Freya (12 page)

Freya half snorted a laugh. ‘You'll be founding your own Church next.'

‘Unnecessary,' said Fane lightly. ‘I shall make believers of you without the yoke of religion. The stage will be my Church.'

They had crossed over Magdalen Bridge and stopped at the gate of St Hilda's, where Fane took Nancy's hand and placed on it a lingering kiss. He made the gesture seem at once solemn and lascivious.

‘Goodnight, then,' said Nancy, whose eyes, flicking sideways to Freya, delivered an unmistakable message: watch out. Freya quickly kissed her goodnight before she and Fane retraced their steps across the bridge.

‘An interesting study, your friend – Nancy, is it? The hair is Pre-Raphaelite, but the face, the body, well … a
diffident Valkyrie
is perhaps the closest I can get.'

Freya thought that rather clever, though she declined to say so; he looked too puffed on praise already. ‘She's my best friend,' was all she said, which induced a little moue of confusion on her companion's face. Some men, she realised, could never quite grasp friendship between women: they imagined it a sort of conspiracy against them. She abruptly lost this train of thought as Fane grasped her arm outside the entrance to Magdalen and put a finger to his lips. Under the dim lamp in his cape and pallor he looked like an albino vampire. He silently leaned his head inside the lodge gate, then withdrew it. Without asking, he put her coat collar up and tucked her hair beneath the loose woollen beret she wore.

‘The porter's off his watch. The game's afoot. If we're quick about it we can sneak in.'

‘To your rooms?' It was ten minutes past curfew.

‘Of course. Or do you require a formal invitation?'

She followed him through the stone-flagged lodge and thence into the inky dark of the quad. Lights glowed from high windows, but they encountered no one as they skirted another quad and entered a staircase. Fane's rooms were large, ancient and cold. He switched on a table lamp, illumining walls that swarmed with postcards, playbills and theatrical memorabilia. Everything was framed, photographs, letters, even menu cards signed by the famous to ‘Dear Nat'; the room was evidently his personal museum. Above the fireplace was mounted an original poster advertising a
corrida
in Spanish, with matador and bull painted in flaring, torrid colours.

She shivered as she stood at the empty grate, though Fane made no move to light a fire.

‘Do you have coal?' she asked him.

‘I believe so. My scout takes care of all that.'

‘And if the scout's not here …?'

He shrugged, already preoccupied with his drinks trolley. Freya found a few coals left in the scuttle, and with the aid of an old newspaper lit a small fire. On the opposite wall she spied a framed black-and-white photograph of Fane onstage in doublet and hose, a crown perched jauntily on his head.

‘Youthful self as Henry V,' he supplied on enquiry, shaking a silvery beaked object from side to side.

‘What on earth is that?'

Fane held the object still. ‘It's a silver-plated cocktail shaker in the shape of a rooster,' he drawled, as if to imply: what else? He poured out a jewelled liquid into a pair of glasses and handed her one of them. ‘Old-fashioneds. Two fingers of Scotch on a sugar lump, with a dash of Angostura bitters.'

‘Here's how,' said Freya, taking a long swallow. She had seated herself close to the fire, which gave out feeble pops and crackles. Fane, lighting another cigarette, ambled over in his languid way and flopped down next to her. He stared hard at the fire she had made, and frowned.

‘You
are
very practical, I must say.'

‘So you wouldn't bother doing it yourself?'

He returned an arch look. ‘I only play with fire. I leave others to set them.'

The line sounded like something from a play – a play he himself had written and regarded with enormous satisfaction. Freya had the curious impression of being addressed not as a person but as an audience. She wondered if he expected applause. Of small talk he had none, which may have explained the abruptness with which he had shifted his weight and plumped his mouth upon hers. Before she could react she felt his long tongue sliding inside her mouth, over her teeth, like a seal squirming over rocks. She allowed him a little more of this oral exploration before she drew away.

‘Is this your casting couch, then?' she said, patting the chesterfield they sat on.

He had fixed her with a searching look. ‘That's one of its uses. Now would you care to take your coat off?'

‘It's bloody freezing. And by the way, regarding the part of the Duchess, the answer's still no.'

His expression changed; he now looked rather sly. ‘Is that why you think I brought you up here?'

‘Isn't it?'

He shook his head slowly. ‘The play is immaterial. As I said, I'm a collector of beautiful things.' He took that as a cue to resume the kissing. This went on for some time, with Fane trying to extend the scope of intimacy netherwards – and Freya humorously resisting him. Then something else occurred to her, and she disengaged herself.

‘Is it true you're going to be married?'

Fane allowed himself a bark of laughter. ‘What a question – and what an extraordinary moment to ask it.'

‘Well?'

He sighed. ‘There was a brief engagement, some months ago. I asked the lady in question to be released from it, and she assented. Would it have made any difference if I still were?'

She considered for a moment. ‘I don't know. Probably not.'

‘Well, then. Are you ready for a little game? It will require the removal of all but your underclothes.'

Freya tucked in her chin. ‘You may have noticed I've still got my coat on. My teeth are chattering. Unless you've got firewood I'm not removing anything.'

Fane looked at the fire with bored disapproval. He stood up, cast his gaze around the room and strode over to the wall they were facing. He took down one of the larger paintings and, using his letter knife, began prising the canvas away from its heavy frame. After several protesting snaps the wood had been reduced to spars, which he placed upon the fire. It seized upon this luxurious fuel, and soon flames were dancing in fierce delight around the splintered fragments.

Fane, gesturing at the blaze, said, ‘Just drop your things on the rug. I'll be back presently.'

After that extravagant show of resourcefulness Freya thought it would be poor form to back down. She was also intrigued to know what ‘game' he had in mind. She threw off her coat and, still shivering, removed her cardigan and blouse and skirt. She hesitated over her stockings, then (not to be a spoilsport) peeled them off too. Fane, who had withdrawn to his bedroom, now reappeared in a scarlet-and-black silk dressing gown, carrying what looked like a small racket.

‘Bit late in the evening for tennis, isn't it?' she said.

‘It's a squash racket, actually,' he said, handing it to her. He took in her semi-clad form and gave an approving nod. Then he began rearranging the furniture, pushing the table and sofa back and turning the leather club chair by the fire right round so that its back faced the room. She couldn't guess what he had in mind, but hoped it wouldn't be anything too energetic: the Benzedrine was wearing off. He swept back his floppy blond quiff from his forehead and surveyed his handiwork.

‘Room for a good swing,' he muttered with a thin inscrutable smile. He proceeded to bend himself forward over the chair and flipped his dressing gown up to reveal his bare buttocks, white and vulnerable as a pair of fresh eggs.

Not quite the game she had envisaged.

Looking over his shoulder Fane said, ‘I thought I'd be a gentleman and give you first whack.'

A few days later Freya was in her room when an inquisitive double tap came at the door.

‘It's open, Nance.'

‘How did you know it was me?' said Nancy, entering with a grin.

‘From your knock. It sounds … friendly. Your timing is excellent – I've just made some tea.'

She sensed Nancy fidgeting with curiosity. Since the Banbury Road party other commitments – essay deadlines, a visit from Nancy's aunt and uncle – had kept them apart and thus delayed a full debrief on her after-hours adventure with Fane. Mischief prompted Freya to prolong the anticipation, diverting her guest's attention to the second-hand tea set she had bought in a junk shop. ‘Just one tiny chip on this cup here – apart from that it's perfect.'

‘Lovely,' said Nancy.

‘And how was it with your aunt and uncle?'

‘Very nice.'

‘Take you for dinner?'

‘Yes, yes, that restaurant in St Aldate's –'

‘I know the one. The shepherd's pie there –'

‘Freya, please, don't keep me in suspense. What happened?'

‘Oh. With Fane, you mean? It was
interesting
…'

‘Did you –' Nancy's voice dropped to a whisper – ‘make love?'

‘Not exactly,' she said, lowering herself gingerly onto an armchair. This was going to be painful. ‘
Ow
…'

Nancy's voice rose a scandalised octave. ‘Oh my God, what did he
do
to you?'

‘That's what was interesting.' She proceeded to relate, with jokes and demonstrations, the swishing entertainment initiated by Fane. At the end of it she lifted her skirt to give a flash of her bruised haunch and laughed at Nancy's horrified recoil.

‘But … why?'

‘Because that's how he gets his thrills –'

‘No, I mean why did you
let him
?'

Freya gave a half-shrug. ‘Well, I suppose I was curious – and we'd been having a jolly old time. He's terribly clever, and funny, and a great talker.'

‘And a sadomasochist! He hurt you, and enjoyed it.' Her expression suddenly froze. ‘Did
you
enjoy it?'

Freya pursed her mouth ruminatively. ‘For the first ten minutes I couldn't stop laughing. Then when he started on me … No, not really. I'd rather just have gone to bed with him. Instead I walked back with a sensation that my bum was on fire.'

‘Oh, the swine,' said Nancy with feeling.

‘No, he's not. Nance, he didn't force me. Don't get huffy about it.' When Nancy didn't say anything she continued. ‘What about you? You seemed to be getting on with Charlie.'

‘Yes, he's very sweet …'

‘But …?'

Nancy paused, looking down at her hands. ‘I prefer Robert.'

‘Ah.'

Behind that syllable lay a complex of feelings, foremost among them a wish that Nancy preferred someone else. Freya had a strong intuition that Robert wouldn't be a good match – Nancy was altogether too thin-skinned, too gentle-souled, for him. She couldn't bear the thought of such a girl entrusting herself –
surrendering
herself – to someone as immature and abrasive as Robert. Nancy needed a man who would look after her, not some wild boy desperate to dip his wick.

And yet she could not banish a low nagging note of self-interest in her desire to keep the two apart. Despite Nat Fane's making a dead set at her she didn't regard his pursuit quite seriously; he was too much bound up in himself to seek after another's heart. Robert, on the other hand … He had something about him, something tender and troubled that spoke to her. Of course his manners weren't wonderful, and he had no idea how to dress. Compared with Fane he looked and sounded gauche. But still she couldn't deny an attraction to him. That this was apparently shared by Nancy gave it an unsuspected – and unwelcome – twist.

‘So,' said Nancy, with an uncertain smile, ‘d'you think I should invite him to tea?'

The first peacetime Christmas in seven years ought to have been joyous, but with food still clamped in the mean jaws of rationing Yuletide cheer was thin on the ground. And for Freya it was a momentous one for entirely the wrong reason: their first Christmas as a ‘broken' family. She spent it with her mother and brother down in Sussex, while her father was off somewhere in Scotland with Diana, whose name in conjunction with Stephen's now seemed unavoidable. In reparation he sent her a notably de luxe present – a beautiful silk-and-wool cardigan in sage green – which she left in its tissue paper the entire holiday.

A heavy cold confined her miserably to bed, where she read
Great Expectations
and dealt with her correspondence: letters from Nancy, from Robert, and one whose envelope written in mauve ink she knew instinctively was from Nat Fane. His handwriting was, in common with everything else about him, studiedly flamboyant, all fancy curlicues and extravagant ascenders. The only slight incongruity in it was the address at the top of the page.
The Ferns, Pinner
seemed too workaday for one of his airs and graces. ‘I was a changeling,' he had said, straight-faced, when she expressed surprise at his provenance. ‘I ought at least to have a manor house and a few hundred acres. But fate decreed
Pinner
as my place of birth.'

Fane's was a long letter that rarely strayed outside the necessary span of his own moods, fancies and tastes, a self-obsession that should have been tedious but in his case was leavened by a style that switched without effort between charm and light-voiced mockery. No mention was made of their night together, though Freya had the impression that this was not on his part a discreet avoidance of the subject; he merely had other things on his mind. He wrote about the two or three plays he had seen since returning to London, at such a length and with so many considered aperçus and bons mots that he might have been rehearsing a column for a newspaper. But if he took for himself the role of headline performer he was also quick to appreciate a correspondent capable of entertaining
him
. Freya's reply brought, to her astonishment, another letter from his pen by return of post.