Joely had finished ghosting her first pages for Freda’s memoir, pages that had contained no sex, explicit or otherwise. In fact, to Joely’s mind, they didn’t contain very much at all. Apart, she supposed, from a further glimpse into young Freda’s character, and the blurring of lines around who was the real seducer.
Perhaps there was more there than she was allowing for, something more subtle that would gain its proper significance the further into the memoir they went. As it was, having been given so little information during their discussion it hadn’t taken Joely more than a day to produce the few paragraphs she’d felt it warranted. After, she’d gone back over them several times, comparing them with Freda’s opening chapters to check that the style was similar enough for Freda to deem them worthy of use as a first draft. (It was Joely’s secret hope that Freda would find them so convincing that she’d feel confident enough to let them pass as her own work.)
In the end, having decided that her efforts portrayed young Freda in the light her older counterpart had intended—vain and arrogant, certainly naïve but perhaps now there was the suggestion of her being as much a victim as a predator—she’d handed over the pages for inspection (feeling a little apprehensive, she had to admit, given how keen she was to impress).
Freda had thanked her politely, said she would read with interest and had promptly taken herself off to her room.
Twenty-four hours later she was still there.
They couldn’t be that bad, surely.
“Mrs. D won’t be joining you today,” Brenda had informed her again this morning. No explanation, or indication of when she might expect to see her host, simply, “More porridge? Did I tell you the honey’s from Bob Allsop’s hives and a sweeter concoction you won’t find anywhere.”
After breakfast Brenda said, “How about a little tour? Of the house.”
Whether this was at Freda’s prompting, or it was Brenda simply wanting to show the place off, Joely had no idea. It hardly mattered, since she was keen to find out what lay behind at least some of the closed doors she kept passing on the way to and from her bedroom.
And of course there was the mysterious third floor where no one ever seemed to go.
They began in the long corridor, where Brenda opened up the room next to the kitchen first, turning on the overhead lights as they stepped inside so they could see where they were going.
“I won’t bother opening up the shutters in here,” Brenda said, “they’re a bit stiff and I can’t always get them closed again. Anyway, this is the ‘den’ where Mrs. D watches TV when she’s in the mood for it.”
It was an old-fashioned room with fading wallpaper and an eclectic mix of furniture including a large Oriental-style cabinet beside the empty marble fireplace that presumably contained the TV.
“She’s got a big collection of DVDs,” Brenda boasted, pointing Joely to the built-in shelves on either side of the hearth that were packed with movie choices. “She’s keen on old films and documentaries, but there’s a good selection of all sorts, some belonged to her husband, and some are her nephew’s.”
“Does he visit often?” Joely asked, skimming over titles: Doctor Zhivago, Out of Africa, Hangover III, Bridesmaids, King Lear, North by Northwest. All randomly placed, and giving no clear indication of ownership or character insight.
Brenda said fondly. “Not as often as he’d like, he always says, but he’s a busy man, being a lawyer, in London.”
“What sort of lawyer?” Joely inquired. Brief Encounter, The Ides of March, I, Claudius, Mrs. Miniver. The Killing box set.
“I think he deals mostly in brands and intellectual something or other,” Brenda replied, dusting off a stray DVD with her apron and slotting it back onto a shelf. “That’s him over there,” she said, pointing to a row of photographs on the mantelpiece. “Looks a lot like a young Cary Grant, I reckon, or that’s what I tell him and he says I shouldn’t flatter him or it’ll go to his head.”
Picking up one of the photos, Joely studied it for a likeness to the movie star, and while she couldn’t really find one, she had to admit that the dark hair and strong jawline were impressive, and there was a certain ease about his smile that made him look friendly and fun. In fact he reminded her of someone, perhaps not as old as Cary Grant, someone more contemporary but for the moment she couldn’t think who it was. In the next shot she picked up he was younger and glowering at the photographer in a way that reminded her of a schoolboy being forced to do as he was told. The man with him had a hand on his shoulder, and was laughing as though he was sharing a joke with the photographer, one that a bad-tempered Edward might be the butt of.
“Is this his father?” she asked Brenda, holding up the photograph.
Looking at it Brenda said, “Yes, that’s the two of them together, bless their hearts. They look alike, don’t they, and you can see the family resemblance to Mrs. D. Edward’s father was her brother.”
Joely placed the photo back on the shelf, and said, “Are there any of Mr. D?”
“Not in here,” Brenda replied, straightening up the frame. She walked back to the door and lifted a hand to the light switch. “There’s this room done,” she declared. “Let’s move on to the next, shall we?”
Keen to learn more about the family, especially Mr. D, Joely followed Brenda along the corridor to the entrance hall, where the housekeeper pushed open the set of double doors that had caught Joely’s interest the night she’d arrived.
Like the den it was in darkness, but in here Brenda unbolted and unfolded the tall wooden shutters allowing sunlight to flood into the room and Joely saw right away that it was all about music. She gazed around at the many instruments, an electric keyboard on cross-hatch legs, a collection of violins in cases, a cello, guitars, an African drum, a saxophone in a display case, and at the center of it all a magnificent grand piano.
“No one ever comes in here now except me to clean,” Brenda told her sadly. “It was Mr. D’s special place where he’d play and listen and compose, and the music would roll out over the meadow down to the sea when the windows was open . . . Magical it was, absolutely magical.”
Finding that easy to believe, Joely said, “Was he a professional musician?”
Brenda chuckled. “You could be forgiven for thinking so with all this, but no, he wasn’t. It was his hobby, well, I suppose you’d call it his passion. Yes, it was definitely a passion.” She walked across the room and slid open the doors of a cupboard that took up most of the back wall. “Have you ever seen a collection of vinyl like this outside a shop?” she asked, seeming almost as proud of it as its owner had surely been.
“They’re in alphabetical order,” Brenda informed her, “and there’s everything from classical to pop to jazz and country and western. He loved all sorts he did. He’d shut himself away in here for hours and hours losing all track of time. Sometimes Mrs. D would come in and they’d sing together or dance, and you never saw anything so romantic the way they moved together.” She smiled fondly. “They was always ravenous when they came out from one of their listening sessions so I’d make sure to have something ready to go on the table. They used to eat meat back then and he was very partial to game pie or a goulash.”
Joely wandered over to the piano so polished it shone like a mirror. There was a music sheet on the brass stand—“While My Lady Sleeps” (Phineas Newborn Jr.)—and the stool was slightly askew as though someone had just popped out for a moment. She wished she could read music, or better still listen to someone playing this seemingly abandoned piece. “So what was his profession?” she asked, feeling an urge to press the keys but not daring to.
Brenda nodded meaningfully toward the paintings that were hanging over the fireplace and around the walls. Having been so entranced by all the musical instruments Joely hadn’t noticed them until now, and as she gave them more attention, she began to frown in confusion.
“Recognize them, don’t you?” Brenda stated with satisfaction. “Monet, Bonnard, Cézanne, Matisse.”
Joely continued to study them, going closer to one that depicted a naked woman standing beside a chaise longue and half turned toward a French window. Surely all the great Impressionist works were in galleries and museums. Certainly the ones she was seeing here were.
“He was a copyist,” Brenda explained, “and a very talented one as you can see. If you look more closely at that one you’ll spot that the woman is a young Mrs. D. He used to do that, just for them—paint her into famous pictures. The ones he sold were proper copies of the impresarios and people were willing to pay a lot for them.”
Not correcting the mistake, Joely roamed the display taking in more of the familiar works and seeing that many of them did indeed feature a much younger Freda. Not as a girl, but as a twenty- or thirty-year-old woman with an exquisite body and such luxurious long blond hair it seemed almost to have a life of its own.
“Is this him?” she asked stopping at a smaller portrait of a strikingly handsome man with penetrating eyes and a roguish sort of smile.
Brenda came to stand beside her. “Yes, that’s him,” she said affectionately. “A real looker, isn’t he? And charm like it was spring flowers in bloom. He had a temper on him though, not that he ever turned it on any of us, it was always when he was trying to write some music or paint a picture and it wasn’t properly working out that he went off on one. We called it his artist’s temperament.”
“Didn’t they have any children?” Joely asked, still intrigued by the man captured in oils who seemed so alive, so ready to walk into the room and play one of the many instruments.
“No, it never happened for them,” Brenda replied, “and it’s a shame because I think they’d have made good parents, the two of them.”
Joely turned around to see if there was any more she’d missed in the room.
“His painting studio is upstairs next to the tower,” Brenda informed her. “We keep it the way he liked it; only me and Mrs. D ever go in there, me to clean, obviously, and she says it makes her remember him better when she’s where she used to pose for him.”
Apparently deciding they’d had enough of the music room, Brenda closed and locked the shutters and led the way back into the hall where she pulled the double doors gently together again.
“What’s on the top floor?” Joely asked as Brenda used her apron to wipe a smear from one of the windows.
“Oh, there’s only more bedrooms up there,” the housekeeper replied. “None of them get used now, so we’ve got them all shut up.”
Joely paused as she caught the sound of someone singing at a distance and looked up the stairs as she realized it was coming from somewhere much deeper in the house. She listened harder and felt an odd chill go through her as she recognized “The Gaelic Blessing.” Why was Freda singing it now, and why was she, Joely, feeling spooked by it?
She turned to Brenda, but the housekeeper was already on her way back to the kitchen, saying it was time for her to get on.
Not knowing what else to do, Joely followed and after Brenda had left she tried to get better reception on her mobile. It was no good, no matter where she went in the house the signal simply wasn’t strong enough to make calls or receive emails, she couldn’t even send a text. So apart from being unable to contact her mother or Holly, she could also forget about googling Mr. D, or his wife’s nephew, Edward.
How frustrating and even disorienting it was to be without the Internet and phone, especially in a house that was positioned with its back to the nearest town and seemed so packed full of secrets. She really wasn’t enjoying feeling this cut off; it was bizarrely like being in a different time zone, another dimension even, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do to make herself feel more grounded. Or less unsettled by her peculiar client.
In the end she drove into town and downloaded her messages in a bustling café over a coffee and muffin. There were plenty, mostly work-related (though no actual offers at this time) and a couple from friends wondering when to expect her back. There was nothing from Callum to say he was still missing her—as do I—or from Holly on whether she’d moved to her grandmother’s yet.
From her mother there was a brief text saying Hope it’s going well. Call when you can.
She tried her mother’s number but went straight to voicemail. “Hi, no news,” she said, “just getting in touch while I can because the signal where I’m staying is next to useless. Is Holly with you now? Hope she’s OK. Love you both. Speak soon.”
On returning to Dimmett House she went straight through to the kitchen hoping to find Freda ready to give some feedback on the latest paragraphs, or perhaps to reveal more for the memoir, but there was no sign of her. She toyed with the idea of going into the den to watch a movie or boxed set, but as she hadn’t actually been invited to make use of that room she decided to curl up in front of the fire with one of Freda’s books instead. It turned out to be a gothic tale of necromancy, illicit pleasure, and treason, and like most of Freda’s works was hard going and unsettling, although Joely’s concentration was poor. Her mind was flitting between the music room and its paintings, and her host somewhere upstairs silent and uncommunicative, apart from when she was singing.
Joely had been around publishing—newspapers and books—for long enough to know that some editors kept writers waiting simply because they hadn’t had time to read anything yet; or because they were so baffled or appalled by what they’d read that they didn’t know what to say. Some did it because they were sadists. But Freda wasn’t an editor, she was an author, she’d had plenty of time to read, and what Joely had put on the page was neither baffling nor appalling.
So did that make Freda a sadist?
A bit of an extreme conclusion, however she’d certainly know how stressful it could be waiting for a response.
I’m making this too much about myself.
This was possible, but Freda was definitely a strange woman, unpredictable and eccentric—and fixated. For instance, why did she keep her husband’s things exactly as they’d been at the time he’d died? Did she have a purpose for that? Was this her way of freezing time? What had happened to him? And was the nephew Edward likely to turn up while she, Joely, was here?
Where were Callum and Martha going for the weekend?
“Grandma, are you OK?” Holly asked, glancing up from her mobile as she wandered into the kitchen. “Why are you staring at your phone like that?”
Marianne Jenson sighed and put down her mobile to pull her granddaughter into a hug. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said. “Is Dad with you?”
“No, he dropped me off and ran. He said to tell you he’ll see you later when he brings my stuff. Can I get something to eat?”
“Help yourself. So are you here just for the weekend, or to stay? You know you’re welcome. Your room’s always ready for you.”
“Cool, thanks. I think I might stay. It’s kind of weird being at Martha’s, and I definitely don’t want to be there on my own while they’re away.”
Understanding that, Marianne said, “Have you heard from Mum recently?”
Holly slotted two slices of bread into the toaster as she shrugged. “Kind of. Why? She’s OK, is she?”
“I’m sure she is, it’s just that she’s not easy to get hold of at the moment and I’m used to speaking to her every day.” She left it there, not wanting to confide any deeper concerns in her granddaughter for fear of making her worry too. Not that Holly was worry-free where her mother was concerned, far from it given the breakup of her parents’ marriage. However Holly was currently handling it in her own way, which didn’t include discussing it with anyone until she was ready. “My reactions, my trauma, my timetable,” was how she put it, and they all knew better than to try arguing with her.
“Are you doing anything this evening?” Marianne asked, tugging a band from her hair to let it tumble around her shoulders.
“Yeah, I’m meeting up with some friends,” Holly replied. “How about you?”
Marianne checked the time. “I need to leave in half an hour to make a viewing in Knightsbridge. After that I’ve got a session with Ryan Philips, so I won’t be back until around eight.”
“Ryan Philips being one of your private students?”
“I’m helping him with expository writing.”
Holly pulled a face. “What’s that?” she demanded, fetching a jar of peanut butter from the fridge.
“It’s what they call factual compositions at the school he’s going to be attending when his family move to the States,” Marianne explained. “Did Dad say what time he was coming back with your things?”
Holly shook her head and checked her phone as a text arrived.
“Doesn’t sound as though I’ll see him,” Marianne commented, and hoisting a basket of fresh towels onto her hip she took it upstairs with her, needing to shower after her run.
Ten minutes later, dressed in slim-leg navy pants and cream cashmere sweater, she returned to the kitchen to find Holly already on her way out. “Back by nine,” she said, as Holly planted a kiss on her cheek, “and please wear a coat.”
With a roll of her eyes Holly grabbed the black pea coat she’d draped over a chair and with a winning smile she blew another kiss her grandmother’s way before heading out of the door.
As soon as she was alone, Marianne picked up her mobile to call Jamie.
“Hey, Mum,” he said cheerfully. “What’s up? I’m about to go into a PTA meeting, but if it’s urgent . . .”
“It’s not,” Marianne confessed, “I only wanted to know when you last spoke to Joely.”
“Uh, let me see, it was when she left to go on her new assignment. I rang to wish her luck. Why? Has something happened?”
“Not that I’m aware of. But I can’t help worrying about her. I’m even starting to wonder if the assignment is really a cover for her needing to get away for a while. You know how she’s been lately . . .”
“Sure I do, but she’s had a lot to deal with, and she told you who she’s working with so I don’t get why you think the job isn’t real.”
Marianne sighed. “I guess it is, but she took off so soon after Callum moved out that I still haven’t been able to talk to her about it. She doesn’t usually keep things back from me, but I’m certain she is now, and we’ve agreed many times that she’s been different since Dad died.”
“It’s true, she has, but not in a way that I think you need to go worrying yourself about. We all took it hard, and we’ve all got our own ways of dealing with it. Joely’s has been to shut down for a while.”
“I know, but I’m afraid it’s the reason behind Callum leaving. Or at least part of the reason.”
“Have you asked him about it?”
“No, but I intend to as soon as I can. Holly’s staying with me now, by the way, I guess until Joely comes back.”
“Which will be when?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t been very specific.” She paused, not sure whether to ask the next question, but in the end decided to. “Jamie, do you think she might have found something out about Dad after he died?”
“Like what? There’s nothing to find out, is there?”
“Not that I know of, but the way she’s been . . . Have you ever told her about the talk you and I had with Dad?”
“No, you thought she didn’t need to know so I’ve never mentioned it.”
Marianne nodded. “OK, so it won’t be that and anyway I can’t think why it would make her pull away from us, and especially not from Callum. Even Holly’s felt it . . .” She stopped, not entirely sure what else she wanted to say, how to put into words her mother’s instinct that she was missing something that she needed to get hold of.
“Mum, I have to go, but I’ll be home in an hour if you want to call back.”
“Thanks, but you’ve got enough going on and I don’t want to bother you again.”
“It’s not a bother. You’re my mother, she’s my sister. I’m here for you, OK?”
With a smile Marianne said, “Love you, Jamie Jenson,” and after ending the call she grabbed her keys and coat, deciding to try Joely again as soon as she returned home.
“Mrs. D sends her apologies,” Brenda said as Joely entered the kitchen, “but she won’t be joining you for breakfast and she doesn’t want to work today.”
“Is she unwell?” Joely asked, as concerned as she was baffled by this prolonged absence.
Brenda simply shrugged and carried on stirring milk into the porridge she had simmering on the Aga.
Joely wasn’t sure what to say. Something was odd about this, something she couldn’t fathom, unless her client was ill. Even if she wasn’t, if she didn’t want to work, she, Joely, was hardly in a position to insist. Sitting down at the table, she said, “Please tell Mrs. D that if she doesn’t like the pages I wrote then I’m happy to discuss them and try again.” She was irked by her admission of insecurity, and it wasn’t helped by the time it took for Brenda to dry her hands on a tea towel before answering.
“Bill’s taken the Jeep for an inspection today,” she said, “so if you’d like a lift into town I’ll be leaving shortly.”
Joely drank her coffee, puzzled by Brenda’s failure to acknowledge her message to Freda, and wondering if she’d just been told in an oblique way that Freda wanted her out of the house.
In the end, deciding it would serve no purpose to hang around here with nothing to do but get spooked by random singing and her own imagination she accepted the offer of a lift into Lynton. Once there she rode the funicular down to Lynmouth and the National Park Centre to use up some time learning more about the area.
It turned into a fascinating few hours that took her mind off Freda, and even off Callum, who still hadn’t texted since his claim that he was missing her. It wasn’t that she wanted to hear from him—she did, but only if he was going to say something she wanted to hear. Such as, I’ve made a terrible mistake; or, How can we work things out? Or, I realize now I can’t be without you.
By the time she left the Centre she’d heard all about the great flood of 1952 when a terrible storm had brought trees and boulders crashing downriver from the moor, devastating Lynmouth and killing thirty-four people while making hundreds homeless. She could, she hoped, now identify many of the birds she’d watched flying about the cliffs, and name the wild flowers she’d spotted tilting their colorful faces to the winter sun. She knew that two rivers became one before they reached the shore; that there was a photography competition in need of more entries if she was interested; that someone had sighted the beast of Exmoor only last week (but she was to take no notice of that because this particular naturalist had clocked a couple of mermaids the week before). She also knew where to go for the best cheeses, wines, smoked hams, laver (whatever that was), and cider. It hadn’t come as a surprise to learn that the cliffs along this wild and rugged coast were the highest in England. However, later, as she struggled through the wind back to Dimmett House (having taken the picturesque but precipitous coast path as a shortcut instead of going through the Valley of Rocks) she’d have preferred not to know about the woman in a white dress who sometimes appeared out of the mist to tempt passersby off the path to their doom in the icy waters below. (It wasn’t until a fourth chilling ghost story had caused the hairs to rise on the back of her neck that she’d realized someone had misunderstood her job title so thought they were being helpful in her search for the supernatural.)
It was now six thirty in the evening and Brenda was putting the finishing touches to a “tasty Stilton and potato pie” while Joely cleaned the greens to go with it.
“Right you are,” Brenda declared, popping her artful creation in the oven, “it should come out at quarter past seven. I won’t bother hanging around to take Mrs. D’s up to her because she’s going to come down and join you.”
Joely’s heart jumped, almost as if she’d been told she was going on a date, or to get some exam results.
After checking Joely had made a good job of chopping the veg, Brenda untied her apron and hooked it inside the pantry door. “Mrs. D prefers the sprouts to be steamed, so you should put the water on to boil about seven,” she instructed, zipping up her padded parka. “Oh, and she said to tell you that if you want some wine she’ll take a glass herself so best to put a bottle of Clearview red by the fire to warm. You’ll find one in the rack over there next to the dresser.”
“Don’t tell me.” Joely smiled. “It’s from a local vineyard?”
Brenda’s eyes sparkled. “As near as it gets,” she confirmed. “The other side of Barnstaple, and I expect Sissy Flood’ll be interested to know what you think of it. She’s got quite a following around here with her whites, but Mrs. D prefers red.”
Once left alone Joely found the wine, uncorked it, and placed it on the hearth as instructed. She stood for a moment gazing at the windows at the end of the kitchen, blackened by night, and showing a ghostly reflection of a fair-haired woman looking lost and indecisive. Picking up her phone she sighed to see that once again she had no service. Still at least she’d chatted with Andee and her mother while she was in the Centre’s coffee shop treating herself to cake. She was still feeling disappointed that Andee had had to postpone the lunch they’d penciled in for tomorrow, not until then had she realized how much she’d been looking forward to seeing a familiar face.
Her mother had sounded relieved to hear from her. “It’s odd not being able to get hold of you whenever I like,” she’d commented. “It makes me worry when I probably don’t have to. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine, but the work’s getting off to a slower start than I expected. Is Holly with you yet?”
“Callum brought her last night, but I didn’t get to see him unfortunately. Have you heard from him?”
“Only to say that he’s missing me as much as Holly is, and you can read into that as much as you like, except I can tell you he didn’t mean to say it.”
The signal had failed soon after that, but at least she knew her mother and Holly weren’t in any kind of crisis and she still had no idea where Callum and Martha were heading off to for the weekend. Best not to know.
Deciding not to wait to pour herself some wine she went to fetch a glass and was pouring the bottle when Freda appeared through the door from the tower.
“Ah, yes, I think I’ll have one of those,” she declared, rubbing her hands together. She looked no different from the way she always did, so not ill, Joely concluded, and she didn’t seem downcast or disappointed, or querulous, or anything else Joely might need to feel worried about. “Mm, something smells good,” she commented, sniffing the air. “One of Brenda’s pies, no doubt. Has she gone?”
“She left about five minutes ago,” Joely told her, passing over a glass of wine. “Supper is cheese and potato pie and will be ready at seven fifteen. There are sprouts and leeks to go with it—all we have to do is put them on to steam—and an upside-down pudding for afters.”
Nodding approval, Freda sipped her wine and strode over to her favorite armchair beside the fire, where she made herself comfortable with one leg crossed over the other. “Are you ready to begin?” she asked as Joely took a wineglass for herself from a cupboard.
Realizing Freda meant to work—now—Joely staged a quick gathering of her wits and went to settle into the other armchair.
“Pour, pour,” Freda insisted, waving a hand at Joely’s empty glass.
Half filling it, Joely was about to attempt a toast when Freda said, “‘Better run, girl.’”
Coming with no preamble of any sort it almost sounded like an instruction, until Joely realized what it was.
“You’ve written,” Freda stated, “that he whispered those words in my ear, but that’s not what I told you. What I said was I knew it was what he said—as in a love-struck girl hearing what she wants to hear.” Affecting a high, breathy voice, she said, “I just knew it was what he’d said.” Back to her own voice, “I understand it’s an easy mistake to make, the nuance is a little opaque, but it must be corrected.”
Joely didn’t protest, in spite of being certain there had been no nuance or lack of clarity when they’d talked; Freda had been quite definite that he’d said, “Better run, girl.” However, she was happy to make the alteration if it was what Freda wanted. She said, “If there’s ambiguity around the line then I’m presuming you want to keep her in the role of Eve.” How much easier it was to use the third person, and an abstract one at that, when making these sorts of comments.
Freda frowned. “You mean Evil Eve. Well, yes, it’s what she deserves, to stay in that role. That child—the one I used to be—knew what she wanted, or she thought she did, and I was prepared to believe . . . actually, at that stage, I was fully convinced that he wanted it too.” She let go of her frown and took a sip of wine. “Otherwise you’ve done a good job. I’m sure only experts on my work would know that I didn’t write it, or they might think that I did, but perhaps I’d been having an off day.”
Smarting at that, Joely stared at her, not sure how to voice any of the tart retorts crowding her head.
“It’s thinner than I would have made it,” Freda continued, “less texture and depth, a certain amount of rhythm is lacking, but to be honest, I don’t think it matters. We’ve taken the next step in building the picture of a fifteen-year-old girl and her adolescent self-obsession, which is good. What do you think of her now? Do you see her as delusional, perhaps? As a manipulator? How conscious do you think she is of the consequences she and her teacher could face if she gets her way?”
Still not quite over the criticism of her efforts, Joely took a moment to summon an answer that wouldn’t sound peevish or defensive. She needed to move on. “Probably not very conscious,” she quickly decided. “She casts herself in the roles of two very different fictional heroines, which suggests she’s not as connected with reality as she might like to think.” When Freda didn’t interrupt she continued, “Can you remember how you felt back then? Were you aware of the consequences you could face?”
Freda’s eyes narrowed as she thought and for a while there was only the hiss and crackle of the fire and haunting whine of the wind as it wrapped around the tower to disturb the silence. In the end she said, “I didn’t give them a thought and even if I had I don’t think I’d have cared what they might be. Certainly I wouldn’t have imagined my obsession—yes, I believe it was an obsession—ending us up where it did.” She drank more wine, and Joely could see that she was going to say more. “I was an exhibitionist,” she confessed in the same tone she might have used to declare herself a philatelist.
Joely thought of the paintings she’d seen earlier, and since most were nudes it was clear that stripping off wasn’t a hobby the young Freda had grown out of.
“That girl,” Freda continued, “and I call her that girl because she feels like a stranger after all these years, someone who had nothing to do with me . . . That girl was in love with herself and her body and most definitely with all the new things that were happening to it. When sexual desire first comes alive it has a kind of rawness to it, don’t you think, a hunger, a greed that has no recognition of its power, or direction to proper satisfaction. It takes over, consuming the mind and the body—and we have to remember that I came from a home where carnal pleasure wasn’t only permissible, it was virtually obligatory.” Her eyes sparked as she said, “Put more simply, I was determined to get the man everyone else wanted. I had to have him; it meant everything to me. Not that I could have articulated that to myself at the time. What girl of that age could?”
Not many, Joely thought, remembering how she too had gone through a phase around that age of believing herself to be all powerful where boys (not men) were concerned, and Holly was definitely feeling it. Please, God, don’t let her be trying to seduce one of the schoolmasters. She said, “I’m still getting the sense that you’re angry with yourself, that you detest what you did, whatever it was—so is this memoir about punishing yourself?”
Displeasure flashed sharp in Freda’s eyes but was quickly gone. “Yes, I suppose it is about punishment,” she conceded, “but it’s also about understanding and truth.” She raised a hand as Joely started to speak. “A lot of lies were told back then. Lies that hurt people, destroyed people, and they have to be exposed, that’s why I say it’s about truth. Now, do you think it’s time to put the veg on?”
As they worked together around the Aga and set the table Joely found herself wondering if she liked the older Freda any more than the younger one. Actually, she decided she had some sympathy with the fifteen-year-old narcissist for she at least had naïvety on her side. The older Freda had nothing like it, so it was understandably hard to warm to her, and yet Joely couldn’t deny that the reason she felt hostile toward her was because of the way she’d so curtly and condescendingly criticized her literary effort.
You need to get over yourself, Joely. This isn’t about you, it’s about her and whatever it is she needs to get off her chest. It’s the only reason you’re here, not to like her, or make her your best pal, or be her therapist, it’s to play midwife to this burden of hers that she’s apparently determined to bring into the world.
“The song, ‘Young Girl,’” Freda said as they ate. “Did you know it before you took this assignment?”
“Vaguely,” Joely replied. “I had to find it on YouTube while I was in town, to be sure I was thinking of the right one.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. As far as I’m aware there haven’t been any covers and I don’t suppose there will be. In this day and age it could be seen as promoting pedophilia, but for us girls, back then . . .” Her eyes drifted as she presumably returned to the past. “We all believed it was about us and not one of us gave a moment’s thought to the wrongness of it, I suppose because falling for older men is what girls do, isn’t it? And we all know how irresistible most men find young girls.”
Thinking that was truer than most would want it to be, Joely said, “I have to ask if Sir found his piano student irresistible, or was it all one-sided?”
Freda regarded her archly, her eyes taking on an intensity that made Joely uncomfortable. “Do you think it was all one-sided?” Freda countered. “That only she had the crush?”
“Actually, no, but I’m getting the impression you want her to take the blame.”
Freda put down her fork and reached for her wine as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “You’re running ahead with all sorts of assumptions,” she accused. “I don’t blame you, it’s human nature to try to work out where a story is going, what the outcome will be. We do it all the time when we read books or watch films, we’re always trying to second-guess the writer as though we have to prove that we’re cleverer than him or her. I wonder why we feel compelled to do that? Is there something wrong with just waiting for the narrative to unfold?”
Taking it as the criticism she knew it to be, Joely said, “OK, I won’t ask again what comes next. I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me.”
Freda continued to eat. “Would I be right in saying that so far you’re considering Sir to be a victim?”
Joely said, “I don’t think he can be that, given his age and position, but he could be considered prey.”
Freda broke into a smile at that. “Yes, prey,” she agreed. “He was her prey—until he wasn’t anymore.”
Joely continued to eat, presuming Freda was going to expound on the verbal trickery.
“Nabokovian games,” Freda stated.
Having no idea what that meant, Joely helped herself to more pie.
“You know who Nabokov is?” Freda asked.
“Didn’t he write Lolita?”
“Yes, he did. Have you read it?”
Joely shook her head.
“Humbert—you know Humbert is the main protagonist—he claims to be a hebephiliac. This is someone who has a sexual preference for children in early adolescence, usually up to fourteen, but I think we can stretch it to fifteen. A pedophile is generally recognized to be a person whose attraction is for prepubescents. Eleven and under.”
Wanting to be sure she was following this, or maybe she didn’t want to follow it at all, Joely said, “So are you suggesting that a hebephiliac is more acceptable than a pedophile?”
“Don’t you think so?”
All Joely could really think was that she’d rather not be having this conversation, but she said, “I guess I’d prefer it if neither of them existed.”
Freda didn’t appear to disagree. “The problem is we don’t choose our sexual proclivities, we’re born with them—or are we conditioned into them?” She puzzled that for a moment. “I’d say both are possible, but for the purposes of this discussion let’s just deal with those whose chemical makeup comes into the world with them. They don’t at any point in their lives make a conscious decision to become a monster, if that’s how you’re going to view men whose predilections are for children. Do you have any, by the way?”
Startled by the question, Joely said, “Presuming you mean children, I have a fifteen-year-old daughter.”
Freda’s eyes widened with interest. “Is she healthy? Normal? A pretty girl?”
“I’d say all of the above.”
“So if an older man found himself attracted to her, would you consider him a monster?”
“I’m sure I would if he did something about it.”
“But what if you found out she’d instigated it? Do you think it would be fair for him to be labeled a pedophile for the rest of his life when her sixteenth birthday might be just around the corner and she made all the running? She’s not under eleven, she’s practically old enough to get married.”
Becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this, Joely said, “I’d rather we didn’t bring my daughter into it, if you don’t mind.”
Freda’s expression darkened, although her words were mild as she said, “It’s a difficult subject. We naturally feel very protective of our children, but we have to accept that very few, probably none of them, are angels. What they do when their parents aren’t looking is very often something the parent would rather not see, that way they can perpetuate the myth of their offspring’s innocence and believe them blameless if something happens to them that shouldn’t have.”
Since there was no arguing with that, Joely didn’t try. She was intrigued though to realize that Freda was putting up a bizarre sort of defense for Sir, which at least provided some indication of where the story was going.
“Young Freda’s parents—my parents—were hedonists, dedicated to the experiments of free love. They set no rules or none that were clear enough to help keep a fifteen-year-old out of trouble. They accepted, encouraged, nudity and much more at their weekend parties, and seeing all this with impressionable eyes we have to ask ourselves, was it any surprise I went on to behave the way I did?”
Joely said, “So you’re not only blaming yourself for whatever it was you went on to do, you’re blaming your parents?”
“Precisely.”
“And you’re not holding him, the hebephile, responsible at all?”
“Oh yes, he has to be responsible, after all no one forced him. He didn’t have to get involved.”
“But he did.”
“I could say as a hebephile he couldn’t help himself, but let me tell you what happened after he canceled the piano lesson, then you can take your time while writing it up to decide what you think of him.”