Free Freya by Anthony Quinn

her into defence.
    Jean returned an arch look. ‘I remember you at eighteen. A proper spitfire you were, and don’t deny it. Certainly the first St Paul’s girl
ever
to say “fuck” in front of a teacher!’
    Freya’s mouth made a rueful downturn. ‘I blame my early education.’
    â€˜You were also the only one who knew about sex, other than the stuff that frogs get up to, I mean.’
    Jean took this as her cue to enlarge upon the availability of men in the city, and which societies offered the readiest opportunity to meet them. The safest bet, she reckoned, was the University Labour Club, where earnest group discussions about ‘the tasks of peace’ would later give way to drinking, carousing and a great deal of what she called ‘pairing off’. Freya only half listened, preoccupied by the conversation immediately prior to this. It didn’t seem quite right that Nancy was going her own sweet way around Oxford without any reference to her. As she turned the matter over it occurred to Freya that her pride might be at fault: it was more pleasing to be sought after than to seek.
    Jean was still going strong on the subject of the Oxford male. Her time in the Waafs had stoked an appetite for sex she saw no reason to curtail in her new career as an ‘undergraduette’. The candid enthusiasm with which she related these adventures amused Freya, though she was reluctant to answer it with stories of her own success in Plymouth and London. Something in Jean’s bullying camaraderie put her on guard; she didn’t quite trust in her discretion.
    The entry of Ginny into the room enabled her to bring this get-together to a close. Jean at last took her leave, and Freya waved her off at the lodge with promises to keep in touch. In her pigeonhole she found a letter from Robert Cosway.
    Balliol College, Ox.
    Dear Freya,
    I hope you have recovered by now from the fright of seeing that strange naked fellow on the staircase at Balliol. It seems there’s quite a fashion for such exhibitionist behaviour at present and I’m only sorry that you had the misfortune to witness it. Nothing much to report from the Citadel of Male Heartiness, where yahoos and brawny ex-servicemen roam the quads and the female of the species is less spotted than a lesser-spotted grebe. Honestly, I thought Manchester GS was bad enough but this place takes the biscuit for its tragic and unutterable birdlessness (and I don’t mean the feathered kind). Indeed, I’m not absolutely convinced that the young lady I ran into a couple of weeks ago was real – were you a vision or a waking dream? In order to settle this question please allow me to invite you to a party, where I may once more assure myself of your corporeality. It’s on Friday 23 November at Union Lodge on the Banbury Road, and I gather that alcoholic beverages will be served. Your presence will receive a mighty welcome, yea, as water unto a wanderer lost and thirsting in the desert.
    I remain, madam, your respectful servant,
    Robert Cosway
    PS Do of course bring along any other fair ladies of your acquaintance.
    The false nonchalance of the PS caused her to smile. His primary motive was to secure a large contingent of girls, which he had disguised as a seeming afterthought. She was still musing on this when she saw her tutor approach. Mrs Bedford was in her late fifties, stout, mild-mannered, with a great bird’s nest of unruly grey hair that announced the triumph of scholarliness over personal vanity. At her first tutorial, Freya had given it as her opinion that
Beowulf
was ‘hands down’ the most tedious poem she’d ever read. Looking over her spectacles Mrs Bedford had replied, after a pause, ‘I must endeavour to raise it in your estimation.’ Her forbearance impressed Freya the more on learning that she had published an authoritative critical edition of it twenty years before.
    In the same