Freya

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘So you’re on your own here?’ asked Freya.

  ‘Well, there’s Marina looking after the kitchen and the laundry – and I have a few neighbours hereabouts –’

  ‘You don’t get lonely?’

  Kay’s good cheer was unyielding. ‘Do you know, I never have! Perhaps it’s – well, I suppose I’ve never met anyone I could live with.’ She paused, holding the thought. ‘Or, more accurately, I never met anyone I couldn’t live without.’

  She said it lightly, as she said almost everything, but Freya took it to heart. To have lived so long – how old was Kay? Sixty? Sixty-five? – without someone to bounce off, to share that knowledge of your time hurrying on … It was brave, but it was sad, too. She recognised something of that proud cussedness in herself, and it disquieted her. What if she ended up alone?

  ‘Good morning,’ called Diana, strolling down from the terrace, a peach in her hand. ‘I saw you from upstairs – you seemed to be having a very grave discussion.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it was so grave, do you?’ Kay said. ‘Freya was just asking me if I minded awfully being on my own.’

  Diana wore an emerald-coloured swimsuit that showed off her perky breasts and slim waist. She bit into the peach and said to Freya, ‘Aunt Kay’s one of the most gregarious people I know. We used to go to her parties during the war, when she lived off Hyde Park Gardens. Drinking like there was no tomorrow! It was very fast set.’

  Kay laughed. ‘I’ve slowed down a little since then. But I still like company – we’ll have a full house next weekend.’

  ‘Really?’ said Freya, trying to conceal her dismay. It seemed quite perfect just the way it was. ‘Who’s coming?’

  ‘Oh, some friends of ours,’ said Diana. ‘And an art-critic friend of Kay’s – an American chap.’

  ‘Lambert Delavoy. Very eminent – in his field,’ said Kay, with an ironic hint that he was unlikely to be eminent anywhere else. ‘I look forward to Stephen jousting with him.’

  Her remark was prompted by the appearance of the latter, carrying a breakfast tray of coffee and fruit. Freya considered her father through narrowed eyes. He was still tall and lean, and the toffee-coloured hair he was vain about hadn’t noticeably thinned. The creases around his eyes and mouth suited a face that in younger years was somewhat bland in its regularity. The only other suggestion of his entry into middle age was a stoop, the occupational hazard of a painter, forever craning forward to the canvas.

  ‘Who am I to joust with?’ he asked pleasantly.

  ‘Delavoy. He and his wife are coming here for dinner on Friday,’ replied Diana, who then explained to Freya, ‘He’s written some frightful things about Stephen’s work.’

  ‘The swine,’ said Freya, feeling indignation on her father’s behalf, since he rarely deigned to show it on his own.

  Stephen shrugged. ‘Hardly surprising. I don’t think he’s really liked anything much since Poussin. Coffee?’

  Freya secretly admired this nonchalance in her father, and wished she could master it herself. It was so different from her own defensiveness before criticism, even the well-intentioned sort; she thought of her recent prickliness with Joss. At the Envoy she was making an effort to be more accommodating, because she was still relatively new and accepted that her editors might know better. It was just that, by and large, they didn’t know better, and the ‘improvements’ they made on her copy only weakened it.

  She had another swim before going off in search of Nancy. She found her lying across her bed writing her diary, her face and shoulders pink from the bath she had just had. Her long hair was turbaned in a white towel.

  ‘Here’s some coffee,’ she said, setting down a cup. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, apart from a moment early this morning when I woke up and wondered where on earth I was. D’you have that?’

  She nodded. ‘Strange-bed syndrome.’

  Nancy capped her pen and closed the diary. Rising from the bed she peeked through the shuttered window.

  ‘It looks tremendously hot out there.’ Her fair skin burnt quickly in the sun.

  ‘You might wear a hat. But we can keep to the shade.’

  ‘How should we get into town?’

  Freya widened her eyes knowingly. ‘I’ve found just the thing.’

  A quarter of an hour later they were whizzing down the hill road astride a Vespa, screaming with laughter at the speed and Freya’s erratic steering. Riding pillion, Nancy had her arms wrapped tight around her waist. Having wheeled the vehicle (a fetching mint green) into the courtyard Tomas had offered them a quick driving lesson, which stretched their meagre Italian. The first time Freya tried it the bike shot out of her grasp and went careering into a flower bed. Tomas eventually climbed onto the thing himself and puttered twice around the courtyard. ‘Ecco, e facile,’ he said, hopping off.

  ‘This beats the bus,’ shouted Freya over the motorcycle’s insistent wasp-drone. As the road levelled out the traffic began to thicken, and they were soon halting at junctions while workaday Florence hurried crosswise in dust clouds and bleating horns. Only once did they have a scare, when Freya momentarily confused the accelerator with the brake; she couldn’t understand why they were speeding up at a crossroads when she was frantically trying to slow down. Nancy’s shriek of surprise tore past her ear just as she swerved sideways over the cobbles and onto the pavement, juddering to a stop before a huddle of startled pensioners. ‘Scusi, scusi,’ she gasped, her armpits on fire with sweating panic.

  Her legs felt jellyish when she stepped off the bike and propped it against a shaded wall near the Piazza del Duomo. Nancy’s auburn hair had blown up like candyfloss under the force of their rapid descent down the hill. On catching herself in the reflection of a shop window she groaned with dismay, and wouldn’t take another step until she had hidden the damage under a headscarf. The city sweltered and cowered under the late-morning sun; the poster-caked streets and the dark entrances of churches were secretive, huddled around their own charged history, while the locals stood about and watched, faces worn to indifference. At the Uffizi the July tourists swarmed as thickly as ants, and with one look at each other they fled without entering. There was a refuge in the musty sequestered air of the Duomo, into whose candlelit gloom they seemed to slide like water. Something of Nancy’s unselfconscious devotion had rubbed off on Freya over the years, and she wandered down the echoing nave in a trance. It wasn’t that she believed in any of it – for her it was a mostly benign conspiracy – but she couldn’t help swooning before the church’s vast vaulted spaces, and the solemn endeavour of an age when building and carving and glazing constituted more than mere feats of design.

  Doubling back down a side aisle she spied Nancy, head slightly bowed, at a shrine to the Virgin. From a distance she seemed to be examining the pocket of her dress, but was in fact searching for a coin; she dropped it into a slot in the wall. Then she fixed a slim white candle in the tiered brass tray, ghoulish with wax, and lit it with a taper. She stood still in contemplation for some moments, before taking a step away and crossing herself. Freya held back until Nancy had completed her devotions, and timed her approach to make it seem a natural coming-together. They ducked out of a side door as another gaggle of tourists were flooding through.

  Outside again the heat assaulted them. They started to look for the restaurant that Kay had recommended, but somehow kept making wrong turns. The streets they took alternated glare and gloom; they tried to hug the shadows but the sun quickly found them out. Nancy, drained from the effort of breathing, lingered in a doorway. Then Freya spotted a trattoria directly opposite, and decided they should eat there.

  ‘My body seems to be undergoing its very own heatwave,’ said Nancy, fanning herself with a menu while a waiter smoothed out their paper tablecloth.

  ‘You do look a bit flushed,’ admitted Freya. ‘D’acqua, per favore.’ She mused for a moment. ‘I rather love Kay, don’t you? She’s like someone out of Forster. You know what she said to me
this morning? – “My dear, I would like to influence you unduly.” I couldn’t help laughing.’

  ‘I think she rather likes you,’ said Nancy, weighing her words.

  ‘You think she might be – well, yes – it would explain a few things.’

  It hadn’t occurred to her when they talked this morning about living on her own. Now she thought of it, Kay had said she’d never met anyone she could live with – not any man, as most women would have said, but anyone, the ambiguous pronoun. Perhaps Kay really was reconciled to a solitary life, but it seemed unfair that someone so gregarious should be alone just because society wouldn’t –

  It was no use. The subject was too tender to bear in silence. She had to get it out or it would poison her.

  ‘Nance, there’s something I’ve got to tell you, and I need you to be honest with me. It’s quite important.’

  Nancy stared over the table at her. ‘What is it?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘You remember the night I got back from dinner with Alex, and you wondered why he was telling me all that stuff about himself now – why he’d waited so long? Well, I found out.’ She recounted the story of his being tracked by his old wartime snitch, the photos, the blackmailing. That sort of thing happened quite a lot, it seemed; there were criminal syndicates that made big money out of extorting queers, especially those in public office. It could go on for years.

  ‘Of course I felt terribly for him – how could I not? Then he asked me if I could lend him cash.’

  Nancy gasped in disbelief on hearing how much. ‘Three hundred?! Is he mad?’

  ‘No. Just desperate. Of course I told him I didn’t have that sort of money …’

  Nancy shook her head. ‘Poor Alex. To be caught like that, with no recourse to the police, to the law – to anything.’ She brooded for a moment, before looking to Freya. ‘So what did you do?’

  Freya turned away, feeling an unpleasant warmth. ‘That’s just it. I did nothing – actually something worse than nothing. I basically accused him of opportunism. The timing of it felt too deliberate – he’d waited less than a week to telephone, and next thing I know he’s asking me to bale him out.’

  Puzzlement chased over Nancy’s features. ‘But you said yourself – he’s desperate. And even if it does look suspicious, he surely wouldn’t have asked you unless it were a last resort.’

  It was what Freya had been afraid of hearing: the truth, more or less. Pride had tricked her. She had been so touched by Alex’s confessional spirit at dinner that the bombshell of his blackmail story had made a chaos of her reasoning. The abruptness of his request for a loan would have surprised anyone, but she had been far too quick to judgement. Could she not have grasped that Alex was genuinely pleased by their reunion and then decided to ask her for help? She shrank to recall the way she had spoken to him – I don’t have that sort of money. It was true, but she couldn’t forget the ice in her tone.

  She pressed her joined hands against her lips. Nancy was watching her, and not for the first time she felt grateful that her friend refused to make accusations against her, however deserved they might be.

  ‘I wish I knew a way to help him,’ she said presently. ‘In my wilder moments I thought of asking my dad. He’s the only person I know who’d have three hundred pounds to lend.’

  ‘But you can’t think of paying,’ said Nancy. ‘You can’t get involved.’

  ‘If I thought it might save him I would.’

  They ate some lunch, though the heat had taken away their appetite. As she sipped black coffee Freya returned to the subject, probing it like a sore tooth.

  ‘Of course I can’t tell anyone about it. And you mustn’t either, Nance – promise.’

  ‘Who on earth would I tell?’

  ‘I don’t know. You might let it slip in front of someone – like Robert.’

  She had said his name with a dissembling airiness, thinking she might catch her out if anything was going on between them. But Nancy returned only a frown. ‘I wouldn’t dream of telling him, or anyone,’ she said, looking Freya in the eye.

  She thought back to the argument she’d had with Robert about the Vere Summerhill case. They had both written about the wider implications of his sentencing and the diminishing hope of leniency towards other homosexuals. Even if the public attitude to Summerhill had softened – he had put on a noble front in the dock – the law wasn’t going to budge. And now the irony of Alex’s story dropping right in her lap. Any other journalist would have hotfooted it straight to the editor and stopped the presses. The scandal of a queer in the heart of Whitehall was something you could make your name on. Alex must have known that, and yet he trusted her as a friend to keep his secret. Oh God – the more she turned it over the more callous she felt.

  Walking back to the spot where they’d left the Vespa they passed the Duomo again, its majesty dwarfing all around it. Freya watched nuns file out of a side entrance. She turned to Nancy, busy wafting herself with a fan she had just bought at a market stall.

  ‘I noticed you lighting a candle in there before we left. You looked a picture of devotion.’

  Nancy smiled. ‘It’s odd, I hardly ever think of doing that in London. It must be the Italian influence.’

  ‘So what did you pray for?’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘Go on. You must have asked for something.’

  After a pause Nancy said, ‘Actually, I didn’t ask for anything. I was – giving thanks.’ A quick deprecating laugh escaped her. ‘That sounds awfully pious; I don’t mean to. It’s just, I often pray for things, then feel rather selfish about it. He isn’t there just to petition. So I try to remember to thank Him as well, you know –’

  ‘For what?’ asked Freya, curious.

  ‘For everything! For my being here, in this beautiful place. For my good fortune.’ She laughed again, and said, ‘For being spared a violent death with my driver on the road this morning.’

  ‘Really?’ said Freya, not sure how lightly this was meant to be taken. It remained an unfathomable part of Nancy that she could believe in this communion with the unknown. It was as though she were able to draw upon a vast company of friends and intimates whom she would refer to openly yet never introduce; St Francis de Sales had been the first, back in Oxford. Unfathomable, and in some obscure way, enviable, for there were times (like now) when she would have welcomed help from this ethereal assembly.

  They had reached the parked motorcycle by the time she decided to say it. ‘Nance, do me a favour? Next time you’re back there, light one for Alex, will you?’

  The drowning heat discouraged any further trips into town. For the next few days they kept to the villa, reading, dozing, swimming, lolling on deckchairs in the shade. With Stephen usually off painting somewhere, the four women formed their own little society around the pool. Diana and Nancy made lunch and talked about books, while Freya obliged Kay, a card fiend, by playing a lot of canasta and whist. Kay also mixed the drinks, her favourite being an extra-strong negroni that made them all a bit woozy by teatime.

  On the Thursday the sun, without disappearing, eased off the glare a notch, and the air was touched with a liquid softness. The pool’s electric blue-green had cooled to a glimmer. All morning squadrons of tiny swifts had divebombed the water’s surface for a sip. Nancy, who after the first day had shunned the sunlight, was at last persuaded by Freya to take a dip. The paleness of her skin dazzled against the peacock blue of her swimsuit and the thick russet rope she made of her hair.

  ‘It’s freezing!’ she yelped, lowering herself gingerly into the water.

  ‘Just get in, you ninny,’ laughed Freya, already immersed. Anyone observing them both would perhaps have been tempted to extrapolate character from their very different styles. Nancy favoured a slow, stately breaststroke, legs kicking softly behind her like a frog. Freya in contrast sharked through the lengths with her stern front crawl. She had always been a good swimmer, and loved the propulsive thrust her long legs gave her; she rem
embered Nat Fane once describing her movement through the water as ‘phocine’, which she later discovered meant ‘seal-like’. A compliment?

  Having taken a deep breath she was plunging below to explore the soundless angular world of the pool, its smooth white walls and sloping tessellated floor. Turning, she was surprised to see Nancy approach, waving in slow motion; her hair had come unloosed from its braid and she thought, not for the first time, of Millais’s Ophelia. Freya put a kiss to her palm and blew it towards her. A slender thread of bubbles escaped Nancy’s lips as she smiled – or was she laughing? – and began gravitating upwards. Freya caught up alongside, and they broke the surface together with an exhilarated gasp.

  They were still idling there when Freya saw from the corner of her eye Marina, the housekeeper, descending the trellised stairway towards them. She was waving a piece of paper in her hand. ‘Telegramma per Mizz Nancy,’ she called, and Freya felt her heartbeat start to thicken. A telegram always meant doom – unless it was a birth. She would remember this scene, she thought, the sway of the water, suddenly cold again, the rasping of the cicadas somewhere beyond, the quick way Nancy heaved herself out of the pool to meet her messenger. Freya looked around to where Diana and Kay were sitting, and they must have caught the mood of crisis, too, for they were abruptly silent, leaning forward, braced against this ill wind just blown in. With mechanical urgency she climbed out of the pool, dripping, and held back a few yards from where Nancy stood, opening the little envelope now and reading.