This was asked with a note of yearning she felt unable to tease. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Better be off. I have a meeting with my tutor at twelve.’
‘I’ll walk you to the lodge – if can find it.’
She smiled, and wondered; he had quickly picked up on her preference for self-deprecation over pomposity. He wasn’t bad-looking in a boyish sort of way. If he could learn to dress he would be quite presentable. They ambled back towards the lodge, passing under an ancient archway. ‘That’s very pretty,’ she said, looking up, and added, ‘“An arch as sweet as the drip of syrup from a spoon” …’
‘Who’s that?’ he said with a suspicious look.
‘Jessica Vaux. From one of her essays.’
‘The woman who had the son by Henry Burnham?’ He had named a famous man of letters from the early part of the century.
She looked at him crossly. ‘That’s one thing she did. She also happens to be a first-rate writer, a critic, a historian and a political commentator.’
‘Oh, right –’
‘And, to quote my Penguin copy, is a “shrewd and eloquent judge of human nature” – which probably came in handy when Burnham hurried back to his wife and left her to raise the child alone.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said, nodding and frowning.
‘I recommend her book about the Weimar Republic, Funeral Rag. It’s a classic.’
They had reached the lodge, where they rehearsed a short pas de deux of farewell. Robert’s expression had grown anxious.
‘I had so much more I wanted to discuss,’ he said, rubbing the side of his head. ‘How should I get in touch with you?’
‘You can write to me at Somerville – Freya.’
‘Yes, Freya Wyley. I shan’t forget that name.’
‘Well, thank you for the tea, and the tour.’ She walked off, then turned to give him a quick wave goodbye. ‘Watch out for those bluestockings.’
4
Three weeks into term and still there was no sign of Nancy. In the first few days, whenever there came a knock on her door, Freya was convinced it would be her. But though visitors kept calling at a steady rate, she was never among them. At first she was baffled, for Nancy’s letters over the summer had contained nothing but avowals of friendship and interest; she seemed almost to be counting the days to Oxford and their reunion. Then there was the manuscript of the novel, dispatched with a letter of imploring sincerity.
She now saw that her delay in responding might be interpreted as indifference. She had assumed that Nancy would call on her at the earliest opportunity. But would it not have been more gracious on her part to pay the first call? She knew Nancy to have a good deal of natural modesty; however eager she may have sounded in correspondence, she was probably not the type to thrust herself forward in person. Nor could Freya absolve herself of the vanity that derived from a perceived superiority. Nancy’s puppyish willingness to defer to her as the senior partner in the friendship had allowed her to stay aloof.
After a lecture one morning she had joined the murmuring shuffle out of the hall when a voice, pitched at an unmistakable volume, called her name. She turned to find Jean Markham striding up alongside her.
‘I thought I might run into you at some point,’ she said, and Freya realised with a quick stab of guilt that she had failed to reply to her note from the first day. ‘How do you like it at Somerville?’
‘Fine, fine. I’ve been meaning to call on you –’
‘Yes, I wondered, Is she avoiding me? You’ve been very elusive, starting with that debacle on VE Day.’
Freya laughed lightly, though she detected in Jean’s tone a reproach that was not altogether humorous. It was true that she had not kept their friendship in good repair, though all she admitted was that most of the summer had been passed at her mother’s house in Sussex.
Since they were not far from her rooms she invited Jean up for tea. On the way the latter informed her of various Paulinas she kept up with around Oxford – a regular clique, it seemed – but Freya managed to change the subject when an evening reunion was proposed. Having never been popular at school, she had no desire to dredge up associations that felt almost meaningless. On entering her rooms Jean looked about like a bird, beak pecking at the ground. She paused as her eye encountered Freya’s portrait on the mantelpiece. Ginny had propped it there two weeks ago while its permanent position was still being decided. The angle of Jean’s neck as she contemplated it implied something less than approval, but all she said was, ‘From your father?’
‘A birthday present,’ Freya said, mingling apology with an unconscious note of pride.
‘Nancy Holdaway told me in a letter that she’d met him. She’s here – did you know?’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Freya, covering her surprise. ‘You’ve seen her?’
‘Mm. Nice girl, though very young – hasn’t got much about her.’
‘She’s just shy. And she has more about her than I did at eighteen.’ She didn’t feel this to be strictly true, but something in Jean’s tone provoked her into defence.
Jean returned an arch look. ‘I remember you at eighteen. A proper spitfire you were, and don’t deny it. Certainly the first St Paul’s girl ever to say “fuck” in front of a teacher!’
Freya’s mouth made a rueful downturn. ‘I blame my early education.’
‘You were also the only one who knew about sex, other than the stuff that frogs get up to, I mean.’
Jean took this as her cue to enlarge upon the availability of men in the city, and which societies offered the readiest opportunity to meet them. The safest bet, she reckoned, was the University Labour Club, where earnest group discussions about ‘the tasks of peace’ would later give way to drinking, carousing and a great deal of what she called ‘pairing off’. Freya only half listened, preoccupied by the conversation immediately prior to this. It didn’t seem quite right that Nancy was going her own sweet way around Oxford without any reference to her. As she turned the matter over it occurred to Freya that her pride might be at fault: it was more pleasing to be sought after than to seek.
Jean was still going strong on the subject of the Oxford male. Her time in the Waafs had stoked an appetite for sex she saw no reason to curtail in her new career as an ‘undergraduette’. The candid enthusiasm with which she related these adventures amused Freya, though she was reluctant to answer it with stories of her own success in Plymouth and London. Something in Jean’s bullying camaraderie put her on guard; she didn’t quite trust in her discretion.
The entry of Ginny into the room enabled her to bring this get-together to a close. Jean at last took her leave, and Freya waved her off at the lodge with promises to keep in touch. In her pigeonhole she found a letter from Robert Cosway.
Balliol College, Ox.
Dear Freya,
I hope you have recovered by now from the fright of seeing that strange naked fellow on the staircase at Balliol. It seems there’s quite a fashion for such exhibitionist behaviour at present and I’m only sorry that you had the misfortune to witness it. Nothing much to report from the Citadel of Male Heartiness, where yahoos and brawny ex-servicemen roam the quads and the female of the species is less spotted than a lesser-spotted grebe. Honestly, I thought Manchester GS was bad enough but this place takes the biscuit for its tragic and unutterable birdlessness (and I don’t mean the feathered kind). Indeed, I’m not absolutely convinced that the young lady I ran into a couple of weeks ago was real – were you a vision or a waking dream? In order to settle this question please allow me to invite you to a party, where I may once more assure myself of your corporeality. It’s on Friday 23 November at Union Lodge on the Banbury Road, and I gather that alcoholic beverages will be served. Your presence will receive a mighty welcome, yea, as water unto a wanderer lost and thirsting in the desert.
I remain, madam, your respectful servant,
Robert Cosway
PS Do of course bring along any other fair ladies o
f your acquaintance.
The false nonchalance of the PS caused her to smile. His primary motive was to secure a large contingent of girls, which he had disguised as a seeming afterthought. She was still musing on this when she saw her tutor approach. Mrs Bedford was in her late fifties, stout, mild-mannered, with a great bird’s nest of unruly grey hair that announced the triumph of scholarliness over personal vanity. At her first tutorial, Freya had given it as her opinion that Beowulf was ‘hands down’ the most tedious poem she’d ever read. Looking over her spectacles Mrs Bedford had replied, after a pause, ‘I must endeavour to raise it in your estimation.’ Her forbearance impressed Freya the more on learning that she had published an authoritative critical edition of it twenty years before.
In the same understated ironic tone the tutor began, ‘I’m farming you out, Miss Wyley. You’ll be going to a fellow at Corpus, name of Leo Melvern, very sound. He himself is a published poet, of course.’
‘I’ve never heard of him,’ replied Freya.
Mrs Bedford blinked at this, and said, ‘Perhaps wiser not to communicate that to him straight away. How are you getting on with – everything?’
‘Pretty well, thanks.’
‘I noticed you walking out of college the other day carrying – if I’m not much mistaken – a pair of boxing gloves. Are you a prizefighter, Miss Wyley?’
‘No, that is, I’ve never got in the ring with anyone. But when I was in the Wrens a man taught me how to punch the bag, and I found I rather enjoyed it.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s good for keeping weight off, too. I couldn’t eat doughnuts and ice cream if I didn’t spar now and then.’
Mrs Bedford was frowning uncertainly. ‘But surely you could do something less, ah, aggressive – rowing, for instance, or hockey?’
Freya shook her head. ‘I’m not cut out for team sports, I’m afraid. I become exasperated too easily. With boxing it’s just oneself and the instructor. It’s a bit like learning to dance.’
‘I see. Well, in the meantime I shall arrange for you to go and see Dr Melvern. I dare say he’ll be intrigued to know he has a pugilist to teach. Perhaps he will prepare a corner for you. Good day, then.’
Freya liked old ‘Bedders’ and her sly bantering humour; she wasn’t pompous or abrasive like other dons she had met, and she listened to people as though she were actually interested in what they had to say, a courtesy that Freya had not yet mastered for herself. It wouldn’t hurt to show her appreciation of the old girl by devoting a little more effort to Beowulf when it came up next term.
A few days later the summons came from Leo Melvern at Corpus Christi. His note was typed on vellum paper with the college crest, and appointed the time of their interview with a grave Edwardian formality. Directed up a staircase on the dainty front quad, she found the door to the designated rooms ajar and walked in. A low-lit sitting room had been converted to a study, a wide cliff face of books lowering over an angled desk in the corner. On the sofa sat a delicate pixie-faced youth absorbed in a book, his legs drawn up to his chest. He looked up on Freya’s entrance and gave her a vague nod. Mrs Bedford had told her to expect a tutorial partner, but it hadn’t occurred to her that it would be a male.
‘Is this Dr Melvern’s room?’ she asked him.
‘It is,’ replied the pixie, looking her up and down. He closed his book and stared at her.
Freya privately marked the boy down: you were supposed to stand up when a lady entered a room. (It was one of her father’s sacred rules.) In the absence of their host she proceeded to wander around. She stopped at the fireplace to peer at the invitation cards crowding the mantelpiece. A framed certificate occupied the wall above.
‘“The Postgate Prize awarded to Leopold Melvern for his collection Cold Oblivion and Other Poems,”’ she read aloud. ‘Putting “oblivion” in a title’s rather tempting fate, isn’t it?’
The youth on the sofa wrinkled his nose. ‘D’you know the book?’ His voice was flat and adenoidal.
‘No. I don’t read modern poetry. It gives me a headache.’
‘What, all of it?’
She pursed her mouth consideringly. ‘Bits of Auden I like. And Louis MacNeice. Autumn Journal is very good.’
The youth brooded on this for a moment, then said, ‘What about modern novels?’
Freya gave her most insouciant shrug. ‘Greene I admire. But I don’t feel the urge to study modern literature.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well, I suppose because I’d prefer to write it.’
She knew this was arrogant, and untrue, but sometimes she said things just to know how they would sound out loud. He gave a peeved little laugh and shook his head. ‘I should remember that remark.’
He had narrowed his eyes at her, sceptically. He seemed about to continue, then thought better of it and rose from the sofa, consulting his watch. ‘Hmm. Since it appears that Miss Daubney has decided not to join us, we should perhaps be getting on.’
She stared at him. ‘Oh … so you are –’
‘Leo Melvern. Cold Oblivion had some excellent reviews, by the way, its title notwithstanding.’
‘I think you’ve played a trick on me.’
‘I don’t see how. You asked if this was Dr Melvern’s room, and I replied in the affirmative. For some reason you assumed that I was – what?’ His tone lightened. ‘I seem to have embarrassed you.’
She wasn’t embarrassed; she was annoyed by her own gullibility. He looked like a student who was playing at being a tutor, and for some reason that annoyed her, too. For the moment her only consolation was in being at least an inch taller than him. His youthfulness confounded her; he was surely no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, had barely started shaving, and yet he was already a college fellow with high-ceilinged rooms and lofty manners to boot. She wished she hadn’t talked with such bravado about modern literature; he’d said he would remember that remark of hers, and now she didn’t doubt it. What a twit she must seem!
She accepted his offer of a sherry, which was cloudy and came in a glass that recalled her dolls’ tea parties as a child. For the next half-hour they talked in general of poetry, and what she knew – not enough, judging by the censorious pauses he left after each reply. Whenever she offered a sally of enthusiasm for something he would stare at her for a moment before squashing it. At one point their talk turned to Kipling, and Freya quoted a few lines from ‘Danny Deever’, which she had always loved.
Melvern nodded, but with a knitted brow. ‘It has a certain uncouth music, I agree. But doesn’t it really belong in the music hall? It sounds to me more like balladry than poetry.’
‘I don’t see the difference. Ballads are poems, aren’t they?’
‘In a manner of speaking. But I don’t think they can sustain serious academic enquiry – they’re simply for recital.’
At this point there was a knock, and on Melvern’s barked ‘Enter’ a blonde girl, very pretty, stuck her head round the door. Her cheeks were flushed and she sounded breathless from hurrying. ‘I’m so sorry to be late. Camilla Daubney. I thought this was scheduled for three o’clock tomorrow –’
‘Did you indeed?’ Melvern cut in with a cold sneer. ‘You are at this university to read English, Miss Daubney, yet it seems you are unable to make the very simple distinction between Wednesday and Thursday. Hardly promises much, does it?’
Cowed by this full-bore attack Miss Daubney recoiled visibly, and said ‘No’ in a meek low voice.
‘You’d better sit down,’ he said, still scowling. The girl, her head bowed, folded herself into a corner of the sofa as though she hoped it might consume her. Melvern then reverted to the tone of donnish equability he had been pleased to adopt before the interruption. He pointedly addressed Freya, not deigning even to glance at the latecomer. Another ten excruciating minutes brought their hour to a close.
Outside, as they crossed the quad, Miss Daubney looked warily over her shoulder, as if to check that Melvern’s
evil eye wasn’t following them from his study window.
‘Golly!’ she said in an undertone, her large blue eyes widening in amazement. ‘I said I was sorry …’
‘Well, he’s new to it – the power. They relish wielding it over someone.’
The girl smiled her gratitude, offering her hand. ‘It’s Camilla, by the way.’
‘Freya. I had my own little humiliation, before you arrived. I walked in and assumed from his sixteen-year-old appearance that he was my tutorial partner.’
Camilla’s hand flew to her mouth in a show of mock horror. ‘What did he do?’
‘Nothing very gracious. He doesn’t seem to care for any remark you make unless he can condescend to it.’
They came out onto Merton Street and found they were both heading north. Camilla was at Lady Margaret Hall, where she had briefly met Jean Markham. Unlike them she had come up to Oxford straight from school, and Freya once again sensed the weight of seniority that war had conferred on her. It was growing dark, the autumnal light shrinking a little earlier each day. A damp fog muffled the lamplights on the high street in a spectral blur. Before they parted Freya invited her new companion to the party in Banbury Road a few weeks hence; she imagined that Camilla’s porcelain prettiness would be heartily welcomed by Robert and the woman-starved hordes at Balliol.
By the end of that week, when Nancy still had not called, Freya knew she would have to take the initiative. She had convinced herself they would run into one another at a lecture, but it had never happened. It chafed at her pride that in this staring contest she would be the first to blink. She considered writing her a note to arrange a time, then had second thoughts – better to surprise her and have the advantage.
She set out for St Hilda’s on Friday morning with the manuscript of The Distant Folds tucked into an old Royal Navy document wallet. Crossing Magdalen Bridge she leaned into an unpleasant scything wind, a sign of approaching trials. (Stephen had warned her that winters in Oxford were medieval.) Withered leaves skittered along the pavement, and spindly trees looked down mournfully on their lost vesture. Having composed herself at the door, Freya was unprepared to knock without reply. She tried again, wondering if Nancy was hiding from callers. But she could hear no movement on the other side of the door.
Freya Page 6
