Freya (38 page)

So Freya had gone up, as directed, and switched on the light. Nancy's suitcase lay half open, clothes foaming out beneath the lid. A book of Maugham short stories lay on the bedside table next to a hairgrip, a pair of earrings, her purse and some loose change. She picked up the grey cardigan that was hung on the back of the chair.

On the bed was her diary, closed, but with something protruding invitingly from its edge. It was a letter, with a British stamp. She had only once peeked at Nancy's diary, years ago, by accident; her short-sightedness had mistaken it for the novel she was writing. She could still remember the lines she had glimpsed:
Her great appeal is in the bold way of saying exactly what she is thinking – sometimes before she has even properly thought.
Freya had quickly clapped it shut, not bothering to check who Nancy was writing about: it couldn't have been anyone else. Now, without intending to snoop, she flipped back the diary's cover just to satisfy her curiosity about the letter – whose correspondence was so important that she'd brought it with her on holiday?

She knew the handwriting instantly, untidy and babyish, with letters slanting one way and then the other. Robert's. Robert had been writing to her, and Nancy had not let on. Freya felt a hollowing in her stomach. It wasn't a betrayal, she couldn't call it that, for there was nothing that should prevent them writing to one another. And yet it felt underhand; she had been excluded, just as she and Robert had once excluded Nancy back in Oxford. There could be only one reason why he would have written to her, instead of using the telephone. He was in love with her. And she with him? Her mind was racing now as she recovered the most recent occasions on which they'd talked about him. Well, then; start with the lunch on Monday when she'd asked her not to tell Robert about Alex being blackmailed. There hadn't been a flicker, not a blush that might have given her away. It shocked her to realise how adept Nancy had become in dissembling.

She heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The letter, clutched in her hand like Desdemona's handkerchief, she hurriedly replaced inside the diary. She had half feared Nancy catching her red-handed, but it was only Diana, who went past without even noticing her. Freya felt annoyed with herself for skirting around the question of Robert; she ought to have had it out with Nancy straight away, instead of tangling herself in these tendrils of doubt and secrecy and suspicion. Impossible to ask her about him now; it would not take Nancy a moment to realise she had been snooping in her room and found Robert's letter. She put on the cardigan and went downstairs.

The remainder of the evening was a trial to her. The bubble of jollity that Nancy's news had floated among the others was not to be popped any time soon. Kay had hauled them into the music room where Nancy accompanied everyone on the piano. Diana sang something from
The Boy Friend
that Freya didn't know, and then Stephen did a version of ‘And Her Mother Came Too' that made them hoot. He gurned charmingly in response. Freya, trying to keep a smile pasted to her face, knew that a request was coming, and she declined as graciously as she could when it did.

‘Oh, but Freya, you must,' said Kay, brightly resistant to anything that might poop the party. When she refused again Stephen and Diana took over trying to wheedle a song out of her.

It was Nancy, as always, who perceived that she was out of sorts. Leaning round the piano she called to her, gently, ‘Darling, you should go to bed – you look done in. But before you go, we could perhaps try this –' She played the first faltering notes of a song Freya took a moment to recognise. When she did, she languidly picked herself up from the chair and sat down beside her, thigh against thigh. At first she offered only a few notes high up the scale, colouring to the main chords. They played it right through, neither of them singing the lyric; then Nancy started it again, more intensely this time, really using the pedal, and when she saw that Freya wasn't going to sing, she began it alone, quietly.

Freya watched her from the corner of her eye, touched by the feeling in her voice and the unselfconscious play of emotion across her face. Oh! If they could only stay like this, the two of them together, instead of Nancy outgrowing her. She had thought it would be a gradual parting of ways, a good few years before they had to give up their domestic idyll. But now its end would be hastened by Robert, the boyfriend, the one who'd almost estranged them years before. The song was gathering for its last go-round, and with a little squeeze on her heart she finally gave her voice to it.

She took the applause, and then took herself off to bed, feeling her eyes start to brim again. But it wasn't to a restful night she went. The strains of the piano downstairs lingered on past midnight, past one, when she at last heard Nancy's footsteps on the landing. She listened to her getting ready for bed, the creak of a window opening, the susurration of feet on bare boards. And still she found no peace. Nancy would not breathe a word about Alex, she trusted her absolutely on that. But what if Robert, with his persistence –? No, she mustn't go over it again.

The night air was thick as pudding. Her bed was a torture rack. No single part of it was cool to the touch; the sheets twisted sweatily about her legs. She had flipped her pillow over half a dozen times and still it blazed against her skin. The illuminated dial on her wristwatch read twenty to three: hours to go before I sleep. Without really thinking about it she got up, and tiptoed out of her room into Nancy's. She mustn't give her a fright. Was there even room in this bed?

‘Freya?' came Nancy's sleep-blurred voice. She was wearing one of her long virginal nightdresses: the habits of the convent school died hard.

‘Can I get in with you?' Freya whispered.

There came a grunt of affirmation; Freya lowered herself onto the bed's furthest edge so as not to disturb her. It was better, if not by much. Nancy's even breathing lulled her, and she felt her mind winding down to a still spot.

As she listened to the birds tuning up outside, she remembered something: Joss was arriving tomorrow.

‘Good holiday?' said Robert, setting their drinks on the table. They were in the Marquis, on a lunch hour.

Freya nodded. ‘Pretty good. Beautiful house, amazing weather – apart from one gigantic thunderstorm on the last night. Which I suppose was rather amazing too.'

‘I enjoy a storm,' he said vaguely. She studied his face, waiting for him to enquire about Nancy, but all he said was, ‘Nice tan, by the way.'

She glanced at her bare arms, the dark skin already beginning to flake. ‘When Joss saw me he said I looked like a street Arab.'

‘He was out there, too?'

‘Just the final weekend. We argued for most of it.'

Robert made a clicking sound of regret. ‘That doesn't sound like love's young dream.'

‘It's not. We've always argued, but the fun has gone out of it. Now we just snipe at each other.'

‘Ah. I fear you may have reached the end of the third phase.'

‘What's that?' she asked.

‘A theory of attraction I've been working on. The first phase begins in the groin – the seat of carnal desire. The second moves upwards to the heart, where feelings of tenderness and sympathy are incubated. In the third and final phase it moves up again, to the brain, the HQ, where you finally decide whether you're going to do any better or not. Probably the sex has gone off but at least she keeps a clean house, knows the drill about dinner on the table, and so on. That's the intellectual perception, and it always outlives the other two.'

Freya considered this. ‘Does the sex go off?'

‘Of course,' he replied with nonchalant authority.

‘But surely you look for the one where all three work in concert. You have the physical and the romantic phase in a kind of equilibrium, and the brain informs you that this is a good thing.'

‘Doesn't happen, though. Not in my experience. You may get the first two in tandem, at the beginning, when you're so intoxicated by the object of your desire you don't even think about what it means. But once you find yourself in the third phase – the analytical phase – you're already calculating the odds, whether it's better to stay or to cut and run.'

‘That's too glib. You're reducing something quite mysterious and complex to a set of responses. Cynical, too – you don't allow for the way people change.'

Robert shrugged, unconcerned. ‘It's a theory, as I said. But so far it's been upheld by observation.'

‘Do I take it you've successfully concluded your divorce?'

He looked at her with a knowing smirk. ‘Now who's being cynical? Yes, it's done. She has answered to the whip, and I take leave to consider myself her ex-husband. Not before time.'

‘A free man. Congratulations.'

He inclined his head in acceptance. ‘Talking of congratulations, I shall be calling at Great James Street to offer my own to Nancy. She must be delighted.'

‘She's cock-a-hoop. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more.'

Robert was nodding. ‘Nancy Holdaway. It always
sounded
to me like an author's name …'

He's free to go after her now
, she thought. Try as she might, Freya couldn't quell her misgivings about him. Robert would want to play the field; he was cavalier about romance in a way that Nancy most definitely wasn't. And she could hardly feel sanguine about a man who talked of a woman ‘answering to the whip', even if she was his ex-wife. She watched him as he absently fed peanuts into his mouth.

‘Robert. You remember back in Oxford when you went off with that girl –'

‘Cressida. Funny how you can never recall her name.' His expression had turned wary.

‘Well, much as it irked me at the time, I was arrogant enough to think it was your loss. Call it the resilience of youth –'

‘Right,' said Robert quickly.

‘But some people aren't so robust. They're more sensitive about – matters of the heart.'

His eyes had become hooded, like a bird of prey. And yet she detected a puzzlement there, too; she would have to spell it out.

‘What I mean is – please don't hurt Nancy.'

He gave an irritated shake of his head and began to bluster. He wouldn't dream of hurting her, and in any case what did she think –

‘Don't say it's none of my business,' she cut him short, ‘because it
is
. If you're serious about her, then fine. Nancy's loyal and kind and clever and she will look good on your arm. But she mustn't be toyed with.'

‘You don't have to tell me this,' he said sulkily. ‘Freya, I've changed a lot since Oxford. I know I was a bloody fool back then. But give me a little credit. All the things you love about Nancy I love too. She's a great girl. Why would I do anything to hurt her?'

She held his gaze for a long moment. She had always spoken frankly with Robert, and now she had put in her proprietorial twopenn'orth there was nothing more she could do. And perhaps Nancy was more worldly than she seemed. No one who read her novel would think her a soft touch. Robert was giving her a level look across the table. Maybe divorce had chastened him, forced him to grow up. You could only hope.

They had another drink before they returned to the office. Robert had become excited about a piece of gossip that had recently chanced his way.

‘You remember that conversation we had with Standish, months ago, when he asked us to follow up the Summerhill trial? Well, I've heard something pretty extraordinary from my chap in the ministry –' He stopped himself, and narrowed his gaze at her. ‘Actually, I'm not sure I should even be telling you. You might try to pinch it for yourself.'

‘Robert, the day I need to rely on you for a scoop –'

‘All right, all right. Just keep it under your hat for now.' He gave a glance over his shoulder before lowering his voice. ‘You know how jumpy they all are since the Burgess and Maclean business – the whole atmosphere in Whitehall has got very cloak-and-dagger. According to my fellow there's a rumour that someone pretty high up in the MoD is passing secrets.'

Freya felt her whole body go cold. ‘Passing them – to whom?' She realised that this was not the question she really wanted to ask.

‘Not confirmed – it's all encrypted.'

She swallowed before she could find her voice. ‘Does your man know who it is?'

Robert shook his head. ‘Of course it may turn out to be a load of cobblers. Wouldn't be the first time a rumour got out of hand, especially in a government office. But this chap of mine – he's not often wrong.' He looked at her. ‘Are you OK?'

She forced a smile. ‘Yeah, I'm fine. I just need a bit of air. I'll see you back at the office.'

Her hands were shaking as she picked up the telephone and dialled Alex's work number. She didn't know how she ought to start: with an apology for her unfeeling behaviour at their last meeting, or with a warning about the rumour? In the event she could offer neither. The prim voice at the MoD switchboard informed her that Mr McAndrew was absent on leave for a few days, but if she would care to leave a message –? Freya thanked her and hung up. She then tried his home telephone, which rang without response.

She wondered if Alex had already gone to ground. Perhaps someone had tipped him off about being investigated. But surely it hadn't got that far yet? Her heart turned over to think of him under such stress, caught between the Scylla of the legal system and the Charybdis of an underworld sting. She would help him in any way she could – and God help
her
if she had left it too late. As for Robert, she faced a dilemma. She could tell him about Alex and swear him to silence, something in which she had no great faith. Or else she must keep it in the vault and hope that his investigation would draw a blank. The danger that lay in this second option was of her own making. She thought back to the afternoon in Florence when she had confided to Nancy about Alex being blackmailed, so the vault door was already ajar. That was the way with a secret; the more people who knew the more vulnerable it became. With romance in the offing did Nancy have it in her to resist telling Robert?