Freya by Anthony Quinn Page B

never had at school. At Plymouth she had knocked around with other Wrens, and had affairs with various men, but none of them were close to her in the way Nancy was. The awkwardness over her novel had, if anything, bound them tighter together, for in those moments of hostile disputation they had both felt the warning touch of estrangement, and recoiled.
    The room where the gramophone played was smoky and beery and thronged with young men, some in earnest discussion, most of them goggling in amusement at the fellow in the middle of the floor dancing by himself. Dancing was perhaps too genteel a word for it: with his elbows flailing away, his knees going like pistons and his head twitching this way and that, he seemed as one in the throes of a possession – or a fit. He was quite oblivious of anyone else in the vicinity.
    Freya, after observing this spectacle for a few moments, said, ‘Robert.’
    The man stopped abruptly and, as if emerging from his trance, looked around. He squinted at her momentarily before a smile of recognition creased his face.
    â€˜Why, if it isn’t Freya!’
    â€˜I didn’t know there’d be a floor show. What d’you do for an encore?’
    Robert cackled, sweeping a dark fringe of hair from his sweating brow. ‘I can’t help it. I love this thing.’ He saw that Freya was not alone. ‘Hullo there!’
    â€˜This is Nancy,’ said Freya. ‘Nancy – Robert, whom I last saw in –’ she paused, with a little smirk – ‘Balliol.’
    Robert, reading the pause correctly, explained to Nancy: ‘This is the second time your friend has caught me unawares. I can’t tell if it’s coincidence or if she lies in wait before pouncing.’
    He began ushering them through to a back room where a knot of men were crowded round a beer barrel. It had been tipped onto its side and fitted with a makeshift nozzle. He called to one of the drinkers and held up three fingers, inscribing a rough halo to encompass his guests. This bar-room tic-tac soon had the desired effect: the youth approached bearing four glasses of beer on a wet tray. His hungry glance at Freya and Nancy suggested that an introduction should be the reward for his errand. Robert drawlingly obliged.
    â€˜Freya, Nancy – this is Charlie Tremayne, guide, philosopher and friend.’
    â€˜And beer carrier,’ Charlie added with a little nod. He was a short, pleasant-faced boy with tortoiseshell spectacles and close-cropped, mouse-coloured hair; Freya intuited that he would be playing second fiddle to Robert.
    They clinked glasses, and Robert, blowing a strand of hair from his eyes, looked from Freya to Nancy with candid interest. ‘Your arrival has definitely raised the tone of this party. It’s been very second-rate up to now.’
    â€˜Really?’ said Freya. ‘When I heard “The Sheik of Araby” blaring out back there I thought we’d come to the right place.’
    Charlie blinked in surprise. ‘Don’t often meet a girl who knows about jazz.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know much. I just like the stuff my dad plays – Ellington, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, that sort of thing.’
    â€˜And how about you?’ said Robert to Nancy. ‘Know your Basie from your “Basin Street Blues”?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not,’ she said with a little grimace of apology. ‘Vaughan Williams and Elgar are more my line.’
    â€˜Nancy’s a wonderful pianist,’ said Freya loyally. ‘We spent VE night together tickling the ivories.’
    â€˜Lucky old ivories,’ said Robert, waggling his eyebrows. ‘By the way, you might want a bit of this.’
    He had produced a hip flask from his pocket to hand around. Freya took a sip and tasted the perfumed sourness of warm gin. Ugh. Charlie followed suit; Nancy, she noticed, quietly declined it. Robert, having taken two long swigs, became