Love & Freedom (Choc Lit)

by Moorcroft, Sue

  Outside, the sunlight made her blink as she crossed the street to return down the other side. In a recess almost opposite Pretty Old stood a wooden community hall. She was fascinated to learn from the glassed-in notice board that the hall was home to a whole bunch of groups and events: a visit to Rottingdean’s windmill – she’d seen it, big and black on a ridge above Rottingdean village, but hadn’t figured out how to get to it. A talk by a local author. Tai Chi for the over fifties. How to make dough animals for the under tens. And Zumba! The Zumba classes back in Hamilton had taken place in an air-conditioned dance studio with a polished floor and a wall of mirrors, rather than in something that looked like a large shed, but she couldn’t see how it could be too different. She’d loved the combination of aerobics and Latin music and, forgetting that her muscles were already stiffening from her run, she shifted her weight right as she went up on the ball of her left foot. Yeahhh … Zumbahhh! Ow … butt cheeks!

  Maybe Zumba would have to wait.

  She turned towards the Eastingdean Teapot. OK, it was giving in to curiosity but, after hearing Martyn’s stories about Robina, she just had to walk through the troughs of many-coloured petunias and the green chairs and tables. Menus were sandwiched in sturdy acrylic holders and parasols flapped their white fringes in the breeze like big crazy spiders.

  The tearoom, set behind the teagarden, was like a parlour, furnished with mismatched wooden furniture and smelling as sweet as fruitcake. On the walls hung cookie tin lids and pretty plates. Pickles and conserves in hexagonal jars with lace caps waited for buyers on a counter that divided the tearoom from the kitchen and behind it a teenaged boy washed glasses and a blonde woman in a hairnet rushed around.

  In the middle of the kitchen stood the woman from the park, Robina, in jeans and a richly embroidered green velvet top, a black apron slung around her hips, recognisable from the bubble of black curls held back from her face by a black bandana. She didn’t look much of a stalker, icing chocolate flowers on to greaseproof paper.

  Honor watched, fascinated by the fluid swoop-twist movements that created the petals and the dab that joined them in the middle. After a few clusters of swoop-twist petals, Robina glanced up. ‘Would you like to sit down? We’ll take your order at the table.’ She smiled and Honor thought she had never seen such huge brown eyes, nor amazingly bee-stung lips.

  After everything she’d been told she’d half-expected horns and cloven hooves, so it took her a moment to respond to being not only in conversation with Robina but it being quite normal and friendly. ‘Sure. Thanks.’ She settled on a wheel-back chair with a rose pink cushion at the last free table, glancing around at a lone man taking up the whole of a table meant for four by spreading out his broadsheet newspaper; two young mums talking earnestly as they shovelled food into their toddlers; and three tables seemingly populated by one party, judging by the way that they talked across the divides as they ate.

  The teenager emerged from the kitchen with a pad and pen. ‘’Lo. What can I getcha?’ He had the same big brown eyes as Robina, but his hair was flat and sandy and he didn’t have her lips. Honor found herself being glad – lips like that were for girls.

  She glanced at the menu. ‘A pot of hot tea, please, and maybe some cake or pie.’

  He indicated a table beside the wall, tiered with cakes under clear plastic covers. ‘We got carrot cake, lemon drizzle, pineapple upside down, date and walnut, and chocolate cupcakes, apple pie and cherry with almond tart. You can have cream, custard or ice-cream.’

  ‘They all look delicious.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He wiggled his pen, glancing sympathetically at a toddler who was crying at being trapped in his highchair.

  ‘Are all these cakes made right here?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded vaguely at the kitchen. ‘Or there’s desserts on the menu. No more cream teas, the last of the scones have just gone.’ He wiggled his pen again.

  ‘I’ll have cherry and almond pie, with cream.’

  ‘OK.’ He scribbled, then disappeared back through the flap in the counter into the steam of the kitchen, sliding his feet along the floor as if too weary to pick them up.

  Honor waited, gazing around at the lace at the window and the stack of white crockery on the counter, the survivors of many sets, judging by the mix. Robina was still intent on her task, giant icing bag twisted in her hands. The woman in the hairnet kept up a steady stream of conversation and sometimes Robina answered. The lone man folded up his newspaper and left his empty cup but no tip. Three middle-aged women took the table.

  Then the door shot open. ‘Rufus! I’ve got fifteen minutes, be a love and get me a big fat mug of black coffee and one of your mother’s enormously risen scones, quick as you can, good boy.’ Clarissa. Martyn’s sister-mother. Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting?

  A smile touched Rufus’s face like a watery sun as he selected an enormous mug and carried it to the coffee machine. ‘Too late for scones. Got cupcakes, lemon drizzle–’

  ‘Damnation. Is one of those cupcakes chocolate? I need something to sweeten me up before I teach tap to unwilling little girls and boys in Hove.’ She glanced around the tables.

  Honor lifted her hand. ‘Hi, Clarissa.’

  Clarissa waved back. ‘Oh, Honor. Sunburn better? May I join you?’ She hooked her bag over the back of the other chair and nearly snatched the coffee and cupcake from Rufus’s tray.

  ‘Much.’ Honor smiled at Rufus as he put down in front of her a white china teapot, matching cup and saucer, a tiny milk jug and some sachets of sugar. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Everything OK at the bungalow? I can send Martyn round if you need help with anything.’ Clarissa blew over the surface of her coffee. Her hair curled beside her cheekbones and although she set about her cupcake with deadly efficiency, she didn’t look as if she carried a spare pound. If she’d given birth to Martyn at sixteen she must be in her late forties but her skin was smooth. Maybe it was because she didn’t smile enough to get wrinkles.

  Honor poured her tea. ‘Everything’s great. I love the view over the ocean.’

  ‘You wanting the place for four months was a bonus because it cuts down on tons of paperwork and stuff. Have no idea what I’ll do if I can’t let it in winter. Panic.’ She fired out her sentences between bites.

  Honor picked up the fork that came with her cherry and almond tart. When she took her first mouthful of pastry, the cherry leaking bloodily through the cream, she couldn’t suppress an, ‘Mmm …’

  ‘Good?’ Clarissa nodded. ‘She’s a genius with pastry, Robina.’ She indicated her cupcake. ‘And cake. Robina’s the one with the dark curls.’

  In the interests of local community harmony, Honor elected not to ask Clarissa if she knew about Robina’s passion for Martyn. ‘She’s Rufus’s mom?’

  Robina, overhearing, looked up with a beaming smile. ‘Yes, he’s my little Ru – Sophie, can you put the icing in the fridge, please? – and he helps us out here when he’s not at school.’

  Honor glanced at her watch. ‘Isn’t it school time, now?’

  Robina put down the icing bag and picked up a whisk and a bowl to cradle in her arm. ‘Only sports day, so I kept him home. We’re a person short because Kirsty, who usually works here, is in hospital with one of those strange viruses. She’s really ill, poor Kirst. So Rufus is more use here than running round a track. Aren’t you, little Ru?’

  Rufus shrugged, face impassive as he accepted money from the mums and toddlers as they left.

  Honor suspected Rufus would have enjoyed sports day, given the opportunity.

  ‘So.’ Clarissa wiped the last of the cupcake from her fingers with a jolly yellow napkin and sank back into her chair with her coffee. ‘How are you liking England?’

  ‘I love it.’ Honor smiled, even though Clarissa didn’t. ‘I’m going to make myself a real pig over English history, that’s for sure. I’ve been browsing the Pretty Old store, up the street, lusting after an album of postcards sent home by an artillery staff s
ergeant in World War I. But I have to resist spending that much money until I get a job. The cards are called silks and they were embroidered by Frenchwomen for the servicemen–’

  ‘How much did she try and skin you for?’

  Honor halted. ‘Excuse me?’

  Clarissa fished around in her bag for money. ‘Peggy, at Pretty Old. What did she want to charge you for the album?’

  ‘Two hundred pounds.’

  Clarissa jumped up, dropping money for the cupcake and coffee on the table. ‘Got to run. See you.’

  ‘OK–’ Honor was left talking to empty air as Clarissa let the door bang behind her. She shrugged and turned back to her pie.

  Behind the counter, Rufus washed up as the woman who Robina had addressed as Sophie called, ‘Remember to rinse everything under the hot, Ru,’ which, as Honor could see, he was doing already. Rufus said nothing but pulled a gargoyle face at Sophie’s back, making Honor choke.

  He met her gaze with one eye through a gap in his hair and a corner of his mouth quirked up before he turned back to his steaming sink.

  Honor was getting ready to pay her bill when Clarissa burst back in. ‘Fifty quid?’

  Honor jumped. ‘What?’

  ‘Peggy said she’s sorry, she thought you were American. You can have the album for fifty quid.’

  Honor felt her hackles rise. ‘I am American.’

  ‘But now you’re living here you don’t count as one so she won’t rip you off. Call back into the shop if you want it.’ And she was gone. Through an uneven square window Honor watched her run across the teagarden and down the road – did everyone run, in the Mayfair family? – in wonder that Clarissa would scrounge the time, when she was so obviously busy, to get her tenant a good price on an old album. Evidently, there was kindness in her.

  Leaving the Eastingdean Teapot, Honor strode back up The Butts to Pretty Old and pinged through the door. ‘Hello, dear,’ cooed Peggy, from behind the counter, quite unabashed. ‘Sorry about earlier. I thought you were American.’

  Smiling sweetly, Honor said, ‘I am. And I can only pay twenty.’

  ‘You poor thing.’ Peggy’s smile was just as sweet. ‘Because I can only sell for fifty.’

  ‘OK. I’ll surf around ebay.’ Honor pivoted on her heel.

  ‘Forty-five, then. Just to make up for me thinking you were a tourist. Clarissa says your mum is English.’

  Honor regarded Peggy, still beaming, perched behind a glassed-in counter full of medals and coins. ‘Yes, that’s right. I’m living in Eastingdean for four months. I might become a regular customer. Thirty-five.’

  Peggy began to slide the album into a crinkled supermarket carrier bag. ‘Call it forty, then. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Mayfairs.’

  Honor propped her hip against the counter, deliberately not taking the proffered bag. ‘Are they scary? I’ve met three Mayfairs and they’ve all been good to me. Thirty-five.’

  Peggy’s creases multiplied in exasperation. ‘Thirty-five, then, just this once.’ Taking Honor’s notes, she slid them into the cash register. ‘It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the Mayfairs – it’s just that they’re involved in everything in Eastingdean. Zoë is the doctor, Nicola is the midwife, Beverley is a legal secretary. We all have to hope that they know how to keep their mouths shut.’

  Accepting the bag, Honor raised her eyebrows. ‘I guess they must understand that. The Mayfairs will have as much to hide as the next person.’

  Peggy cackled, her eyes disappearing completely. ‘One of the Mayfairs doesn’t hide very much.’ And she laughed until her cheeks shook.

  Honor stared. Sometimes, British humour completely baffled her.

  Chapter Eight

  Next day, having spent the previous evening filling out endless forms at employment websites and receiving nothing in exchange but bountiful promises, Honor decided she deserved a break.

  Waiting for the bus on Marine Drive, her heart gave an apprehensive hop when Martyn Mayfair popped up at the top of the beach steps on his morning run, the wind whipping his sweatshirt tight against his body. He didn’t see Honor until he was headed firmly for the nearby pedestrian crossing and would either have had to make a visible detour to avoid her or actually cut her dead. She saw him hesitate, as if considering both of those things. ‘Hi,’ she said, neutrally, to make it easy for him to say ‘Hi’ back and run on.

  ‘Hi,’ he returned. But instead of running on he slowed until he was jogging on the spot. ‘Going out?’

  He didn’t smile, so she didn’t, either. If he was going to make it so obvious that it was only good manners that were forcing him to pass the time of day with her, she would do the same. ‘I’m taking a trip to Brighton to the Royal Pavilion. It was George the Fourth’s favourite home when he was Prince Regent.’

  He cocked a sardonic brow. ‘But Queen Victoria didn’t care for it at all.’

  She flushed. She was so used to Stef’s zero knowledge of English history that the hint had just slipped out. ‘I guess that sounded stupid.’

  ‘No. Just as if you think I am.’

  ‘Not at all I–’ What was stupid was this snarky exchange. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of friends in England and last time they met they’d been so much on the same wavelength, running beside the ocean and then lounging on the sweet-smelling grass comparing unsatisfactory childhoods. Until … ‘Martyn,’ she began impulsively, ‘I want to talk to you about my marriage–’

  ‘No, don’t.’ He held up his hands like stop signs, beginning to move off, jaw set.

  ‘But–’

  He actually let his legs stop moving. ‘Don’t sweat it. I liked you. You’re hot. But there are a lot of single women with pretty faces and sweet bodies, sugar pants.’ And he finally smiled, as if he knew that he’d irritated her and was glad. ‘Here’s your bus. Have a nice day.’

  Honor jumped aboard the platform. ‘Men who think they’re drop-dead gorgeous are such a pain in the ass.’ Without looking back to see if she’d irritated him in return, she rode along the coast road going over in her mind everything she’d read about the Pavilion so that she didn’t have to think about Martyn Mayfair at all. Sugar pants. Huh.

  It seemed weird that an honest-to-God palace should be at the side of a major road, traffic roaring by, but the bus let her off right outside it. Sucked inside by the onion domes, towers, minarets and cookie-cutter windows, she took the audio tour, revelling in every opulent room of hand-painted wallpaper and gilded plasterwork, wishing she could stroke the chair in which ‘Prinny’ had lounged on the long side of the banqueting table during lavish dinners with his cohorts and consorts, a towering chandelier of crystals and dragons above their heads.

  She stood for ages in the kitchen that had seen the preparation of those indulgent meals, drinking in the lantern ceiling and the long wooden counters, imagining how it must have felt to tend the automatic spit or polish the gleaming copper pans.

  The Pavilion was crowded with tourists, it being summer. She was frustrated by people talking as she tried to listen and gave herself a headache cramming the big black audio set against her ear to shut them out as she gazed at the lovingly restored gold plaster cockleshells of the music room’s domed ceiling and listened to the story of the arsonist who had damaged so much splendour. But walking the shining palace gave her a chance to work off lingering post-run stiffness and losing herself in the past soothed her post-Martyn crankiness.

  Right at the end of the tour, she noticed that the Pavilion had a function room, where a man who walked like the rear end of a horse and two women in the black dresses/white apron combination of waitresses everywhere were stacking silver-edged crockery into flat blue crates stamped Florence Events Catering. She passed by, left her visitor feedback and stowed her audio set, as politely requested, spent twenty minutes in the gift shop – she couldn’t resist a Union Jack teapot – and stepped outside.

  A small white van was parked on the flagstones and the women from the ca
tering company were sliding the crates they’d been packing in the Pavilion through the back doors. On the open door was stuck a small notice: Staff Wanted. Honor hesitated. When one of the women looked up, she smiled. ‘Is it waiting staff wanted? Because I’m looking for summer work two or three days a week.’

  The woman looked at her as if she must be mad. ‘Really? You need to speak to Lawrence – Lawrence! Lady here wants a job.’

  The man, Lawrence, breathing hard, stacked the box he was carrying and rested his great big behind as if it, too, was too heavy for him to drag around. He studied her. ‘I’m looking for daytime staff. Too many of my part-timers are students or young mums and want evening and weekend work – great for dinners and parties but no good for corporate. It’s astonishing how many organisations experience sudden needs to shut away together a couple of hundred people. If you’re flexible and you can cover the kind of corporate business that bursts out of nowhere, I could give you a trial.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m pretty much without ties or schedules and I worked my way through school waiting tables.’

  Lawrence pulled out a pen. ‘Then I’ll take your details.’

  In two days, Honor was working for Florence Events Catering.

  With her hair caught tightly behind her head and a full white apron over a plain black dress – that she had had to buy because she hadn’t brought anything suitable from home – she ensured coffee pots and hot water urns were full when delegate hordes flooded out on caffeine and sugar breaks, cleared away when the tide flowed back into the conference rooms and prepared for the after-meeting treat of canapés and wine. In no time she could respond to, ‘What’s that?’ with a helpful, ‘Deep-fried mushroom risotto bites with parmesan mayonnaise,’ or, ‘Cajun chicken with spicy vodka and tomato dip.’ A wooden charger protected her fingers from the heat of the square black stoneware plates, and cheerful unconcern protected her from the disdain of people who would have preferred a bag of chips.