Still, the caterpillar didn’t move.
Honor grabbed one edge of the sheet, braced her foot against the mattress and yanked. ‘ROBINAYOUNEED TOGETUPANDOPENTHETEAROOM!YOUNEEDTO BAKETHE FUCKINGCAKES!’
The sheet ripped. Robina lay, exposed and blinking through a storm of hair. ‘No,’ she moaned.
‘YES!’ roared Honor. She seized Robina’s hands and dragged her from the mattress and, with superhuman strength, to her feet. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, quietly. ‘You do. Oh, good, you’re already dressed; we needn’t waste time with fresh clothes. Yesterday’s will be fine. Put on your shoes.’
Kirsty had appeared in the doorway beside a grinning Ru. She looked like a scarecrow in pyjama bottoms and a wrap-over robe, and laughed like a growly dog. ‘I never thought I’d live to see that.’
‘And how are you?’ Honor asked her, not releasing Robina’s hands as she led the older woman to the bathroom like a geriatric. ‘Do you have everything you need?’
‘Thank you for asking.’ Kirsty smiled, thinly. ‘It’s refreshing. But I’m OK.’
Sophie was easier to rouse and Honor presided grimly over face washing, teeth cleaning and the pulling back of hair before dragging the pair downstairs to at least get the cakes baked before she allowed them back to bed to pass out. ‘And, Sophie, don’t forget to put Ru on the payroll. He has worked his butt off all weekend while you guys have been mainlining alcohol.’
‘Payroll?’ Sophie blinked.
‘Yeah, remember? Robina promised that Ru would get paid the same rate as Aletta. I’ll write down for you how many hours we’ve each done, to make sure you get it right. OK?’
‘OK.’ Sophie smiled, gently, humouringly.
* * *
Although Sophie and Robina were in the kitchen in body, their minds were quite obviously still afloat in the ether. ‘I should have left the place shut and you two in bed,’ Honor told them, disgusted, when she hadn’t been able even to take a break to shove down a scone to fill her empty stomach because she had to act like a sheepdog to keep the orders moving.
Robina’s eyes cracked a touch wider open. ‘But the Teapot has to open. Or we don’t make any money.’
Honor planted her fists on her hips. ‘So you just assumed that I’d open up for you? And Aletta would give up her day off?’
‘I thought that’s what we arranged,’ she fibbed, weakly. ‘I’ll pay you a bonus.’
‘Yeah, damn right!’
But not even Honor’s energy could keep Robina and Sophie on their feet indefinitely and she returned from clearing tables at two o’clock to discover only Ru in the kitchen, busy at a steaming sink. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve slunk off!’ Honor exploded.
‘OK.’
Honor waited. Then, ‘They’ve slunk off, right?’
‘Yeah, out the back door.’ Ru shrugged philosophically and smiled. ‘But they were crap really, weren’t they?’
Even if she had to laugh and give Ru’s skinny shoulder a mock punch, Honor was aggravated to find it was once more nearly six by the time she was free to go home, past the shops of Starboard Walk — with a longing glance up at Martyn’s front door, uncompromisingly shut — turning her face to the seabreeze, half surprised to realise that, once again, it had been a pretty day.
Here they were in the last few of days in July and she was working through the days, making her too tired to enjoy the long, light evenings. Was this really what she’d come to England for? She didn’t think so.
She awarded herself a long soak in the bathtub, scraped around the kitchen and ended up with an unsatisfactory meal of pasta with cheese sauce — she hadn’t had time to shop over the last few days — and, finally, flopped on the couch with a book on the history of Sussex, one she’d bought in Arundel with glee but had hardly snatched a glance at.
Across the room, her laptop waited like an accusation.
She tried to concentrate on the book and the chapter on the Sussex smuggling trade illustrated with atmospheric monochrome line drawings of shifty looking men with ragged shirts, cuddling casks of brandy like stolen babies.
She texted Martyn:Hey, how’s it going?But then remembered him telling her of tonight’s late evening shoot at the Louvre with its spectacular backdrop of fountains and reflections; the glass pyramid twinkling with golden light.
He suddenly seemed a long way from her. More than miles. It was a big shoot, this time, with other models — female — and a bigger crew than Honor had witnessed in action at Arundel, underlining how little a part of his world she was. While she sprawled on a rented couch with a history book, he might be standing in the fountains in his underwear with a gorgeous model in his arms, smouldering down at her whilst she returned his gaze with an adoration created by le Dur cologne. She thought of the framed advertisement in his study and the hunger he’d injected into the pulling down of one teeny shoulder strap.
She tossed the book away.
In a consumer society, those moody, sexy shots of beautiful people with fabulous bodies and convincingly lustful expressions were everywhere. Magazines, bill boards . . . buses.
