Love & Freedom (Choc Lit)

by Moorcroft, Sue

  In the doorway, he looked down at Honor, who was gazing at him, frowning. He knew that he didn’t have to explain to her why Clarissa brought out the worst in him. Instead, he winked and somehow found himself dropping a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I need to be there by nine-thirty, tomorrow, so I’ll pick you up at eight.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Honor had no idea what to wear to a photo shoot. The day was fine but the wind was frolicking with white woolly-lamb clouds so she teamed an aquamarine summer dress with a long cream cardigan that fell right the way to the dress’s hem, like something out of the sixties. She was no fashion guru but you couldn’t go wrong with retro.

  Martyn was quiet.

  He hadn’t shaved. His hair swung spikily around his cheekbones as it usually did and, thinking back to his image rumbling down The Butts on the side of that bus, Honor concluded that Martyn’s style of modelling relied a lot on people liking him exactly as he happened, by good luck, to be.

  ‘So, tell me about the shoot,’ she tried, when they’d negotiated the village traffic and were on their way, uphill, out of Rottingdean. ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘The client is DownJo Jeans and it’s for an ad – magazine, website and the lead page of their section in catalogues,’ he said economically, eyes on the road.

  ‘Will it be exciting?’

  ‘No.’ He accelerated past the mock-Tudor Downs Hotel.

  Juice, a Brighton radio station, took the place of conversation. Honor watched the scenery, the roadside bungalows with little windows in the roof and flint cottages with redbrick corners, giving way to grassy hills divided into irregular fields by darker green hedgerows. Sheep and horses grazed. The occasional hill was clad entirely in trees, reminding her of west Connecticut. Small scale.

  They fought their way on to the A27 and, periodically, Martyn glanced at his watch.

  ‘Worried about being late?’

  He glanced in his side mirror and pulled into the right-hand lane. Although she’d never driven in England and hated the idea of tackling those endless rotaries – roundabouts – let alone driving on the ‘wrong’ side, she knew that the faster traffic should be in the right-hand lane and the slower should be in the left-hand. It didn’t appear that all of the traffic knew that. ‘More mindful than worried,’ he said, after driving closer and closer to the dawdling little car in front before, grudgingly, it inched over. ‘I could have stayed at the hotel with the rest of the crew but as the shoot’s almost on my doorstep I decided not to. Now, of course …’ He waved a disparaging hand at the lines of traffic. ‘People trying to get to work are being held up by tourists setting out on their nice day trips. But I’ve built in a time buffer.’

  ‘And I guess they won’t start without you?’

  He grunted but didn’t smile. Honor translated the grunt into, ‘Actually, I’m feeling tense and regretting inviting you so I’d prefer you not to tease me about my job. Let me retire into my own head for a while.’ Under time pressure, Stef had not only been as snappy as a dog but, unlike Martyn, who seemed self-reliant, he’d expected her to multitask her way through both their schedules as an unofficial and ultra-reliable PA. She knew how it felt to desire a little silence in which to contemplate the business of the day.

  When had she last thought about business? Wearing a suit or studying client files would seem like living on Mars, now. She tried to imagine herself back at her desk with her licences on the wall and her computer screen permanently alight, land line and cell phone ringing all day and her income linked firmly to commission. Driving home with a headache that promised to last until bedtime only to discover that Stef had an evening off from the diner and wanted to go to the Star Bar where his old high-school buddies’ rock band would play and he’d dance all night with a bottle of Bud in his hand. If she mentioned her headache he’d say, ‘It’s because you have to relax, babe. You’ve got to learn to chill.’

  Time had flown by, in Eastingdean. Was it really only six weeks since she’d taken down her licences and walked out of that life?

  Nearly a month since she’d stored her stuff in a storage facility and taken a car to the airport?

  In that short time, she seemed to have learned how to chill. Waiting tables didn’t pay well but neither did it scramble her brain. Robina and Sophie were just nuts enough and the locals just friendly enough to make her time in England fun. Her old life had fractured and she’d crept out of one of the cracks.

  She watched the cars, buses, trucks and vans streaming along the undulating road between tall banks of scrubby shrubs in the morning sun and sank into her seat, content, for now, just to soak up the country that had given her half the blood in her veins.

  Even the silence of the man beside her was fine. And, fifty minutes later, when they were approaching a fairytale town on a hill, swinging over a little humped bridge and up towards castle, trees and cathedral, he kind of shook his shoulders and relaxed into his seat and began tapping his fingertips to the music on the radio. ‘We’re here. This is Arundel.’

  Jolted from her reverie, she leaned forward to stare as they cruised past a jumble of grey stone, flint, red brick walls, spires and turrets.

  ‘That’s part of the castle, but not where you get in. And, see that kind of mini castle peeping over the wall? That’s made of oak and it’s in the castle grounds.’

  ‘Wow.’ Honor gazed at the jaunty flags waving on each corner of the ‘mini castle’, which, she knew from her guidebook reading in bed, last night, was actually called Oberon’s Palace, created from drawings by Inigo Jones. Her mind was bombarded with a feeling of entering history, as if all the thousands of souls who had lived in Arundel over the centuries it had stood where the hill met the river were yelling at her all at once. No way had the guidebook done Arundel justice.

  The road eased around to the right and into a broad street in which brick, stone and flint were joined by buildings painted white, blue or yellow and a couple of those cute timbered places, lining the slope down towards a monument in the middle of the road.

  Martyn found his way around the back of the buildings to park at a red brick hotel. A last glance at his watch seemed to reassure him. But as she gathered her things he said, ‘Are you coming to watch the shoot?’

  She hesitated. She was, wasn’t she? Didn’t he invite her last night …? But then she got it. Last night, he’d been put on the spot by Clarissa and, making the best of a bad job, had invited Honor to cut Clarissa out. Aw, shit.

  She responded brightly, hoisting her bag on to her shoulder and trying not to look disappointed. ‘I don’t quite know. I don’t want to miss out on seeing around this cute town and all these amazing buildings–’

  But maybe her acting needed work because his eyes softened and he actually did the gallant Englishman thing. ‘You can come on the shoot. It’ll be OK if you don’t mind hovering in the background. I should be finished in time for a late lunch anyway, and then we’d have the rest of the day.’

  She capitulated in a heartbeat. ‘If you’re sure no one will mind?’ She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t agog to see a real live shoot.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s not a big busy shoot.’

  Following him through a rear entrance of the hotel she hovered so far in the background that when one of the reception staff showed them to a ground-floor meeting room with a conference table somewhere in amongst the clutter of clothes rails, aluminium boxes, leads, tripods, boxes and people, he had to look around for her. ‘This is Honor. Honor, this is Ian, the photographer, and Lily the MUA. Make-up artist.’

  With a squeal of joy, Lily flung herself into Martyn’s arms, blonde hair flying. ‘Martyn! Hello, stud muffin!’

  Martyn laughed and hugged her with one arm, shaking hands with Ian with the other. He’d obviously worked with them before.

  Ian had dark, slicked-back hair and black-rimmed glasses; Lily was about Honor’s age, blonde prettiness spoilt by a peevish expression when she spotted Honor.

 
A faun-like guy, complete with dark curls and a pointy goatee, merited only a brief introduction from Lily. ‘Hair’s Leon, today. He’s here on work experience.’

  Honor gave the faun a sympathetic smile at being so dismissed. But Martyn shook Leon’s hand anyway, obviously not catching Lily’s subtext that Leon was beneath Martyn’s notice.

  But the presenting of Leon proved to be almost effusive compared to Ian’s single-word introduction of two incredibly young and eager girls wearing skinny jeans and untidy ponytails. ‘Assistants.’

  Obviously quite used to being the bottom of the heap, the ‘assistants’ paused in burrowing through the mysterious aluminium boxes and black crates on wheels only to give distracted waves, although one of them muttered, ‘Stylist, really.’

  Ian and Lily began talking to Martyn and Honor found some background to occupy.

  From there, she figured out that the girl whose role was to assist Ian with light boxes and umbrellas was called Ettie and the other, stylist-really-Olivia, was there to look after the clothes and be barked at, with a dual role of keeping everyone supplied with coffee, tea or bottled water from a table set up at the side of the room that, during her weeks at Florence Events Catering, Honor would have known to refer to as the beverage station.

  She helped Olivia hand around the drinks, then retired to a seat beside the beverage station from where she could occasionally be useful, see everything happening in the large room, but wouldn’t trip anyone up. As a conference room, with red velvet at the windows, red carpet on the floor and brass lights along the walls, the environment was familiar. But, in its current guise as a crew room, she was out of place.

  Coffee over, Lily ushered Martyn to a canvas seat that reminded Honor both of a garden lounger and a dentist’s chair, tilting him back and covering his chest with a blue paper bib, talking quietly, Lily’s giggles ringing over Martyn’s soft baritone. After breaking off for a quick conference with Ian, Lily delved in a big pink case and brought out what looked like a razor and buzzed like a razor, but actually merely reduced the length of Martyn’s stubble. GQ stubble, Honor thought. Then, wow. That’s exactly what it was.

  Ian was brought to examine the result and they pored over a sheet of paper Ian unfolded from his shirt pocket; Olivia dashed over to listen in, then all parties nodded. Lily beamed. ‘OK, the bathroom is through that door. Martyn, can you wash? Finish with cold.’

  Martyn disappeared and Honor switched her attention to Ian, who seemed welded inside a leather jacket although the room was stuffy, and who was comparing his sheet of paper to one proffered by Olivia, ticking things off and rubbing his chin, allowing Olivia to coax him over to the clothes rail and study and nod as she took out pairs of jeans and other garments, making the odd note on his paper, pausing Olivia mid-sentence whenever Ettie ran over with a different list or a piece of equipment for a different consultation.

  Then Martyn was back in the chair.

  Honor tried to see exactly what Lily was applying to his face – it seemed to take a lot of pressing on to his skin for no discernible result – and then almost fell off her chair when Lily took out a long brush with flat, squared-off stubby bristles and began first tapping the bristles into something then touching them to the base of Martyn’s eyelashes. So intent was she on her task that she got closer and closer until she finally straddled him in order to get really close in.

  ‘I’m never sure what to do with my hands when you do that,’ Martyn rumbled. Lily’s whispered response made him laugh, a laugh he covered with a cough.

  Lily’s voice rose to normal volume. ‘Calm down,’ she cooed, concentrating fiercely. ‘It’s only because you’re tall.’ But then she whispered something else, obviously at home virtually on Martyn’s lap. She wore a complicated layering of underwear-as-outerwear covered with a loose green top in swirling Indian print that, falling casually off one shoulder, probably gave Martyn an interesting view.

  Honor began to realise that, as a financial advisor, she had missed out on a whole bunch of fun jobs. And that Lily and Martyn were far friendlier with one another than with the rest of the crew. Refusing to become a voyeur to their renewing their acquaintance, she transferred her attention to where, it seemed, decisions had been made and clothes and equipment were being relayed out of the room by Ettie and Olivia like ants carrying food to the nest.

  Leon, ready with a smaller black box like Lily’s pink box, watched Martyn, who had shed his shirt and was standing, now. Studying his torso, Lily chatted about his chest hair, a shadow between his mighty pecs. ‘It goes with the stubble, doesn’t it? And flows into the line of belly hair into your jeans. Can you undo your waistband? Because we’ve got some unbuttoned shots and you’ll need powder right down. You’re a nice colour. And no tan lines! Good boy. Been sunbathing in the nuddy?’

  Honor wondered where or what the nuddy was.

  Lily’s words flowed steadily as she wielded first a towel over his entire torso and then a big powder puff from the base of his neck in slow circular movements over his belly and down to the waist of his underwear, making his skin glow luminous and supple. Then, with a fresh white towel, she lightly blotted away any surplus.

  Martyn, responding with a grunt or the occasional, ‘Yeah,’ seemed to have drawn into himself, paying attention to what was going on without contributing.

  Then Ian was looking at his watch and Lily was apologising and Martyn sitting down again so that Leon could finally get his hands on him – or rather his hair – talking to Martyn earnestly and spending ages rubbing wax between his finger tips to tease Martyn’s shining raven spikes and, to Honor’s eyes, make absolutely no difference whatsoever, whilst Lily watched critically, muttering, ‘He’s only half-trained. It’s only ’cos his dad knows someone that he’s out on shoots. I could have done that.’

  Whilst Martyn was fussed over, the room had steadily emptied of equipment and clothes. Honor rose, unsure of what she was expected to do. The movement seemed to make her visible to Martyn again, as he slid carefully into his shirt. ‘I’m going in the van with Ian, will you be OK walking with the others?’

  Honor studied him carefully but she just couldn’t see he looked any different after Lily and Leon’s attentions. He was just Martyn. ‘Sure,’ she said.

  Lily led the crew, and Honor, down the hill and across a busy crossroads at a trot. ‘Ian wants to begin on the bridge.’

  Honor hardly paid attention to their destination because suddenly they were rushing right by the turrets and arch that formed the entrance to Arundel Castle, crenellations and chimneys soaring behind, and her eyes didn’t seem to be able to unglue themselves from the solid chunk of history the others were streaming past without a glance. To cross the road she shuffled crab-wise, gazing at the gatehouse and the slot windows where once archers must have defended the person and family of Roger de Montgomery when he built the first castle there, after Hastings. After Hastings for Crissakes! Almost an entire millennium ago. Holy freakin’ Joe, couldn’t these people see?

  Oblivious to being towed along by one elbow, she mentally ticked off the buildings rising behind the gatehouse – Norman keep, medieval barbican, and, towering behind like something out of Disney, the gothic Victorian castle. It was like European History 101 and she could hardly breathe for excitement. ‘Holy crap,’ she whispered.

  Lily swung on her. ‘Do you want us to leave you behind?’ she demanded, like a mother threatening a dragging child.

  Honor jumped, guiltily. ‘I was just looking.’

  ‘Only, you can stay and gawp if you want.’ Lily began to pant as she picked up the pace. ‘But the rest of us have to get to the location because if Ian gets pissed off we’ll all have a bad day. So if you’re coming, come on.’

  Oh well, the castle would still be there later … With one final awed stare Honor gave in to the pressure and hustled with the others. Already, she could see a blue van pulled over by a long stone bridge that spanned the river in three graceful arches. Olivia sprang into the
open back doors. Lily and Ettie got busy amongst the boxes and Leon stood around, looking lost.

  Grimly, Ian inspected the location. ‘This is going to be a pain in the arse. A giant pain in the arse. The client wants the bridge but what about the fucking traffic?’ Somehow, he arranged his equipment out of the way of the traffic and, finally, placed his model in an alcove, in the eye of the camera.

  And Martyn became somebody else.

  He reduced his focus until it was all on the photographer, who brought his light meter up close to Martyn’s skin and gave Ettie curt instructions to stand for arm-aching periods holding aloft a light box or a big white disc which she could somehow, with a dextrous twist, fold down into a smaller circle in three layers. Lily and Leon ran in between shots with powder and wax and, so far as Honor could make out, still made no difference to Martyn’s appearance.

  Martyn did a lot of leaning, turning and staring. Honor had had some idea that he would strike poses and hold them but, in fact, he was rarely still. In contrast to his snapping and snarling at the crew, Ian talked to Martyn like a cowboy gentling a horse. Martyn worked hard to give the photographer what he wanted, occasionally with a fleeting smile at a joke. But the camera shutter whirred when he was unsmiling, as if the smiles were only to let his glower relax.

  The shoot began interesting but slid slowly and surely into tedium. Martyn kept appearing from the back of the van in various jeans and shirt combinations; sleeves rolled up, sleeves rolled down, but shirt always sexily open around his torso; leaning or sitting on the bridge parapet with the lichen and the moss, then moving down by the glassily gliding water and the reflections of the sky. The reflections, at least, Ian approved, and he spent what felt like years over them.

  Crew attention was on Martyn and when Honor volunteered, ‘I guess that’s the River Arun,’ it was met with such eye-rolling apathy that she kept to herself the rest of her knowledge about Arundel for centuries having been a thriving port, and tried to work out where the docks would have been, instead.