Freya

by Anthony Quinn

  ‘I read somewhere that you’re going to be campaigning at that by-election – in the Midlands.’

  Robert nodded. ‘Netherwick. We’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands. The Tory councillor there, Lobbett, he’s been stirring up a lot of anti-immigration feeling. You’ve heard their slogan? “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour.” They’ve put it on leaflets! That’s what we’re up against.’

  ‘But you’re fighting the good fight.’

  He heard the irony in her voice. ‘Makes me look quite human, doesn’t it?’

  She stared at him. ‘Almost.’

  ‘Freya …’ He shook his head, at a loss. ‘I remember the last time we spoke, in the office that day – I’d never seen anyone that furious. D’you remember what you called me?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ she replied. Her voice didn’t waver. There was no wryness or regret in it. Robert had tried to buy her off with charm, his preferred currency, and he could tell it hadn’t been accepted.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll have me for a friend again, will you?’ The words had a kind of yearning in them.

  The shake of her head was slight but unmistakable. She stood up, and smoothed down her skirt. ‘Good luck in Netherwick,’ she said, by way of farewell. She was moving off when he called her back.

  ‘Is there anything you want me to say to Nancy – any message?’

  At that moment she almost pitied him. ‘Just tell her … I said hullo.’

  She could feel his gaze following her as she headed for the door. In the opposite corner she saw Chrissie at Bruce’s table, hemmed in by a press of people eagerly grabbing their fill of her. She decided it wasn’t worth fighting her way through them just to say goodnight.

  She was double-stepping up the corridor of mirrors when she met Nat handing in his coat at the cloakroom. He tipped his head enquiringly.

  ‘Going so soon? I thought we might make an evening of it.’

  ‘Sorry, not tonight. I’m beat, for one thing. For another, I’ve just had a mauvais quart d’heure with Robert Cosway.’

  ‘Ah.’ Nat widened his eyes, interested. ‘Did you swat his face with your gauntlet?’

  ‘I spared him that. I think he wanted us to make up.’

  ‘That’s rather optimistic of him.’

  ‘I find his reflexive grin so odd – like it’s stuck to his face. The only time it faltered was when he first caught sight of me. He also seems to be friends with Chrissie.’

  Nat smirked. ‘Always had an eye for a pretty girl – you of all people should know. What did you think of Miss Effingham?’

  ‘She’s a sweet girl – adorable, really. That’s why I’m not going to write about her. She’s just too …’

  ‘Young?’ he suggested.

  ‘No, no, the opposite! I kept looking for the madness of youth and instead I found this child-woman with her knitting and her not swearing and her mumsy advice about a good night’s sleep. Honestly, I felt more like her kid. A badly behaved kid at that.’

  He shook his head. ‘What’s the world coming to when we can’t rely on the young for some old-fashioned delinquency?’

  Freya patted his sleeve fondly. ‘Thanks, anyway. For introducing us. Somebody should look after that girl.’

  ‘Ha, she has a whole praetorian guard looking after her, in case you hadn’t noticed. Haddon is all over her like a cheap cologne.’

  ‘I don’t mean like that. They’re just hangers-on. I mean a proper friend, somebody to keep her from harm. She’s an innocent, Nat.’

  ‘Now who’s the one sounding maternal! I fancy she’s tougher than you think – and she’s certainly not short of friends.’ Nat had dispensed with his coat and was straightening his tie in preparation for the crush of the Corsair’s lounge. He bent forwards to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘Ave atque vale, dearest. Or “hi and bye”, as the young people say.’

  She waved to him before taking the stairs and exiting into the lamplit dark of Mayfair. She felt another yawn coming on as she walked to the car.

  26

  The following Friday she was back at the surgery at the behest of Dr Maybury: they had received the results of her tests from the Royal Northern. Freya had asked if she could have them over the telephone to save herself the bother of coming in, but the secretary said it was policy for the GP to inform her in person. So she fidgeted through another twenty minutes in the waiting room, another straight-faced riffle through Punch, before her name was called and once again she found herself in the chair adjacent to the doctor’s. He was wearing the same suit with a different tie.

  His manner seemed a notch warmer on the social thermostat, she thought.

  ‘Miss Wyley,’ he began, ‘I have your blood and urine tests from the hospital, as my secretary informed you.’ He had tweaked his mouth into a slight apology of a smile, and she felt a tingling of relief that she wasn’t seriously ill – this had been her worry when they had asked her to attend in person.

  ‘A touch of anaemia?’ she ventured.

  ‘You are indeed somewhat anaemic,’ he agreed. ‘You are also pregnant.’

  The word was so bald and preposterous that she actually laughed. ‘What? That’s impossible.’

  ‘Not so. You are four months pregnant, in fact …’ He proceeded to explain how she might have missed the symptoms, it wasn’t uncommon for a woman of her age to overlook certain telltale signs –

  ‘Wait, wait. This is a mistake. You must have my results mixed up with someone else’s.’

  Maybury looked at her in the manner of one who had looked at many such patients protesting their diagnosis, someone who had heard all kinds of blustering talk about mistakes being made and tests fouled up. In the little contest of bluff he had the winning hand, always, and his opponent could only, in that pulpy phrase, read ’em and weep.

  She had one ace left to play. ‘But I’ve had a period in the last three months – I swear it.’

  ‘You don’t have to swear it, Miss Wyley; I believe you. A woman may conceive and yet still have a light period in the weeks following. She may not know it, but she’s still pregnant. In your case it explains why you have been feeling tired, the stomach cramps –’

  ‘Oh, for fucking hell’s sake please tell me this is a mistake.’ She would beg him: she would get down on her knees and beg him, if only he could tell her … The doctor talked on, but nothing he said could she take in. It was just a voice. She noticed instead his club tie and wondered which one it was – the RAC, perhaps, or the Nines. In the top pocket of his jacket was clipped a metal biro. But on his desk blotter lay an expensive-looking fountain pen. So how did he decide which one to use? Biro for the prescriptions, and maybe the Parker for the correspondence. Head stuck ostrich-like inside this reverie, she was abruptly recalled to the matter in hand by Maybury’s raised voice.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t –?’

  ‘I said, have you considered what you wish to do?’

  Freya looked away. How could she possibly have decided? He’d only just told her, for Christ’s sake. ‘No, I haven’t – I mean, apart from knowing that I don’t want the thing at all.’

  Maybury’s gaze was fixed on her. ‘There are certainly risks in childbearing for a woman of your age,’ he said, adding drily, ‘aside from the personal inconvenience to yourself.’

  She couldn’t keep the pleading note from her voice. ‘What – what can I do?’

  He paused, and dropped his voice to an undertone. ‘Unofficially, I could put you in touch with a consultant, outside of this area. He would be prepared to … make an arrangement. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.’

  She nodded her understanding, and Maybury returned a grave nod of his own. He picked up his fountain pen. (So that’s what it was for.)

  ‘Give me your telephone number,’ he said, and seeing her puzzled look he shook his head. ‘What you decide to do does not concern this practice. I will pass on your number, and you’ll receive a telephone call in due course. There must be no c
ommunication with me on this matter at all. Do you understand?’

  He wrote down her number and capped his pen. Perceiving her benumbed air he said, in a gentler voice, ‘I’m sorry that this news isn’t … what you wished to hear. I suggest that in future you take more care protecting yourself.’

  She knew she’d been spared a lecture, but she winced all the same, feeling the injustice of it.

  Outside, on the surgery steps, she felt dazed. The sun had come out to loll on a high divan of off-white clouds, its faint warmth mocking her plight. A 19 bus heaved past, faces steady and incurious at the windows. She crossed the road, a monosyllable droning around her head: How? How? She thought of Dani – Daniele Clerici – the last man who had shared her bed. They had been together, off and on, since the summer of last year. He was a couple of years younger, a carefree type, boyishly handsome with a wispy dark beard and a pouty lower lip she rather liked. He was their newspaper’s advertising manager, and had pursued her for months before she gave in and agreed to a date. They started going out, in a desultory fashion. At weekends they smoked a lot of dope, listened to Chet Baker on her Dansette and ate at restaurants in Trastevere. Both of them liked cinema, though they often argued about what they saw. He chaffed her whenever she became remotely cerebral about a film, claiming that she overcomplicated things. Dani revered Brando, and she would laugh at him trying moody imitations in the mirror: ‘A one-way ticket to Palookaville …’ he would mutter in his accented English. He thought Vertigo was boring, and she began to think he might not be all that bright. Most of the time they rubbed along happily, or at least contentedly, but if he went off on his motorbike to visit friends or his family in Lazio, she didn’t miss him.

  But still, she wouldn’t have been so stupid –

  She was halfway up Compton Road when it blindsided her, in a rush, slamming like a door in her face. They had broken up without much ado at the beginning of December, when she already knew she was going back to London. Then, in the dead slump between Christmas and the new year she had gone to a party, thinking he was still with his folks in Rieti. Instead, he was there too, and stunned by dope and the wistful holiday mood they collapsed into bed. A last dance, as it were, before they said arrivederci. Mother of God, that was it, the reckless moment – and now a tiny sliver of him lay curled up inside her. She stopped and grasped hold of a railing, her gorge lifting helplessly towards her throat. She steadied herself, gasping, holding on. To vomit on the street, in broad daylight, was a humiliation not to be borne.

  She got back to the flat, her stomach still on the waltzers, and hid herself under a blanket on the sofa. She was moaning and shivering piteously. The worst of it was that she didn’t have anyone to call, anyone she could make a fool of herself in front of. She had been slow to re-establish any of the old friendships she had abandoned eight years ago. Nat, probably her closest pal, could never be a confessor to her. He’d listen well enough, but he didn’t brim with compassion, and likely as not you’d end up in one of his plays. The one person she would have told in bygone days was no longer available to her. There was always her parents, of course, whose love had been unstinting. And yet she could hardly bear to explain to either of them how badly she had fucked things up. They’d want to know about the father, and what kind of support she could expect – as if she had any intention of telling Dani.

  What made it more painful was knowing that Stephen and Cora would be thrilled at the prospect of being grandparents. Rowan, her brother, had not produced on that front. Phlegmatic and insular, he was still a bachelor fellow at Cambridge, where (as far as she knew) he was simultaneously involved with three different women, all older. Each one knew about the other, it seemed, and their mutual complaisance was likely to preserve the arrangement.

  She was making a consolatory pot of tea when the doorbell rang. Traipsing down the stairs she began to wonder how long it would take Maybury’s consultant to telephone. The thought of a secret sharer in her belly had become more dismaying by the minute. A surprise awaited her on the doorstep. It took a couple of seconds to realise that the gawky schoolgirl with dark hair pulled back from her pale face was in fact Chrissie Effingham.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, peering hopefully over Freya’s shoulder into the hall. ‘I just called on the off chance. Nat gave me your address.’

  ‘Oh. D’you want to come in?’

  If there was any hint of uncertainty in her invitation Chrissie’s eager little nod overrode it. She was dressed in an ‘off-duty’ ensemble of baggy Fair Isle sweater and ski pants, with a contractual minimum of make-up. She followed at a respectful distance up the stairs. In the kitchen Freya poured the girl a cup of tea and pointed her through to the living room.

  ‘I haven’t got round to decorating yet,’ said Freya, as Chrissie’s inquisitive gaze took in the high ceiling and the mismatched furniture shipped back from Rome. She folded herself into the corner of the sofa where she’d been maundering. Chrissie, facing the windows onto the square, said she’d never been in Islington before.

  ‘It’s all right. I like the old squares. Evelyn Waugh used to live here.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Chrissie.

  Freya smiled. ‘Just a writer. So … your day off?’

  She nodded. ‘You too?’

  ‘Not exactly. Usually I’d be at work, but I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you thought you might have anaemia. What did he say?’

  ‘He said that I’m … yes, anaemic.’

  She got up from the sofa and picked a record to put on the player. The needle dropped on a loose-limbed, mid-tempo number with a skip in its step; a creamy tenor saxophone floated over the top. It was meant to lift her mood. Chrissie nodded along to the beat, and examined the record’s sleeve in wide-eyed curiosity.

  ‘Dexter Gordon. Doin’ Allright. He looks happy! You listen to jazz a lot?’

  ‘A fair bit. What d’you like?’

  ‘Oh, different stuff. Petula Clark – she’s good.’ She stared at Freya for a moment. ‘Nat says you’re quite – what was the word he used? – bohemian.’

  ‘Is that so?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve been called worse.’

  Chrissie smiled at her. ‘Your face is so different when you laugh.’

  ‘Isn’t everybody’s?’

  ‘Not like yours. When you answered the door just then, you looked so … sad. Like you had the cares of the world.’

  Freya dropped her gaze, saying nothing. Chrissie continued her inspection of the room. She stopped at the painting on the mantelpiece. ‘That’s you, isn’t it? – with long hair. When’s that from?’

  ‘My dad gave it to me for my twenty-first.’

  She looked round at Freya. ‘Aww, I bet he’s really proud of you, isn’t he?’

  Her agonising about her parents and the calamitous news was too raw even for this innocent remark. A hot surge sprang so abruptly behind her eyes that she had no time to stopper it. She felt stupid to be crying in front of this girl, a stranger, but it was beyond help.

  Chrissie’s own eyes had widened in appalled sympathy. ‘Oh! Oh, Freya! What’s the matter, darling?’ She came to sit next to her, but her tentative hand on hers, far from staunching the flow, only quickened it. Even if she’d wanted to, Freya’s throat was too choked to speak.

  When she at last caught her breath she raised her salt-stung eyes to Chrissie. ‘Sorry!’ she muttered, in a gluey voice.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided gently. ‘What is it? Please tell me.’

  Having put the girl through that unseemly display she could find no reason to keep dissembling. With her knuckles she blotted her eyes. Looking heavenwards she said, in a voice as steady as she could manage, ‘The doctor said that – as well as being anaemic – I’m pregnant.’

  Chrissie’s congratulatory ‘Oh!’ wavered in the face of Freya’s evident misery. In a coaxing voice she said, ‘Is it really that awful?’

  Freya nodded slowly.

  ‘
Because you’re not married?’

  She met that with a worldly chuckle. ‘No, not because of that. It’s just – I don’t want a child. I have nothing to do with the –’

  Chrissie clamped a hand over her sudden intake of breath. ‘Oh no! It’s him, isn’t it? That’s why he asked us to leave the table the other night so he could talk to you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Robert. Robert Cosway’s the father, isn’t he?’

  She stared at her for a moment, and laughed again. ‘No, he’s not. I could curse him for a lot else, but not that.’ She saw the doubt in Chrissie’s face. ‘How could it be? That was literally the first time we’d seen one another in eight years.’

  ‘So it’s …?’

  ‘Not someone you’d know. He’s barely someone I know. It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t want a child even if I were madly in love.’

  ‘Oh …’ said Chrissie, looking away. ‘That is a shame.’

  Freya heard a faint disapproval in the girl’s voice. Dexter Gordon’s saxophone bleated on pleasantly for a few bars, before she said, ‘Oh well, at least I know now why I’ve been so tired.’

  Chrissie was gazing at her. ‘Of course. You’re gonna have to look after yourself – lots of sleep, eating prop’ly … Have you had breakfast?’

  She shook her head, and Chrissie, jumping off the sofa, was suddenly bright with purpose.

  ‘Eggs and bacon, do you the world of good! Shall I go and make some?’

  ‘It’s nice of you to offer, but the cupboard’s bare, I’m afraid. No fridge.’

  Chrissie, mock stern, put her hands on her hips. ‘What are we gonna do with you? No telly, no fridge … Let’s go out, then.’

  Freya groaned, and drew up her legs on the sofa. She wasn’t hungry, nor ready to interrupt her sorrowful mood of self-pity. But Chrissie wouldn’t be put off, and took to pleading. She had to eat! By degrees her resistance waned and, with a sigh, she surrendered. She couldn’t help feeling a little flattered that the girl should be so insistent on looking after her.