The Piano Man Project Page 0,119

Lucille and Mimi. Well, for all of the residents of course, but them especially. I don’t think Lucille has said a sentence that didn’t include Ernie’s name ever since.’ The tiniest of smiles touched her lips at the thought of Mimi and Lucille as the new bosses of the home. She was pretty sure her job was safe for as long as she wanted it, although Mimi and Lucille had already floated other possibilities too.

‘They asked me today if I’d think about taking over Christopher’s old job,’ she said, imagining what Hal would have thought had he really been sitting on the other side of the door. Something involving quite a lot of swear words, no doubt.

‘I missed you today,’ she whispered. ‘I missed you this morning when I opened my eyes. I missed you on the bus to work, and again on the way home just now. When will it stop, Hal?’

The worst thing was that she wasn’t even sure she wanted it to stop, because that would mean she was moving on, and the idea of moving from him hurt like a shard of glass lodged in her heart. She closed her eyes and laid her head against the door, ignoring the tear that seeped through her lashes and slid down her cheek.

A noise, a rustling. Honey dashed her hands hurriedly over her cheeks, her heart a swooping skylark behind her ribs and then a stone falling into her boots when she realised the sounds were outside on the street rather than behind Hal’s door. Voices easily recognised as Nell and Tash’s floated around the hall, snippets of concerned conversation as they knocked on the door and called out her name. Honey didn’t reply. She didn’t have the energy.

‘Hang on,’ she heard Nell say. ‘I think I’ve still got a key.’

‘Why have you got a key and I haven’t?’

‘Maybe because she trusts me not to throw wild parties in her flat when she goes away?’ Nell said, and a few seconds later she must have found the key, because they pushed the door open.

‘Bloody rain,’ Tash grumbled, fighting with her brolly, and then jumped back when she spotted Honey huddled by Hal’s door.

‘Shit, Hon, you nearly gave me a sodding heart attack!’

Nell moved across the lamplit lobby and dropped onto her haunches beside Honey, concern all over her pretty face.

‘What are you doing out here, babes?’ She smoothed her hand over Honey’s hair.

Honey shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders, fresh tears gathering in her eyes.

‘Talking to Hal,’ she said.

Nell glanced up quickly at Tash, who frowned and moved around to sit beside Honey on the floor.

‘He’s not in there, Hon. You know that, right?’

Honey nodded. ‘He hardly ever used to answer me anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s not that different now. I just …’ She halted mid-sentence to swallow the painful lump in her throat. ‘I just feel close to him here.’

Nell slid her slender frame in on Honey’s other side.

‘Then we’ll sit with you for a while. If that’s okay?’

Tash rustled in her huge suede bag and produced a bottle of wine.

‘We were kind of planning on drinking this out of glasses like normal people, but hey, the floor works for me.’ She unscrewed the cap and took a drink, then passed the bottle along the row.

Honey accepted the cool bottle with a deep sigh and tipped it to her lips. Would it be wrong to drink the lot in the hope of oblivion?

‘What am I going to do?’ she said, and Nell rubbed her arm.

‘You’re going to do exactly what you always do. Get up. Go to work. Keep breathing. It’s all you can do, Honey, and then one day you’ll go to bed and realise you didn’t think about him at all.’

‘I think about him all the time,’ Honey whispered, taking a second drink and then passing the bottle to Nell. ‘Everything reminds me of him. He’s everything I’d say I don’t want in a man, and yet I love him so much that I feel as if someone has scooped my heart out and put it back in the wrong way round,’ she said, her little girl lost voice echoing around the quiet lobby. ‘It hurts, right here.’ She put her hand over her heart, and leaned her head on Tash’s shoulder. ‘In fact, it hurts everywhere. I ache so much that my bones feel too heavy to get out of the bed in the morning.’

‘I’d like to smash that handsome face of his