Ian’s voice began to take on the rhythms of a relaxation tape. ‘Look down … then up. Again. Again. Now left … and front. Again. Try right. And front. This time, when you look down, don’t come up so far … and up – stop! Let’s try that again. Wait. Let’s wait for the fucking sun.’
‘He’s really intense, the camera loves him,’ breathed Leon from several yards behind the camera.
Lily unbent enough to giggle. ‘What’s not to love?’ And Leon shivered and smiled for the first time.
At the end of a couple of hours Honor had turned her attention to the town, which looked as if a giant child had opened a toy box marked ‘historic buildings’ and jumbled them all together on the hillside.
But, just as she was preparing to abandon the shoot and cross back into the town that she was itching to explore, the crew all got busy stowing the equipment back in the van. Ian stretched and yawned. ‘Next stop, the castle grounds. And you’d better all find a way to squash into the van because we’ve only got a crew pass.’
Honor’s desire to leave vanished.
Martyn looked her way, apparently not as unaware of her presence as he’d seemed. ‘Honor, you can squash in the front with me,’ which earned her an affronted look from Lily, who had to crawl into the back with the racks of clothes, photography equipment and the rest of the crew. Martyn took Honor’s hand and stepped up into the cab all in one motion, hoisting her on to the seat by his side as if she were a doll. She looked at his face curiously. The make-up was so subtle she probably wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t watched it being applied. He smelled a little different to usual; powder and hair wax. Other than that he was still Martyn. More remote than she was used to and sitting oddly at the centre of everyone’s attention. But still Martyn.
Still warm, as his hand proved when it lingered on her leg as he reached past her to shut the heavy door. She glimpsed his smile. Then he turned back to listen to what Ian was saying about the light and the grey clouds just beginning to move in over the clutter of buildings on the brow of the hill.
Apart from a member of staff who showed them to a roped-off area of greensward in the lee of one of the massive curtain walls, Arundel Castle took no notice of the photography crew in its grounds. The van burst open and spilled its cramped cargo of crew, arms full of equipment, clothes and collective backs to turn on any tourists hovering at the distant ropes, treating the castle as a huge prop that might as well have been made of cardboard as majestic grey stone gathered over centuries.
‘This is better!’ Ian kept saying, brandishing his light meter. ‘We’ve probably got an hour before it clouds right up and I think we’ll get the best stuff, here. I like the light and we don’t have to keep stopping for fucking traffic.’ In the comparative peace and quiet of the castle grounds, he became almost jovial.
Martyn no longer bothered to squeeze himself into the back of the van to change his clothes. He stripped off his shirt to exhibit a body that deserved to be looked at and Honor felt her breath stick. The sun poured over him, defining every line, and it took her a moment to remember how to fill her lungs.
And then he unsnapped the waist of the dark indigo jeans and eased the two halves open and she forgot again, her eyes helpless but to follow to where the faint arrow of hair pointed.
Oh, whoa …
‘Let’s work with the wind and get your hair across your face.’ Ian was again behind his tripod. ‘Don’t quite turn all the way back – yes! Exactly like that! Let’s have that again … again. OK, now over here.’ With an anxious glance at the sky, he kneeled, and then lay, on the ground and shot up past Martyn with a tower soaring into the sky behind him, doing a lot of squirming and rolling and making Martyn laugh.
‘Next,’ said Olivia. ‘Half into the jeans.’
Without comment, Martyn undid the jeans the rest of the way and shucked them down to his thighs, showing mid-grey trunks. Olivia fussed around, arranging denim between his thighs as he said something that made her giggle. Yup. Honor had definitely pursued the wrong career.
‘Last set,’ Ian said, some time later, relief in his voice, ‘the tattoo.’
Honor edged closer to watch as Lily took handfuls of wipes then a towel to Martyn’s torso, removing the powder. Then Martyn propped his hands against the side of the van, presenting his naked back to Lily, who opened an alcohol wipe to clean his lower back, then took out a coiled sheet of white shiny paper and began to press it on to his skin, slowly and painstakingly.
Whilst Lily concentrated, Olivia passed around bottled water and muesli bars and Ian studied the window on the back of his camera as he clicked through shot after shot. As his humour seemed to have improved, Honor hovered nearer and he tilted the camera so that she could see the shots in miniature in the viewing pane. ‘These are going to be good.’
And, all at once, she understood ‘the camera loves him’. It somehow honed the planes of Martyn’s face, made his eyes glow like marcasite and emphasised every muscle. He really did look like the personification of a Manga animation. Honor had always had a soft spot for the dark clear lines of Manga men – odd how she’d ended up with tawny-haired Stef because she could almost have written the order for Martyn herself, right down to the deep dark eyes. The massive stone wall was the perfect backdrop, especially the dramatic shots from below with the castle towering over him like a giant chess piece. ‘Jeez,’ she said, inadequately.
‘They’ll look fabulous in monochrome. The clients will wet themselves.’
‘You’ve done a great job.’ She could see why the crew forgave him his grouchiness if he got results like these.
Above the elastic waist of Martyn’s grey trunks, Lily was putting the finishing touches to the transfer tattoo, a pair of intensely staring, slanting eyes beneath curling brows, maybe man or maybe beast.
‘Ooh, wicked,’ breathed Leon.
Olivia passed Martyn a different pair of jeans and he stepped into them but pulled them up only loosely as Lily squeaked, ‘Watch the tatt!’ Then she brought out a spray.
Martyn frowned. ‘I suppose that’s cold?’
She pulled a face. ‘It was warm this morning, when I wrapped it in foil but …’
He sighed and lifted his arms and she began to spray him with water. ‘Fucking cold,’ Honor heard him say. Lily replied with something reproving and he laughed, choking on the spray. Then he closed his eyes and Lily sprayed vigorously over his head until his hair dripped and hung in his face.
Ian rose to new heights of enthusiasm. ‘Leon, get out of shot! I want his hair exactly like that. All right, Martyn, face the wall, drop the jeans a bit then pull them up slowly as you turn your head back towards me, looking over your shoulder.’
Each time he did so, Honor could hear the spitting of the shutter taking continuous shots and Lily breathing, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, watch that tatt …’ Down, up. Down, up. By the time she’d watched it a few times, the tight cheeks of Martyn’s ass under those tattooed glowing eyes were etched into her brain and she was pretty sure she’d dream about them that night.
Then, suddenly, it was over.
Lists were compared for a final time. Lily removed the tattoo with more alcohol wipes and then Martyn towelled himself dry and climbed back into his own clothes.
And it was as if he had been released from a serious-spell.
He began to chat and smile and the tension he’d fed on all morning evaporated. The crew relaxed, packing the equipment back into the van with end-of-assignment laughter.
‘So, you up for lunch at the hotel with us, Martyn?’ chimed Lily. ‘Even Ian’s staying today.’
Martyn smiled but shook his head. ‘Honor and I have plans.’
‘OK.’ Lily somehow managed to make her carefree smile for Martyn become, by the time it got to Honor, a glare that quite plainly accused her of pushing in and spoiling crew camaraderie.
‘I don’t really mind–’ began Honor.
Martyn took her hand and squeezed it. ‘No, you’ve been
patient but I can see the way you’ve been lusting after the castle all morning. Let’s wallow in the history stuff.’
‘Oh, you like history.’ Lily sounded as if she’d just uncovered a filthy secret.
‘I was a history major.’ Honor tried not to sound apologetic. ‘Actually,’ she turned to Martyn, ‘I’m a real fool for social history and would rather look around the town. I’ll never do the castle justice in just half a day, anyway.’ She wondered if Martyn realised that he’d kept hold of her hand.
Once back at the hotel, the turnaround was rapid. Martyn washed, retrieved his wallet and keys, shook Ian’s hand, kissed Lily’s cheek and gave her a hug, waved at the rest of the crew, ‘Thanks, guys!’ grabbed Honor’s hand again and strode out across the hotel vestibule and into the street outside.
It felt like an escape.
‘You really didn’t want to eat with the crew?’ she asked.
‘Not today,’ he said, frankly. ‘A coffee-shop lunch OK for you?’
‘Sure.’
‘Let’s find the oldest looking place we can, with sloping floors and a ceiling I bang my head on. Then it can count as part of your history tour.’
She laughed and allowed him to tow her into exactly that sort of coffee shop, down by the monument, where a teenage girl, who blinked when she got a look at Martyn, showed them to a titchy circular table for two under the rake of a staircase, as all the other tables were filled elbow-to-elbow with holidaymakers and day trippers.
Martyn grimaced and tucked himself into the available space, sure enough banging his head.
It was past two but the teenage girl said they served lunch any time, blowing her dark fringe out of her eyes as she passed out cardboard menus, cream with a line drawing of the castle gatehouse in brown. Honor chose something called Smuggler’s Pie, which seemed to be a pie of beef and ale and sounded right at home here in Sussex, England. And Martyn chose Chicken Balti and boiled rice, which didn’t.
He laughed when they banged knees under the table and even when he banged his elbow, twice, on the panelled wall beside him. ‘Ow! Have we wandered into a doll’s house by mistake?’
‘You’ve sure unwound,’ she observed. ‘You’re quite different in front of the camera.’
‘Oh?’ He looked faintly surprised. ‘I’m certainly ready to relax. Today there wasn’t much hanging around and we’ve wrapped everything up nice and early, but it’s amazingly tiring standing in front of a camera and doing nothing.’
‘It looks it.’
His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘I’m not being sarcastic. You’re so concentrated and intense, having to put up with doing the same thing over and over, the make-up artist and the hair guy dancing around you. There were times I was reminded of Gulliver and the folks of Lilliput. They were trying to tie you down with a thousand threads of annoyance.’
Laughing, he shifted his legs and banged her knees again. ‘Ow. Sorry. They don’t annoy me. We’re all working together to get the best results. It’s a team thing. Also …’ His eyes crinkled, ‘I don’t want to come over like a diva. That gets you lots of hate.’
Sitting back to allow the waitress to place cutlery and water glasses on the table, Honor asked, ‘So why aren’t we eating with the crew?’
‘Because I’d rather eat with you.’
‘Or because you think I’ll save you from Lily?’
‘I don’t need saving from Lily.’
But something had flickered in his eyes. She tried not to act deflated. ‘You have history.’
His gaze steadied. ‘True. Because we were both free to hook up, so one night we did. But it was what it was. I didn’t invite you to lunch to warn off Lily.’
She gazed back. ‘But you didn’t want to spend time with her today, that’s why you held hands with me.’
A smile formed slowly, lighting his eyes. ‘It would have been a good excuse, if I’d thought of it. But I don’t need saving from Lily because we hooked up briefly and we parted friends. End of.’
‘I expect you have a whole army of make-up artists, stylists and models to pick from.’
‘Not an army.’
‘But you do go out with models?’
‘Of course.’ His eyes had half closed, gleaming at her from between the lids. He seemed to be enjoying her questions, as if intrigued to learn where they were heading. ‘Why wouldn’t I? But not exclusively. I love attractive women but I don’t have a “type”. A woman just has to interest me, not be a model or a six-foot-tall blonde.’
She didn’t ask about five-foot-five and sort of sandy. ‘Was Rosie-with-the-hidden-husband a model?’
He shook his head. ‘Flight attendant.’
She snorted. ‘Just another industry hot on physical perfection and beauty. And I bet you met her when you were flying home from some exotic location?’
‘The Maldives,’ he agreed. ‘Rosie was gorgeous, well-travelled and sophisticated.’
‘I guess you miss her.’
‘Not once I realised how short on honesty she was.’ His eyes became teasing. ‘And how unoriginal – she never once sifted through my sex life or got my attention by taking on teenage louts with a handful of hot food and a kickass attitude.’
The waitress arrived, easing the steaming and fragrant plates carefully on to the tiny table. ‘Not much room I’m afraid,’ she pointed out, unnecessarily. Martyn’s fragrant sauce came in a steel balti bowl, naan bread and white rice in another. Honor’s pie scarcely left room on her plate for peppery wedges of potato and a mound of peas, making her realise how hungry she was. She was never going to compete with models or flight attendants with that kind of appetite.
‘So,’ he said, inconsequentially, when her plate was nearly empty, ‘what do you really think about my job?’
She lifted her brows. ‘I think it’s great. You’re obviously sought-after and, I presume, earning good money.’
He brushed that away. ‘So you don’t think it’s odd for a grown man to stand around in his underwear all day, being told where to look? You don’t think I should be utilising my intelligence in some more worthwhile way? And that it’s plain lazy to only work for a few days each month?’
‘You sound as if you’re the one who has a problem with your job.’
‘No. I don’t have a problem with it. But I’d like your objective opinion, as someone who hasn’t known me long. How does the whole thing strike you?’
Thoughtfully, she stacked her plate and cutlery with Martyn’s so that it would be easy for the waitress to swoop up as she hurried by. ‘I don’t think it’s odd. It’s interesting. Yes, the stuff at the bridge got repetitive and my attention wandered but it looks a wonderful career. You’re using the assets you’ve been given. If you have so many issues with your career, how come you got into it? Did you go to modelling school, or something?’
His expression relaxed. ‘Just fell into it, which must be really annoying for anyone who does go the modelling school route. I was in Brighton and something was going on in the Pavilion Gardens. So I wandered over to look because it seemed to involve a group of pretty girls. They were from a promotions company, scouting for guys to go into a competition to be a model, organised by In Town Magazine, sponsored by le Dur. “You are just what we’re looking for – how would you like to be in a modelling competition?” they said. And, compared to revising for my finals, it seemed attractive.
‘I’d never done any kind of performance but I’d swum and played sport and the shoot director began by sticking us all in swimming gear and it didn’t seem too difficult. It might have been torture if they’d wanted cheerful, beaming knitting-pattern guys or something but they just wanted someone who would stare into the camera. I found I could do that OK.’ His smile was slow, as if waiting for her to butt in with some kind of funny.
When she didn’t, he went on, ‘Le Dur liked me and offered me work, which conjured up several agents and managers, so I hooked up with Ace. I don’t do runway or acting or anything. I d
o product-led commercial print and I do quite a bit of editorial – you know, a feature in the glossies about some lifestyle thing and they want the right images.
‘I think I must have been born three-parts lucky bastard. It’s so random that I just happen to look how they want that sometimes it seems almost wrong to make money out of it.’
‘Have you ever been in GQ?’ Her voice sounded shy and awed, even to her own ears.
‘British GQ, yes, for a company that sold hand-sewn shirts, and in a couple of editorials, but GQ uses a lot of top sportsmen and actors in their ads. I’ve been in FHM and Esquire and In Town, of course. But I’m in more women’s or general interest magazines. And on buses.’
She sorted through the subject in her mind. ‘Do you have to deal with clients?’
‘Not a lot. Ace, my agent, does that. I maintain my website and do Twitter and Facebook. The agency is keen on each of their models having an online presence.’
She wasn’t going to admit that she’d already Googled him. ‘And what comes after? Can you model for all of your life?’
‘People do. They shift their area of operations into …’ He made a face. ‘… I don’t know, ads for vitamins and life insurance. But others become agents or managers or get work on fashion courses. A lot of models are actors or musicians, anyway, so they concentrate on that. But I don’t do that kind of performance.’ He hesitated. ‘I do some web design, which is what I was doing at uni. I look after the websites of several of the models at the agency. And the agency’s site, too.’
She studied him. ‘And you do that so that you have a career to move into?’
‘And I enjoy doing it, I suppose. I don’t get it when men say they do nothing but model. I like to exercise my brain. I do a couple of websites for charities, too, because I’ve got the time.’
He lapsed into silence, chin on his palm. He seemed to want to get something off his chest but he was having a hard time coughing it up.
Love & Freedom Page 14
