They had been talking for half an hour or so when Freya noticed they were the only ones left at the table. When she pointed this out, Jerry shrugged and said he’d last seen Nat and Hetty smoking in the kitchen. The cook had gone off hours ago. Then something else occurred to her.
‘Why did Martine leave when she did? I thought she and Nat might be –’
Jerry made a pursed comic face. ‘Nat’s another one who likes to change the bowling. Twiggez-vous?’
She could feel the coffee begin to steady her; the furniture had stopped playing games of perspective with her eyes. Jerry was now talking about the races, another passion he shared with Ossie. Both of them had their own bookie and would drop hundreds of pounds on a single bet. Ossie, he said, had got into serious trouble recently with some shady blokes he’d borrowed money from; they’d threatened to break all his fingers and then his arms if he didn’t cough up. ‘Inconvenient for a painter, that,’ Jerry sniggered. In the end he had to leave town while one of his ‘patrons’ sorted out the debt.
Prompted by his evident intimacy with the low life, Freya suddenly said, ‘Do you know a man called Sewell?’
Jerry paused on a frown. ‘Vernon Sewell, you mean?’
‘I’m not sure. I gather he was an informer for the MoD in the war.’
‘That’s Vern. He’s also a fuckin’ thief. I’d be sorry to hear you had any business with him.’
She told him the story of Alex, of his counter-espionage work during the war and the unfortunate re-emergence of Sewell in his life; the compromising photographs of him, the blackmail and now the threat of public exposure. Jerry’s olive-black eyes were watchful as he listened, flicking ash off his cigarette and knocking back great draughts of wine.
At the end of it he scratched his ear, and said, without emotion, ‘Sounds like he’s for it, your friend.’ He asked her if she knew where the photographs had been taken. She recalled the name of a club – the Myrmidon – that Alex had mentioned, though she had no clue of its whereabouts.
‘I know it. For queers with expensive tastes. Oh dear.’
Freya thought she may as well come to the point. ‘Can you help me get him out of it? Maybe introduce me to this –’
Jerry snorted in sardonic dismissal. ‘I don’t think you’d like to meet Vern – not quite your class, dear.’
‘I’ve met plenty of lowlifes in my time. I work for a newspaper, don’t forget.’
‘You’ve no idea. Vern’s a proper slag – the sort who’d sell his own grandmother and then ask for a receipt. You think he’ll just give you these photos?’
‘No,’ said Freya, ‘but he might give them to you.’
Jerry turned away, shaking his head; he wasn’t interested. Freya, aware of his nest-feathering instincts, said, ‘I’m sure we could negotiate a quid pro quo.’
He laughed in scoffing disdain, and squinted at his watch. ‘Sorry, love, but you haven’t got the quids to tempt me.’
He rose from the table, announcing it was time for him to push off. On his return from scouting the kitchen he said, ‘Dunno where our host has got to. Tell ’im Jerry said goodnight.’ He winked at Freya and patted down his pockets to check he had his keys and his snout. And then he was gone; she didn’t even hear the front door shut behind him. He had taken his leave in the silent, slinking way of a cat, vanishing into the night as it pleased him. The cat that walked alone.
Freya, surveying the empty room, had a sudden sense of exclusion, as if the other guests had moved on to something more interesting and not bothered to ask her along. It seemed very odd of Nat to have disappeared without so much as a goodnight. Fully alert again, she got up and wandered about the rooms, half expecting to find him lounging on a sofa with a book, or listening to a record. There was no one about. She was back in the hallway when she heard voices from somewhere below; they rose and fell, their hum strangely secretive. Then there was a noise she couldn’t identify, followed by a kind of laughing cry of protest. She followed the sound down the stairs to the basement. A fancy gas lamp, turned low, was the only illumination in the corridor. From what she presumed was a bedroom at the end came the sound, more distinct now, of two or perhaps three people talking.
As her footsteps clacked on the parquet flooring, the voices behind the door fell silent. They had heard her approach too late. She hesitated, wondering for a moment whether she ought to enter, since they were plainly quite reluctant to be disturbed. But to turn back would be demeaning – would make her look like a skulker, a creeper. She put her hand to the doorknob, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. The sight that greeted her had the air of a staged tableau: Nat, fully clothed and masked, a riding crop in his hand, and, bent over the arm of a plump velvet sofa, Hetty, naked but for her black knickers, pulled down just below the crimsoning globes of her buttocks. Freya’s first thought was Not again. That the door was unlocked now struck her as deliberate, for neither one of them moved.
Nat, in his ‘stage’ voice, snarled at Hetty, ‘You little fool, with your mewling. We are discovered!’
Hetty, also adopting a faux-actorly tone, began trading recriminations with Nat, calling him a ‘blackguard’ and accusing him of plotting her dismissal from the house. Then she turned in appeal to Freya and said, ‘My Lady, please forgive.’ They had evidently been working on this vignette of erotic intrigue – and its sudden exposure – for some time.
Freya realised she would have felt less embarrassed if she’d simply interrupted them having sex; there was at least a sincerity about being caught in flagrante. What she couldn’t stand was this play-acting, the coyness of their pretending to be domestic underlings and her own unwitting role as the ‘mistress’ who discovered them. Conniving at another’s sexual humiliation could not arouse her. And yet … and yet there was something about Hetty’s veiled expression and beautiful pale limbs disported on the couch that she couldn’t tear her gaze from. She could feel her mouth had gone dry.
Hetty seemed to catch this furtive current of feeling, because when she spoke again she used her own voice, not the stage one.
‘So are you coming in, or are you just going to stand there?’
20
August was ticking off the days to her thirtieth birthday party, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. Joss had taken the whole business in hand; he had organised the catering, hired a jazz band, arranged for a small marquee to be set up in his garden. He had got the invitations printed and posted them himself, rightly suspecting that Freya would find any excuse not to. Even her mother was going to make the trip to London for it.
Freya tried to show herself grateful. Joss had gone to such trouble, even when she’d been offish with him these last weeks – months – and had at times contrived to avoid him. It pained her to see him devotedly planning the ‘big day’ (as he called it) for she sensed in it his effort to patch up the listing hull of their relationship. Both of them knew, could not help being aware, that something was amiss between them. But she couldn’t bring herself to join in the repair work.
To conceal the upshot of her evening at Nat’s she had taken the precaution of wearing pyjamas when Joss was staying overnight. There could be no innocent way of explaining the angry red weals across her backside. He didn’t ask her much about that night, though she could tell he had his suspicions. In the days following she winced each time she sat down. She hadn’t even told Nancy about what had happened, partly out of embarrassment, and partly out of caution. Nancy and Robert were spending a lot of time together, and she could no longer feel certain about entrusting confidences. This thought was more depressing to her than any of the awkwardness with Joss.
Meanwhile there had been not a peep from Alex. Telephone calls to his home rang on, drearily. His office met her with polite stonewalling; he was absent on leave, they insisted. In the end she had written him a note and hand-delivered it through the letter box of his flat in Bayswater.
11 Great James St, WC
9 August 1954
I’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks. Where are you? I have been through a perfect hell of shame and self-accusation over what I said to you that day in Lincoln’s Inn. You asked for my help, with great humility, and I refused it, with unconscionable boorishness. Perhaps you wondered what could have possessed me to behave in such a way; I can hardly explain it to myself. I suppose your story knocked me sideways. We’d only just been reunited and the next thing you were asking me to lend you £300. I mistook this for opportunism and felt it as an insult to my pride. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I now realise how hard it must have been for you to ask, and feel ashamed of myself for the cold and brusque way I turned you down. I most humbly beg you to forgive me.
Of course if I had that sort of money I would give it you, gladly. Alas, I don’t. And I don’t know if it would get you out of your jam in any case. But you must believe I desperately want to help you. If there is a way, please let me know what I should do. I can’t bear the thought of you going through this on your own. Please please tell me that you’re all right, and that you still consider me
Your dear friend,
Freya
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.
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