Love & Freedom (36 page)

His heart gave a thud. ‘How did you know?’

She sounded uncomfortable. ‘He was there when I called. About the lawns.’

‘In the bungalow?’

‘Um
 
… outside.’

He let a silence grow, hoping she’d fill it. She didn’t. ‘He’s inside now,’ he prompted, helpfully.

‘I didn’t let him in. Or not into the house.’ Clarissa sounded defensive.

‘So where did you let him into?’

‘He said that he’d cut the grass so I let him in the garage.’

‘And I suppose he found a window open at the back,’ Martyn finished, grimly. ‘And now he’s in, he’s refusing to get out.’

Clarissa sighed. ‘Then, evidently, I’ve unintentionally caused a situation. But if he’s her husband–? Martyn, it’s obvious that you’ve got a thing about Honor, it’s been written on you all summer. But she’s married. I presume there’s been some issue, for her to have come here without her husband, but he’s here now, so he wants to patch things up. Don’t get involved! You know how I feel about people who interfere in other people’s marriages.’ Her voice tightened. ‘If I gave him access to the bungalow it was inadvertent but it’s probably for the best. I’m not going to apologise if it’s stopped you getting mixed up in their problems. And I can’t quite blame him for fighting to get his wife back. In fact,’ she ended, defiantly, ‘I applaud it.’

Martyn took a deep breath. He counted to ten. He reminded himself that Clarissa was his mother and she loved him. And that it wasn’t long since her own marriage had ended and it had caused her enormous pain. ‘But Stef could be as mad as a box of frogs. You don’t know why she left him or what he did once he got Honor alone in that bungalow. So she’s moved in with me.’ He ended the call feeling he’d been as polite as he could be, under the circumstances.

After Honor had gone – back to her fucking fancy, male-model boyfriend, presumably, Stef sat for a while, letting the white heat fade. It had seemed like a good idea, planting himself in her rented house, but it had backfired big time. He hadn’t thought it through. Underestimated Honor’s desire to keep distance between herself and him.

Finally, he picked up the order check that Ru had left on the table and wandered into the tearoom, pausing inside the door and letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Ru, enveloped in a cloud of steam, was busy at the steel sinks with his back to the kitchen. Pink-hair lady was cutting crosses in baked potatoes and piling in cheese. Conveniently, Robina was closest to the counter.

He walked soundlessly to the open flap, leaned in and touched her sleeve. When she glanced up from balancing little silver balls on whorls of frosting, he jerked his head and stepped back, so the others couldn’t see him.

Robina followed him out. ‘All you need to do,’ he said, ‘is ring her when I give you the word. That OK?’

Robina smiled like a mischievous child. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me why?’

He made a conspiratorial face. ‘Honey, that would be no fun at all.’

Paying her for the two cups of coffee, he left, wandering along The Butts, stopping and gazing into shop windows – many of which, he thought, needed the salt cleaning off of them – and then crossed to the other side of the road and dawdled like a tourist, turning his face up to the sun, which had decided to grace Eastingdean with its presence, watching white fluffy clouds drift by.

When he reached the Starboard Walk shops he meandered, idly, into the car park, glancing around. And then up. Around the outbuildings and the dumpsters. Then he wandered out, looked at a few more shop windows, and rambled back off to the bungalow.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Honor had been staying with Martyn for several days. Having flown from the bungalow in a snit, she found herself with an ill-considered mish mash of possessions and a feeling of camping in someone else’s space.

When her phone rang, displaying the number of the Eastingdean Teapot, she answered cautiously. And was shocked to hear Robina’s voice. ‘Honor? I need you to come along and sign some crap the taxman wants, to cover the time you were working here.’

‘OK.’ Honor made her voice neutral. ‘I’ll be along this afternoon.’

‘I need you to do it now.’ Grudgingly, Robina explained. ‘Certain stuff has to be in on certain days, in this country, so I need to post it quickly. And the last thing I want is the taxman taking an interest in my business because of you.’

‘I guess I could come now.’ Martyn was out running.

Honor entered the cool interior of the tearoom ten minutes later with mixed feelings. Some of the time she’d loved working in the sweet atmosphere of the Teapot; some of the time she’d been frustrated, put upon and frazzled. She looked around for Ru but saw only Aletta, patiently filling bowls with tube sachets of white and brown sugar.

Robina and Sophie were staffing the kitchen. ‘Oh, you’re here.’ Robina snapped. ‘Sit down and I’ll get the paperwork.’

Honor sat, listening to the slamming of drawers and cupboards.

Then Sophie half-smiled in Honor’s direction, and followed. ‘But, Robbie,’ Honor heard. ‘I don’t know which forms you mean.’

And Robina growling, ‘Those
forms
! I’ve seen them; they’re here somewhere.’

It got noisier. Robina’s voice got louder, Sophie’s more plaintive.

After twenty minutes, Honor lost patience and called through, ‘Call me again when you’ve found them.’

Robina snapped, ‘I need you to wait. They can’t have gone far.’

Fifteen more minutes crept by. Sophie came out and filled orders, looking upset and puzzled. Honor got tired of waiting. Then she left. When Robina had the forms to hand, she’d return.

Apart from that tense little scene, Honor thought she was approaching pretty close to heaven. Martyn not having a shoot until the following week and Honor being currently unemployed gave them a lot of time. He took her walking on the Downs, the rolling moors just inland of the coast – he called this being ‘up on the Downs’, which made her giggle. They spent a day on the pier – riding four times on the roller coaster, rattling around higher than every other ride, swooping over the sea, screaming as they looped the loop. Well, she screamed, he laughed and called her wussy. They swam, wandered around The Lanes and watched a gay wedding in Kemptown. Martyn even went into Pretty Old with her and shamed Peggy into gifting her a glass inkwell that had come as part of a house clearance, because, he said, he was sure that Peggy must have ripped Honor off plenty in the past, her being an American.

‘Not that much,’ was Peggy’s defence, ‘because she’s not completely American.’ But she chuckled and wrapped up the pretty inkwell for Honor. It stood on a windowsill in Martyn’s bedroom, collecting rainbows from the sunlight.

They ran together a couple of times, although he still took most morning runs on his own, harder, faster and further than Honor could manage.

They made love. A lot. In his bed, on the floor, on the sofa, in the pool of sunlight that came through the French doors in his room – also harder, faster and further than Honor had before. But she kept up with that OK. He made her feel so hot she thought she might melt.

Sometimes they then scrunched up together in the big corner bath, soaping each others’ bodies and exchanging stories from their lives.

What they didn’t do was face up to reality.

Honor knew she had to – and soon. Using Martyn’s computer because she’d left hers when she’d packed so haphazardly at the bungalow, she’d just received an email from Jessamine.
Is Stef still there? Are you OK? I miss you. Dad’s worried – he’s about ready to get on a plane to England.

She responded,
Tell Dad not to worry. I’ll be back for a while, soon, and I’m guessing if I go home then Stef will surely follow.

She gave a huge sigh. Martyn sat down on the sofa beside her, swooped her up and arranged her on his lap, kissing her cheekbones. ‘Trouble?’

‘Oh, you know. My sister emailed. My dad’s worried. And I know I have to go home soon and deal with stuff.’ She let her head settle back into the crook of his neck. ‘I’m getting my head around it.’

His warm arms tightened as if he didn’t want her to go, even as he said, ‘I suppose so.’

She fiddled with the laptop, shinily black, running her fingers around the keys. ‘I want to see Ru before I go. I know he was freaked by what I told him and I need to know he’s going to be OK in the end.’

‘Text him.’

‘Hm.’ She drew more patterns. ‘It’s Thursday but I don’t feel like going to self-defence class. And I’m kind of hoping that Ru doesn’t need it any more.’

‘So invite him for fish and chips. I’m sure he’ll take that bait.’

‘OK.’ Still snuggled on his lap, she took out her phone.
Join us for fish n chips tonight? Martyn’s, at 7.

In only a few minutes she received,
OK
.

She was ultra-relieved when Ru arrived at seven, easing himself into the room with just one familiar smile, half-seen behind his hair. Honor gave him a quick hug. It was like hugging a plank that wouldn’t get its hands out of its pockets but he didn’t actually resist.

‘I’m starving,’ was all he said. ‘Shall I go and get the chips?’ And Honor realised that he didn’t want or didn’t need to talk about what she’d told him. He just wanted everything to be OK.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you the money.’

Afterwards, they arranged themselves around the sofas, too full to do more than sit for a while. Ru reached for Martyn’s laptop. ‘Can I do my Facebook and stuff?’

‘Of course.’ Martyn had begun flicking through the movie channels on TV. He pulled Honor’s legs over his.

Honor watched Ru, his mouth half-open as he focused on the screen. ‘So, how are things with Robina?’

Ru shrugged. ‘’Bout the same.’ He tapped briskly. ‘I didn’t tell her.’ It was the first indication he’d given that Honor’s confession had ever happened.

‘Probably best. Has she said whether she’s found that form she wants me to sign?’

His eyes were still glued to the computer. ‘What form?’

‘She called me and told me I had to sign some form for the British tax authorities.’

Ru frowned.

‘Then she couldn’t find it and slammed around, quite obviously not wanting me there and blaming me for the fact that I had to be.’

Ru’s eyebrows shot up.

‘So I left her to her snit. She didn’t mention it to you, at all?’ Honor persisted, nudging him with her foot to break the spell that had glued his eyes to the laptop.

Ru put his head on one side. ‘Martyn? Are you gay?’

‘Don’t think so.’ Martyn winked at Honor. ‘I don’t even think I’m confused or curious. Why?’

Ru read from the screen. ‘Your Facebook status update says that you are. And that you’re grooming
me
for
 
…’ he squinted, ‘“delicious discoveries”. And you’re going to change your name to Mary.’

Slowly, the grin faded from Martyn’s face. ‘I hope you’re joking.’

Turning the laptop around, Ru passed it over.

‘Fucking
hell!
’ Martyn exploded. ‘What the hell is going on?’ He tapped rapidly at the keys. ‘A whole series of status updates has been posted about my supposed interest in adolescents “of either persuasion”. And – holy
fuck
– slagging off clients I’ve worked for and saying they haven’t paid me or they test their products on puppies!’

‘You’ve been fraped,’ Ru observed.

‘What’s frape?’

‘Facebook rape – frape,’ Ru clarified. ‘You must have left your accounts open on your machine and someone decided to post a lot of stuff pretending it’s you. It happens.’

Martyn frowned at him. ‘But I’ve never done that.’ Grimly, he returned to the computer. Then he sat back. Stared at Ru. ‘The Facebook and Twitter passwords have been changed.’

Honor swallowed. She opened her mouth but Martyn’s phone began to ring and he pulled it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen. ‘Hi, Ace?’

Ace responded at such a volume that no speaker phone was needed for Honor to hear, ‘Martyn, what the fuck is going on? When I try and open the Agency website it clicks me through to a website called www.allmodelsrperverts.com, full of porno images of you and some of my other clients!’ He paused, and his voice dropped a decibel or two. ‘They’re Photoshopped images, of course, sticking your head on to an image of some porn star’s body – hard porn at that. The agency’s Facebook and Twitter pages are full of supposed confessions from you about your perversions.’

Martyn’s knuckles were white. ‘My Facebook and Twitter pages have been messed with, too.’

‘How have you let it happen?’

‘It hasn’t come from me,’ Martyn rapped. ‘Did you think I’d found a “destroy your career” button on my laptop? Some bastard has hacked everything.’ His fingers were busy on the keys as he talked. ‘Shit, it looks like he’s hacked into every single site I maintain. Leave it with me, Ace and I’ll sort it.’

He threw down the phone and stared, white-faced, at the screen.

Honor forced herself to speak. ‘It’s Stef,’ she croaked.

Martyn didn’t look at her. ‘Fits with what you’ve told me. Bastard.’ He breathed hard. ‘The only missing part of the puzzle is how he got my passwords.’