Freya (5 page)

‘The condition my dinner jacket's in I'm not sure they'd let me enter a theatre.'

‘Oh, Stephen, don't exaggerate!' said Diana. ‘You looked very debonair in it the other night.'

Freya's ears pricked up. ‘Where were you?'

‘Oh, there was a reception in Whitehall for the War Artists' Advisory Committee. I suppose the Churchill portrait got us in –'

‘You mean, you went together?'

She noticed Diana look sharply at Stephen, who said, ‘Diana was my guest for the evening.'

Freya left a cold measured pause before saying, ‘I see.'

An awkwardness briefly settled over the table until Diana said brightly, ‘I don't know about you but I'm starving. Shall we order?'

Freya remained quiet throughout lunch, speaking only when obliged to and offering no assistance to the conversation. She hardly touched her spaghetti. It irritated her to see how Nancy had taken to Diana, and how charmingly Stephen behaved with both of them. She sensed her mood at odds with the others' gaiety, but she could not break through her cloud of suspicion and resentment. After a while they seemed almost to ignore her, happy to entertain one another: Diana's vivacious good humour, her father's wry self-deprecation and Nancy's eagerness to please formed a little circle of companionship she couldn't breach.

As the waiter cleared their plates, Stephen at last caught her eye and said, with a twinkle, ‘I see that you've been keeping a space.'

‘What d'you mean?'

He addressed his reply to Diana. ‘She's half crazed for the ice cream here.'

‘I don't want any,' said Freya, her voice flat and hard.

Stephen's frown was disbelieving. ‘What? You're joking. The times we've been here and you've never once refused ice cream.'

‘The times with Mum, you mean.'

Stephen paused, nonplussed. ‘What difference does that make?'

She gave a bitter half-laugh. ‘No difference to you, evidently.'

That shut them up; even Diana's gaze was downcast for a moment. Freya, aware of herself torpedoing the jolly mood, folded her arms in silent misery. The minutes passed. She listened as her father restored the social temperature by asking Nancy about her plans, and Nancy telling him about Oxford and the reading list she had to get through this summer. It was Diana who finally coaxed her into a semblance of sociability. As the coffee and grappa came round, she cleared her throat and raised her glass.

‘I think we should have a victory toast, don't you? To those brave women in the services, and to our very own representative at the table.'

‘Hear, hear – to Freya,' said Stephen, pushing his own glass across the table to her. Reluctant to unbend, but touched by their tribute, she took up the glass and downed it in a gulp. Relief at her dismounting the high horse was palpable; Stephen called for more drinks, and she felt the full warmth of Nancy's grateful beam.

‘So what will you do now?' Diana asked.

‘Well … I go back to Plymouth and wait to be demobbed.'

‘Freya's also got a place at Oxford,' Nancy interposed, ‘but she's insisting that she doesn't want to go.'

‘Oh, why's that?'

She shrugged, not unamiably. ‘I'm not sure I'd fit in there – after the Wrens, I mean. And London feels like my home.'

‘But only think – Oxford! Such a wonderful opportunity. Stephen, tell her.'

‘I've told her,' he said. ‘Three years of reading and studying books. What could be nicer?'

Freya's mouth assumed a downward twist. ‘You'd think twice about that when they put
The Faerie Queene
in front of you.'

Diana was shaking her head, puzzled. ‘Just the place itself would be enough to persuade me. And you'll also have Nancy around for company.'

Nancy blushed at this unexpected elevation of her status; Diana plainly had no idea they'd only met yesterday. Freya, however, felt a sudden generous upsurge, and conceded, ‘I suppose having Nancy there would be a reason.'

More drinks arrived, and the convivial atmosphere held until Stephen turned to Freya and said, ‘If you're going back this evening I could give you a lift to Paddington.'

The convenience of being driven to the station appealed, though she said, ‘That'd be an awful bore for you.'

‘No, it wouldn't. Diana, what's the time?'

Diana pushed back her sleeve to glance at her wristwatch, a Rolex, its face at once familiar and its hands pointing towards realisation: not his, but hers. She felt her blood run cold.

‘Your watch,' she said. ‘It's very beautiful.'

‘Thank you,' smiled Diana.

‘Actually, I've seen it before. This morning – in the bathroom at Tite Street.'

‘Oh,' said Diana quietly. She had gone pale. Stephen had averted his gaze.

‘
Now
I understand why you're so keen for me to go to Oxford,' said Freya, staring at her. ‘You should have been honest about it. “Such a wonderful opportunity.” Yes – an opportunity to get me out of the way.'

‘But I didn't mean that at all,' protested Diana.

‘Oh really?' said Freya with a sneer, and now looked at Stephen. ‘You haven't wasted much time, have you? Moving in this –
person
before you've even left your wife. That's nice –'

‘Freya,' said Stephen in a low voice, ‘stop it.'

‘Tell me, though, did you think you could keep it a secret? It must have been very convenient with me being away from London all this time. Sorry to interrupt the fun.'

Diana, dismay crumpling her face, said imploringly, ‘Freya, dear, that's not the way it is at all. I've been longing to meet you, truly, and we've never even thought of keeping it “secret” from you. Heavens, your father and I have only recently –'

‘Shut up! Just shut your bloody cakehole,' Freya snapped. A fury had suddenly possessed her; her whole body was shaking with it.

‘Freya, calm down,' said Stephen warningly. ‘Stop behaving like a petulant little prig. Diana, I'm very sorry about this, my daughter seems to have taken leave of her manners, but in a moment she's going to apologise –'

‘No she's fucking well not,' Freya muttered, and glared at Stephen. ‘
You
should apologise to me for being a
liar
and breaking up our family.'

They were stunned into silence for a moment. Diana stared down at the table, mortified. She felt Nancy gazing at her in a trance of disbelief. Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, then said, in a tone more of regret than rebuke, ‘You can call me what you like, but I'll not have you being rude to Diana. Either you can –'

‘Stephen, please,' said Diana. ‘She's upset, I understand. I just want Freya to –'

‘I don't give a tinker's toss what you want,' Freya half snarled, pushing her chair back from the table. The sudden jarring noise caused heads to turn. ‘Don't worry, I'm going, you can get on with your lives again. All I've ever asked from people is honesty. The last person I ever imagined would deceive me was my own father. Thanks a lot.'

She stood up, dropped her napkin on the floor and headed for the door. She heard Diana rise from the table and Stephen's quiet restraining words (‘Don't – just leave her'). She didn't look back. Outside, the life of Dean Street was carrying on regardless, the market men and stallholders yarning away. From somewhere could be heard the clang of church bells. She walked quickly on, feeling her eyes brim; she didn't know whether she was more angry with her father and Diana or with herself for making a scene and provoking them to pity. And for what? She knew her father had had affairs before, it had started with that actress, the one who died – but he had always kept them quiet, preserving the peace. Her mother would be none the wiser, and the family would remain intact. No more. His introducing this woman to her was the sign: his marriage was kaput.

She had been walking, head down, eyes blurred. The excitements of last night bore down on her like a weight, the drinks and the drugs, the dancing, the lack of sleep. Turning into Wardour Street she mounted the steps of the little churchyard and stopped halfway up, and sat down, exhausted. The yard was now a public garden, though the church had been bombed out. Ruins everywhere. A world of ash and dust. She felt the tears come freely now. She crossed her arms over her knees and let her head sink down.

‘Freya?' She looked up. Nancy stood there, hovering uncertainly, a survivor of the crossfire. ‘You were walking so quickly I nearly lost you. May I …?'

Freya said nothing, so Nancy lowered herself next to her on the stone step. They sat there for a few moments, unspeaking, faces averted from one another. She knuckled her eyes dry. She wished Nancy hadn't followed her, the girl was a bit of a pest, really.

Her throat felt congested and sore. ‘I suppose you're thinking what an awful spoilt bitch I am.' She felt Nancy flinch at the word. ‘And what shocking language I use.'

A pause, and Nancy said, ‘I've not heard “shut your cakehole” before – well, not from a girl at any rate.'

Freya stifled a snort. ‘They let us swear as much as we liked at Tipton, the school I told you about. From the age of ten I sounded like a navvy.'

Nancy let a beat go, and said, ‘I'm sorry … It must be very upsetting. But your dad probably wanted to – I don't know –'

‘What?' said Freya irritably.

‘Nothing, nothing,' said Nancy, dropping her gaze.

‘I know what you're thinking. He's all sweet reason and graciousness, while
I'm
just a bloody nuisance who makes scenes.' She looked to Nancy for a response, and getting none she merely scowled. Then she said, ‘What did you think of
her
?'

Nancy took a breath. ‘Don't bite my head off, but … I thought she was nice.'

Freya, galled by this mildly voiced justice, continued to brood. When she next spoke her tone was calm, but decisive. ‘You can only properly love someone when you trust them. And the only way to trust someone is through their being honest. It's the beginning of morality. D'you see?'

‘I think so,' said Nancy quietly.

Freya shifted around on the step to face her. ‘I can trust you, can't I?'

Nancy held her gaze. ‘Of course you can.' The sincerity in her voice, almost pleading, made it impossible to doubt. The moment vibrated between them. Then Nancy stood up. ‘Just wait there, will you? Don't move.'

She hurried down the steps and disappeared round the corner. Bemused, Freya sat there. Reviewing the events of the last hour she felt herself bristle with a confusion of anger, self-righteousness and embarrassment, this last emotion scraping an ever more insistent note on her nerves: she could foresee the dismal prospect of having to apologise. But then – why the hell should she? She hated ‘having-tos'. She'd had enough of obligations. Something else had changed, and she thought she knew what it was: her father had always paid her the honour of being a co-conspirator. Now that was gone, too. Minutes passed, and she raked her gaze along the street, wondering where Nancy had got to. She listened to the ambient noise of Soho, its hum of possibility and loneliness calling to her, like a summons.

Five minutes, ten minutes, she wasn't sure how long Nancy had been gone. But all of a sudden she was there, crossing the road, looking wonderfully lithe in those wide-legged slacks she had lent her this morning. She was smiling broadly, and holding up two ice-cream cones, one in each hand, as if they were torches to light their way.

At the lodge, the bowler-hatted porter licked his thumb as he riffled through the list of arrivals.

‘Wyley … Wyley … Miss Eff –?'

‘That's me,' said Freya. She thought of trying a smile, but something about the man's bored, jowly face suggested it would go to waste, so she stayed impassive.

‘Staircase 14,' he said, reaching behind for a key. No ‘welcome to the college', not even a simple ‘good morning'. She took the key and asked him if someone could help with her trunk. The porter nodded in dismissal.

Such gallantry. When the train had pulled into Oxford she had expected one of the many ex-servicemen crowding at the carriage door to offer his assistance; one or two of them had been eyeing her all the way from Paddington. But they had just poured out of the train with their own burdens, leaving her to struggle alone with the massive travelling trunk. It was like trying to lift the bottom half of a wardrobe. She had looked about for a station porter, in vain. Somehow she had managed to drag it off the luggage rack and shift it, crabwise, to the door, but once there it would require a feat of prehensile strength quite beyond her to lever it from the compartment onto the platform. Was there really not
one
among them who might put himself out to help?

She must have sighed aloud, because just at the instant of despair a young man, muffled up in a college scarf, had stopped at the open door.

‘May I help you with that?'

She had smiled her assent, darting a glance at him. He was in his mid-twenties, tall, rangy-looking, with floppy hair of a nondescript brown. Narrowing his eyes at the problem, he had tilted the trunk at an angle and pulled it halfway out of the door, then said to her, ‘Right, you push it from your end – and I'll bring it down on this side. Gently does it.'

His voice was mannerly, with the faintest burr of something northern. Between them they had succeeded in coaxing the trunk downwards before its weight took over and it slithered onto the platform with an unarguable thunk. ‘Hope that hasn't damaged your crockery,' he'd said with a comical grimace. They stood gazing for a moment at the unwieldy object. He didn't appear to have any luggage of his own.

‘Well, nice to know there are still gentlemen,' she'd said.