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 outbut 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 signedup 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 keepquiet.’
