Nancy folded the letter away. ‘They’ve turned Double Personal down. Said that it showed considerable promise, blah blah, but it’s “not suitable for our list”, whatever that means.’
Double Personal was Nancy’s latest novel, or rather her latest attempt to get a novel published. Since coming down from Oxford six years ago she had written two others: both had been rejected.
‘I’m sorry, Nance. I really thought this was the one,’ said Freya. She had read all of her friend’s novels and reckoned Double Personal – an unsettling story of two rivalrous cousins – to be her best by far. An agent had been hawking it around publishing houses for a few weeks now.
‘It is the one,’ said Nancy, still absorbing the blow. Freya heard in her voice more defiance than deflation. Odd, she thought, the way ambition was an anaesthetic as well as a stimulant. A writer will endure the cruellest whips of humiliation so long as the prospect of success stays in view. She gave Nancy’s shoulder a little jiggle of encouragement.
They lay there for a few moments, lost in thought, until Freya said, ‘D’you mind me parking myself against you like this?’
‘No,’ she said, simply. ‘Saves us from dying of hypothermia, anyway.’
‘Did I ever tell you about the time I sneaked in here – it was absolutely freezing – and I was literally about to climb in when I saw that Stewart was lying right next to you?’
Nancy spluttered out a laugh. ‘That might have been interesting! Stewart sandwiched between us. Mind you, knowing him …’
She didn’t complete this afterthought, and they both sniggered. Nancy had been courting Stewart, off and on, for a couple of years. He was a lanky, well-spoken fellow who worked as something at an advertising agency. Some of his spindly architectural drawings were strategically placed around Nancy’s bedroom walls. Freya considered him pleasant but dull, and found his spaniel-like devotion to Nancy faintly irritating.
‘Not seen the Stewpot much lately,’ she said, fishing.
Nancy turned on her side, head resting on her elbow. ‘No. I’m afraid I’ve been avoiding him.’
‘Oh. Why’s that?’
Nancy seemed about to explain, and checked herself. Then: ‘I don’t think one should have a boyfriend with the same hair colour, do you? It looks rather … narcissistic.’
‘I’ve always regarded Stewart’s as more, um, ginger. And at least you’re the right height for one another,’ Freya added, careful not to sound enthusiastic. Neither of them had much use for short men.
‘Anyway –’ Nancy shook her head in dismissal of the subject. ‘What was in your post?’
‘Oh, just an invitation to a private view.’ She handed the stiff card to Nancy.
‘“The Public Image – photographs by Jerry Dicks – Villiers Gallery”. Is he the one who does those sinister portraits?’
‘Yeah. He photographs everyone to look like they’re going to prison. But he also does glamour work for Vogue. I want to write a piece about him.’
Nancy continued to stare at the invitation. ‘Hmm. I’d rather like to see this myself …’
‘Then you shall, my darling,’ said Freya in her clipped Noël Coward voice, and sweeping aside the blankets rose from the bed. The temperature had climbed a notch since she had joined Nancy, though it was still raw. In the bathroom she could actually see her own breath! A wash would have to suffice this morning. Having dressed and buttoned up her winter coat to the neck, she put her head round the door to check on Nancy, who was still in bed, brooding.
‘I’m off,’ she said, and Nancy looked up from her reverie. ‘Nance, it will happen, you know. I believe in you.’
Nancy gave a rueful smile, and waggled her fingers in farewell.
Freya walked down Gray’s Inn Road deep in thought while the morning rush-hour crowds swarmed around her. She had kept a tactful silence in front of Nancy about her other bit of post. It had come from the offices of the Envoy. The editor wanted to discuss a possible ‘opening’ which had cropped up. She had heard of this man, Simon Standish, and was flattered that he had ‘followed her career for some time’. When she heard things like that she immediately wondered why it had taken him so long to tell her.
This promising development, however, hot on the heels of Nancy’s latest setback with the novel, was awkward in its timing. Nancy, she knew, would be pleased for her, even as it highlighted the faltering progress of her own writing career. Freya would point out that she had the advantage of a head start, having arrived in London two years before Nancy. Her profile of Jessica Vaux had cracked open a door at the Chronicle through which she had eagerly darted. In the week of her twenty-second birthday she was taken on as a junior reporter, and though the hours were long and the work unglamorous she never showed herself less than willing. More profile work came her way. Her steely line of questioning sometimes got her into trouble – ‘insolence’ was the usual complaint – but her copy never came up short for spirit. Her editors knew they had a good thing. This arrangement continued for just over four years until she happened to get wind of how much a colleague of hers (male, less experienced) was earning. Stunned, then indignant, she applied to her bosses for a pay rise, and was refused. She bided her time, and when a call came from Frame magazine offering her a job she exited the Chronicle at such a speed that – the joke went – she left scorch marks on their carpet.
The arc of Nancy’s career had not enjoyed the same flourish. She had gained a first at Oxford, and was offered the chance of pursuing postgraduate work at another college. Instead, she decided to take a job at a publishing house in London, a handy stopgap, it seemed, while she worked on her next novel, the one that would finally be published and catapult her into the literary firmament. Except that none yet had. Why this was so Freya couldn’t understand. She admired her talent, and was even a little unnerved by it, perhaps because the friend she knew seemed so different from the writer. ‘Her’ Nancy was a smiling, open-hearted, sweet-tempered girl. The other Nancy, as expressed in her novels, was sharp-eyed, incisive and morally unsparing; the diffidence of the person vanished in the prose.
‘Parky, innit?’ said the receptionist on seeing Freya, coat collar buttoned up to her nose. Frame had recently moved offices to a swanky new building, a sure sign in industry lore that its fortunes were on the slide. The magazine, launched in 1935, had been a byword for all that was slick and modern in photojournalism. It had scored its great successes immediately pre- and post-war, selling upwards of a million copies per week. When television came along it had weathered the initial alarm, but now that sets were sprouting in front rooms all over the country its black-and-white pictures, for all their quality, had come to look pedestrian. Uncertain in the face of this revolution the management had started to panic, adopting gimmicks and steering Frame ever further up the side roads of irrelevance.
She could see the flowers on her desk as soon as she stepped out of the lift. They formed a large bouquet, mostly made up of white lilies; their sharp intrusive smell made her want to sneeze. She looked over to her colleague, Elspeth, frowningly absorbed in a long screed of copy.
‘Where did these come from?’
Elspeth peered over her austere horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, darling. They were here when I arrived. Isn’t there a note?’
Freya looked beneath the wrapping and found an envelope pinned to the slender stalks. Elspeth noticed her sniffing with distaste.
‘Awful pong, haven’t they? Makes me think of ladies’ lavs.’
‘Makes me think of death,’ said Freya, tearing open the envelope. She blinked in surprise at the card. Its letterhead was in a distinctive font, one she had very recently seen, from the Envoy. There was a single line, typed:
Welcome aboard the paper!
It was unsigned. She immediately thought of Simon Standish, whose letter of this morning she had in her bag. But his was a polite invitation to her to come in and talk; she hadn’t even replied to him yet, so why would he already be wel
coming her? Premature, to say the least.
‘So who is he?’ asked Elspeth, interested now.
‘No one,’ she said, with a dismissive toss of her head. ‘The silly arse didn’t even sign it.’
‘Ooh. A secret admirer.’
Could it be? She knew hardly anyone at the Envoy. Perhaps Standish had made a mistake – a mix-up with his secretary, who had pp-ed the invitation letter and may have accidentally dispatched the flowers along with it. Except that one was addressed to her home, and this little lot to the office.
Marie had just stopped at their desk. ‘Editorial meeting in ten minutes, ladies. Hope you’ve got some good ideas!’
‘Yeah,’ said Elspeth, under her breath, ‘pack up and start looking for a new job.’
Freya laughed. ‘Come on. It’s not as bad as all that.’
Elspeth hoisted her eyebrows. ‘Seen this month’s sales? They’re down again.’ Her quip about a new job, Freya realised, had a shiver of doom to it.
In the conference room pots of coffee were being handed around the table, Marie was counting heads and a couple of the men were placidly smoking their pipes. The editorial team numbered sixteen. It was divided, uniquely on Frame, between photographers and writers: the two worked on a story in tandem, a chummy arrangement that came with its own anxieties, as Freya discovered. Credit was apportioned equally, but so was blame. If you came back with the wrong pictures, or if the reporting was deemed inadequate, both of you got carpeted. What appealed to Freya at first was the variety of work. One morning you could be at a fashion show, or a dog track; the next you could be tootling down to Eastbourne for an old trouper’s farewell turn at the pier, or off to Basingstoke to interview a mother who had just had quads. The stories went high and low, between coming-out parties for debs or dances at a working men’s club. As she became more adept in the job she was entrusted with racier stories about strip joints and nightclubs. The camaraderie it fostered was much to her liking, and if the late hours and the deadlines left her little time for a personal life, that too was fine.
When everyone seemed settled the deputy editor, Jocelyn Philbrick, called the meeting to order. He was a lean, well-groomed fellow of about forty whose silver mop of hair contrasted with a still-youthful demeanour.
‘The editor’s running late, so we’d better press on. First of all, there’s been grumbling about our news reportage, and I have to admit we’re starting to look a little … slow.’
‘There’s no “starting to” about it, Jocelyn,’ said Viv Compton, the women’s editor. ‘Compared with television we are slow. As a weekly we can’t compete with TV and newspapers. So we should concentrate on what we do best – human-interest stories with wonderful photographs. Instead of trying to cover all the news we reduce it to a digest. That way we still look on top of current affairs without the effort of cramming everything in.’
‘Television’s going to destroy us anyway,’ said Bob Denny, a grizzled senior photographer, and the office curmudgeon. ‘We may as well go down doing stuff we believe in rather than compete against the monster.’
‘Very cheering, Bob, thank you,’ said Jocelyn, with the courteous irony of one who had fielded such pessimism many times over. The debate continued around the table for some minutes until Marie leaned over and muttered something, to which Jocelyn nodded responsibly. ‘Yes, indeed – we must get on. Bright ideas?’
Elspeth spoke up. ‘I thought we should prepare something to mark the end of rationing. So we visit a housewife in Frinton, or wherever, see what groceries she puts in her basket now, then compare it with what she’ll buy in July, when meat and butter and what have you become available.’
‘If not affordable,’ someone put in.
Jocelyn nodded. ‘Yes, good. I see it – The End of Austerity.’
‘Photograph the family at dinner – “all smiles,”’ said Bob Denny, unsmiling.
‘Farewell Spam fritters – hullo Roast Lamb,’ said Terry Flint, another photographer, his hands modelling the air to enclose the caption.
Marie was looking down the editor’s ‘forthcoming’ list. ‘We have to arrange an interview with Dirk Bogarde for his next picture – first go at comedy.’
‘Really?’
‘He plays a dashing doctor, it says here.’
‘Bogarde in a comedy? That won’t fly.’
‘Doesn’t matter. He’ll look good on the cover,’ said Jocelyn. ‘We should send one of the girls to do him, I suppose.’
Bob Denny said, ‘I reckon he’d prefer one of the boys …’
Tuts and sniggers greeted his little jest. Jocelyn only sighed. ‘We also have to line up that piece on Alf Barry’s missus. Anyone fancy that? Freya – haven’t heard much from you.’
Jolted from a haze of preoccupation, Freya said, ‘I’m not doing another footballer’s wife. Sorry.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the last one almost bored me to extinction.’
Jocelyn lifted his chin. ‘I see. Poor Mrs Barry – seems such a nice lady. Do you have anything to offer instead?’
‘As a matter of fact I do,’ said Freya. ‘Jerry Dicks. He’s got an exhibition coming next month. I’d like to do a profile, explain how he went from being this anonymous jobbing smudger to the most original British portraitist of today. We could use a selection of his own pictures – they’ll look beautiful.’
There was a brief silence, which Bob Denny broke with a protesting gasp. ‘Original British what? The only Jerry Dicks I know is a vicious little queen who hangs about Soho cadging drinks and pissing up walls.’
‘Maybe. But he also takes brilliant photographs,’ said Freya with a tight smile. She had always sensed that Bob disliked her. She turned to Jocelyn. ‘I don’t think we should rule out a man just because of his “disreputable” character. The artist as ruffian is more compelling anyway. Look at Caravaggio, or Christopher Marlowe.’
‘True enough,’ said Jocelyn, tipping his head. ‘Dicks is certainly out of the common run.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ muttered Bob, flaring his nostrils in distaste. ‘Personally I don’t rate his stuff. You can’t talk of him in the company of Parkinson or Beaton, for instance.’
Freya laughed and shook her head. ‘That, if you don’t mind my saying, is balls.’
Bob’s expression darkened as he sat up in his chair, and Jocelyn, alert to the sudden crackle of antagonism, raised his hands like a referee separating two prizefighters. ‘Ah-ah, let’s keep it civil. Freya, there’s no need for that. Bob was only giving his opinion. That’s fair, isn’t it?’
She arranged her features into an impression of equability. ‘Of course. Bob can believe what he likes, as long as I’m allowed to estimate his critical capacity below zero.’
Bob, thrusting back his chair, stood up. His face was angrily flushed. ‘You should learn some respect, missy. Think you’re so smart with your degree from Oxford and your foul mouth.’ His northern accent had thickened with his disgust. He turned to Jocelyn. ‘I’m not going to sit here and be insulted by … juniors. Get your staff in order, man.’
He stalked out of the room. The ruffled air he left in his wake created an embarrassed pause in proceedings. It wasn’t that the others liked Bob much – he was a legendary moaner – but they tried not to provoke him. Into the silence Freya said, ‘I don’t have a degree from Oxford, by the way.’
They carried on for a while, suggesting ideas, assigning pairs to this or that story, but the wind had been knocked out of the meeting’s sails, and soon Jocelyn steered it to a close. As they were filing out of the room he asked to see Freya in his office.
‘That was neither wise nor kind,’ he said, shutting the door behind her. ‘I know Bob can be a pain in the neck, but he does deserve a measure of respect.’
Freya stared at him. ‘Why? He’s never shown any respect to me.’
‘Come on, Freya. Even if you don’t think you owe him, you owe it to me. It’s part of my job to run the ship, and I ca
n’t do that if you antagonise someone like Bob. This isn’t the first time, either.’
‘I can’t help it if he doesn’t like me. And I don’t think anyone in that meeting thought I spoke out of turn.’
‘You’re wrong about that. If you put Bob in a mood, the whole office suffers.’ He looked at her for any sign of remorse. The pause lengthened; then he said, in a changed voice, ‘May I give you some advice? In life, you may find that rampant individualism isn’t always the best way of getting what you want. People respond more readily to the idea of collective endeavour, to being part of a team. You begin to learn how important it is on a newspaper or a magazine, that sense of togetherness.’
Freya said, somewhat concedingly, ‘I’ve never been one for team games.’
‘It shows,’ said Jocelyn.
‘But I pull my weight. I don’t miss deadlines, I don’t object to working late, and I don’t ask for special treatment – unlike certain people.’
‘No one would doubt the quality of your work. But in some ways you don’t really help at all – you’re tactless with other people, and you’re dismissive of their feelings. The swearing doesn’t go down well, either, not from a lady.’ He looked at her, waiting for a reaction. ‘Is any of this getting through?’
Freya nodded. ‘I’ll apologise to Bob, if you want me to.’
‘You don’t sound very sorry.’
‘I’m not!’ she said with a half-laugh. ‘I’d only do it to help you.’
‘Well, that’s –’
‘But I still think you should let me write about Jerry Dicks. Joss, really, he’s a one-off – and it would make a smashing piece.’
Jocelyn’s look was wry, as though some point of his own had been proven. ‘No doubt. But I can tell you right now, the editor won’t like it. He’ll say: if this fellow’s so wonderful, why isn’t he taking pictures for us?’
‘From what I’ve heard about him it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t work for us – losing expensive equipment, falling down drunk. He’s a liability. But he’s a genius with a camera.’
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