Love & Freedom (9 page)

She stood for ages in the kitchen that had seen the preparation of those indulgent meals, drinking in the lantern ceiling and the long wooden counters, imagining how it must have felt to tend the automatic spit or polish the gleaming copper pans.

The Pavilion was crowded with tourists, it being summer. She was frustrated by people talking as she tried to listen and gave herself a headache cramming the big black audio set against her ear to shut them out as she gazed at the lovingly restored gold plaster cockleshells of the music room’s domed ceiling and listened to the story of the arsonist who had damaged so much splendour. But walking the shining palace gave her a chance to work off lingering post-run stiffness and losing herself in the past soothed her post-Martyn crankiness.

Right at the end of the tour, she noticed that the Pavilion had a function room, where a man who walked like the rear end of a horse and two women in the black dresses/white apron combination of waitresses everywhere were stacking silver-edged crockery into flat blue crates stamped Florence Events Catering. She passed by, left her visitor feedback and stowed her audio set, as politely requested, spent twenty minutes in the gift shop – she couldn’t resist a Union Jack teapot – and stepped outside.

A small white van was parked on the flagstones and the women from the catering company were sliding the crates they’d been packing in the Pavilion through the back doors. On the open door was stuck a small notice:
Staff Wanted.
Honor hesitated. When one of the women looked up, she smiled. ‘Is it waiting staff wanted? Because I’m looking for summer work two or three days a week.’

The woman looked at her as if she must be mad. ‘Really? You need to speak to Lawrence – Lawrence! Lady here wants a job.’

The man, Lawrence, breathing hard, stacked the box he was carrying and rested his great big behind as if it, too, was too heavy for him to drag around. He studied her. ‘I’m looking for daytime staff. Too many of my part-timers are students or young mums and want evening and weekend work – great for dinners and parties but no good for corporate. It’s astonishing how many organisations experience sudden needs to shut away together a couple of hundred people. If you’re flexible and you can cover the kind of corporate business that bursts out of nowhere, I could give you a trial.’

She shrugged. ‘I’m pretty much without ties or schedules and I worked my way through school waiting tables.’

Lawrence pulled out a pen. ‘Then I’ll take your details.’

In two days, Honor was working for Florence Events Catering.

With her hair caught tightly behind her head and a full white apron over a plain black dress – that she had had to buy because she hadn’t brought anything suitable from home – she ensured coffee pots and hot water urns were full when delegate hordes flooded out on caffeine and sugar breaks, cleared away when the tide flowed back into the conference rooms and prepared for the after-meeting treat of canapés and wine. In no time she could respond to, ‘What’s
that
?’ with a helpful, ‘Deep-fried mushroom risotto bites with parmesan mayonnaise,’ or, ‘Cajun chicken with spicy vodka and tomato dip.’ A wooden charger protected her fingers from the heat of the square black stoneware plates, and cheerful unconcern protected her from the disdain of people who would have preferred a bag of chips.

She’d spent enough time in the corporate torture chambers to be amused at being on the other side of the tray, gliding serenely between suited shoulders, through the politics, backstabbing and plain old ass kissing, thanking her lucky stars that she wasn’t the one networking like mad.

Honor’s role carried little responsibility and no brainwork and that was just how she wanted it. But those were the only good things about the job. Though she’d looked forward to visiting Brighton hotels of all ages, styles and sizes, seafront or city, by the time she’d been with Florence Events Catering for almost two weeks she’d begun to dislike the way that the regular hotel staff viewed the events staff as intruders, every friendly overture to be repulsed and all co-operation to be withheld. Lawrence was way too visible, fawning over the client’s event organiser, unsettling the chefs, barking at the waiting staff, big ass waggling in his dark suit. And though she worked only part-time, her feet ached full-time. And so did her back. And her hair had to be washed as soon as she got home or else it smelled like garlic, salsa or prawns.

So. Staying long? Didn’t think so.

After a particularly crappy hot July Friday of seminar delegates being given hell all day by their bosses and passing it along to the servers, with interest, she made for the taxi rank on King’s Road, though a minimum-wage job didn’t justify her taking cabs.

Tired and overheated, she just wanted to shower, get a glass of cold wine with her meal and then maybe a walk along the undercliff in the cool of the evening. So she groaned when she reached the rank to see it empty of taxis but full of people. She sighed. The bus would be a hell of sweaty tourists and insufficient seats.

Her burning feet felt too big for her shoes as she dragged out her tattered bus schedule and started the trek to the nearest stop, the heat of the day seeping up from the flagstones to cling around her aching calves.

And then Martyn Mayfair’s oversized vehicle hummed up beside her.

The window eased down. ‘I’m on my way to Eastingdean, if you want a lift?’

She hadn’t talked to him since the snippy conversation at the bus stop and could see his smile was forced. But, being a polite Englishman, he wouldn’t drive by. And being a poor dragging waitress, she wouldn’t repulse his olive branch. ‘Damn right!’ She climbed up into the passenger seat and collapsed. ‘It’s been a tough day so I really appreciate the ride. Thanks.’

She sank back to enjoy the air conditioning as he steered the vehicle back into the flow of the hundred other vehicles crawling slowly along the seafront, tourists stepping into the road as if the traffic wasn’t there, licking ice-creams and exhibiting red shoulders.

‘You’ve got a job?’ He touched a button on the steering wheel and the music pouring from the stereo in the centre of the dashboard diminished.

‘Conference catering. Very casual and not much fun and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to stick it another week. How about you?’ She hoped that sounded like a friendly enquiry and not a dig.

He held back to allow a blue sportscar to come out of a side street. ‘We’ve just been shooting on the beach.’

Her eyebrows flew up. ‘On the
beach
? I thought you guys didn’t carry guns?’ Having served in a room overlooking the beach for much of the day, she was amazed that she hadn’t heard gunfire and sirens.

He laughed shortly. Then he threw back his head and laughed harder, as if what she’d said was sinking in. ‘Well, you know. It’s tourist season – that means we can shoot them.’ He slapped his knee, his laughter rocking around the confines of the SUV.

Well, good. Enjoy your stupid joke and don’t tell me why it’s funny.
She shut her eyes. The English were nuts, the lot of them.

There was an email from Stef’s co-worker, Billie, short and to the point.

Honor,

Because Stef hasn’t got internet access he wrote you a message and asked me to pass it to you. Here it is:

How’s the moral high ground? Hope the view is better than from here. ‘Here’ stinks. Come on, Honor, do the right thing – come see me.

Trying to make her the guilty one, which made her boil with fury. In the circumstances.

It also made her sad. And then mad at him for making her feel sad. He wasn’t happy with how things had worked out for him but he’d got himself into a fix that she couldn’t get him out of. Anyway, she had to get out of the habit of taking responsibility for him.

By the time she’d showered and eaten, the sun was setting, blazing a glitter path across the ocean to the shore, and Honor’s feet had recovered enough for her to want to breathe the salt air. She tied up her damp hair and zipped herself into a light fleece jacket against the evening breeze, then crossed the road.

She strolled the undercliff walkway, squinting against the sun on the water that hissed in on the shingle beach and tinkled out again. On her other side, the chalk cliffs were pink in the sinking sun and studded with flint, clumps of thrift and little fissures where seagulls made their homes.

The undercliff was quiet. Nearer to Rottingdean there might be more tourists but below Eastingdean and Saltdean she met mostly dog walkers and a handful of cyclists as the walkway jinked to follow the shape of the cliffs.

She rounded a curve and saw a cluster of teenage boys,
jeering
and swearing and pushing someone around. The willowy boy being pushed was trying half-heartedly to joke his way out but the pushes turned to hard shoves that, even if delivered with a certain amount of laughter, had got to hurt.

It was Rufus, from the Eastingdean Teapot.

Honor slowed as the scuffle grew into a slapping fight. On the concrete path was an enormous chalk drawing of a penis. She paused to study it. ‘Anatomically correct. Your science teacher will be proud. Hi, Rufus.’

Instant silence.

Rufus tossed back his disordered hair and hid a rock of chalk behind his narrow back.

The meatiest of the others, obviously the ringleader, shoved Rufus hard in the small of his back, making Rufus’s head whip back. ‘Don’t be a wuss ’cos some Yankee Doodle knows your name, freak. Sign it.’

Rufus turned to face the boy, much heavier and taller than himself, glancing from him to the crude drawing. And then at Honor.

The bigger boy shoved Rufus again, hard, catching him this time at the base of his neck, making him wince. ‘Do it! Fucksake. Sign it.’ Miserably, ducking his head, Rufus brought out his chalk.

Honor summoned up her best school marm voice. ‘He doesn’t have the time. Robina asked me to fetch you, Rufus. I have the car up on the road. I don’t know what the problem is but she’s real pissed about something.’ And then, catching a sneer snaking across the bully’s face, ‘’Fraid the cops are sitting in your front room waiting for you. So you’d better come.’

As one, the meaty boy and two weedier hangers on stepped away from Rufus, as if cop contact would contaminate them.

Eyes wide, Rufus dropped the chalk and wiped his hands on his black jeans, leaving grey smears.

‘Come on,’ Honor snapped. ‘Don’t keep the officers waiting.’

‘Yeah, don’t keep the officers waiting,
freak
. Right, Yankee Doodle?’

‘Right, butthead,’ she agreed, amiably.

Rufus fell into step beside her as she marched off. When they’d rounded the next fold in the cliff, Honor risked a glance back. ‘Your friend isn’t real smart but he does seem mean. Is he likely to give us more crap?’

Rufus sighed. ‘Frog? Yeah. When he’s had time to think about it, he’ll probably follow us and try and get me in deeper with the cops. That’s what that drawing was all about – there’s been stuff in the paper about obscene drawings by the local kids.’

Honor winced. ‘Um
 
… There are no cops, so, do you want to pick up the pace, there?’

‘What?’

‘Run!’

They broke into a run, Rufus outdistancing Honor in a few strides and having to steady down to her speed. ‘So the police don’t want me?’

‘No,’ Honor panted, as they made for the next lot of stairs up to the road. The cliff was tall, here, and the steps became a slope about halfway up. ‘I just applied the rule we used to have in high school – if you’re in trouble, pretend you have to attend to worse trouble someplace else.’

He managed a short laugh as he swung around the handrail and started the first flight. ‘I thought Frog had set me up, somehow. It’s good news that I’m not in trouble.’

‘But the bad news is I don’t have a car waiting.’

He doubled the pace, as lean and fast as a greyhound. ‘That’s OK. I can lose Frog.’

By the time they made the top steps, Honor’s thighs were burning and she was wishing all over again that she’d taken the daily runs that she’d promised herself and maybe even signed up for those Zumba classes. But she hadn’t made ‘running away from mean teenagers’ a fitness goal.

Rufus led her across Marine Drive and up a driveway. ‘Isn’t this private?’ she called, her jello legs struggling with the pace.

He turned and frowned, his hair blowing over his face. ‘Well, dur! The idea is to keep
quiet
.’

‘Oh.’ Horrified that she might be denounced as a trespasser but unwilling to turn back in case the pugnacious Frog had followed them up from the undercliff, she crept after him across the edge of a lawn, as far away from the big cream-coloured art deco residence as possible, through some spiky bushes that smelled of soap, through a hole in a wooden fence, almost falling at the other side where the ground dropped two feet. Now they were on another drive. This time, Rufus turned away from the house and in a minute they were out on a quiet residential street.

Honor threw another glance behind them. ‘You think we’re OK?’

‘Yeah. Frog doesn’t know that way.’

Honor felt her breathing begin to steady. ‘So how come you do?’

Rufus grinned. ‘I used to do a paper round along here. I found – well, made – that place to cut through.’