But maybe her acting needed work because his eyes softened and he actually did the gallant Englishman thing. ‘You can come on the shoot. It’ll be OK if you don’t mind hovering in the background. I should be finished in time for a late lunch anyway, and then we’d have the rest of the day.’
She capitulated in a heartbeat. ‘If you’re sure no one will mind?’ She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t agog to see a real live shoot.
He shrugged. ‘It’s not a big busy shoot.’
Following him through a rear entrance of the hotel she hovered so far in the background that when one of the reception staff showed them to a ground-floor meeting room with aconference table somewhere in amongst the clutter of clothes rails, aluminium boxes, leads, tripods, boxes and people, he had to look around for her. ‘This is Honor. Honor, this is Ian, the photographer, and Lily the MUA. Make-up artist.’
With a squeal of joy, Lily flung herself into Martyn’s arms, blonde hair flying. ‘Martyn! Hello, stud muffin!’
Martyn laughed and hugged her with one arm, shaking hands with Ian with the other. He’d obviously worked with them before.
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 withcoffee, 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 shotsand 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.’
