Love & Freedom (Choc Lit)

by Moorcroft, Sue

  She banged into the Teapot like a child in a snit, where Ru was already scrubbing potatoes. ‘Come on,’ she snapped. ‘Let’s get your fu– your mother up.’

  Ru, who hadn’t put his hat on yet as the Teapot wasn’t open for business, grinned through his curtain of hair. ‘You won’t wake her.’

  ‘You just watch me.’

  ‘Love to.’ Ru let her in the door in the side of the building. Honor stormed up the two flights of stairs to the bedrooms. ‘Which is your mother’s? This one?’ And burst into the room.

  She paused to let her eyes adjust to the gloom.

  A giant yellow caterpillar lay on a double mattress and the curtains swayed lazily in the breeze from the open window. ‘Robina.’ Honor addressed the sheeted caterpillar, politely. ‘You need to get up and open the tearoom. You need to bake the cakes.’

  The caterpillar lay still.

  Honor cranked it up a notch. ‘Robina, you need to get up and open the tearoom. You need to bake the cakes!’

  Still, the caterpillar didn’t move.

  Honor grabbed one edge of the sheet, braced her foot against the mattress and yanked. ‘ROBINAYOUNEED TOGETUPANDOPENTHETEAROOM!YOUNEEDTO BAKETHE FUCKINGCAKES!’

  The sheet ripped. Robina lay, exposed and blinking through a storm of hair. ‘No,’ she moaned.

  ‘YES!’ roared Honor. She seized Robina’s hands and dragged her from the mattress and, with superhuman strength, to her feet. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, quietly. ‘You do. Oh, good, you’re already dressed; we needn’t waste time with fresh clothes. Yesterday’s will be fine. Put on your shoes.’

  Kirsty had appeared in the doorway beside a grinning Ru. She looked like a scarecrow in pyjama bottoms and a wrap-over robe, and laughed like a growly dog. ‘I never thought I’d live to see that.’

  ‘And how are you?’ Honor asked her, not releasing Robina’s hands as she led the older woman to the bathroom like a geriatric. ‘Do you have everything you need?’

  ‘Thank you for asking.’ Kirsty smiled, thinly. ‘It’s refreshing. But I’m OK.’

  Sophie was easier to rouse and Honor presided grimly over face washing, teeth cleaning and the pulling back of hair before dragging the pair downstairs to at least get the cakes baked before she allowed them back to bed to pass out. ‘And, Sophie, don’t forget to put Ru on the payroll. He has worked his butt off all weekend while you guys have been mainlining alcohol.’

  ‘Payroll?’ Sophie blinked.

  ‘Yeah, remember? Robina promised that Ru would get paid the same rate as Aletta. I’ll write down for you how many hours we’ve each done, to make sure you get it right. OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Sophie smiled, gently, humouringly.

  Although Sophie and Robina were in the kitchen in body, their minds were quite obviously still afloat in the ether. ‘I should have left the place shut and you two in bed,’ Honor told them, disgusted, when she hadn’t been able even to take a break to shove down a scone to fill her empty stomach because she had to act like a sheepdog to keep the orders moving.

  Robina’s eyes cracked a touch wider open. ‘But the Teapot has to open. Or we don’t make any money.’

  Honor planted her fists on her hips. ‘So you just assumed that I’d open up for you? And Aletta would give up her day off?’

  ‘I thought that’s what we arranged,’ she fibbed, weakly. ‘I’ll pay you a bonus.’

  ‘Yeah, damn right!’

  But not even Honor’s energy could keep Robina and Sophie on their feet indefinitely and she returned from clearing tables at two o’clock to discover only Ru in the kitchen, busy at a steaming sink. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve slunk off!’ Honor exploded.

  ‘OK.’

  Honor waited. Then, ‘They’ve slunk off, right?’

  ‘Yeah, out the back door.’ Ru shrugged philosophically and smiled. ‘But they were crap really, weren’t they?’

  Even if she had to laugh and give Ru’s skinny shoulder a mock punch, Honor was aggravated to find it was once more nearly six by the time she was free to go home, past the shops of Starboard Walk – with a longing glance up at Martyn’s front door, uncompromisingly shut – turning her face to the sea breeze, half surprised to realise that, once again, it had been a pretty day.

  Here they were in the last few of days in July and she was working through the days, making her too tired to enjoy the long, light evenings. Was this really what she’d come to England for? She didn’t think so.

  She awarded herself a long soak in the bathtub, scraped around the kitchen and ended up with an unsatisfactory meal of pasta with cheese sauce – she hadn’t had time to shop over the last few days – and, finally, flopped on the couch with a book on the history of Sussex, one she’d bought in Arundel with glee but had hardly snatched a glance at.

  Across the room, her laptop waited like an accusation.

  She tried to concentrate on the book and the chapter on the Sussex smuggling trade illustrated with atmospheric monochrome line drawings of shifty looking men with ragged shirts, cuddling casks of brandy like stolen babies.

  She texted Martyn: Hey, how’s it going? But then remembered him telling her of tonight’s late evening shoot at the Louvre with its spectacular backdrop of fountains and reflections; the glass pyramid twinkling with golden light.

  He suddenly seemed a long way from her. More than miles. It was a big shoot, this time, with other models – female – and a bigger crew than Honor had witnessed in action at Arundel, underlining how little a part of his world she was. While she sprawled on a rented couch with a history book, he might be standing in the fountains in his underwear with a gorgeous model in his arms, smouldering down at her whilst she returned his gaze with an adoration created by le Dur cologne. She thought of the framed advertisement in his study and the hunger he’d injected into the pulling down of one teeny shoulder strap.

  She tossed the book away.

  In a consumer society, those moody, sexy shots of beautiful people with fabulous bodies and convincingly lustful expressions were everywhere. Magazines, bill boards … buses.

  She’d never wondered how the lovers and partners of those beautiful people coped with the way those shots were captured. The models had to get up close and very personal.

  For distraction, she grabbed the laptop and booted it up.

  There was a message waiting from Stef.

  Honor, listen. You’re too good a woman to leave me. You just wouldn’t. The guys who get left while they’re in here, they’re pitiful. You couldn’t go back on your wedding vows that way. Not even I deserve that. You’ll wait until I get out so we can talk, because that’s all that’s fair.

  She read messages from Jess and Zach and her father without really taking in their words about what was going on in their jobs and their relationships.

  You just wouldn’t whizzed her pasta around uncomfortably in her stomach. You’ll wait until I get out so we can talk, because that’s all that’s fair.

  Fair. That’s what she’d always been. Honourable Honor. Always fair.

  Slowly, she tapped out a reply. Were you fair to me?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The morning was bright and beautiful and Honor floated from the bungalow to the Teapot in a happy dream. OK, the official end to her marriage was going to be painful and she had to figure out how and when to make it happen – which was going to be a can of worms, even if she argued that, by making bad decisions, Stef had, effectively, chosen jail over his wife.

  Honor knew she would just have to steel herself to handle those worms, no matter how slimy. If Stef hadn’t been in a correctional facility, she would simply have filed for divorce.

  But if Stef hadn’t been in county jail then the end of the relationship might never have happened, and if, and if, and if …

  But there he was; and here she was, living in England ‘at the seaside’ (mentally, she put on an English accent to say that) and working for a couple of crazy hippies in a cute English tearoom. Today was Wednesday;
tomorrow Martyn would be back and she’d worked yesterday to make it so that tomorrow and Friday were her days off, this week. And she was glad to be alive. Glad she didn’t have to go through life not knowing what it felt like to be touched as if she was the last woman he’d ever touch. To be kissed with ferocious hunger, to make love with a man who used his mouth as his main means of exploration. A gourmand. Pretty damned incredible.

  As if on cue, one of the cream-and-red double-decker buses passed her going the other way, and a huge Martyn glowered down at her, a god in boxer shorts. Whoo. Funny, funny feeling …

  Stepping up her speed, she turned up into The Butts, past Starboard Walk, where Martyn’s BMW should magically reappear tomorrow, past the butcher’s shop, past the greengrocers, past the pub on the other side, across the road into the Eastingdean Teapot.

  The counter flap was up and she breezed into the kitchen, reaching automatically around to the hooks where her apron hung. ‘Hi, Sophie!’

  Sophie looked up from pricking potatoes that looked like big brown pebbles. ‘Um, Honor–’

  Robina shot out from the pantry. Her huge dark eyes overwhelming her face, so absolutely white. Her hands shook. Honor stared, wondering whether Robina was ill or eating the wrong kind of mushrooms. ‘Are you OK?’

  Robina swallowed. A tear broke free of her eye. ‘You fucking bitch.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Honor recoiled.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ Robina repeated, advancing slowly, pointing her trembling finger like a weapon. ‘You know how I feel about Martyn. You know I love him. You know. And as soon as my back was turned you stood right out in the street, touching tonsils with him. Did you think nobody would see? Because half the customers of the Fig Leaf must have been looking out and they couldn’t wait to rub my nose in it when I went in there, last night.’

  Honor’s heart plummeted. ‘But,’ she began feebly.

  Robina’s face twisted into a snarl, tears streaming. ‘I don’t want to hear any of your fucking excuses.’ Which sort of solved a problem as Honor had no idea what she would have said after ‘But’. Martyn was a free agent, considered Robina a total nut job and had made it clear that he would set fire to himself sooner than get in her bed. But it was difficult to know how to convey those sentiments without making the situation worse.

  ‘Get out.’

  Honor took an involuntary step towards Robina. ‘Can’t we just–’

  Robina clenched her fists. She hadn’t tied up her hair and it streamed out from her head and over her shoulders like springs. ‘Get. Out. Sophie will make up your wages and post them through your door. I don’t want to see you in here again.’ The tears had become a flood but, eerily, Robina’s voice didn’t even shake, though the misery in her expressive eyes made Honor feel bad clear through to the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Robina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you–’ Honor had to push her voice past her heart, which had jumped to her throat.

  ‘Of course you did. Get out of my tearoom.’

  Honor stood her ground, unhappily, searching for something, anything, to say, to make things better. She glanced at Sophie, whose flamingo hair had faded to a gentler party pink. Sophie shrugged and shook her head, her arms folded as if to fence Honor out. ‘You knew how she felt.’

  Slowly, Honor hung her apron back on its hook.

  She trailed out of the tearoom, threading between the chairs and tables of the teagarden, dazed. Aimlessly, she wandered down on to the undercliff and walked into the wind, watching the ocean, and the gulls wheeling over everyone who had chosen to walk, run, ride or skate along the undercliff this morning.

  She walked. Past Saltdean and the entrance to the park; past Rottingdean and the White Horse Hotel; on and on as the path narrowed and became separated from the stony beach by a wall and a rail. The sea was in, rolling and roaring over enormous concrete breakwaters, rattling the pebbles. When the walk finally rose and curved up to the main road, she found herself nearly at Brighton Marina. With sore feet.

  On the opposite side of the main road was a café and she took her tired self to a table by the window and drank coffee as she stared through the rushing traffic at the sun glittering on the ocean, like the anger and misery that had glittered in Robina’s eyes as she’d declared her love for the man Honor had just fallen into bed with.

  She heaved a great wretched sigh.

  Then she set off back. By the time she reached Eastingdean, her legs were almost too heavy to carry her up the steps on the side of the cliff and across the road to the bungalow. She let herself in, feeling lonely and unloved. Her hand hovered over her phone. Martyn was only a call away but he had a heavy day’s shooting planned – and some conversations should only take place face-to-face.

  She sighed. As well as talking to Martyn about Stef, she had to explain all about Robina.

  Thursday wasn’t exactly the ecstatically happy day that she’d planned. It began with an unwelcome phone call from Martyn. ‘No planes taking off from Charles de Gaulle. The air traffic controllers are protesting about something.’

  She tried to be philosophical and grown up and not flounce down on her bed wailing, Ooooh noooo! ‘How long do you think it will last?’

  ‘No idea.’ He sighed. ‘If it goes on, I’ll try to get a place on the Eurostar, although it’ll be a pain because my car’s at Gatwick. And the Eurostar and the ferries will be crazy because of the strike.’

  ‘Guess so,’ bleakly.

  His voice dropped. ‘I’d better end the call because I haven’t got that much life left in my battery. And, in an airport lounge that’s filling up but not emptying, privacy’s negligible.’

  She forced a laugh, but the day dragged from that point. She tried to put into effect the once-attractive plans she’d made for her day off and wandered up to Pretty Old to poke around amongst all the deliciously interesting stuff that smelled of dust and age. But she couldn’t raise enough interest to buy a thing, despite Peggy’s expectant expression on her gnomy face, which dissolved into disappointment as Honor left empty handed.

  Unless she deliberately took a roundabout route, she had no choice but to pass the Eastingdean Teapot, glancing wistfully at the teagarden full of chattering tourists and waving to Aletta, who was wafting between the tables. Aletta’s eyebrows lifted clear into her hairline and her eyes opened wide, telegraphing, ‘What’s going on?’

  Grimacing in return, Honor elected not to pause and explain. If she set a foot on Teapot property Robina would probably race out like a snappy poodle to sink her fangs into Honor’s leg. Or she’d fire Aletta just like she’d fired Honor, and Honor would hate for that to happen.

  She tried to peer through the teagarden and into the Teapot, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ru. She swallowed, dismally. Would she ever get to see Ru, now? Robina would probably hate them hanging out together and Robina had proved to Honor that it wasn’t necessarily in a real mother’s job description to put your kid first, even though Honor had always assumed it would be and that her own mother, her real mother, would be better than her stepmother. But Robina and Ru had shown her that a real mother wasn’t necessarily a good mother.

  She paused, studying herself in a shop window, hair frizzed in the wind, forehead furrowed. Did Karen used to look at Honor’s features and wonder about Garvin’s first love? She smoothed the lines away, hearing in her head the English saying: if the wind changes, your face will stay that way. The wind, swirling up over the cliffs, never seemed to know which way it was going.

  She knew how it felt.

  Drawing level with the Starboard Walk shops she glanced automatically at Martyn’s car space, even though she knew there was no way he’d be home. But the space wasn’t empty; Clarissa was just locking up her car.

  Clarissa raised her eyebrows. ‘Not slaving over a hot teapot?’

  Honor summoned up a shaky smile. ‘I guess I got canned.’

  Clarissa halted, frowning. ‘Fired? What on earth for?’

>   Belatedly, Honor realised that she couldn’t exactly say, ‘Oh, it was because I’m having sex with Martyn and Robina has the hots for him. But I dismissed her feelings because Martyn calls her his stalker.’ Because … well, because too many reasons to count. Maybe not a mother to Martyn in the conventional way, Clarissa had nevertheless given birth to him and might well not appreciate Honor’s candour. And Martyn might not want Clarissa – or anyone at all – to know he was involved with Honor, or might want to tell her himself. It was just plain awkward. So she muttered, ‘Robina and I, we had a fight.’

  Clarissa looked startled for a moment. ‘Not a fist fight?’

  ‘Just words,’ Honor confirmed, managing a smile at this latest evidence of the differences between UK English and US English. But if she’d stayed around Robina much longer, she reflected, she wouldn’t have put money on it staying just words.

  As always, Martyn had to queue to get through the traffic signals in Rottingdean. He yawned. It had been a long, crappy day and he’d never been so glad to get on a plane in his life, the French Air Traffic Controllers having been persuaded back to the negotiating table – and the control tower – late in the day.

  He glanced at his watch. His phone battery had died on him and he hadn’t won the scrabble for power sources on the plane, at a premium on such a short flight, nor thought ahead to bring the gizmo to let him charge in-car, so he hadn’t been able to call Honor since he landed. Travel worn, he’d stopped at a service station to freshen up and now was probably just too late to swing by Hughie’s self-defence class and see if she and Ru needed a ride home.

  But then, as if he’d wished her into being, there was Honor, jogging across the lights in front of the waiting traffic, ponytail bouncing behind her, her movements easy and economical, a pace a runner could keep up for miles. Then, like a shutter cutting her out of a photo, the shop on the corner put her out of sight. He waited, impatiently, for the signals to turn to green and a driving school car to dither left around the corner like a geriatric beetle as he cornered the X5 at a crawl into Marine Drive.