‘They’re getting divorced, apparently. He’s fed up with being on his own in Yorkshire and he’s got some new lady he wants to marry. He’s even providing the grounds.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Persephone briskly, ‘you do get about occasionally, darling. That’s quite a bit of gossip you’ve just passed on to me. That didn’t come from nowhere.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Ned, and then added, ‘She wanted to marry me once. When we were all very young. Diana, hello, and Wendelien and Ian, lovely to see you.’
‘Pity she didn’t,’ said Persephone lightly, with one of her sweetly malicious smiles, and then stood up and offered her cheek to Diana to kiss.
Chapter 37
1954
‘Guess who’s asked for you for a fur shoot?’ Blanche’s grey eyes were dancing as she looked at Diana.
‘I don’t know. Norman Parkinson?’
This was more wishful than realistic thinking; she had still not cracked ‘the Parks ceiling’, as she thought of it. He used only the very, very best girls: his wife Wenda, Fiona Campbell-Walter, Anne Gunning. He had also worked a lot with Barbara Goalen, who Diana probably most closely resembled, but she was not amongst his top favourites. She was one step removed in his estimation, she knew, from Barbara – just slightly less ladylike, less sophisticated – and indeed the sexiness of her glamour was what made her special in her own way, and sought after by the more imaginative younger breed of photographers. ‘Not Parks. Your old beau, Freddie Bateman. Next week and a peach of a job. He wants to take you to Austria or somewhere like that, maybe St Moritz, for four or five days. God, you’ll have fun.’
‘But there won’t be any snow yet, surely?’ said Diana.
‘I suppose you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, he seems to think if you go high enough. He’s calling you tonight, from the States, around eight our time, so you will be in, won’t you?’
Diana would. She had a hot date playing Cluedo with Jamie, his latest passion. He was spending the last week of his holidays with her. She had done her very best to entertain him, and they had indeed had fun; they had been to the Tower of London and to Madame Tussauds – he had specially loved the Chamber of Horrors – had watched the Changing of the Guard, and the Household Cavalry riding down the Mall, and had spent two days with Diana’s parents, where they had done a lot of riding.
‘Diana, hi.’ Freddie Bateman’s expensive East Coast voice cut across the Atlantic. ‘We’re to work together again, I hope.’
‘Hope so, Freddie. Nice of you to ask for me.’
‘Darling, it wasn’t nice at all. I love working with you, it’s fun and we make great pictures. Now then, Blanche rang me and said – and I must admit I hadn’t thought of it – there won’t be any snow yet on the slopes, too early. So that was a great idea. Any others? I’m determined to do this job.’
‘Well – I did have one idea. Sounds a bit wild, but what about a giant fridge? Jamie, I saw that. Put Colonel Mustard back immediately.’
‘Who’s Jamie? Should I be jealous?’
‘Desperately. He is my favourite male in the entire world. He’s seven, my son.’
‘If he’s a Cluedo player, count me in. I am probably the best Cluedo player in the universe.’
‘Really? You’re such a modest soul, Freddie.’
‘I know. It’s part of my great charm. Now perhaps you could explain about this fridge?’
Diana put Jamie back on the school train with rather less regret than she had experienced before – it was hard work entertaining a small boy in London – and then went to meet Freddie at the Connaught. She had ordered a coffee and was in the lounge, carefully settling herself in front of one of the vast urns of flowers, when Ned Welles walked in.
‘Good Lord,’ he said.
‘Hello, Ned. I am truly not trailing you all over London.’
‘It would be very dull for you if you did,’ he said, smiling. ‘I go from home to hospital and back again –’
‘This isn’t a hospital.’
‘Oh, isn’t it? Damn! I thought it was.’ He smiled at her, that slightly careful, heartbreaking smile that had ensnared her so long ago. ‘I’m meeting a chap who’s working on the treatment of leukaemia in children.’
Diana could actually have very happily listened to this for some time, but Freddie Bateman appeared, kissed her rather ostentatiously on the mouth and said, ‘Good morning, beautiful lady.’
‘Good morning, Freddie.’ Irritated by his display of possessiveness, she drew back and looked at him coolly. ‘Ned, this is Freddie Bateman, photographer. Freddie, Ned Welles, distinguished paediatrician.’
‘Morning,’ said Freddie dismissively. ‘Darling, I thought we need to get out pronto and down to Smithfield, and the butchers.’
‘Freddie, I was waiting for you, not the other way round, and I’ve ordered coffee. I intend to drink it. Sorry. We’ll be fine. Could you bring another cup?’ she said to the waiter. ‘And Ned, what about you?’
‘No, no, thank you. I’m fascinated as to why you’re going to visit butchers at Smithfield. You must tell me another time. My mother has threatened to invite you to dinner with us before she returns to Cornwall; perhaps then? Should there be any awkward pauses in the conversation, which seems a little unlikely.’
‘How very, very sweet of her. Tell her I’d love to come, whenever it is. My evenings are suddenly emptied of games of Monopoly and Cluedo, and even gin rummy.’
‘Ah, Jamie’s gone back to school?’
‘He has. I’m exhausted.’ She stood up and kissed Ned’s cheek. ‘Bye for now, Ned. Lovely to see you.’
‘Boyfriend?’ asked Freddie, slightly irritably, as the taxi made its way down Mount Street.
‘Not any more. Once, maybe.’
‘Well, maybe you could concentrate on me for a while.’
Interesting. He was jealous. And even with the highly charged sexual atmosphere he lived in, and his exposure to homosexuality on an almost daily basis, his sensitive antennae had clearly not even twitched. She would have liked to tell Ned, reassure him; he lived on a knife edge of fear, but it was hardly a subject she could broach over dinner, even with Persephone. She really liked Persephone; she was fun and different, and infinitely charming. And so beautiful.
‘Right. Well, here we are.’ The cab had arrived at Smithfield Market. She tapped on the glass division. ‘This’ll do, thank you.’
‘Wow, this is gorgeous! I didn’t expect this. All that wonderful ironwork, and it’s so big, all those arcades. Love it. You clever girl.’
Freddie stood beaming, surveying the great colonnades of Smithfield Market, Victorian commercial architecture at its finest: the glass domes, the finials on the roofs, the clock towers at either end.
‘It’s like a church. This sure beats the meatpacking district in New York.’