Page 63 of Love in Tune

Skinny Steve shot her a small smile and left her alone in the kitchen looking longingly at the cooking sherry.

Hal heard Honey come in later that afternoon and listened to her footsteps as she stopped outside his door.

‘Hal,’ she called out. The fact that she called out at all surprised him, and her non-confrontational tone of voice surprised him even more. He’d seriously started to doubt that she’d ever decide that she wasn’t furious with him any longer.

‘Hal!’

She called his name again. It was hard to judge her mood; she sounded stressed, kind of worked up.

‘What is it?’ he said, trying for middle of the road, conversational.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.

There was something in the words she didn’t say that told him more than the words she did. He sensed her weariness, and that she didn’t really want to be at his door about to say whatever it was she was going to.

‘I’m listening,’ he said.

It sounded as if she was pacing outside his door.

‘I need your help,’ she said.

He really hoped that it wasn’t the same favour she’d asked for the week before.

‘Honey, I don’t think we should go there again,’ he said, trying to be gentle.

‘Get over yourself,’ she huffed. ‘This is about work.’

‘Work?’ he said, genuinely perplexed. ‘Your work?’

She was moving again, and then he heard her come to rest outside his door and slide down the wall. She really did sound all in.

‘Yeah,’ she sighed. ‘You know I told you about Patrick, the chef who hit the boss and then resigned? Well his replacement turned out to be incapable of cooking anything that didn’t include at least eight million chillies; the residents were in danger of internal combustion. Anyway, I tried to talk to him about it and he threw a wobbler and stropped off back to Mexico on an afternoon flight.’

‘Wow. He really didn’t like you,’ Hal said, impressed.

‘I didn’t like him much either. Anyway, that left me and Skinny Steve scrabbling to make dinner, which actually wasn’t so bad.’ She paused for breath. ‘Sausage and mash, seeing as you asked.’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘I’m pretending you did, I like to kid myself that you’re a nice person. Anyway, it wasn’t terrible, but oh my God, Hal, I can’t keep this up! You know how bad I am in the kitchen and Steve has the imagination of a goldfish on a bad day. I think I’ll have a sodding heart attack if I have to do this for much longer, poor Lucille and Mimi are having to hold the fort at the shop and it’s too much to ask of them at their age. And then, to top it all, it’s Old Don’s birthday tomorrow and we have to throw him a bloody party. His family is coming and everything. I need a cake! How do I make a cake?’ She sounded terrified. ‘And what else can we feed them? Steve’s threatening to walk out and I don’t blame him, and I kind of promised him that I’d make sure there was a proper chef there in the morning to supervise him, and Hal, the only chef I know in the world is you.’

She gasped in a strangled breath, and he sank to the floor on the other side of the door with his head in his hands. He’d sensed where the conversation was leading and he already knew he couldn’t do it. It was unfair of her to ask it of him.

‘I can’t, Honey. I just can’t.’

‘Hal, please,’ she rushed in again, words tumbling out of her mouth too fast. ‘I know it’s short notice and you don’t much like leaving the house, but I’ll get you there and back safely, you’d literally have to just sit in the kitchen and tell Steve what to do. I know I said that he’s got no imagination but he’s really good at following instructions, honestly, he is.’

The pang of desperation in her voice sliced through him. He had to make a choice between his own fears and hers, and however big hers were, his won.

‘I can tell you what you need to do, Honey,’ he said, trying to compromise. ‘I can give you lists, and instructions. I can do all of that. Go grab paper and a pen now if you like. I’ll wait.’

‘You don’t understand,’ she said quickly. ‘I don’t need lists, Hal, I need you. If I walk in there without a chef tomorrow none of those old people are going to get breakfast. Nor lunch, or dinner! And Old Don won’t get a party and he’s a sodding war veteran!’

Her voice grew high pitched and thick with frustrated tears. ‘Even the protesters won’t get fed!’

He wanted to help her more than he could even put into words. She made it sound so easy, as if he’d be churlish to refuse. It probably seemed easy to her; she didn’t view the world the way he’d been forced to since the accident. She couldn’t possibly, and he didn’t have the words to make her understand, so instead he used ones that were tactless and deliberately unkind to make sure she knew that he absolutely meant it.

‘It’s not my fucking problem, Honeysuckle. I’m not your go-to man to fix all your problems. Last week, sexual frustration. This week, you want my professional skills. What’s it going to be next week? Just don’t come to me if you ever need a spider catching, because I’m not the man you fucking need.’

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