Freya (41 page)

The quiet of Stephen's flat should have helped, but for some reason it sounded to her like the quiet of disapproval. She had been hunched over the piano keys nagging at a piece by Thelonius Monk. Maybe she was going too heavy on the left hand. She had transcribed the head of the tune quite easily, its dancing notes as playful as a nursery rhyme. But the soloing passages that followed were much trickier. Of course, she could always revert to the safety of the old ones – Gershwin, Cole Porter, Ivor Novello. Crowd-pleasers.

Outside, the grey afternoon sky was nervous with rumbling. Little spits of rain flecked the windows. She decided to play something merry to lift her mood, and was halfway through ‘Ain't Misbehavin'' when she heard the door opening.

Stephen appeared in the doorway.

‘Hullo there. Not at work?' he said.

‘I took the afternoon off.'

‘I was going to make some tea –' He went off to the kitchen, while she refocused her attention on the vexing Monk. Each time she thought she'd got the hang of it she stalled. The thing just wouldn't come. The rain was in earnest now, forming little rivulets that plaited their way down the panes. On his return with the teapot and cups Stephen sat back on the sofa for a minute, listening to her play. When she halted again, he looked up.

‘I like that.'

Freya half turned on the piano stool. ‘It's something I'm trying to get up for next week.'

Stephen gazed out at the rain. ‘Looks like I just missed a soaking,' he said softly.

‘Dad,' said Freya, ‘how can you tell when something is … finished?'

‘You mean, like a painting?'

‘No, no. Finished as in “over”. For instance, with you and Mum. When –
how
did you know it wasn't going to work any more?'

‘Ah.' Stephen ran through a few facial expressions before settling on one that approximated to resignation. He wasn't sure, he said; it all seemed so long ago. Things hadn't been good between them for a while; once war came and Cora decided to move to the country they began to drift apart. It was more of a mutual decision, really –

‘I'm pretty sure Mum didn't think of it like that …' Freya interjected, then raised her hands to forestall Stephen's groan of protest. ‘I'm not trying to have an argument about it. I'm asking about a general state of mind. How do you – how does
one
– know when a relationship is … kaput?'

Stephen had gone from looking puzzled to pained. After some throat-clearing noises, he said, ‘I suppose … you come to a point when you realise that those strong feelings of love are no longer –'

‘Yes, but what
is
that point?' she asked impatiently.

‘I'm trying to explain it!' he said, matching her exasperation. ‘It's the point when – you look someone in the face and cease to feel, um, protective of them. You may still find them attractive, or amusing, or whatever, but there's no longer that tug at your heart, that reflex which once made you desperate to protect them, to keep them from harm. Because they've become like … anyone else.'

She nodded. ‘You know Robert, my old friend? He has a theory that love proceeds in three distinct phases, working upwards – first the physical attraction, then the sentimental or romantic phase, and finally the cerebral, which governs the others. We argued about it – to me it sounded too schematic. I think your idea of protectiveness is better.'

‘Or maybe just … kinder.' He squinted at her. ‘What's brought this on? Are you and Joss –?'

She turned away, back to the piano. She flexed her fingers thoughtfully, and had another go at the Monk. The phrase structure was repetitive, yet lopsided. The basic challenge of the piece was to make it fluid without seeming trite. She faltered, stopped, and swore loudly.

‘I've been trying to get this straight for
hours
.'

‘It's Thelonius, isn't it?'

‘Uh-huh. You know Joss has organised the party for me. I want to play this as my sort of thank-you to him.'

Stephen gave a small uncertain laugh. ‘Really?'

‘What's wrong with that?'

‘Well, am I much mistaken, or is this one called “Well, You Needn't”? Doesn't sound very grateful!'

She stared at him for a moment. The title – she'd been so distracted it hadn't even occurred to her. ‘Oh
God
…' She lowered her head into her hands.

‘It'll be fine! No one will know it,' Stephen said quickly.

‘
I'll
know it,' she said, not lifting her gaze. ‘Those words will be in my head the whole time I'm playing.'

‘Can't you do something else?'

‘Like what?'

Stephen shrugged a little. ‘How about the thing you and Nancy were playing that night at Kay's house?
I only have eyes for you-ou-ou-ou
.'

Freya felt suddenly very close to tears. ‘I can't. Not that.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's what we played on VE night, at this piano. In this very room. It's –
our
song.'

‘Right, right,' said Stephen, trying to reverse away from his suggestion.

‘I can't just pretend it's for him,' she said, a catch in her throat. That title: how had it escaped her? She looked again at the notes above the piano, but they were blurring before her, swimming. What a waste of time. A tune she couldn't play at a party she didn't want for a man she – After all he'd done for her, and she couldn't even manage a proper thank-you.

The next morning she was at her desk when the telephone rang. It was, astonishingly, Jerry Dicks on the line.

‘I thought you never used the telephone,' she said.

‘True. This is an exception – so don't make me regret it.' He wanted her to come to his studio. ‘Conversation we had at Fane's the other night. You asked me about a certain – party.'

‘Mm. And
you
said I didn't have “the quids” to tempt you.'

Jerry's laugh acknowledged the line. ‘Also true. But a mutual friend has put the bite on me – asked me to do you a favour.'

Freya was momentarily stunned into silence. It had to be Hetty. She was the only other person apart from Nancy she'd told about Alex being blackmailed – and possibly the only human being other than Ossie that Jerry Dicks would put himself out for. At the other end he made an impatient noise. ‘
So
… Are you comin' here or not?'

She took down his address. When she rang off she looked up to find Robert eyeing her over his typewriter. He was still sniffing around the story his ‘chap' in Whitehall had put his way; there was a tenacity about Robert that put her on guard.

‘Who was that?' he asked.

‘A contact,' she replied, and heard her own caginess. ‘Jerry Dicks.'

Robert gave her a speculative look. ‘What, already? Are you two best pals now or something?'

‘We have things to talk about,' she said, putting her cigarettes in her bag.

‘I find that hard to believe. You told me the old queen hated newspapers – what was his great phrase –?'

‘They give him the wiffle-woffles. I think it's more a distrust of the people who work for them.' Standing, she narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Sometimes I know what he means.'

He shrugged off the slight, and returned to his two-fingered typing.

On the Central Line from Chancery Lane to Notting Hill Gate she became lost in a reverie. The strange thing was, she had recounted the story of Alex to Hetty that night without mentioning that Jerry had declined to help her out. It seemed she had interceded with him entirely off her own bat. A ‘mutual friend' indeed … Freya had a sudden image of Hetty's face looming close to hers, her mouth darkly swollen, so close she could smell her hair. The kif and the booze had done their bit. And yet she wasn't that far gone; in fact, she'd found herself quite willing once she'd shucked off her clothes.

Jerry's studio was in a Victorian mansion block on Hornton Street in Kensington. An assistant greeted her at the door. In contrast to the Soho flat it was light and large, with high-corniced ceilings, cream-coloured walls and a distinct air of prosperity. In the main room another assistant was fiddling with a camera on a tripod; an old armchair stood before a wide hessian backcloth where the photographer liked to position his ‘victims'. Jerry himself was next door in the print room, shirtsleeves rolled up and striped braces criss-crossing his narrow back. He was standing at his work table examining contact sheets, their multiple silvery squares glistening in his hands. The assistant hesitantly cleared her throat.

‘Jerry, Miss Wyley's here –'

He glanced briefly over his shoulder and grunted something, which the assistant took to be a dismissal; she gave Freya an apologetic smile and started backing out of the room.

‘Shut the door behind yer,' Jerry called. Still with his back to Freya he said, ‘Have a gander at these.'

She came over to the long table and stood beside him. He handed her his magnifying loupe and pointed at the contact sheet that had been absorbing him. She placed the loupe over the strip, bending her head to look – and was startled to see a black-and-white portrait of Hetty sprawled naked on an unmade bed. The coincidence of what she'd just been remembering on the Tube was almost sinister. Was Jerry already wise to what had happened at Nat's? But when she stole a glance at his face she read nothing sly or knowing in his expression; it really was a coincidence.

‘These are recent?' she said, to cover her confusion.

‘A week ago. Tip-top, ain't they?'

Freya murmured her agreement, her eye moving along the strip of multiple Hettys, standing or reclining, hardly seeming aware of the camera's lens. She could just make out the dark cleft between her legs.

‘She's never coy, is she – with the camera?'

Jerry nodded. ‘Like it's no odds to her whether she's wearin' clothes or not.' The pictures were intended for Ossie, he added, who sometimes preferred to paint her from photographs.

He carefully slid the contact sheets into a frosted-paper sleeve, and paused, as though something had just occurred to him.

‘She must hold you in
very
high esteem – Het's never asked me for a favour like this.'

He took out a small key, which he used to unlock one of the table's built-in drawers. He extracted two buff-coloured envelopes, and tipped a sheaf of photographs from each onto the worktop.

‘I do hope these won't shock you,' he said with a snigger. He arranged the photographs side by side, with the watchful air of a street seller displaying his wares to a customer. There were about thirty of them, ten by eights in black and white. Jerry explained that they had one thing in common: all were taken at the Myrmidon Club.

‘So, your friend – what's-his-name – he may be in there.'

A few were of men formally posed in drag, gaudy with make-up; others were hurried snapshots of men in company, drinking, kissing, fondling. Some were more explicit. She had leafed through them all once, and was about to say that he wasn't in any of them when a face sprang out at her. The heavy mascara and rouge might almost have been a disguise; but she knew those eyes for certain. Alex was standing arm in arm with another man, similarly made up. Both wore stockings and suspenders.

‘That's him,' she said quietly.

Jerry peered at the shot. ‘Ain't she pretty?' he laughed.

‘You took this?' she said.

He returned an incredulous face. ‘You must be kidding. That's some tuppenny smudger's.' His pride had been piqued.

‘So why have you got it?' she pursued, baffled.

Jerry sniffed. ‘I've got a darkroom. Sewell pays me for the developin'. It's not like he can take this stuff to Boots the chemist.'

She looked at the photograph again, and her heart turned over to think of Alex, so discreet about his private life even his close friends had never suspected. Now the life had been breached.

Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, ‘You won't know this, but he worked for MI5 during the war – my friend there.'

Jerry shrugged. ‘So he did his bit. Won't help him if these come out.'

She felt a lurch of indignation at his callous tone, and stifled it. He was trying to help her, after all. She asked him what would happen next, and Jerry said, in the same illusionless way, that he'd be ‘in touch' with Vernon Sewell – though he couldn't make any promises.

‘I want to come with you – when you meet,' she said to him.

Jerry gave her a sceptical look. ‘I don't think so. Vern's not nice, I told yer. He doesn't like women – doesn't like anyone much.'

‘I don't care. I want to come. Besides, I'm the only one who can identify Alex in these – pictures.'

Again he shrugged, as though to say
Your funeral
. He stared at her for a moment, a sardonic twitch at his mouth. ‘Fond of stickin' your fork in other people's dinners, aren't yer?'

She heard the provocation, but only said, ‘So you'll ring me when …'

He gave a little lift of his chin, and waggled his hand, indicating that she should let herself out.

Getting home that evening she heard laughter echoing from the top floor. She entered to find Robert and Nancy in the kitchen, the remains of a chicken supper strewn over their plates. She noticed how relaxed they seemed in one another's company.

‘Would you like a beer?' Nancy asked, holding up a bottle. ‘Sorry, I would have saved you some dinner if I'd known –'

‘It's fine, I'm not hungry,' she said, making an effort at brightness. ‘I heard great peals of laughter as I was coming up the stairs …'

Robert, trading a conspiratorial look with Nancy, said, ‘We were just recalling a few choice extracts from an old diary. At one point she described me as “a bumptious Mancunian braggart” – one of her nicer remarks, as it turned out.'