Shutting down her machine and wriggling into her combat pants, which felt appropriate for a self-defence class, she felt downright weird that Martyn Mayfair was to be her driver for the evening.
Once the damned class was upon her, she found herself no more enthusiastic about it than Ru. But if she didn’t go, Ru wouldn’t have anyone to encourage him – or pay for him, in all probability. They found their way into the hall over a pub where Personal Safety Training was printed on the sheet of white paper stuck to the door. A dusty stage at one end rose above floorboards and a spongy blue floor mat. The smell of beer tainted the air.
Including Honor and Ru, the class numbered twelve. Seven of the others were women of all ages up to mid-sixties, and each paused to look at Martyn when he walked in. Lifting a lazy hand to Hughie, he hopped up to sit on the edge of the stage and watch.
Honor hadn’t bargained on his presence but she could scarcely object, as he’d given them a ride. She and Ru joined the half-circle around Hughie, a tattooed hulk with a buzz-cut who, despite the grey in his hair, balanced on the balls of his feet and looked ready for anything. He had an oddly sweet smile and liked making his class laugh with jokes about his middle-age, ‘Blimey, this lad was no more than a twinkle in his father’s eye when I left the army and began these classes!’ Which put at ease the ladies who had a decade or so on him but made Ru flush. Ru looked how Honor felt – alien and apprehensive. If it hadn’t been for half of the class looking even less at ease in elastic-waist trousers and cardigans, Honor might have hissed, ‘Let’s go!’ to Ru and made a break for it.
Instead, she focused on Hughie’s growly voice as he bounded into his course introduction. ‘I’m not going to ask you all individually why you’re here,’ he began. ‘Because I know.
‘Something, at some time, has made you feel in need of a swift and effective answer to violence. You, or someone close to you, has been mugged, beaten up, picked on or sexually assaulted. You’re here to learn to defend yourself – not so that you can pick up tips on how to be an aggressor.’
He paused and scanned his class sternly, keen blue eyes daring anyone to admit aggressive tendencies. ‘I’m going to show you that even the smallest person can be effective in self-defence by mixing up the pairings.’ Rapidly, he divided the class up: young with middle-aged, woman with man, large with small. Ru looked terrified to be partnered by a plump woman with tight grey curls in rows, as if the perming rods were still in there.
‘And you – Honor, isn’t it? – you’re the lightest of us, so you partner me and we’ll show these guys how a little woman can overcome a big bloke.’
Honor grew hot with alarm. ‘Wow. I’m a complete beginner. Maybe someone else–’
‘–would be a complete beginner, too.’ Hughie twinkled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, this class is all about empowerment, about vanquishing that feeling of being out of your depth. That’s not a nice feeling and we’re going to show it the door. Right? We’re going to begin with vital point striking, because the brilliant thing about vital points–’ he began to tick points off on his fingers, projecting his voice to the class at large, – ‘is that we’ve all got them. Vital points cannot be conditioned. Vital points are as vulnerable on a fifteen-stone hoodlum as they are on a seven-stone weakling. OK?’
Along with the class, Honor nodded. ‘Stones’ were a bit of a mystery to her, but the principle was easy to comprehend, fifteen being more than twice as many as seven.
‘Now make me a fist.’ Hughie turned back to Honor and watched as she curled in her fingers and thumb on her right hand. ‘Good!’ He beckoned the class closer. ‘See, the thumb is on the outside of the fingers, parallel to the knuckles and across the front. You don’t curl your fingers over your thumb. Or stick it out at the side.’ He demonstrated each no-no. ‘Because you might break your thumb the first time you use a fist like that. Right? Honor, clench it harder. Great. The harder you can make it, the more effective it will be and the less chance there is of you getting hurt.’
He pulled up a banner from a sort of tube on feet that stood on the floor, to show a black silhouette with pink dots. ‘Here are the vital points,’ he pointed to each dot. ‘Eyes. Nose. Ears. Throat. Groin – especially if your attacker’s a man. Knees. Instep.
‘This isn’t a martial arts class and I’m not going to show you classic technique – I’m going to show you how to control a violent situation and get away, right? So you’ll use your hand in the easy ways.’ He stuck out his own hairy fist to demonstrate each option. ‘The back of your fist, the side of your fist, the flat of your palm and the points of your fingers. And you’ll put all the weight of your body behind each blow, right? Right?’
‘Right,’ the class responded, shyly.
‘OK, find you and your partner a bit of space and we’ll begin with the eyes.’
Honor glanced across at Ru, saw his face finally igniting with something that might be enthusiasm, and felt her heart lift. This was going to work. This had been a great idea. She turned to throw Martyn a grateful look. But then Hughie said, ‘Right, Honor. Now I’m going to choke you.’
Chapter Fifteen
Honor stepped back.
Hughie gave a guffaw. ‘It’s all right. I’m going to pretend to choke you and you’re going to pretend to jab me in the throat. See?’ Gently, he fit his warm and scratchy hands around Honor’s neck. ‘Now, your instinct is to put your hands up to mine to try and free yourself. But by far the simplest thing is to strike your attacker.’
Freeing Honor for the moment, he touched the base of his own neck, at the front, turning to show all the class. ‘All of you feel, here, you’ve got a nice little cuppy shape? With a bobbly bit inside, like a button? Just press it lightly.’ Several people coughed and Hughie grinned. ‘Not comfy, is it? So, Honor.’ He returned his hands to her throat. ‘You take your two fingers and jab me – a touch will do! – in the trachea, on that button.’
Quickly, Honor lifted her hand and touched Hughie fleetingly where he’d indicated. Though she controlled her touch, he still coughed. And let go of her neck.
Rubbing the area, he turned away, ‘OK, let’s see you practise that with your partners. Gently, gently!’
Hughie strolled away to correct someone’s perception of where the vital point was and Honor glanced over to Martyn, who had propped his elbow on his knee and propped his chin in his hand. Even across the hall, his dark eyes were intense. She could see why advertisers loved him smouldering out at women from moody images. One corner of his mouth lifted in the faintest of smiles and her heart gave a great boingggg–
‘Now, Honor,’ boomed Hughie, right beside her. ‘I’m going to grab you by your hair.’
Honor, her eyes still locked to Martyn’s, felt her gaze turn into an accusing Who got me into this? Martyn’s smile widened into a boyish grin. And Honor had the feeling that she was slipping sideways, even though she could tell that her feet were planted on the floor.
Climbing back into Martyn’s big black BMW, it seemed that Rufus had discovered enthusiasm for self-defence. ‘That was wicked! That button at the base of your throat kills if you press it, doesn’t it, Honor?’
‘It really does.’
Ru gloated over his new power. ‘I hope Frog tries something soon so I can press his button.’
Honor turned to look at him over the seat. ‘Have you had trouble with him, this week?’
Instantly, Ru switched his gaze to the view from the side window. ‘Not really. He’s said some stuff, y’know, that he’s got his eye out for me. I said that he nearly had his eye out – when you poked him with a chip. I told everyone at school about you beating him up with fish and chips, so he’s been ripped a bit.’
‘I didn’t exactly beat him up,’ protested Honor, uneasily. ‘I just kind of … stopped him. What does it mean to rip someone?’
‘To tease,’ said Martyn. ‘That’s the clean version. Ru, I agree it’s good to stand up to bullies but do you think it’s the best thing
to do, to get people ripping Frog?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ru, dreamily. ‘So he knows what it feels like.’
Martyn dropped Ru in Saltdean to meet up with one of his few mates from school, which, handily, meant that there was little risk of Robina seeing Ru with Martyn.
Then he drove the big vehicle up to the bungalow and parked in Honor’s drive. It was darkening early, this evening, as inky clouds marched in from the ocean. His face was lit by the various dials on the dashboard, making him look like the cover art for a paranormal novel.
He got out of the car.
Honor slid out on to the drive, and shut the door. ‘I guess that as you were so kind as to drive me to that scary class it would be remiss of me not to offer coffee. But I don’t have decaff.’
‘I’m not religious about decaff. Why was it scary?’ He stood back to allow her to go first up the steps.
She began to fish for her key. ‘Hughie may be one of the good guys but I don’t warm to someone who says he’s going to choke me. I wish I hadn’t been the smallest person in class, I would much rather have hung out at the back and been less noticeable.’
‘Funny how the smallest person there was also the prettiest,’ he observed, drily.
‘He chose me because I’m lightest.’
He laughed, softly. ‘If I had the choice between getting up close and personal with you or with those lumpy pensioners, I’d find some reason to choose you, too.’ And then, when she didn’t answer, ‘Funny that you’re freaked by the classes but you dealt with Frog without batting an eye.’
‘Anger can do that. It’s been said that I have anger management issues.’ Stef had said it, as she’d hurled stuff at him. She veered away from the memory of that ugly scene, of Stef trying to laugh off his own unbelievable stupidity and tell her that she was overreacting to a joke. Pretty serious joke!
Martyn followed Honor up on to the patio and waited whilst she unlocked the front door to the bungalow and stepped through the hall and into the kitchen, flicking on lights, whizzing the kitchen blind down, filling the tall, white kettle. She’d gone all silent and abstracted, but there was something satisfying about watching her go through the cosy rituals of coming home, sexy in her combat trousers.
To distract himself from the velvet glide of desire he broke the silence, propping himself against the wall, arms folded and legs crossed. ‘Where do you think of as home, these days? Here or America?’
She paused in reaching for two tall, white china mugs. Taking down a jar of coffee, she shrugged and frowned. ‘Good question.’
But just as she opened her mouth to say more, the front doorbell went bing-bong and she looked relieved. ‘I have a visitor.’ And before he could unwind his limbs and suggest that he do the big butch man thing and check out who was ringing her bell as the clock rolled around to ten at night, she’d skipped past him.
‘Wow! Hello,’ he heard. ‘Of course it’s convenient – come on in.’ Then his heart sank. ‘I’m just making coffee for your brother, who was kind enough to drive me home. Maybe you’ll join us?’
And before Martyn even had time to curse about it, Clarissa, Zoë, Beverley and Nicola came crowding into the kitchen, each distinguished from the others mainly by the style in which she wore her mouse-brown hair. They milled around him like unsteady Munchkins, giving him the opportunity to see that Honor, although daintier, actually stood more than half-a-head taller than any of them. Pink and grinning, his sisters hugged him enthusiastically, yanking down his head to plant alcohol-rich kisses on his cheeks, ‘Hi, Martyn!’, dragging out kitchen chairs and making themselves at home. Which Clarissa was, kind of, he supposed.
‘Didn’t expect to find you here.’ Clarissa’s eyes glittered above a wine-bright smile. ‘We’ve been to the Fig Leaf – Robina asked after you, by the way. She seems to think you’re avoiding her.’
‘I am,’ he said, frankly.
Clarissa pshawed. ‘You’re not still paranoid about her, are you? Anyway, I need to talk to Honor, so I thought I’d call.’
‘Funny time of night to call on your tenant,’ he observed. He cursed himself for leaving his X5 standing in the drive like a big, fat tell tale. That probably had been what dragged them in, merry-eyed and bursting with curiosity. Didn’t expect to find you here, like hell.
Clarissa’s eyebrows rose in the way they did whenever anyone was presumptuous enough to call her actions into question. ‘In fact, I rang the bell on the way to the pub, but Honor wasn’t here. You were out together, were you?’
Martyn simply lifted his eyebrows to give her back her own astonishment at being questioned.
Honor interrupted. ‘Well, now, I know Clarissa and Dr Zoë, but …?’
Clarissa abandoned Martyn and showed him how sweetly reasonable she could be to anybody else. ‘The rest of the Mayfairs, my sisters Beverley and Nicola. I’m sorry if we’re imposing, Honor. We didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘No, we didn’t mean to interrupt.’ Nicola, Beverley and Zoë threw meaningful grins at Martyn. He tried to frown them down but that just made them snuffle with giggles as they exchanged nudges. It was an incredibly maddening way for grown women to behave.
‘You’re not interrupting a thing,’ said Honor, calmly. ‘Suppose I make a pot of coffee, and then you can tell me whatever it is you want to tell me.’ She pulled out one of the two remaining kitchen chairs and glanced first at Martyn and then at the chair.
Martyn sighed and took the seat. At the end of the table. Which meant all four of his sisters could smirk and twinkle at him. ‘Looks to me like coffee’s exactly what you lot need,’ he grumbled.
‘So we’ve turned up at the right time.’ Nicola looked pleased, her habitual expression, maybe because she spent so much time delivering bouncing babies.
‘Probably, we need two cups,’ agreed Beverley. Beverley was one of the most agreeable people he knew, at the opposite end of the spectrum to Clarissa.
‘It’s actually a fallacy that coffee helps sober you up.’ Zoë assumed doctorly mode. ‘It makes you feel a bit more awake, which is what fools you into thinking you’re becoming sober. You have to give your liver time to eliminate the toxins and there’s no way of speeding up the process. A pint of water helps with hydration, ie the hangover.’
‘Would you prefer a pint of water?’ Honor paused in pouring coffee into cups.
Zoë looked horrified. ‘No, I’d like coffee, please. I’m not drunk so I won’t be hungover.’
‘That’s good.’ Honor put sugar and milk in the centre of the table, flicking a glance at Martyn that shone with silent laughter: They look pretty drunk to me …
He smiled back conspiratorially, enjoying the way her ponytail wagged behind her as she turned back to her task. The smile flipped to a scowl when he saw all four of his sisters were regarding him with knowing grins. Then, as Clarissa talked to Honor about getting the garden tidied up and Honor confessed that she wasn’t used to gardening, Nicola, Beverley and Zoë began to yawn between sips of coffee, and Martyn sighed as realisation dawned that he was going to end his night by delivering sleepy female Mayfairs to various addresses around Saltdean and Eastingdean. Why hadn’t he left the X5 in the car park behind Starboard Walk and walked Honor home?
The yawns increased in size and frequency as the coffee cups emptied. Clarissa continued to monopolise Honor with truly trivial tenant/landlord crapola, so he rose, resignedly, to his feet. ‘Shall I drop you lot off?’
‘Lovely!’ Amidst scraping of chairs and thankful noises, Nicola, Beverley and Zoë clambered to their feet. Clarissa followed, but she was never big on thanking him for merely doing what she considered he ought to. Instead, she demanded, ‘Why the rush? Working tomorrow?’
‘Yes, actually. Doing a shoot in Arundel for DownJo Jeans.’ He was pleased to be able to spike her guns before she could fire off a list of jobs he could do to help people in the family who worked ‘proper hours’. Like her.
Honor chipped in before Clarissa could arm h
er next salvo. ‘Arundel! I plan to go on the train to Arundel soon to see the castle. I love how the way you guys in England have castles and palaces right in the towns.’
Martyn held the kitchen door for Clarissa. But, instead of walking through it, she said, ‘Martyn can take you with him, tomorrow. He can take you on his shoot and then there will be time afterwards to look around the castle.’
‘Oh!’ Honor’s eyes lit up. Then she looked into his face and instantly rearranged her expression. ‘No, I couldn’t possibly impose that way.’
Clarissa talked her down. ‘There’s no point you going on the train when Martyn has his big, shiny car and is going to the same place. Eh, Martyn?’
He jumped on his irritation and wrestled it into submission, giving Honor his sweetest smile. ‘It’s only a small shoot so I’d love it if you’d like to watch, if you don’t mind hovering in the background. Then we can look around Arundel when I’m done.’
‘Really?’ Light flew back into Honor’s eyes. ‘That would be great.’
Clarissa bounced back in expectantly. ‘I’d love to watch a shoot, too.’
Martyn let his eyebrows speak his incredulity. ‘Nobody takes their mother on a shoot. Nothing could be uncooler.’
A crackling silence. Clarissa dropped her gaze and strode across the hall. He let the other Mayfair women cover Clarissa’s silence by babbling to Honor about joining their Zumba class in the community hall. ‘Clarissa’s the instructor and it’s really fun! And the class needs people or it’ll close.’
‘Zumba’s always fun,’ Honor agreed, without committing herself.
Clarissa waited outside, silently. As usual, Martyn would end up regretting striking back at Clarissa, but she jabbed him with every spiky word and never seemed to worry how much that stung, so he wasn’t ready to be conciliatory yet.
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