Love & Freedom (Choc Lit)

by Moorcroft, Sue

  She’d spent enough time in the corporate torture chambers to be amused at being on the other side of the tray, gliding serenely between suited shoulders, through the politics, backstabbing and plain old ass kissing, thanking her lucky stars that she wasn’t the one networking like mad.

  Honor’s role carried little responsibility and no brainwork and that was just how she wanted it. But those were the only good things about the job. Though she’d looked forward to visiting Brighton hotels of all ages, styles and sizes, seafront or city, by the time she’d been with Florence Events Catering for almost two weeks she’d begun to dislike the way that the regular hotel staff viewed the events staff as intruders, every friendly overture to be repulsed and all co-operation to be withheld. Lawrence was way too visible, fawning over the client’s event organiser, unsettling the chefs, barking at the waiting staff, big ass waggling in his dark suit. And though she worked only part-time, her feet ached full-time. And so did her back. And her hair had to be washed as soon as she got home or else it smelled like garlic, salsa or prawns.

  So. Staying long? Didn’t think so.

  After a particularly crappy hot July Friday of seminar delegates being given hell all day by their bosses and passing it along to the servers, with interest, she made for the taxi rank on King’s Road, though a minimum-wage job didn’t justify her taking cabs.

  Tired and overheated, she just wanted to shower, get a glass of cold wine with her meal and then maybe a walk along the undercliff in the cool of the evening. So she groaned when she reached the rank to see it empty of taxis but full of people. She sighed. The bus would be a hell of sweaty tourists and insufficient seats.

  Her burning feet felt too big for her shoes as she dragged out her tattered bus schedule and started the trek to the nearest stop, the heat of the day seeping up from the flagstones to cling around her aching calves.

  And then Martyn Mayfair’s oversized vehicle hummed up beside her.

  The window eased down. ‘I’m on my way to Eastingdean, if you want a lift?’

  She hadn’t talked to him since the snippy conversation at the bus stop and could see his smile was forced. But, being a polite Englishman, he wouldn’t drive by. And being a poor dragging waitress, she wouldn’t repulse his olive branch. ‘Damn right!’ She climbed up into the passenger seat and collapsed. ‘It’s been a tough day so I really appreciate the ride. Thanks.’

  She sank back to enjoy the air conditioning as he steered the vehicle back into the flow of the hundred other vehicles crawling slowly along the seafront, tourists stepping into the road as if the traffic wasn’t there, licking ice-creams and exhibiting red shoulders.

  ‘You’ve got a job?’ He touched a button on the steering wheel and the music pouring from the stereo in the centre of the dashboard diminished.

  ‘Conference catering. Very casual and not much fun and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to stick it another week. How about you?’ She hoped that sounded like a friendly enquiry and not a dig.

  He held back to allow a blue sportscar to come out of a side street. ‘We’ve just been shooting on the beach.’

  Her eyebrows flew up. ‘On the beach? I thought you guys didn’t carry guns?’ Having served in a room overlooking the beach for much of the day, she was amazed that she hadn’t heard gunfire and sirens.

  He laughed shortly. Then he threw back his head and laughed harder, as if what she’d said was sinking in. ‘Well, you know. It’s tourist season – that means we can shoot them.’ He slapped his knee, his laughter rocking around the confines of the SUV.

  Well, good. Enjoy your stupid joke and don’t tell me why it’s funny. She shut her eyes. The English were nuts, the lot of them.

  There was an email from Stef’s co-worker, Billie, short and to the point.

  Honor,

  Because Stef hasn’t got internet access he wrote you a message and asked me to pass it to you. Here it is:

  How’s the moral high ground? Hope the view is better than from here. ‘Here’ stinks. Come on, Honor, do the right thing – come see me.

  Trying to make her the guilty one, which made her boil with fury. In the circumstances.

  It also made her sad. And then mad at him for making her feel sad. He wasn’t happy with how things had worked out for him but he’d got himself into a fix that she couldn’t get him out of. Anyway, she had to get out of the habit of taking responsibility for him.

  By the time she’d showered and eaten, the sun was setting, blazing a glitter path across the ocean to the shore, and Honor’s feet had recovered enough for her to want to breathe the salt air. She tied up her damp hair and zipped herself into a light fleece jacket against the evening breeze, then crossed the road.

  She strolled the undercliff walkway, squinting against the sun on the water that hissed in on the shingle beach and tinkled out again. On her other side, the chalk cliffs were pink in the sinking sun and studded with flint, clumps of thrift and little fissures where seagulls made their homes.

  The undercliff was quiet. Nearer to Rottingdean there might be more tourists but below Eastingdean and Saltdean she met mostly dog walkers and a handful of cyclists as the walkway jinked to follow the shape of the cliffs.

  She rounded a curve and saw a cluster of teenage boys, jeering and swearing and pushing someone around. The willowy boy being pushed was trying half-heartedly to joke his way out but the pushes turned to hard shoves that, even if delivered with a certain amount of laughter, had got to hurt.

  It was Rufus, from the Eastingdean Teapot.

  Honor slowed as the scuffle grew into a slapping fight. On the concrete path was an enormous chalk drawing of a penis. She paused to study it. ‘Anatomically correct. Your science teacher will be proud. Hi, Rufus.’

  Instant silence.

  Rufus tossed back his disordered hair and hid a rock of chalk behind his narrow back.

  The meatiest of the others, obviously the ringleader, shoved Rufus hard in the small of his back, making Rufus’s head whip back. ‘Don’t be a wuss ’cos some Yankee Doodle knows your name, freak. Sign it.’

  Rufus turned to face the boy, much heavier and taller than himself, glancing from him to the crude drawing. And then at Honor.

  The bigger boy shoved Rufus again, hard, catching him this time at the base of his neck, making him wince. ‘Do it! Fucksake. Sign it.’ Miserably, ducking his head, Rufus brought out his chalk.

  Honor summoned up her best school marm voice. ‘He doesn’t have the time. Robina asked me to fetch you, Rufus. I have the car up on the road. I don’t know what the problem is but she’s real pissed about something.’ And then, catching a sneer snaking across the bully’s face, ‘’Fraid the cops are sitting in your front room waiting for you. So you’d better come.’

  As one, the meaty boy and two weedier hangers on stepped away from Rufus, as if cop contact would contaminate them.

  Eyes wide, Rufus dropped the chalk and wiped his hands on his black jeans, leaving grey smears.

  ‘Come on,’ Honor snapped. ‘Don’t keep the officers waiting.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t keep the officers waiting, freak. Right, Yankee Doodle?’

  ‘Right, butthead,’ she agreed, amiably.

  Rufus fell into step beside her as she marched off. When they’d rounded the next fold in the cliff, Honor risked a glance back. ‘Your friend isn’t real smart but he does seem mean. Is he likely to give us more crap?’

  Rufus sighed. ‘Frog? Yeah. When he’s had time to think about it, he’ll probably follow us and try and get me in deeper with the cops. That’s what that drawing was all about – there’s been stuff in the paper about obscene drawings by the local kids.’

  Honor winced. ‘Um … There are no cops, so, do you want to pick up the pace, there?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Run!’

  They broke into a run, Rufus outdistancing Honor in a few strides and having to steady down to her speed. ‘So the police don’t want me?’

  ‘No,’ Honor pant
ed, as they made for the next lot of stairs up to the road. The cliff was tall, here, and the steps became a slope about halfway up. ‘I just applied the rule we used to have in high school – if you’re in trouble, pretend you have to attend to worse trouble someplace else.’

  He managed a short laugh as he swung around the handrail and started the first flight. ‘I thought Frog had set me up, somehow. It’s good news that I’m not in trouble.’

  ‘But the bad news is I don’t have a car waiting.’

  He doubled the pace, as lean and fast as a greyhound. ‘That’s OK. I can lose Frog.’

  By the time they made the top steps, Honor’s thighs were burning and she was wishing all over again that she’d taken the daily runs that she’d promised herself and maybe even signed up for those Zumba classes. But she hadn’t made ‘running away from mean teenagers’ a fitness goal.

  Rufus led her across Marine Drive and up a driveway. ‘Isn’t this private?’ she called, her jello legs struggling with the pace.

  He turned and frowned, his hair blowing over his face. ‘Well, dur! The idea is to keep quiet.’

  ‘Oh.’ Horrified that she might be denounced as a trespasser but unwilling to turn back in case the pugnacious Frog had followed them up from the undercliff, she crept after him across the edge of a lawn, as far away from the big cream-coloured art deco residence as possible, through some spiky bushes that smelled of soap, through a hole in a wooden fence, almost falling at the other side where the ground dropped two feet. Now they were on another drive. This time, Rufus turned away from the house and in a minute they were out on a quiet residential street.

  Honor threw another glance behind them. ‘You think we’re OK?’

  ‘Yeah. Frog doesn’t know that way.’

  Honor felt her breathing begin to steady. ‘So how come you do?’

  Rufus grinned. ‘I used to do a paper round along here. I found – well, made – that place to cut through.’

  Nevertheless, she kept looking behind. ‘So, that charming guy back there, why do you call him Frog?’ The setting sun wasn’t reaching over the houses and the shadowy street was lapsing into cool twilight.

  ‘Toby French. He’s the year above me at school. He’s a big brave man as long as he’s got his two Tadpoles with him.’

  ‘I know the type.’ She walked beside him in silence for a couple of streets. The lamps were coming on, now, burning orange in a sky like blue metal. ‘Looks to me like he’s giving you problems.’

  Rufus shrugged and hunched his shoulders, jamming his hands in his pockets and walking faster. ‘It happens.’

  She tried to keep up. ‘Happened to me a time or two but I had a badass friend and that helped a lot.’ Stef. She pictured him in high school with his tawny hair blowing, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. In the days when he’d been an asset and not a liability.

  Rufus sniffed. ‘Yeah? Well, I haven’t got a badass friend.’

  Pity. ‘Maybe we can get you a badass reputation, then.’

  He laughed without humour. ‘I’ve got a reputation but not as a badass.’

  Freak. Honor heard the word spewing from Frog’s nasty mouth, remembered the way that Rufus had recoiled.

  He led her down an opening and across the top of Saltdean Park, away from the beach, into one street after another. He was taking her back to Eastingdean. In fact, she suddenly realised, he was taking her in the direction of The Butts. ‘Do you live at your Mom’s tearooms?’

  ‘Yup.’

  When they reached the broad sweep of The Butts, he hurdled a trough of petunias and made for a passage up the side of the tearoom. Then he paused, shooting glances at her from the corner of his eye. ‘I don’t want you to tell my mum. About Frog.’ He concentrated on his scuffling feet.

  Honor leaned against the wall, tucking her hands into her pockets. ‘Your mom makes great cakes,’ she observed, as if just remembering.

  ‘Yeah. Do you want to, like, come in or something?’

  ‘Not if it’s going to make your mom ask lots of awkward questions.’

  ‘She will. She’ll get–’ He revolved his hands in the air as if juggling words and being unable to find the right ones.

  ‘Will she charge around to Frog’s house and try and sock him on the jaw?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, she’ll charge round but put a spell on him or something. It’s well embarrassing.’

  Honor snorted with laughter. ‘Like a witch? You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No, not really. ’Cos she’s not a witch, although she once bought a book of occult symbols,’ he replied, gloomily. ‘It would be cool if she could turn his eyes yellow or make his knob drop off or something. But she can’t. She’ll just rant and tell him that he’s got bad Karma and I’m “her little Ru” and he’ll wet himself making pathetic jokes about Kanga, Roo and Winnie-the-Pooh. Then he’ll tell everyone at school that my mum’s dead weird. Again. And I’m a freak.’

  Honor twisted her ponytail with her fingers. ‘I don’t suppose this is his last year at your school?’

  Despondently, Ru shook his head. ‘He’s got another year at least. Anyway, he lives near.’ He nodded towards some unspecified location. Then, suddenly, ‘Here’s Mum.’

  A small white van rolled up to the kerb and Honor saw Robina staring at them through the passenger window. As soon as the wheels stopped turning, she jumped out. ‘Hello?’ she said, to Honor, curiously.

  The driver of the van was Sophie, the woman who worked with Robina in the Eastingdean Teapot. She climbed out of the other door.

  ‘Hi!’ said Honor, in her best American tourist accent. ‘How are you today? We met already, didn’t we? In your tearoom? I was just asking your son about the community centre and wondering whether to join some classes. You know, I’m new around here.’

  Robina looked amused. ‘I doubt Ru knows much about the community centre. We don’t do joining in, do we, Ru? We’re more … free spirits! Eh, Sophie?’

  Sophie beamed. Her hair, now it was free of its hairnet, hung straight to her shoulders. ‘That’s us.’

  ‘So, how was Crusty, at the hospital?’ broke in Ru.

  ‘Kirsty is still quite ill.’ Robina frowned. ‘Bloody doctors have no idea what’s wrong with her. “It’s a virus,” they say, but they don’t know which. Or how to treat her. They try her with no-good crap medicine and it has no effect. I took her St. John’s Wort and echinacea.’

  ‘Your friend sounds really sick,’ Honor commiserated. ‘I guess the St John’s will help if she’s feeling down and the echinacea is to help her immune system?’

  Robina shifted on her leather-sandalled feet, then changed the subject, making Honor suspect that she had no idea about herbal properties and had simply grabbed a couple of things from the holistic health shop at Starboard Walk. ‘So, Ru, my little Ru, I’m afraid you’re going to have to help us out for the summer. Kirsty isn’t going to be well enough to work for weeks.’

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Ru.

  Honor looked into his lean, sad face. ‘You weren’t looking for a summer job?’

  ‘I just got one.’ He shot a defiant look at his mother. ‘Taking money on a ride on the seafront in Brighton. It’s really cool on the rides. It’s wicked, Brighton.’

  ‘But Kirsty’s ill,’ Robina pointed out, delving into a large, green canvas bag embroidered with peacocks. ‘Me and Sophie can’t manage, Ru.’

  ‘Not on our own,’ agreed Sophie.

  ‘Put a card up in the window,’ Rufus wheedled. ‘Get someone.’

  Pulling out her keys, Robina waved them around, as if wiping his words from the evening air. ‘I can’t get my head round interviewing and all that stuff. If I put a card up I’ll be mobbed. C’mon, Ru, don’t give me a hard time.’

  Ru hunched even more. ‘You just can’t be bothered.’

  Robina gave him a hug. ‘Don’t be grouchy, little Ru!’

  Ru accepted the embrace but his brows lowered over stormy milk-chocolate eyes. Honor c
ould see why he’d hate to give up a summer job on the Brighton seafront in favour of serving cake in his mother’s tearoom. Eastingdean’s aging holidaymakers wore comfy clothes and sensible shoes, whereas Brighton’s rides would attract crowds of giggling girls with short skirts and high heels. The rides would be a lot better for him. He’d have fun.

  She opened her mouth and words slid out. ‘How about me?’

  Robina cocked her head. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m working as a waitress for a catering company in Brighton but I’m looking for something else. I’ve worked in coffee shops before, when I was in school. I only expect to make minimum wage and I’m a local girl until September.’ She already knew enough about Robina to know that what she was suggesting was not necessarily a good idea, but Ru was looking at her with such blissed-out hope that the words just kept on coming. ‘My name’s Honor Sontag. Why don’t you give me a try?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum, give her a try,’ Rufus urged.

  Robina frowned. ‘What’s wrong with the job you’ve got?’

  ‘It stinks.’

  Sophie giggled. ‘She sounds OK, Robbie.’

  Robina shrugged, as if who worked in the tearoom was of no importance, just so long as someone did. ‘OK. Come tomorrow, about eleven.’

  And she brushed past, up the passage to a side door with a light that came on as she approached, Sophie scurrying after.

  Ru didn’t follow. He leaned against the wall, his hair blowing in the wind until the door had shut behind his mother and Sophie. ‘Good one. Thought I was going to be stuck with a crap summer.’

  ‘You don’t like working for your mom?’

  ‘She’s OK as long as other people do the donkey work and she’s free to make her work-of-art cakes. Soppy Sophie does my head in, though. Crusty isn’t quite so bad but Soppy is so giggly.’ He grimaced. ‘But watch her. She’s sweet as pie only so long as Mum likes you.’

  Honor pulled a face. ‘Maybe I ought to reconsider–’

  He grinned and amended, hastily, ‘You’ll love them.’ And, as if to stop her thinking about the subject too deeply, ‘Are you seeing that Martyn Mayfair? Him from the buses?’