Page 106 of Love in Tune

He shook his head. ‘Your friends are right. You’ll meet someone else. Someone funny and lighthearted, someone who can love you properly, who can be the husband you deserve, give you beautiful, crazy children. I’m not that man.’

‘Youloved me properly,’ she said, hot tears on her cheeks. ‘No one’s ever loved me as properly as you.’

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers, so close she could feel his breath on her lips. His hands were still on her shoulders, his thumb still grazed the dip between her collarbones.

‘I’m going away soon,’ he said, slowly.

‘No!’ Desperation edged into her voice. ‘Please Hal, don’t walk away and never come back.’

‘I won’t leave without saying goodbye, okay?’ he said, stepping away from her. ‘I’m not trying to hurt you, Honey. If I stay, I’ll hurt you more.’

Honey reached out and gripped the lapels of his coat.

‘I’m a grown woman, Hal. I make my own choices, and I choose you.’

To a stranger looking in, they might have looked romantic, like a couple locked in a train station embrace.

‘And I make mine, Honey,’ he said quietly, moving to the door. ‘I don’t choose you.’

It would have hurt less if he’d punched her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A few weeks living in a potting shed turned out to be the most reflective time in Hal’s entire life. He’d been dubious at first when Billy had suggested it as an alternative to calling a cab on the day of the protest, but the spur of the moment choice had actually been exactly what he’d needed. Leaving only once to go home and collect his things, he’d spent his days totally off the grid, cranked back in the armchair listening to the radio, not bothering to retune it from Billy’s preferred choice of Radio Four. He listened to late-night ghost stories, became well acquainted with the residents of Ambridge onThe Archers, and found himself strangely soothed by the cadence of the shipping forecast in the early hours. It felt as if his life in the flat opposite Honey had been good training for this more extreme version of the same.

‘Stilton and grapes today, old bean,’ Billy said. ‘And I’ve managed to rustle us up a dram of port to go with them.’

‘That’s almost sophisticated,’ Hal smiled, righting his chair and sliding his dark glasses on.

He folded his blanket away as he listened to Billy unpack the food.

‘I looked in on Honey just now,’ Billy said.

Hal lived for and dreaded the daily report in equal measure.

‘How’s she doing today?’

Billy’s quiet moment unnerved him.

‘Poor thing looks as if she needs a good dinner. No colour in her cheeks at all.’

‘But she’s okay?’

Every day Hal looked for reassurance in Billy’s words, and every day it wasn’t quite there.She’s bearing up, orshe’s quiet, orshe’s pale. How long would it be before Billy reported that she was laughing again, or getting herself into the kind of scrapes only Honey could get into?

‘I think she’d be a damn sight better if she knew you were here,’ Billy said.

‘She wouldn’t,’ Hal said, accepting the plate that Billy put in his hands. He’d been on an eclectic diet since he’d moved into the potting shed, and had almost grown accustomed to sneaking in Billy’s bathroom window for a midnight shower.

‘I never married, Hal,’ Billy said suddenly. ‘Never settled.’

‘You seem happy enough,’ Hal said mildly.

Billy’s throat rattled. ‘I made the best of it, son, like we all do. Doesn’t mean I don’t regret some of the decisions I made over the years though.’

Hal heard the healthy glug of port as Billy poured it into the plastic cups.

‘Can’t go back and change ’em, though,’ Billy reflected. ‘And you might just spend the rest of your life wishing you could.’

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