Freya (53 page)

‘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.

They emerged onto Canonbury Square, where Chrissie made a beeline for the black Daimler parked opposite. Her driver had been waiting there the whole time. A man in a dark suit got out on seeing her and held open the rear door.

‘This is Ken, my driver,' she said over her shoulder. He nodded at Freya. ‘Where should we go?'

The car purred down Canonbury Road. In the back seat Chrissie's hands were busy with her knitting needles while they talked.

Freya chose a place at the Islington Green end of Essex Road, an Italian-run cafe with Formica tables, white-tiled walls and windows half steamed with condensation from the coffee machine that squealed in the background. They could see Ken in profile through the car window, stolidly absorbed in the
Mirror
. The clientele were builders, market people, locals; their entry caused one or two to glance up, but no one appeared to recognise the famous face. The waitress brought them tea the colour of brick. Freya rolled herself a cigarette and watched while Chrissie chowed down bacon and eggs, black pudding, fried bread. She had a trencherman's appetite for one so slender.

‘So how do you know Robert Cosway?' said Freya.

‘Oh, we met him through Bruce, at the Corsair. Always lovely to us, you know. Actually Ava thinks Robert's a bit of a hero – not many politicians would stick their neck out for coloured people like he does.'

Freya blew out a thin jet of smoke. Her silence was sufficiently pointed for Chrissie to return a searching look.

‘What happened with you two? He said you used to be great friends.'

‘We were. Once upon a time we were in love. I was about your age.' Opposite her Chrissie was saucer-eyed, waiting. ‘He betrayed a friend of mine which I … couldn't forgive.'

‘What?'

She shook her head sadly. ‘Let's not go into it. He may have changed, for all I know. The worst of it was that he married Nancy – my best friend. I haven't seen her in eight years.'

Chrissie looked aghast. ‘Eight years? I don't know how you do that – I couldn't stay mad that long. I just couldn't.'

‘Well, you're a nicer person than I am. I keep my wounds open. I can't help it.'

‘But how could you do without your best friend?'

‘I don't know. I used to think I didn't need … people. I never really troubled about friends, at school, or in the Wrens. It's not that I didn't have any, it's just – they didn't seem that important to me. I suppose that makes me sound rather cold, doesn't it?'

‘You don't seem cold to me,' said Chrissie, considering. ‘Tell me about her – your friend.'

‘Nancy? Oh … We met one another on VE Day, just by chance. She was quite shy, gawky. Very beautiful. We went back to my dad's flat that night and danced and played the piano till all hours – drank a lot of gin. I think we even smoked cigars, in honour of Churchill. Horrible! From then on we were fast friends. When she left Oxford we lived together in Bloomsbury, like a couple of students – or like an old married couple. We had some wonderful times.' Hearing herself become expansive, Freya stopped. ‘Sorry. I don't know why I'm burdening you with my personal history.'

Chrissie replied simply, ‘Cos I asked you.'

‘What about
your
pals? Ava seemed nice.'

‘Yeah. She still lives in Bromley, like most of my friends.'

‘But you don't?'

‘Oh no, I moved to town about a year ago. My agent found me a flat on Curzon Street – it's quite small. Just room for me and Alfie.'

‘Alfie?'

‘My dog. He's a Jack Russell. I'd be lost without him.'

‘You don't have a boyfriend, then?'

She shook her head. ‘Not since Roger. And he wasn't really …'

‘What d'you mean?'

Chrissie winced. ‘I shouldn't say … Bruce'd go up the wall if he knew I was talking to a
journalist
.'

Freya made a
pfff
sound. ‘Trust me, this is all “off the record”.'

‘Yeah. Just two girls natterin' together,' said Chrissie, relieved. ‘Anyway, Roger and me weren't stepping out. The agency just made it look that way, for the papers. He's queer, you see.'

‘Ah,' said Freya, imagining the frenzy in newspaper offices on being thrown that titbit.

‘You can't believe half of what they say – stuff about “sex parties” and me havin' it away with all sorts of different men. I don't think I've been to a sex party in me life!'

Freya smiled at her. ‘Me neither – though I long to be asked.'

It took Chrissie a moment to realise she was joking; she giggled nervously. Just then a harassed-looking woman pushed a baby in a pram past the window where they were sitting. Freya looked away, and continued rolling another cigarette.

Chrissie watched her light it and said quietly, ‘They say that smoking's not very good for expectant mothers …'

Freya let the remark hang for a moment. ‘That's to assume that I'm going to be a mother.'

‘Aren't you? Really?'

Freya squinted through the smoke, and gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. She could see how disappointed the girl was. ‘I'm sorry if that bothers you.'

Chrissie shrugged. ‘I think you'd be a good mum.'

‘Oh,
please
don't say that. And don't look at me like that, either.'

‘But why are you so set against it?'

Freya kneaded her brow with her hand. ‘You're too young to understand. I've worked my whole life to get where I am now. I had to fight for it, too, because if you're a woman you're never given the same chances. The rows I've had …'

Chrissie looked at her slyly. ‘Did you swear a lot?'

‘Of course. The point is, I never took a backward step. I knew I was good, it was just a matter of seeing the opportunity and taking it. A man wouldn't have to think twice, he'd take it and ask for more, but a woman – well, ambition doesn't look so attractive on her.'

‘Yes, but what's this got to do with –?'

‘Being pregnant? Because if you take the time off to have a child you opt out from the game, and you may never get back in. All that striving, up in smoke. You're nice to think I'd be a good mother, but I'm not sure I would. Quite apart from wondering what the hell I'd say to it, I'd probably resent the child for holding me back. That's not very maternal, is it?'

Chrissie stared off into the distance. She thinks I'm irresponsible, thought Freya – and hard-hearted. They began to talk about other things, what Chrissie was going to do next: a new billboard campaign, a possible film role, a job in New York. There was a lot going on for her. As she listened it occurred to Freya that she was actually old enough to be
her
mother. And would that have been so awful? She was a nice girl, cheery, well mannered, respectful, certainly more agreeable than
she
had been at twenty. Maybe they'd have had fun together, been the sort of mother and daughter who borrowed each other's clothes. You didn't have to be a stick in the mud just because you were past thirty.

But these were idle imaginings. Easy to be a mother once the daughter was grown up. Rather less so when she was an infant, with the mewling and puking, and you trying to get some sleep and hold down a job. Not to mention instilling the child with a moral code! She would have to stop swearing, for a start – which was highly fucking likely. Well, if she couldn't set a good example she might at least guard against setting a bad one. Was motherhood so outlandish a possibility?

She thought back to this morning's appointment with the GP and felt the abrupt return of her panic. No, she couldn't do it. No part of her
wanted
to do it.

The waitress had just put down the bill on their table, and Chrissie was staring at it in embarrassed silence.

‘What's the matter?' said Freya.

‘The breakfast … Three and six. An' I haven't got a penny on me.'

Freya laughed. ‘And there I was thinking you were the highest paid model in London.'

‘It's just – these things don't have pockets, and Bruce takes care of the money.'

‘Oh dear,' said Freya, pulling a grimace. ‘What shall we do?'

The girl bit her lip. ‘I could go and ask Ken if he's got some. Else we could –'

‘Offer to do the dishes?' she suggested, producing her purse at the same time. ‘Don't worry, it's on me.' Chrissie put her hand to her chest in relief.

‘Oh! Thank goodness. How awful of me – asking you out to breakfast and not a bean on me. I am sorry …'

‘You can pay for the next one.'

Chrissie, nodding earnestly, said that she would, for sure. She'd like that.

A few days later there was another ring at the door. Outside was parked a large van blazoned with Harrods livery. A man in a cap stood on the step.