Page 31 of Love in Tune

Honey stared at his all-too-familiar closed door after he’d closed it and shook her head. Dinner for one it was then.

Later that evening, Hal heard a tap at his door and stiffened. It could only be Honey, and he couldn’t handle any more of her today. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy her company; the opposite, in fact. Little by little he was allowing himself to rely on her, and that wasn’t fair. The more time he spent with her, the more he looked forward to the next time, and that was only ever going to lead to problems for both of them. Maybe she saw him as a challenge, or, being uncharitable, maybe she saw him as a novelty, but she certainly didn’t see the man he really was. She didn’t see the darkness in him, the anger, the abyss he teetered on the very edge of much of the time. He was using her in a way that was wholly unacceptable, she just hadn’t realised it yet. She didn’t see that he was using her as a guy rope to stop him from falling over the edge altogether.

Honey was screwing him up with her funny-girl lines, and her good intentions, and her kisses that made him forget about the bad stuff. She’d practically begged him to be the man who helped her find her orgasm, and in the heat of the moment he’d wanted to be that man too, not Deano the unchivalrous one, nor Robin who still lived with his mother, or anyone else, for that matter. Him. He’d wanted nothing other than to take her to bed, to learn her curves with his hands and his mouth, to build her up until he felt her body shudder and break underneath him. He could do that for her. He’d kissed her only once, but it had been enough for him to know that he could make that girl come, and come, and come.

But then what? He didn’t want a relationship, so he’d hurt her, and how could he live here after that? The harsh truth was that he had nowhere else to go, and nothing to offer.

He’d come here to learn how to stand on his own two feet, and he was increasingly learning how to lean on Honey’s shoulder, and it had to stop. And so he sat on the edge of his sofa and listened to her call out his name, lightly at first and then tinged with panic when he didn’t reply. He couldn’t go out there. She’d brought him dinner, she said. Too much bolognese for one, she said.

‘You’ve got a fucking freezer,’ he called out, to let her know he was still alive. ‘Use it for something other than vodka for a change.’

He could feel her confusion, and her ensuing silence told him that his harsh words had probably hurt her, which only pissed him off more. He didn’t have the energy to think of someone else’s feelings; yet another reason not to let her any deeper under his skin.

‘I’ll just leave it out here then,’ she said quietly, and he heard her door close a few seconds later. A wash of frustration flooded through his veins, at Honey for not giving up, and at himself for being glad that she hadn’t.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Honey shrugged out of her jacket and flung it over the back of the only chair in the tiny staffroom at the shop. Lucille and Mimi had been waiting for her when she’d arrived to open up and had followed her into the staffroom, each wearing matching chiffon scarves around their necks and frowns etched onto their brows.

‘What’s wrong, ladies?’ Honey said, pushing the kettle under the tap and filling it up. ‘Nothing a Tuesday morning cuppa can’t fix, I’m sure.’ She snapped the lid down and switched the jug on, reaching for the cups as she looked over at Mimi and Lucille again. The evident worry etched on both of their faces pulled her up short.

‘Hey, what is it?’

Lucille placed her black patent handbag down on the table and pushed the gilt clasp open. She withdrew an official-looking brown envelope and smoothed it out on the table top beside her bag.

‘It’s this,’ she said. ‘It came in this morning’s post.’

Mimi picked it up and held it out towards Honey. ‘Right out of the blue,’ she said, looking uncharacteristically rattled.

Honey took the envelope and scanned it, noting the way it was formally addressed to Lucille and Miriam Dreyfus, rather than their respective married names. It seemed oddly vulnerable to see their childhood titles printed alongside each other on the paper, just as they’d have been on their class registration sheet many, many years previously.

‘Can I?’ she asked, glancing at the sisters, who nodded emphatically.

Honey eased the letter from the envelope and opened the single sheet of headed paper from The Adoption Support Agency. Glancing quickly up at Mimi and Lucille, she flicked her eyes back down and started to read.

‘Wow,’ she said quietly as she read its content. ‘Wow.’ Folding the piece of paper and replacing it carefully in its envelope, she handed the letter back to Lucille. ‘I’m guessing from your reactions that neither of you knew anything about this?’

The two women shook their heads.

‘Not a thing,’ Lucille murmured.

‘Not a sausage,’ Mimi said, her eyes misty. ‘As far as we knew, our mother only ever had us. How could there have been another baby that we never even knew about? It’s ridiculous.’

‘An older brother,’ Lucille added, her blue eyes wistful. ‘I always wanted a brother to look after me.’

‘You have me,’ Mimi pointed out. ‘I think it must be a scam, although goodness knows why anyone would go to the bother because we haven’t got two brass farthings between us. We can’t possibly have a brother. It’s always been just the two of us.’

Honey heard the clear anxiety behind Mimi’s bluster, her fear of losing her place in the world, both as Lucille’s only sibling and as her best friend.

‘It might be best to take a little time to think it over. There’s no need to rush into anything,’ Honey soothed, trying to walk the line between the sisters’ clearly differing reactions about the news.

‘Ernest,’ Mimi muttered. ‘Our mother would never have called a child Ernest.’

‘I like it,’ Lucille smiled. ‘Ernie Dreyfus. He sounds like someone important, a doctor, or a teacher.’

‘Phhfft,’ Mimi scoffed. ‘I don’t care what he was. I’ve managed eighty-three years without a brother, why would I want one now?’

Honey made the tea as she listened to Mimi and Lucille bat the conversation back and forth between them. They were digesting the news in real time, each of them in their own unique way.

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