No Filter Read online

  #No Filter

  Maxine Morrey

  For James

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgments

  More from Maxine Morrey

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  ‘That’s it! I am totally going to jail. I’m going to get it wrong, owe thousands, not be able to pay, and go to jail!’ I flung myself backwards with an overly dramatic sigh and lay sprawled on the paperwork I had been looking at. ‘And seriously? Me in an orange jumpsuit? I don’t care how on trend they are; I could never pull that off! Orange is so not my colour.’

  Amy topped up her wine glass before reaching a hand down to grab my arm, tugging me in the direction of the sofa. I slid along the floor for a few moments in my prone position, like some sort of beached, four-legged starfish, until I eventually bumped into the furniture.

  ‘I think that’s more America, hon,’ she said, yanking me upwards. ‘I’m not sure what ours are like. Something much more subtle, I expect. And don’t worry. I’ll hide a file inside the first cake I bring you. You’ll be out in no time.’

  I paused in my clambering from the floor onto the sofa, and gave her a look. She made a sawing motion with one hand, accompanied by an over-exaggerated wink as she held out my wine glass. Flopping onto the couch, I took the glass and swigged a large mouthful, before laying my head back onto the soft cushions.

  ‘Seriously though. I really don’t know what I’m doing with this. I thought I was handling all this business stuff OK until now.’

  ‘And you are!’ Amy interjected. ‘Your blog is doing amazingly well! I can’t believe the difference in a year – it’s incredible! Seriously, Libs, you should really be proud of yourself.’

  I sighed. ‘Thanks, Ames. And I am, and of Tilly. I couldn’t have done it without her. But I’m so frustrated! I’ve taken on this insane learning curve and, for the most part, got the hang of things. I think. But this?’ I kicked a piece of paper with my bare toes. ‘This, I just cannot get my head round! Why does tax have to be so bloody complicated? They send you this stuff so that you are supposedly able to do it yourself, but write it in the most confusing language possible! How is that even remotely helpful?’

  Amy just shook her head and took another sip of wine.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I need to start looking for an accountant.’ I twiddled the wine glass stem in my hand.

  Amy leant over and bumped her head gently on my shoulder. ‘You know; it is OK to ask people for help sometimes. We can’t all be amazing at everything. Creating all this in such a short space of time is brilliant, Libby. Finding that you need some extra expertise in one area is perfectly acceptable, and perfectly normal.’

  ‘I guess.’ I put the glass down. ‘Before I forget, I have something for you.’

  Immediately, Amy sat up straighter in anticipation and her eyes watched me as I crossed to the other side of the room and picked up a small, but fancy, cardboard bag with intricately twisted rope handles and a swirly script logo on the side. Walking back over to the sofa, I plopped the bag down on Amy’s lap.

  ‘Did I ever tell you that going for it with this lifestyle blog business is the best thing that you’ve ever done?’

  I laughed. ‘You just like the freebies.’

  ‘True,’ Amy agreed, before letting out an ‘ooh’ of pleasure at the eyeshadow palette and perfume she’d just pulled out of the bag.

  ‘But thanks anyway.’

  ‘Any time. Oh!’ Amy’s eyes shone like those of a child who’d just won pass the parcel. ‘Really? I can have this?’ Without waiting for confirmation, Amy began excitedly spritzing the exclusive new perfume copiously on pretty much every pulse point she could reach, including mine.

  Laughing, I lifted my wrist up to take another waft of the fragrance. It really was gorgeous. I smiled as my friend rummaged in the bag, unwrapping the various goodies from their pretty tissue-paper packaging. The cosmetic companies often sent more samples than I could possibly use so I always made sure my assistant got some to review and regularly ran giveaways on the blog, as a thank you to my readers. But occasionally I still had extra goodies left over. Amy always loved a good freebie so when I had something spare, it meant I got to make my best friend happy.

  As the fumes of Amy’s fragrance enthusiasm began getting a little pungent, I pushed myself up and padded over to the doors that led out onto the balcony. Grabbing the handle, I slid the door to the side. Immediately, a warm breeze rushed in from the sea, dissipating the perfume, and bringing with it the screech of seagulls intertwined with chatter and laughter from the nearby bars and restaurants in the marina. I stepped out, grabbing a wide-brimmed, slightly battered straw hat off the nearby console table, and took a seat on one of the two wooden steamer chairs that resided on my balcony. Amy followed me out, wine glass in hand, the gift bag now swinging off her wrist.

  If I was honest, the furniture was a squeeze and a trendy little bistro set would have been a better, more sensible option. I’d made the classic mistake of ‘guesstimating’ that they would fit perfectly on the balcony. They didn’t and I’d ended up building them in situ like some sort of furniture Jenga, which had proved to be the only way of getting them both to fit on there. But I loved them. I didn’t want a trendy little bistro set. The loungers were super comfy with full-length padded cushions, and reclined just enough without touching the glass. I could sit out here and read in comfort, watching the boats sway and bob gently in the marina, listening as the sound of waves bumping against the harbour wall carried across the water. Even in winter, when the wind howled and the sea reared up before crashing down forcefully onto the nearby beach, I would happily sit out here, wrapped up against the cold, just absorbing it all.

  There was definitely no need for coats and scarves this evening. It seemed that spring had decisively handed off the baton early to summer and the new season was away and running. The evening was warm and the breeze soft as Amy and I, now having inelegantly climbed onto our respective loungers, sat back and sighed happily.

  ‘Thanks for all this, Libs.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ I replied. Forgetting my worries for a while, and with a smile on my face, I closed my eyes, soaking up the atmosphere as the gentle warmth of the setting sun caressed our skin.

  Closing the Twitter app, I leaned over, grabbed my handbag and proceeded to tip the contents out onto my desk. Tilly, my part-time assistant, looked up from where she’d been leafing through the latest issue of Vogue that had dropped through the door this morning. She raised an eyebrow in question.

  ‘Apparently it’s national “What’s in your handbag?” day. I thou
ght we could join in,’ I replied, poking the pile of stuff now in front of me.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes.’ I paused, looking over at her. ‘Why not? You haven’t got a loaded weapon in there, have you? Or half a kilo of cocaine?’

  ‘No! Of course not!’

  ‘I’m joking, Tils. You just looked decidedly shifty when I mentioned it. It’s fine if you don’t want to do it, anyway. It’s not compulsory.’ I grinned, before turning my attention back to the contents of my bag. A tampon sat proudly in the middle of the pile. I chewed my lip for a moment, and then snagged the item out and put it to the side.

  I noticed Tilly watching me.

  ‘So, we can edit what’s in there?’ she asked.

  I raised a brow. ‘I don’t think the world needs to see my emergency sanitary items. There’s sharing and there’s over-sharing.’

  Tilly waited a beat before grabbing her own bag and turning it upside down on her own desk.

  ‘Holy crap, Tils!’ I laughed. ‘How do you even carry all that without tipping over?’

  ‘I keep meaning to clear it out and never seem to get around to it.’

  ‘Apparently. Well, why don’t you take this as an opportunity? Sort out what you want in there and then we can just post the “after” rather than the “before”.’

  Tilly pulled a face. ‘I’m not sure you should be paying me for sorting out my handbag.’

  I waved her protest away.

  A grin slipped onto Tilly’s face. ‘OK.’

  For the next twenty minutes, there were several exclamations of the ‘Bloody hell, I’ve been looking for that forever’ and ‘Oh, I wondered where that had gone!’ variety. By the time she had finished, Tilly’s bag was about half a tonne lighter and the nearby waste-paper basket was overflowing. Artfully arranging each pile to look specifically unartfully arranged, but in a pleasing manner, we moved the lights over to the desk and photographed each one – the contents in sharp focus with the handbags themselves slightly out of focus in the background. Tilly emailed me her copy for the post, listing the items her bag now contained and their significance, if any, which I then added to my own piece, before quickly typing an introduction about the hashtag. Finally, I copied and pasted a bunch of hashtags we commonly used for blog posts, and added the #whatsinmyhandbag tag to the bottom. With the photos loaded, I ran the spellchecker then gave the text a final scan as a triple check. Satisfied that there were no errors, I pressed submit and the post went live on my Brighton Belle lifestyle blog.

  ‘Do you still want to try that photo shoot on the beach tomorrow morning? I’ve just checked the weather, and it’s looking good.’

  Tilly and I were scanning the list of planned blog posts we’d compiled for the next few weeks. These were flexible to a degree, which allowed us to comment on any hot, relevant topic that came up, but planning was an essential part of running the blog. It didn’t tally too well with the glamorous ideas that some people had of what I did for a living, but it was most definitely a necessary part. Like a lot of jobs that people only saw a small part of, there was a much bigger, far more mundane part to it.

  ‘Ideally.’ I nodded as I scanned my calendar. ‘So long as you don’t mind coming over early? I can get everything ready and packed in the car so that we can just go straight there and hopefully catch some good light, as well as beating the crowds.’

  ‘Fine with me. I think it’ll be fun! We’ve always stayed around the marina for pictures before, so I think it’s good to try and incorporate some more of Brighton into the shoots. And who doesn’t like the beach?’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Tilly. Hopefully it’ll all go well. With a bit of luck, we might even find we’re naturals at this whole “on location photo shoot” thing.’

  We most definitely weren’t naturals. I heard the wave first. And then I saw it. Briefly. Very briefly. It was, in fact, just long enough for me to open my mouth, ostensibly to make some sort of noise signifying surprise, but in actuality it just ensured that I swallowed what felt like a third of the English Channel before the force of the water overtook me and unceremoniously washed me up onto the beach like some bit of old shipwreck detritus. Opening my mouth had definitely been a bad move.

  ‘Libby!’ Tilly’s panicked voice came to me through the gurgly water sounds now filling my ears.

  Spitting out seawater and goodness knew what else, I quickly stood, the shock of the cold water propelling me to move. Pushing my hair back from my face, I made to step forward, inelegantly wobbling on the uneven pebbles. The next wave crashed into the back of my legs and, unbalanced, I took another tumble. Thinking that a gradual ascent to standing might be more successful, I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. From the corner of my eye I saw a nearby windsurfer, out for an early morning sail, fall head first off his board. At least I wasn’t the only one taking an unexpected dip. Although admittedly, he was more suitably dressed for the water than I was. The pebbles of Brighton beach dug into my knees and I made ouchy noises as I got myself fully upright once more.

  ‘Are you all right?’ My assistant had now made her way to me and was staring. I could only imagine what I looked like but I did know it certainly wasn’t the look we’d had in mind for this photo shoot. ‘You have… umm…’ Tilly hesitantly pointed at my head.

  I looked back, blankly. ‘What?’

  ‘In your hair.’

  ‘What? What’s in my hair?’ My voice kicked up an octave. I didn’t especially want to know what was in my hair. But neither did I want what was in my hair to remain there. I put my hand up warily and felt around. Nothing.

  ‘Can you get it?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘I can’t. I can’t touch it!’

  ‘What? You can’t touch what? Where is it?’ Visions of hideous things crawling about on my head now filled my mind. I bent over and shook my head but nothing obvious plopped out on the beach. I looked back at Tilly, hopeful.

  She shook her head. Then took a picture.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I squeaked in horror.

  Tilly turned the camera and showed me the screen.

  Nope. Definitely not the look we’d been aiming for to showcase these pieces on my blog. Moments ago I’d been dressed in a full-length, organic cotton sundress, its laced bodice giving way to a floaty, bias skirt, all in the softest shade of lemon. My shiny, deep auburn hair had been swept artfully to the side, softly teased curls contrasting with the colour of the fabric. The image on the screen now showed that there was absolutely nothing artful about my current look. The dress was plastered to my body, its pale colour and fine fabric meaning that it had helpfully gone completely see-through the moment it got wet. My hair had returned to its natural poker-straight state and clung in strands to the front of the dress and my upper arms. I peered at the screen again for direction, then reached up. A piece of seaweed had wound itself around my hair and was now clinging to the side of my head, just above my ear. Tentatively exploring my hair with my fingers, I brushed against something slimy. Biting back a squeal, I tried again. Forcing my hand to close on the slippery tail, I yanked and felt it give. Flinging the offending piece of seaweed back towards the waves, I turned back to Tilly.

  ‘Has it all gone?’

  She peered around my head, moving me by the shoulder to check the back, ‘Yes. All gone.’

  ‘Thanks for your help.’ I raised an eyebrow and grinned at her.

  She looked at me, a sheepish look on her face. ‘Sorry. Seaweed gives me the willies. It’s all slimy and yucky.’

  I shook my head at her, still smiling.

  ‘What are we going to do about the dress?’ Tilly asked.

  I glanced down. She was right. There was no way I could walk about like this. Brighton might be known for its laissez-faire attitude but I personally drew the line at swanning about in an outfit that now left very little to the imagination. I leant across and took the bags and equipment off her.

  ‘New plan. I’ll go and find us a more inconspicuous spot and y
ou nip across the road and grab us some coffees and something to eat. We can go over some stuff here until I dry out enough to not get arrested.

  ‘Sounds good.’ She turned to go. ‘And I’m sorry about the seaweed thing.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said, handing her two reusable takeaway cups. ‘Now, off you go. I’ll be over here.’ I waved the bags in the general direction of where I was headed.

  ‘OK. Back in a bit.’

  I sat down and pulled a pair of flip-flops from one of the bags. Slipping them on, I made my way across the pebbles to a spot that looked good and sat myself down. From one of the bags, I pulled an Oriental-style parasol and opened it, shading my pale skin from the strengthening sun. Whilst my brother had inherited my dad’s ‘one glance at the sun and I’m handsomely golden’ genes, I’d inherited my mother’s pale Irish colouring wholesale from the red hair to skin the colour of fresh cream. ‘Golden’ wasn’t a word I associated with my skin when it came to the sun. ‘Red and blotchy’ would be nearer the truth if I ever bothered trying to acquire anything resembling a suntan. Which I didn’t.

  If I was honest, it didn’t really bother me. Despite all the usual carrot top, ginger nob and other wholly inaccurate connotations my redhead status had inspired at school, Mum had always kept me positive about it all. Of course, when all my friends had been wearing tiny shorts and crop tops, their golden tans making their hair look blonder, legs longer and teeth whiter, there had been moments I’d ached to be the same. But, as I got older, I realised that I couldn’t change what I’d been given so it would be better to embrace it rather than fight it. And in recent years, celebrity had been on our side. With Prince Harry and Ed Sheeran flying the flag for the men, plus the advent of the Mad Men phenomenon and actresses like Emma Stone and Julianne Moore, redheads were cool! I mean, we’d always known we were cool, but finally – finally – the world at large was also now getting the message.