Love & Freedom (18 page)

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.

Ian’s voice began to take on the rhythms of a relaxation tape. ‘Look down
 
… then up. Again. Again. Now left
 
… and front. Again. Try right. And front. This time, when you look down, don’t come up so far
 
… and up – stop! Let’s try that again. Wait. Let’s wait for the fucking sun.’

‘He’s really intense, the camera loves him,’ breathed Leon from several yards behind the camera.

Lily unbent enough to giggle. ‘What’s not to love?’ And Leon shivered and smiled for the first time.

At the end of a couple of hours Honor had turned her attention to the town, which looked as if a giant child had opened a toy box marked ‘historic buildings’ and jumbled them all together on the hillside.

But, just as she was preparing to abandon the shoot and cross back into the town that she was itching to explore, the crew all got busy stowing the equipment back in the van. Ian stretched and yawned. ‘Next stop, the castle grounds. And you’d better all find a way to squash into the van because we’ve only got a crew pass.’

Honor’s desire to leave vanished.

Martyn looked her way, apparently not as unaware of her presence as he’d seemed. ‘Honor, you can squash in the front with me,’ which earned her an affronted look from Lily, who had to crawl into the back with the racks of clothes, photography equipment and the rest of the crew. Martyn took Honor’s hand and stepped up into the cab all in one motion, hoisting her on to the seat by his side as if she were a doll. She looked at his face curiously. The make-up was so subtle she probably wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t watched it being applied. He smelled a little different to usual; powder and hair wax. Other than that he was still Martyn. More remote than she was used to and sitting oddly at the centre of everyone’s attention. But still Martyn.

Still warm, as his hand proved when it lingered on her leg as he reached past her to shut the heavy door. She glimpsed his smile. Then he turned back to listen to what Ian was saying about the light and the grey clouds just beginning to move in over the clutter of buildings on the brow of the hill.

Apart from a member of staff who showed them to a roped-off area of greensward in the lee of one of the massive curtain walls, Arundel Castle took no notice of the photography crew in its grounds. The van burst open and spilled its cramped cargo of crew, arms full of equipment, clothes and collective backs to turn on any tourists hovering at the distant ropes, treating the castle as a huge prop that might as well have been made of cardboard as majestic grey stone gathered over centuries.

‘This is better!’ Ian kept saying, brandishing his light meter. ‘We’ve probably got an hour before it clouds right up and I think we’ll get the best stuff, here. I like the light and we don’t have to keep stopping for fucking traffic.’ In the comparative peace and quiet of the castle grounds, he became almost jovial.

Martyn no longer bothered to squeeze himself into the back of the van to change his clothes. He stripped off his shirt to exhibit a body that deserved to be looked at and Honor felt her breath stick. The sun poured over him, defining every line, and it took her a moment to remember how to fill her lungs.