The Piano Man Project Page 0,11
her face anguished.
Honey smiled sadly. ‘There’s still six months yet, Lucille. Let’s hope for a miracle.’
‘Over my dead body are they closing our shop.’ Mimi squared her fragile shoulders, which were swathed today in the palest lime green cashmere twinset. As was often the case, Lucille had coordinated her outfit with her sister’s and had arrived this morning sporting an identical twinset in a complementary shade of lemon. Lemon Meringue and Key Lime Pie. Both ladies had knotted long strings of beads around their necks and large rings sparkled on their fragile fingers. Their outfits sang of sunshine, summer days and sweet spun sugar, but their faces told a far more melancholy story. Lucille’s big blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and Mimi had a look of fierce defiance that would have caused Emmeline Pankhurst’s heart to swell with pride.
Lucille turned to her sister with a flicker of hope. ‘Do you think we should fight it?’
‘Why ever would we not?’ Mimi said, looking from Lucille to Honey.
Honey frowned. Much as she hated the idea of closing the shop down, the idea of actively protesting hadn’t crossed her mind until now. Was there any point? For all his official talk of periods of consultation, Christopher had made it sound like a cut and dried decision last night. He’d probably been offered a sweetener to keep him onside, a golden handshake to make sure he didn’t allow anyone to rock the boat. He certainly hadn’t seemed overly concerned by the plight of the residents. ‘Dispersed’ was the word he’d used, and one Honey had carefully avoided when she’d tried to explain to Mimi and Lucille how the residents would be rehomed at other places.
‘Rehomed. We sound like a bunch of unwanted dogs,’ Lucille said, wringing her slender hands in her lap. ‘No one wants old animals so they get put down. Is that what’s going to happen to us, Honey?’
The wretched expression on Lucille’s face tore at Honey’s heartstrings. She wished she could offer her friend some genuine hope, but at that moment there wasn’t much to offer beyond a hug and a cup of hot, sweet tea.
‘What if they can’t place us together, Mimi?’ Lucille said, and Honey took the violently trembling cup and saucer gently from the older woman’s grasp for fear of it spilling on the ivory sunray pleats of her skirt. The sisters had shared connecting rooms in the home with their own bathroom for the last seven years, building a life of sorts amongst the residents and voluntary work in the shop. The idea that they might be placed apart from each other was awful, like adopted siblings being split up to maximise their appeal.
‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ Honey soothed, hoping with all of her heart that it wouldn’t.
‘It won’t,’ Mimi said, ‘because I won’t let it, Lucie. I promise.’ Ever the protective big sister, even at eighty-three, Mimi sat beside Lucille and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘And Honey will help us organise ourselves, won’t you, duck? People will listen to you more than us.’
Two pairs of eyes turned up towards Honey, one pair cornflower blue and brimming with tears, the other brown and bright with rebellion. Something in Honey stirred, a resolve to stand up and fight for her friends.
‘Of course I will.’ She sat on Lucille’s other side and put her hand over the older woman’s clasped ones, trying not to notice their frailty. ‘Of course I will. We have six months. It’s plenty of time to work something out.’
‘Our angel,’ Lucille smiled. ‘Where would we be without you?’
‘You don’t need to think about that,’ Honey said. ‘I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you without an almighty fight.’
Honey let herself into the house an hour or so later, still mulling over the conversation with Lucille and Mimi. She hadn’t considered the idea of trying to campaign to save the home, and she certainly hadn’t anticipated the idea of being the poster girl for it – yet it seemed that she might have to, because everyone else involved was at least eighty and looking to her for help. The responsibility weighed as heavy as the shopping bags in her hands as she awkwardly bumped the front door closed with her backside and flicked her eyes around the hall for any new signs of Hal’s presence. She glanced towards her neighbour’s door, half expecting him to throw it open and yell at her about something, but it remained resolutely closed and