They emerged onto Canonbury Square, where Chrissie made a beeline for the black Daimler parked opposite. Her driver had been waiting there the whole time. A man in a dark suit got out on seeing her and held open the rear door.
‘This is Ken, my driver,’ she said over her shoulder. He nodded at Freya. ‘Where should we go?’
The car purred down Canonbury Road. In the back seat Chrissie’s hands were busy with her knitting needles while they talked.
Freya chose a place at the Islington Green end of Essex Road, an Italian-run cafe with Formica tables, white-tiled walls and windows half steamed with condensation from the coffee machine that squealed in the background. They could see Ken in profile through the car window, stolidly absorbed in the Mirror. The clientele were builders, market people, locals; their entry caused one or two to glance up, but no one appeared to recognise the famous face. The waitress brought them tea the colour of brick. Freya rolled herself a cigarette and watched while Chrissie chowed down bacon and eggs, black pudding, fried bread. She had a trencherman’s appetite for one so slender.
‘So how do you know Robert Cosway?’ said Freya.
‘Oh, we met him through Bruce, at the Corsair. Always lovely to us, you know. Actually Ava thinks Robert’s a bit of a hero – not many politicians would stick their neck out for coloured people like he does.’
Freya blew out a thin jet of smoke. Her silence was sufficiently pointed for Chrissie to return a searching look.
‘What happened with you two? He said you used to be great friends.’
‘We were. Once upon a time we were in love. I was about your age.’ Opposite her Chrissie was saucer-eyed, waiting. ‘He betrayed a friend of mine which I … couldn’t forgive.’
‘What?’
She shook her head sadly. ‘Let’s not go into it. He may have changed, for all I know. The worst of it was that he married Nancy – my best friend. I haven’t seen her in eight years.’
Chrissie looked aghast. ‘Eight years? I don’t know how you do that – I couldn’t stay mad that long. I just couldn’t.’
‘Well, you’re a nicer person than I am. I keep my wounds open. I can’t help it.’
‘But how could you do without your best friend?’
‘I don’t know. I used to think I didn’t need … people. I never really troubled about friends, at school, or in the Wrens. It’s not that I didn’t have any, it’s just – they didn’t seem that important to me. I suppose that makes me sound rather cold, doesn’t it?’
‘You don’t seem cold to me,’ said Chrissie, considering. ‘Tell me about her – your friend.’
‘Nancy? Oh … We met one another on VE Day, just by chance. She was quite shy, gawky. Very beautiful. We went back to my dad’s flat that night and danced and played the piano till all hours – drank a lot of gin. I think we even smoked cigars, in honour of Churchill. Horrible! From then on we were fast friends. When she left Oxford we lived together in Bloomsbury, like a couple of students – or like an old married couple. We had some wonderful times.’ Hearing herself become expansive, Freya stopped. ‘Sorry. I don’t know why I’m burdening you with my personal history.’
Chrissie replied simply, ‘Cos I asked you.’
‘What about your pals? Ava seemed nice.’
‘Yeah. She still lives in Bromley, like most of my friends.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘Oh no, I moved to town about a year ago. My agent found me a flat on Curzon Street – it’s quite small. Just room for me and Alfie.’
‘Alfie?’
‘My dog. He’s a Jack Russell. I’d be lost without him.’
‘You don’t have a boyfriend, then?’
She shook her head. ‘Not since Roger. And he wasn’t really …’
‘What d’you mean?’
Chrissie winced. ‘I shouldn’t say … Bruce’d go up the wall if he knew I was talking to a journalist.’
Freya made a pfff sound. ‘Trust me, this is all “off the record”.’
‘Yeah. Just two girls natterin’ together,’ said Chrissie, relieved. ‘Anyway, Roger and me weren’t stepping out. The agency just made it look that way, for the papers. He’s queer, you see.’
‘Ah,’ said Freya, imagining the frenzy in newspaper offices on being thrown that titbit.
‘You can’t believe half of what they say – stuff about “sex parties” and me havin’ it away with all sorts of different men. I don’t think I’ve been to a sex party in me life!’
Freya smiled at her. ‘Me neither – though I long to be asked.’
It took Chrissie a moment to realise she was joking; she giggled nervously. Just then a harassed-looking woman pushed a baby in a pram past the window where they were sitting. Freya looked away, and continued rolling another cigarette.
Chrissie watched her light it and said quietly, ‘They say that smoking’s not very good for expectant mothers …’
Freya let the remark hang for a moment. ‘That’s to assume that I’m going to be a mother.’
‘Aren’t you? Really?’
Freya squinted through the smoke, and gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. She could see how disappointed the girl was. ‘I’m sorry if that bothers you.’
Chrissie shrugged. ‘I think you’d be a good mum.’
‘Oh, please don’t say that. And don’t look at me like that, either.’
‘But why are you so set against it?’
Freya kneaded her brow with her hand. ‘You’re too young to understand. I’ve worked my whole life to get where I am now. I had to fight for it, too, because if you’re a woman you’re never given the same chances. The rows I’ve had …’
Chrissie looked at her slyly. ‘Did you swear a lot?’
‘Of course. The point is, I never took a backward step. I knew I was good, it was just a matter of seeing the opportunity and taking it. A man wouldn’t have to think twice, he’d take it and ask for more, but a woman – well, ambition doesn’t look so attractive on her.’
‘Yes, but what’s this got to do with –?’
‘Being pregnant? Because if you take the time off to have a child you opt out from the game, and you may never get back in. All that striving, up in smoke. You’re nice to think I’d be a good mother, but I’m not sure I would. Quite apart from wondering what the hell I’d say to it, I’d probably resent the child for holding me back. That’s not very maternal, is it?’
Chrissie stared off into the distance. She thinks I’m irresponsible, thought Freya – and hard-hearted. They began to talk about other things, what Chrissie was going to do next: a new billboard campaign, a possible film role, a job in New York. There was a lot going on for her. As she listened it occurred to Freya that she was actually old enough to be her mother. And would that have been so awful? She was a nice girl, cheery, well mannered, respectful, certainly more agreeable than she had been at twenty. Maybe they’d have had fun together, been the sort of mother and daughter who borrowed each other’s clothes. You didn’t have to be a stick in the mud just because you were past thirty.
But these were idle imaginings. Easy to be a mother once the daughter was grown up. Rather less so when she was an infant, with the mewling and puking, and you trying to get some sleep and hold down a job. Not to mention instilling the child with a moral code! She would have to stop swearing, for a start – which was highly fucking likely. Well, if she couldn’t set a good example she might at least guard against setting a bad one. Was motherhood so outlandish a possibility?
She thought back to this morning’s appointment with the GP and felt the abrupt return of her panic. No, she couldn’t do it. No part of her wanted to do it.
The waitress had just put down the bill on their table, and Chrissie was staring at it in embarrassed silence.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Freya.
‘The breakfast … Three and six. An’ I haven’t got a penny on me.’
Freya laughed. ‘And there I was thinking you were the highest p
aid model in London.’
‘It’s just – these things don’t have pockets, and Bruce takes care of the money.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Freya, pulling a grimace. ‘What shall we do?’
The girl bit her lip. ‘I could go and ask Ken if he’s got some. Else we could –’
‘Offer to do the dishes?’ she suggested, producing her purse at the same time. ‘Don’t worry, it’s on me.’ Chrissie put her hand to her chest in relief.
‘Oh! Thank goodness. How awful of me – asking you out to breakfast and not a bean on me. I am sorry …’
‘You can pay for the next one.’
Chrissie, nodding earnestly, said that she would, for sure. She’d like that.
A few days later there was another ring at the door. Outside was parked a large van blazoned with Harrods livery. A man in a cap stood on the step.
‘Wyley?’ he said, reading off a dispatch notice. ‘Miss Eff Wyley?’
He had a delivery for her.
‘I haven’t ordered anything.’
The man shrugged, and recited her name and address. ‘Been sent on someone’s account, it looks like.’ He called to his mate in the van, who got out and unlocked the rear. Moments later he was wheeling onto the pavement an enormous cardboard box on a metal trolley. It would be a two-man job to lift.
The flat cap said, ‘Don’t tell me, you’re on the top floor.’
She nodded, and he slumped his shoulders with a groan. It took them twenty minutes of huffing to manoeuvre it up the narrow Regency staircase and into her flat. As she signed for delivery she noticed the account name on the document: C. Effingham. When they’d gone she started cutting open the box, still in the dark as to what it contained. From its squarish shape she guessed it would be a Harrods hamper, stuffed with all the food Chrissie believed she ought to be eating. She dug out layers of protective grey padding until she reached something hard-edged and wooden, wrapped in a plastic shroud. It was a few moments before she realised, with a curious sense of being both excited and offended, what it was.
Chrissie hadn’t sent food. There, sleek in its walnut finish and reflecting her face in the convex black screen, crouched a brand-new television set.
27
She knew the handwriting on the envelope the moment she saw it, as distinctive as a voice. Because it had been sent care of the newspaper, she had marked it PERSONAL in the corner. Nancy’s mature, unflappable cursive hadn’t changed down the years, though the NW postmark was new. Freya felt a pouncing jolt of curiosity as she tapped the letter on her desk, delaying the moment.
She was obliged to delay it a little longer when the editor appeared and called her into his office. Brock was minded to run something about Jimmy Erskine on his eighty-fifth birthday, and having heard that it was the old boy who’d given Freya her first break when she was at Oxford, well, she was the ‘obvious candidate’ for the job. It seemed that Jimmy had written a book, too (Nat had got that wrong), a follow-up to the first volume of his memoirs.
‘I’ve got a copy of it somewhere,’ said Brock, rummaging through his stacked in-tray. He found the book and passed it across his desk to Freya.
‘Ecce Homo,’ she read. ‘Bit of a risky title, I would have thought.’
‘What? Oh, I see – “homo”. Ha ha.’
Jimmy had agreed to be interviewed at his flat, Brock continued, though in a letter to his publishers he had apparently stipulated that his interviewer must not be ‘a twelve-year-old’, ‘an unpublished writer’, or ‘a woman’.
Freya chuckled. ‘I could take offence at that.’
‘We’ll give him notice that you’re coming. You can turn on the charm.’ She was on her way out the door when he said, ‘How’s the Rise of Youth piece, by the way? Get anything out of Chrissie Effingham?’
‘I’m working on it,’ she said. ‘But I’d better press on with this if it’s his birthday coming up.’
Brock nodded. ‘Yeah. Age before beauty.’
Back at her desk she picked up a knife and slit open the letter. The text was closely written, in fountain-pen ink, with no crossings-out.
12 Regent’s Park Terrace, NW
May ’62
Dear Freya,
It seems such an age since I wrote that name, though it has been often on my mind in the years since I saw you last. I had no idea you were back from Italy until Robert came home the other night with the astonishing news that he’d run into you by chance at a members’ club. He said that you’d had a ‘good long chat’ together, though I wasn’t at all convinced of this, either from his tone or from what I know – knew – of your feelings towards him. He became very cagey when I pressed him for details, which inclined me to think the ‘chat’ was neither good nor long, and that you have not forgiven him for what he did.
Perhaps you have not forgiven me, either? I have had a long time to ponder what happened with Alex and your absolute implacable bitterness towards Robert and the rest of them at the Envoy. It was dreadful – truly, one of the worst experiences of my life – to be caught between the two people I most cared for in the world and be helpless to reconcile them. I remember the look on your face when I told you that Robert and I were going to share rooms: it felt like I’d just stabbed you through the heart. In the years since, believe me, I’ve thought of that moment many times, and wonder what I might have done differently. The atmosphere between us in the weeks before we vacated Great James St was nearly the most horrible part of all.
Robert did tell me something, however, which I would like to believe was true: that you asked after me. (Pardon me if this was not the case – Robert’s enthusiasm for what he perceives to be true is sometimes at variance with what is actually so.) He also said that you had read my books. If so – and again, I take nothing for granted – you will have noted the dedication included in The Hours and Times. Without quite acknowledging it to myself I hoped that some day, somewhere, you would come across it and know that, whatever else had happened, you were still in my thoughts. You have never left them.
I realise that I should have written this letter years ago. But you were so proud and angry and unyielding in the wake of what happened that my courage failed. And once you had left the country I felt that I had been absolved of the responsibility for making peace between us. That was a mistake: the repair work on our friendship ought to have been my priority. Being busy, being in love, were my excuses – inadequate ones, I admit, and I am sorry for them.
Even now I’m nervous of seeking a rapprochement. After I sent you an invitation to our wedding I was torn between hoping and dreading that you would come. When you didn’t reply I was hurt, but in some small part I was relieved, too. That’s how formidable an influence you have been, Freya. But I shall stop being a ‘ninny’ and come out with it. We are having a little gathering here at the house on Thursday week, just a few close friends and some colleagues of Robert’s from the party. (We entertain quite a lot since his promotion.) I would be so pleased if you could come. Let me assure you I don’t expect any great scene of reconciliation between us. But I would dearly love to see you again.
Yours,
Nancy
PS You have our address. It’s 7.30 for 8 p.m.
She sat at her desk, motionless. She felt rather stunned by the tone of the letter, the way it delicately balanced the qualities of contrition and kindness. It brought back Nancy’s voice to her keenly. How could she turn down an olive branch proffered with such humility, with such rueful wisdom? Nancy could tell that the ‘good long chat’ she and Robert were supposed to have had at the Corsair was nothing of the sort. She had Robert’s measure as a spinner of yarns, but she covered for it without offending Freya or belittling him. She reread it; again she felt the open-hearted character of her old friend, and her gentle reaching out to the possibility of reunion.
On a third reading she felt her critical instincts tauten, like a string on a bow. The letter was not an entirely blameless effort: two phrases in it caused her lip to c
url. Nancy’s reference to ‘being in love’, albeit cited as an excuse for her distraction, was a shaming reminder of her foolishness over Robert. In the face of Freya’s warnings she had fallen for him, then compounded the error by marrying him. How deluded did she want to show herself?
The other phrase that displeased her was more difficult to cavil at, though she would have a go nonetheless. We entertain quite a lot since his promotion, she had written towards the end. Nancy had never been one to swank, which made the note of smug satisfaction all the more surprising. We entertain, do we? And there was surely no need at all to refer to his promotion, as if she didn’t know that Robert was Labour’s coming man. That she had put the line in parentheses was practically an admission of its irrelevance.
It occurred to her that she might be nitpicking. Perhaps her objections said more about her than they did about Nancy. She didn’t want to hear Robert being puffed up, he was conceited enough as it was, but perhaps Nancy couldn’t really be accused of anything other than stating a fact: they were a sociable couple. In any event, Freya could not deny her pleasure in receiving the letter, which in its quiet way conceded that the fault had been wholly on their side. It was tantamount to an apology. Would it not be the right thing to match Nancy’s graciousness with her own and accept it?
She had picked up Fosh at his flat en route and was now scanning Bedford Avenue for a parking meter. Lolling in the passenger seat, Fosh had looked about the Morgan and drily pronounced it to be ‘very groovy’. She shrugged, not wanting to admit that she’d miss the thing once Nat asked for it back.
After the cold spring there was at last a mellowing in the air. Sun glinted through the latticed branches of the solemn beech trees. Across the sky an aeroplane’s languid vapour trail was disappearing. There happened to be a space directly opposite the red-brick mansion block where Jimmy Erskine lived, and she swung the car into it. Fosh got out his heavy old Rolleiflex from the boot and they headed up the steps.
Inside, as they waited for the lift he mused brightly, ‘James Erskine. D’you know, I honestly thought he was dead.’
Freya Page 41
