years older than her. But something had bonded between them; a few weeks later he invited her to another private view, smarter this time, on Bruton Street, and afterwards they went for dinner. That date led to another, until one evening, when they had been canoodling at his flat, he suggested that she stay the night. She noticed him flinch with surprise when, after a moment's thought, she assented, and realised that he had expected her to say no, as most ‘nice' girls would have done. She should probably have played a little harder to get, but she despised coyness. He would find out soon enough that she was no pushover.

Back at her desk the bouquet of lilies had become insufferable. She picked them up and, with only a small stab of ingratitude, tossed them in the bin. Then she thought of the letter from the
Envoy
in her bag, and wondered if they were serious about taking her on. If so, it would make for an interesting conversation with Joss.

The Villiers Gallery was situated on a paved court linking the Charing Cross Road with St Martin's Lane. It specialised in modern photography, though of late it had become a magnet to a gathering of artists and theatrical types who found a common purpose in drinking, bitching and moaning about money. A poster across the glass-partitioned door announced this evening's event, a private view of Jerry Dicks's recent photographs.
The Public Image
concentrated its gaze on celebrities of the arts and entertainment world, framed not in their professional habitat but on the street, in public, as if the photographer had caught them on the wing. Certain of his subjects were conscious of the lens looking up at them – Dicks used a Rolleiflex camera, held at waist level – while others seemed quite unaware of it as they walked down a street or mooched in a coffee bar. Some had the air of being suddenly, and perhaps unpleasantly, surprised, as if Dicks had crept up and snatched a shot of them when they were least prepared for it. A few looked ready to throttle him.

Freya, arriving early to beat the crowd, was beguiled by them: she loved the inkiness of the grain Dicks had achieved, and their dramatic alternation of light and dark. He had a gift, some alchemical magic, for making the most innocent face look troubled, or shifty. Most of the sitters she knew by repute; a handful of them she had met professionally; and one, in front of which she now stood, she counted as a friend. Nat Fane, alone of those portrayed, seemed unperturbed by the camera's questing eye. He had been photographed sitting at the long zinc counter of a bar, with an aproned barman unconcernedly polishing a glass behind him. Fane was holding a cigarette between his second and middle finger – a new affectation – and challenging the camera with a knowing smirk she remembered of old.

She had been trying to arrange an interview with Dicks, confident that the magazine would run it. That morning she had gone to see the editor, Brian Mowbray, to check with him, and could tell that something was up. They sat at his desk. Mowbray was a large, well-built man whose meaty, pallid face seemed to sweat even when it wasn't warm.

‘Joss has been telling me about this fellow Dicks, and to be frank, I just don't like the sound of him.'

‘I wouldn't expect you to,' she said. ‘He's probably quite awful. But he's also a great photographer.'

Mowbray looked unimpressed. ‘You think so? I'm not sure he's any better than what we get from our own chaps. And they have the advantage of not being a public nuisance.'

Freya bit back the sharp riposte that was on her tongue. ‘It would still be a coup for the magazine. His photographs would make a good spread.'

For answer his mouth drooped with doubt. ‘I'm sorry, Freya, it just isn't for us.'

‘I see.'

‘However, there
is
something I'd like to get you started on. We're planning to run a story about the wives of professional footballers …'

When she confronted Joss about this afterwards he laughed, and swore he'd not put Mowbray up to it.

The gallery was starting to fill. Outside the window she saw Nancy arrive, in her office clothes, hesitating as she checked she had the right address and peering inwards for confirmation. She was one of those people, Freya thought, who look more beautiful when unconscious of being observed. She waved through the glass, and the movement of her hand caught Nancy's attention; she waved back, smiling.

‘How was work?' she said as they kissed one another.

‘Oh, dreary,' replied Nancy. ‘I've been looking forward to this all day.'

‘Let's get a drink,' Freya said, leading her by the arm through a press of bodies. They were halfway to the bar when Nancy, distracted, tugged Freya's sleeve. Right in front of them, its nose at a shyly enquiring angle, was a small brindled whippet. Nancy, who had always been susceptible to dogs, bent down to pat it.

‘What an
adorable
creature,' she cooed. She picked up the dog with a maternal tenderness and held her towards Freya. The dog's eyes, dark and yearning, gazed up at her. ‘They're the most affectionate of all, you know, whippets,' she said, nuzzling its neck. She looked almost tearful as she spoke.