Freya (28 page)

‘He's very sweet,' Freya said, amused by the little pietà Nancy had made.

‘Not a “he” – a “she,”' said a dark-haired young woman, gently taking the dog from Nancy. ‘Her name's Rhoda. My pride and joy.'

The woman's hazel-coloured eyes and fine, shapely mouth seemed familiar from somewhere. She carried herself with a thoughtless grace; her fitted floral dress, cut deep at the neck, accentuated her bust and hips. Freya stared, admiring her, and then realised. ‘That's you, isn't it?' she said, pointing at one of the framed photographs they had just passed. The woman barely glanced at her portrait: she was more interested in petting Rhoda.

‘I've worked with Jerry for years,' she said in a voice that had a smoker's edge of hoarseness. ‘That's quite a rare one – me, with clothes on.'

‘It's very beautiful,' said Nancy, blushing.

‘They're all right,' she replied, with a toss of her head. She looked at Freya. ‘Do you know Jerry?'

‘No. I'm Freya, this is Nancy. Would you mind introducing us?'

The woman's name was Hetty Cavendish, model and muse, and now their impromptu guide as she stopped to offer a casual comment on this or that portrait (‘He took that while we were in Spain …'; ‘Jerry didn't get on with
him
at all …'). It became clear that she and Jerry spent a great deal of their time together.

Nancy asked, tentatively, ‘So do you live with, um, Jerry?'

Hetty shook her head and, belatedly twigging the implication, gave a throaty laugh. ‘God, no! – it's nothing like that. Jerry's queer – didn't you know?'

They had arrived at the bar, where a short, balding man with quick eyes and a prematurely lined face was holding forth. It was difficult to tell if he was closer to forty or to sixty. Whenever someone else got a word in edgeways his black-eyed gaze glittered with hostility. Freya noticed his hand shook slightly as he raised a glass to his lips. This, as Hetty confirmed in a murmur, was Jerry Dicks. The only one present Dicks addressed with any hint of affection was Ossie Blackler, who was teasing him.

‘The one of Olivier and his missus. Did you have to get a royal appointment for that, Jerry?'

Dicks favoured his friend with a leer. ‘They're wounded people, actors. Needy. Whenever they're around you have to give 'em attention, cos they're so fucking insecure. I'm always specially nice to 'em – like you 'ave to be with Arabs and women.' His voice was lilting, refined, yet spiked with cockney inflections.

‘Well, I do know you're specially nice to Arabs.'

Dicks cackled at what was plainly an in-joke. ‘Yeah … actors. Once when I was working with Olivier he started telling me how to arrange the lighting – in me own fuckin' studio!' He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I said to him, “Larry, I have a rule with actors. They don't teach me how to take photographs, and I don't teach them how to behave like a cunt.” Ha ha!'

Blackler led a bellowing chorus of laughter in response. Standing out of his sightline, Hetty turned to Freya and Nancy with a look on her face that said
Are you sure you're ready for this?
Had she been on her own, Freya would have relished the challenge; but she sensed from Nancy's appalled expression that such company would not be to all tastes. She whispered to Hetty, ‘Maybe not right this moment.'

Hetty nodded, understanding, and they sidled off. When they were well out of earshot Nancy said, sotto voce, ‘What a
horrible
little man. Made my flesh creep just looking at him.'

‘Hmm. He's what my dad would call “strong meat”. But I think there might be something rather fascinating about him, too.'

Nancy pulled a face. ‘Only in the way you might find one of those wax murderers at Madame Tussaud's fascinating.'

Freya laughed. ‘He's not as bad as all that!'

They went for another wander around the exhibition. Freya noticed people – men – giving Nancy sidelong stares, to which she appeared quite oblivious. At twenty-seven she had grown into her looks; the gawkiness of her Oxford days had melted away, replaced by a voluptuous, long-limbed ease. Her mass of thick auburn hair, pale skin and green eyes were all the more striking for her new-found poise. But this evening she was noticeably distracted.

‘Why do you keep checking your watch?' asked Freya.

‘Sorry, I'm just – Stewart called this afternoon. He asked me to go to dinner – and I couldn't think of a reason not to.'

‘What time?'

‘In about ten minutes.' She added plaintively, ‘Will you come?'

‘Me? I don't think so. Can you imagine Stewart's face, expecting a quiet dinner for two and I breeze in?'

Nancy conceded the point, but with such a disgruntled air that Freya was moved to speak again. ‘If it's that much of a chore, Nance, why don't you just finish it – hand him his coat?'

‘I know, I should,' she said anxiously, ‘but he's so decent and considerate – I can hardly bear to.'

‘But you must. He's a grown-up. It will be the kindest thing to do in the long run.'

They said goodbye and Nancy went off to dinner. Left alone, Freya wondered if her motives were entirely selfless in advising her to give Stewart his marching orders. This evening, for instance,
she
would have liked to have dinner
à deux
, but instead had been usurped by Stewart, who really was a bit of a drip.

She made another tour of the party hubbub. Jerry Dicks was still surrounded by his clique, his complexion blazing like a Chinese dragon's and his eyes blearily unfocused. She decided it might be better to catch him when he was unfuddled with drink – if he ever were. She was edging her way towards the door when a voice checked her.

‘Stay, illusion!'

She turned to find Nat Fane beaming at her. He was wearing a midnight-blue velvet suit and a white shirt open at the neck.

‘Hullo, Nat. I've just been examining your portrait.'

‘Ah. A bit scrawny-looking, d'you think?'

‘You at least seem relaxed. Most of them have that fugitive-from-justice look.'

‘He's got quite an eye, old Dicks. Quite an arm, too,' he said, mimicking the raising of a glass to his mouth. ‘You notice he photographed me in a bar. We had a couple afterwards, then I left him to it. I heard he got so drunk that they had to carry him out of there feet first, like at the end of
Hamlet
.'

Freya had kept up with Nat since Oxford. He had arrived in London two years after she did, brimful of confidence from his reign as a theatrical princeling. One Sunday newspaper had announced him to the world as a ‘marvellous boy' and predicted his taking of the West End by storm. Six years on that hadn't happened. Having carried all before him as a student actor, he had been found deficient in the more exacting environs of the London stage. His debut as Tybalt in
Romeo and Juliet
got a savage pasting from the critics, and inclined people to wonder if he really was the actor he'd been cracked up to be. He had a second try, as Octavian in
Antony and Cleopatra
, which met with no greater enthusiasm.

Though he had made light of it, Freya suspected that Nat was hurt by the rejection. The comet trail he had blazed in his youth had gone off in a fizzle. Having seen him in both plays she had kept quiet, finding herself in sad agreement with the critics – since university his acting had become mannered and hectoring. Or perhaps it always had been and she just hadn't noticed. Nat in person was always performing, always ‘on', to such a degree that he had nothing left over when required to act in earnest. It was accepted that he would not be the next Olivier. Still, he had other irons in the fire. He had just started rehearsing his first full-length play, and a publisher had recently commissioned him to write a major history of the English stage.

‘And what of you, my dear?
Frame
keeping you busy?'

‘I'm rather vexed with them. My editor has just turned down a piece on Jerry there.'

‘More fool them.'

‘I'll do it for someone else. Perhaps I could apply to you for stories about him.'

Nat gave a slight smirk. ‘Of course. I can see the headline – “Dicks Uncovered”. Let me arrange for you to meet at dinner. You can inspect the new abode while you're at it.'

‘You've moved?'

‘Indeed. I fancied Mayfair, Pandy insisted on Belgravia. South Kensington was the compromise.'

Pandy was Nat's wife. He had married, seemingly on impulse, at Marylebone Register Office a year after coming down from Oxford. The first time Freya had met her was at their wedding reception, though she already knew her by repute. Pandora Fairhurst-Dunnett, to give her full name, was, at twenty-one, a fixture on the West End stage. She had been playing Juliet when Nat was struggling in the Tybalt role, and the critical swooning over her performance was in stark contrast to his own treatment. Freya wondered at the time if he had married her in unconscious revenge; aside from her beauty, there was very little about the lady that she could imagine captivating restless, intellectual Nat. In the years since, Freya had never heard her say a word of the remotest interest to anyone about anything. Pandora's star had continued to rise as Nat's stalled. But tonight she could tell he was in a good mood; his attentiveness had taken on a dallying note.

‘I espied Nancy earlier,' he said. ‘Bowered in domestic bliss?'

‘We're still living together, if that's what you mean,' she replied.

He paused, narrowing his eyes. ‘They can't prise you two apart, can they? It's always Freya and Nancy, Nancy and Freya …'

‘We both have
chaps
, you know,' she said.

‘Of course you do,' he said airily. ‘But I could tell them – they don't stand a chance. With either of you.'

‘You're being rather mischievous, Nat. We get along well, Nancy and I, but it's not like we're the Ladies of Llangollen. We're not inseparable.'

His look was veiled, measuring. ‘So you won't mind coming to dinner solo? No offence to your darling housemate, or your “chap.”'

‘None taken,' she replied. ‘I'll come however you like.'

She walked briskly home through Covent Garden and up Kingsway. The mullion-windowed pubs were preparing last orders; a memory of winter chill lingered on the March night. She was pondering her encounter with Nat, and the strange course their friendship had taken. The bizarre night of racket-swishing that had begun their intimacy all those years ago had never been repeated. Though Nat made unembarrassed reference to the occasion, it was understood he would not try an approach again, and she had never invited one. All the same, she sensed that his sexual curiosity about her remained an itch, and that his marriage would perhaps be no obstacle to giving it a good scratch. For her part she warmed to him in every aspect but the physical; while good-looking in his foppish way, there was something feline and self-admiring in him that repulsed her. Nat would always be his own most ardent suitor.

She let herself in. She found a tin of Heinz tomato soup in the kitchen and lit the gas ring; while she stirred it she read a report in
The Times
about Soviet agents continuing to infiltrate Whitehall. The mood there was still nervous after Burgess and Maclean. She carried the soup through to the living room and ate it with some cheese crackers. Her interview at the
Envoy
was scheduled for tomorrow. In her bedroom she pulled open the wardrobe and considered the queue of dresses and skirts and blouses packed within. She had one or two smart things she could wear. She took from its wooden hanger a black woollen jacket, cut stylishly close, a gift from her stepmother, Diana. She modelled it in the cheval mirror. Her face looked searchingly back at her. The frown that had once smacked of wilfulness now came more slowly, and sadly.

With her library book she went back into the living room. She kicked off her shoes and lay on the couch, sipping her gin. From downstairs came the rattle of the latchkey, and the murmur of voices. She suppressed a fleeting quiver of disappointment that Nancy had not returned alone. Here came their footsteps on the stairs, and she snatched up her book so as to convey the impression that her evening had been one of intellectual absorption. Nancy was first through, and in the seconds before she had spotted Freya over on the couch her face betrayed a strain of preoccupation. It vanished into her smile. Stewart followed after, favouring her with a little wave.

‘Evening. Nice dinner?'

Nancy nodded. ‘We went to Wheeler's. I had lemon sole, Stewart had – what did you have?'

‘Oh, the whitebait. And the oysters. All highly agreeable,' he said in his polite, undemonstrative voice.

‘Wheeler's? Very smart. I had tinned soup and crackers.'

She saw Nancy giving her look, as if to say
You should have joined us
, though to judge from the subdued mood they had brought in with the cold Freya felt rather glad she hadn't. She got up from the couch and fetched glasses from the kitchen. In a bright voice she said, ‘Guess who I ran into after you'd gone – Nat Fane.'

‘Really? How is he?'

‘Unchanged. They've just moved to South Ken, apparently.'

‘Fane – the fellow married to Pandora whatsit …?' asked Stewart.

Nancy rolled her eyes. ‘Don't ever let him hear you say that. He'd die if he thought people only knew him as the helpmeet of Pandora Fairhurst-Dunnett.'

‘True,' agreed Freya. ‘I don't think he had any inkling when he married her that she would become the leading partner.'

‘She was terribly good in
Romeo and Juliet
,' said Stewart, adding, almost daringly, ‘Far better than him.'

Nancy clicked her tongue at this disloyalty. ‘She's just a pretty little fawn, with feathers in her brain.'

Freya smiled at this rare instance of asperity from Nancy, and said, concedingly, ‘Stewart's right, though. Nat's the cleverest man I've ever met, but he's not going to make it as an actor. Feather-brains, on the other hand, really has talent, proving –'