The Piano Man Project Page 0,77

she’d barely slept. Squinting at the phone, she read Tash’s message.

Piano man number 3 identified. You cannot say no. He is to die for and you’re meeting him for lunch on Saturday at the pub.

Honey groaned and closed her eyes again. Tash was just going to have to cancel the date, because the piano man project was dead in the water. If Honey never had another date again, it’d still be too soon to re-address the subject of romance.

She really didn’t want to get out of bed, because it signalled the start of another long day of trying to juggle more balls than a Covent Garden street performer and she’d never been the best at catch. Concentrating on her breathing in the fetal position worked for a couple of minutes; it soothed her body, if not her mind. Her mind refused to be soothed. Too many thoughts about whether salmon sandwiches posed a choking hazard to octogenarians and whether the Smartie-covered caterpillar cake she’d noticed in the supermarket last week would cut the mustard. Not that one would be anywhere near big enough; she’d need at least six or more. Was there a collective name for a group of caterpillars? A hive of caterpillars? A clutch of caterpillars? All these thoughts and more chased each other wildly around inside Honey’s skull until she crawled, caterpillar-like, out of bed and under the shower.

‘I’m not a coward.’

Hal’s stark words reached Honey as she closed the door to her flat a little later. She paused.

‘I’m sorry if my choice of words offended you,’ she said, even though she kind of was and kind of wasn’t. On the one hand she could see that by allowing himself to hide away Hal was taking the easy option, but then on the other hand, he was probably the bravest man she’d ever met.

She heard the mechanism of his lock move, and a second later his door swung slowly open. Hal stood there, looking exactly the same as ever, except for one thing. He was wearing a coat.

‘Hal, oh my God!’ Honey moved swiftly to his door and instinctively reached up and kissed his cheek.

‘How do you know I’m not just going for a morning stroll?’ he said, making light of the decision he’d wrestled with all night.

‘I doubt you’ve ever strolled in your life,’ Honey said, and then faltered. ‘So how do we do this?’

‘Do what?’ he said.

‘Do you have a cane?’

Hal made a sound that sounded horribly huffish. ‘No, I do not.’

‘Don’t you need one?’

‘So they say.’

Honey could only agree with them, whoever they were. She scanned the hallway for potential pitfalls and her eyes alighted on the umbrella stand, and more specifically her Orla Kiely full-length brolly, a gift from Nell for Christmas the year before. Making a grab for it, she pushed it into Hal’s hands.

‘Use this?’

He ran his hands along it, feeling the curve of the handle. ‘Is it raining?’

Honey knew that he knew perfectly well that it wasn’t raining. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘By giving me an umbrella that is too short and no doubt hideously garish in order to draw attention to the fact I can’t see a fucking thing?’

Honey rammed the brolly back into the stand. ‘It’s very tasteful, actually. Nell gave it to me and she doesn’t have a tasteless bone in her body.’

‘If you really want to help, just stand next to me once we’re outside. Hold my arm casually as if we actually like each other and tell me if there are steps or kerbs. Can you do that?’

‘I’m not an idiot, Hal,’ she said, but lightly, because she really didn’t want him to change his mind.

‘You do idiotic things quite often,’ he said, pulling his door closed. Honey didn’t miss the way his chest rose and fell heavily beneath his navy woollen pea coat.

‘I’ve never seen you in a coat before,’ she said, to keep the conversation going. ‘It’s quite, er, sexy fisherman.’

‘“Sexy fisherman”?’ Hal sounded incredulous.

Honey opened the front door. ‘Two steps down to the pavement, quite shallow,’ she said, stepping down ahead of Hal. ‘Yes, you know. Captain Birdseye and all that.’ She held his elbow lightly and scanned the quiet, early morning street. ‘We’re walking left down towards the bus stop, there’s no one else around.’

‘Just don’t ask me to run for the bus,’ he said. ‘Captain fucking Birdseye?’

Honey realised what she’d said wrong, too late as usual.

‘Crap. Sorry.’

‘I’m more offended by the fact that he was a fat man in