The Piano Man Project Page 0,106

moment, Nell took charge.

‘Where’s the key to the shop?’

Five minutes later, the contents of Tash’s make-up bag were spread across the counter in the shop and Honey perched on a stool next to it. Tash walked around her, one way and then the other, casting a critical eye as she went.

‘Let’s just not bother,’ Honey said, suddenly feeling as if she were in the middle of a department store about to be given a drastic makeover by a perma-tanned assistant who hadn’t had enough training.

‘Are you kidding?’ Tash said, frank as always. ‘You look like the bride of Dracula. Did you just wipe mascara down your cheeks for a laugh this morning?’

Nell rooted in her bag and produced a packet of baby wipes. ‘I dread the day I have to stop buying these. I used them to polish the TV in a panic last week when Simon’s mother turned up unannounced.’

Swiping one lightly over Honey’s cheeks, she sucked in her lips. ‘I see what you mean, Tash. Bloody hell, Hon, have you really cried this much today?’ She rubbed harder at the streaks, making Honey screw her face up and take the wipe from Nell’s fingers to do it herself. Nell picked up a gilt, long-tailed hand mirror they used to show customers how necklaces looked on them and held it up for Honey.

The face looking back at her wasn’t the one she’d seen when she’d applied the ill-advised mascara that morning. It was similar, certainly; the same features, the same apple cheeks, cheeks that were now glowing like airplane landing lights thanks to Nell’s ministrations. But her eyes weren’t the same. These were the eyes of a woman, not a girl. Hal hadn’t just made a woman of her last night on her sofa; he’d been making a woman of her from the very first moment she’d met him.

As a child, her mother had gone through a stage of taking them to church every Sunday, and scraps of an oft-repeated reading drifted back.

When I was a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.

Today, Honeysuckle Jones had finally put away her childish things.

She took the mirror from Nell and laid it face down on the counter, and then put her hand over Tash’s to still it as she rooted through the cosmetics she’d laid out.

‘Forget the make-up, Tash,’ Honey said softly. ‘And the wipes,’ she half laughed, holding on to Nell’s hand too. ‘I don’t care what I look like on telly. What matters is what I say out there.’ An unexpected wash of absolute calm settled over her bones. ‘If I can find the right words, this is a real chance to actually save the home. That’s pretty bloody amazing, isn’t it?’

Nell nodded and squeezed her fingers in support, and Tash rolled her eyes.

‘Troy Masters might be a grade eight pianist in his spare time. That’s all I’m saying.’

Nerves rattled through Honey’s body as she stood on her mark beside Troy Masters and the cameraman ran through his lighting and sound checks. Lined up beside her were Lucille and Mimi, Billy, and on the end, Old Don in his wheelchair with his war medals pinned proudly to his t-shirt.

‘We’ll be on air in five minutes, guys,’ Troy said, smiling to put her at ease, his rich voice as familiar as an old friend’s from years on the TV.

Honey nodded, and tried to swallow with difficulty. The inside of her mouth seemed to have turned to sandpaper. The cameraman had chosen to set up the interview site close to the shop with the protesters in the background, which hopefully meant that viewers would be able to hear her clearly as well as get a good idea of the ever-growing scale of the protest. Even as she watched, newcomers arrived, by now bringing their own shackling methods having been advised to do so by the radio. Neck ties had proved to be popular, as had yards and yards of silver tinsel one of the staff from the home had found in the storeroom. In reality, tinsel wasn’t going to effectively restrain anyone, not even the many children who were happily playing on the grass, tied loosely to their parents’ wrists. The method of restraint wasn’t the point – it could have been a single strand of cotton and it would have had just the same visual impact. We all stand together, it said, every last one of us, from the ribbons fastening