Work Text:
Day One
somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
“Freddie, did you send this?”
Freddie hunched over his typewriter as Bel came over to his desk. He had a plan, and it involved not blabbing everything to Bel the first moment that she suspected anything.
“Hm, what, received things, have you? Fancy that.”
“Freddie,” Bel said threateningly, but he refused to turn around. He had to be resolute. Stick to the plan.
Day Two
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
“So it looks as though Bel’s got herself an admirer,” Lix said, moving a folder marked ‘NOTHING TO DO WITH DEBUTANTES’ off of Freddie’s desk.
“Has she?” Freddie asked, looking up from his typewriter. Bel hadn’t shown up at his desk yet, which meant she’d either sent Lix to investigate, or she was overwhelmed by the poetry and was waiting for Freddie to show up in her office. Probably the former.
Lix looked at Freddie wryly over her glasses. “Bel is not a typical woman, Freddie. I trust that you won’t do anything ridiculous.”
“Me? Ridiculous? Perish the thought.”
Day Three
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
“Do girls like poetry?”
Freddie looked over at Isaac, who was looking at Bel’s new secretary with a wistful expression.
“Er, well. I suppose. The right girls do, anyway.”
Play it safe, was Freddie’s motto. Don’t give answers that are too enthusiastic. Save your passion for other, more newsworthy matters. Not that there was anything to be passionate about in his current piece about a group of drunk debutantes who fell into the Thames, but regardless. Low-key Freddie, that’s what he needed to be.
“Do you think Sissy would like poetry?” Isaac asked, gesturing towards the secretary.
“Looks more like a ‘drinks and dance’ girl if you ask me,” Freddie said, rolling his eyes. Young love. So foolish.
Day Four
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
Clarence looked rather disapproving. Freddie wasn’t sure what had brought the full force of Clarence’s disapproval on his head, but at this point it hardly mattered. Once Clarence was upset, he’d lecture at you until he had exhausted his emotion. All Freddie needed to do was sit through the lecture.
“It’s been a long time since I courted a girl, Frederick.”
“I - sorry, what?”
Clarence ignored him. “Yes, a beautiful girl by the name of Edith. You should’ve seen her, back in the day. Could’ve knocked the breath out of any passer-by on the street.”
Freddie nodded, not sure how to handle a Clarence who wasn’t reprimanding him.
“Freddie, in my day when you liked a girl, you didn’t dance around the issue, you told her. None of the nancy boy stuff I’ve been seeing in half of the journalists in this department.”
Ah, there was the reprimand.
“I’m working up to it Clarence, I am. I have a plan,” Freddie said, and Clarence shook his head, looking a bit fond.
“Just don’t let it get in the way of your work. I’m putting you in to cover the Pellersons’ wedding this Saturday.”
“Because weddings are the most important thing that the British people can read about,” Freddie said, unable to leave Clarence’s office without taking a shot at Home Affairs.
Clarence gave him another look, and Freddie left very quickly.
Day Five
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
Bel hadn’t turned up at his desk yet. Her showing up was vital to the last phase of the plan, and she hadn’t.
“Bollocks!” Freddie muttered, rifling through a pile of old papers with aimless agitation.
“Bel’s in her office,” Isaac offered as he walked by. “And you were right about Sissy, by the way. She’s very fond of dancing.”
In other circumstances Freddie might’ve offered congratulations, expressed some surprise that Isaac had done something. These were not other circumstances, though. These were circumstances that led directly to Plan B.
Plan B preferably involved a good deal more alcohol than Freddie currently had in his system, but that was an inconvenience he’d have to work with.
“Moneypenny,” Freddie said, striding into Bel’s office with his ‘purposeful’ walk.
“James,” Bel returned, looking up from her desk. In front of her lay a report on - something. To the side of the report was the fifth verse of a certain e.e. cummings poem.
“What do you think of it?”
“Think of what?”
“The poem, Moneypenny. Don’t be thick.”
“You certainly know the way to a girl’s heart, James. Poetry and insults.”
“And?”
“Freddie,” Bel said, looking at him rather sadly. “It’s a beautiful poem.”
“Just like the woman it was given to,” Freddie said, but he could already see the other side of this conversation and it held little hope. “I’ve got to be off, wedding to cover.”
Bel watched him go, and didn’t say a word.