Clarissa sighed. ‘Then, evidently, I’ve unintentionally caused a situation. But if he’s her husband—? Martyn, it’s obvious that you’ve got a thing about Honor, it’s been written on you all summer. But she’s married. I presume there’s been some issue, for her to have come here without her husband, but he’s here now, so he wants to patch things up. Don’t get involved! You know how I feel about people who interfere in other people’s marriages.’ Her voice tightened. ‘If I gave him access to the bungalow it was inadvertent but it’s probably for the best. I’m not going to apologise if it’s stopped you getting mixed up in their problems. And I can’t quite blame him for fighting to get his wife back. In fact,’ she ended, defiantly, ‘I applaud it.’
Martyn took a deep breath. He counted to ten. He reminded himself that Clarissa was his mother and she loved him. And that it wasn’t long since her own marriage had ended and it had caused her enormous pain. ‘But Stef could be as mad as a box of frogs. You don’t know why she left him or what he did once he got Honor alone in that bungalow. So she’s moved in with me.’ He ended the call feeling he’d been as polite as he could be, under the circumstances.
* * *
After Honor had gone — back to her fucking fancy, male-model boyfriend, presumably, Stef sat for a while, letting the white heat fade. It had seemed like a good idea, planting himselfin her rented house, but it had backfired big time. He hadn’t thought it through. Underestimated Honor’s desire to keep distance between herself and him.
Finally, he picked up the order check that Ru had left on the table and wandered into the tearoom, pausing inside the door and letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Ru, enveloped in a cloud of steam, was busy at the steel sinks with his back to the kitchen. Pink-hair lady was cutting crosses in baked potatoes and piling in cheese. Conveniently, Robina was closest to the counter.
He walked soundlessly to the open flap, leaned in and touched her sleeve. When she glanced up from balancing little silver balls on whorls of frosting, he jerked his head and stepped back, so the others couldn’t see him.
Robina followed him out. ‘All you need to do,’ he said, ‘is ring her when I give you the word. That OK?’
Robina smiled like a mischievous child. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me why?’
He made a conspiratorial face. ‘Honey, that would be no fun at all.’
Paying her for the two cups of coffee, he left, wandering along The Butts, stopping and gazing into shop windows — many of which, he thought, needed the salt cleaning off of them — and then crossed to the other side of the road and dawdled like a tourist, turning his face up to the sun, which had decided to grace Eastingdean with its presence, watching white fluffy clouds drift by.
When he reached the Starboard Walk shops he meandered, idly, into the car park, glancing around. And then up. Around the outbuildings and the dumpsters. Then he wandered out, looked at a few more shop windows, and rambled back off to the bungalow.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Honor had been staying with Martyn for several days. Having flown from the bungalow in a snit, she found herself with an ill-considered mish mash of possessions and a feeling of camping in someone else’s space.
When her phone rang, displaying the number of the Eastingdean Teapot, she answered cautiously. And was shocked to hear Robina’s voice. ‘Honor? I need you to come along and sign some crap the taxman wants, to cover the time you were working here.’
‘OK.’ Honor made her voice neutral. ‘I’ll be along this afternoon.’
‘I need you to do it now.’ Grudgingly, Robina explained. ‘Certain stuff has to be in on certain days, in this country, so I need to post it quickly. And the last thing I want is the taxman taking an interest in my business because of you.’
‘I guess I could come now.’ Martyn was out running.
Honor entered the cool interior of the tearoom ten minutes later with mixed feelings. Some of the time she’d loved working in the sweet atmosphere of the Teapot; some of the time she’d been frustrated, put upon and frazzled. She looked around for Ru but saw only Aletta, patiently filling bowls with tube sachets of white and brown sugar.
Robina and Sophie were staffing the kitchen. ‘Oh, you’re here.’ Robina snapped. ‘Sit down and I’ll get the paperwork.’
Honor sat, listening to the slamming of drawers and cupboards.
Then Sophie half-smiled in Honor’s direction, and followed. ‘But, Robbie,’ Honor heard. ‘I don’t know which forms you mean.’
And Robina growling, ‘Thoseforms! I’ve seen them; they’re here somewhere.’
It got noisier. Robina’s voice got louder, Sophie’s more plaintive.
After twenty minutes, Honor lost patience and called through, ‘Call me again when you’ve found them.’
Robina snapped, ‘I need you to wait. They can’t have gone far.’
Fifteen more minutes crept by. Sophie came out and filled orders, looking upset and puzzled. Honor got tired of waiting. Then she left. When Robina had the forms to hand, she’d return.
Apart from that tense little scene, Honor thought she was approaching pretty close to heaven. Martyn not having a shoot until the following week and Honor being currently unemployed gave them a lot of time. He took her walking on the Downs, the rolling moors just inland of the coast — he called this being ‘up on the Downs’, which made her giggle. They spent a day on the pier — riding four times on the roller coaster, rattling around higher than every other ride, swooping over the sea, screaming as they looped the loop. Well, she screamed, he laughed and called her wussy. They swam, wandered around The Lanes and watched a gay wedding in Kemptown. Martyn even went into Pretty Old with her and shamed Peggy into gifting her a glass inkwell that had come as part of a house clearance, because, he said, he was sure that Peggy must have ripped Honor off plenty in the past, her being an American.
‘Not that much,’ was Peggy’s defence, ‘because she’s not completely American.’ But she chuckled and wrapped up the pretty inkwell for Honor. It stood on a windowsill in Martyn’s bedroom, collecting rainbows from the sunlight.
They ran together a couple of times, although he still took most morning runs on his own, harder, faster and further than Honor could manage.
They made love. A lot. In his bed, on the floor, on the sofa, in the pool of sunlight that came through the French doors in hisroom — also harder, faster and further than Honor had before. But she kept up with that OK. He made her feel so hot she thought she might melt.
