How To Choose a Sweetheart (16 page)

There are butterflies in his stomach and his fingers and toes. Not real butterflies, but those imaginary ones that beat their wings and tickle the inside of the body until the pleasure becomes pain.

It’s part two of Chris’s plan, the first being to get Mr Evans to agree to teach Alice and the second to come clean.

He looks around and sees Cath coming towards him along the path. She has yellow shorts that show off the full, wonderful length of her legs, a pink vest that reveals the tan along her arms and a pair of large sunglasses, 1970s style, that Max hasn’t seen before but that make her look more funky than ever.

His heart starts beating even faster as she gets closer, as do the wings of those butterflies. The pain is almost too much and he’s forced to stand as if he’s just been given an electric shock in his behind. At least it’s almost over, he thinks, and greets her with a yummy kiss that wobbles his knees.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

That’s all they need just now. A moment together.

“Such a beautiful day.”

“Just about perfect.”

“I don’t think anything could spoil it.”  Max wishes she was right, but knows otherwise. “I forget how wonderful this park is. I never think of coming here now Alice is bigger.”

“It’s easy to forget things when they’re on your doorstep.” And he knows he’s right on that one.

“Too busy looking for something else, I suppose,” Cath says.

“Maybe.”

Cath takes his hand and rubs it softly. The tips of her fingers are like velvet. “Is everything all right?  You sounded down when you called.”

“It’s nothing.” He’s not sure why he doesn’t just do it right now seeing as she’s given him the cue. It’s something to do with him needing to get moving and letting go of some of the nervous energy that’s buzzing through his limbs. “Let’s go for a wander.”

They stand and set off, ambling along the path and holding hands. A pigeon looks up at them from the bread it’s pecking, then decides there’s nothing threatening and gets back on with eating.

“I hope you know what you mean to me Cath,” he starts.

“I think so. But I like hearing you tell me.”

“See the park and all those bright colours?” It sounds OK so far. “The air full of perfumes and warm on your skin. Sounds that carry for miles. Fresh and clean and new, like you’d want to stay here forever.” It’s sounding like a marriage proposal. Cath’s looking expectantly at him as he speaks. Would that it were. “That comes close.”

Cath kisses him and he carries on. “It was like that as soon as I saw you in the shop that first time. I just knew I had to meet you.”

“I’m delighted you did.”

“Only I didn’t know how to go about it. Girls like you don’t seem to notice guys like me and I couldn’t let you pass me by.”

“Good for you.”

“There’s something I need to tell you about the way we met.” It’s getting close. His palms are sweating. It’s like a roller coaster has taken him all the way to the top and all that fear and anticipation is about to be brought to life as it starts its crazy descent. He tightens his grip on her hand so that he’s not flung too far away.

“How do you mean?”

“I was a little reckless.”

She’s worried. It’s in her voice and he’s only glad that the shades are covering her eyes. “I don’t remember that. You were very sweet, right from the beginning.”

“But I have a little confession to make.”

“Oh Max!  Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I have to. It has to be clean and new. Like the park, remember?”

“It sounds so ominous.” It’s her turn to hold on tight and he feels her nails dig into his palm.

“I had to meet you. Just had to. I saw the advert and jumped right in.”

“That’s OK. It’s normal. Sort of.”

“It would be if I could play the damned piano.”

She takes off her glasses so that he can see the confusion in her eyes. He wants her to put them back on in case the confusion turns to hurt.

“I can’t play the piano. Never could.”

“What about the lessons?”  She seems to be trying hard not to believe him. “I’ve heard you with Alice. You know what you’re doing.” Her hand drops away from his and she slides back. Tears are forming in her eyes, too quickly for Max’s liking. And when they’re fully formed they drop down her face like raindrops in a storm. He’s never seen anyone cry like this before except on cartoons. It makes him feel sick, but means he needs to put the pieces back together.

He wishes he could put the words back into his mouth. Swallow them as if they were lunch. Get rid of all the evidence. Take his chances with the delays to help, Alice out of action with her arm broken and Evans on the road to recovery...

“I started taking lessons. Thought I could keep up with it that way.”

“You invented some fictitious character so you could live out some dream of yours?”

“I didn’t invent anybody and it’s no dream.”

“Made me fall in love with you. Worse, made Alice fall in love with you. And now you’re breaking our hearts. You’re just like Alice’s father. Lower than him. The lowest of the low.”

She’s walking backwards, the tears stopping and the anger filling her blood vessels so her pink top and red face almost match.

“I...” Max says, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

“You’ve been lying to me from the beginning.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, only he doesn’t know if she hears. She’s jogging to the road, her hands to her face and her sobs blocking out the sounds of the birds.

I
f he gets out – when he gets out – of the hospital, Mr Evans won’t be able to recognise his home.

For a start, the windows are clean and the sunlight can get through.

It’s the final part of Chris’s plan, only it doesn’t matter any longer now that Part two can be judged to have been an utter failure. Max is determined to carry on with the plan regardless, just because it seems like the right thing to do.

The curtain that usually hangs across the door to the sitting room is missing. The piano has been covered in an old sheet and on top of it there are several mugs and a glass that houses a number of paintbrushes that are soaking in white spirit.

Max is over at a wall painting it a very soft yellow, taking care to make the strokes horizontal and vertical so that he gets a good cover.

Chris wanders into the room, whistling White Christmas even though December is six months away. He’s sporting work overalls that are spattered with old paints and varnishes. He goes over to the piano and collects the empty mugs. “Coffee?” he asks.

“Already!”

“It’s thirsty work.”

“What, making coffee?”

“No drinking it. Do you want another or what?”

“Go on then. I could do with a break. The world’s starting to look like the yellow brick road.”

“And what are you looking for?  A heart?  Courage?  Brains?”

“I’m trying to lose things.”

“That’s not in the plot, I’m afraid.”

“How’s it going upstairs?”

“The bedroom’s almost painted. I’ve done what I can to sort those draughts and Alan’s still out on the ladders touching up the windows.”

“He’s not such a bad bloke, is he?”

“So the penny’s finally dropped.” Chris seems happy to hear it. A lot of pennies have been dropping of late, every one of them hurting like hell when they land.

“Go get the kettle on then.” Max doesn’t want to think any more about what might have been had he been wiser not so very long before.

Chris goes into the kitchen. Max gets on with the painting. After the hours of feeling like the world was over and having to hold his sides tight so that they wouldn’t split, this feels therapeutic.

From the kitchen, the whistled notes of ‘We’re off to see the wizard’ remind him that he still has Chris and Jazz if nothing else. And then he starts singing along, a kind of misremembered string of words that sound half-right. Ad-libbing is something he has learned to do well – a bit too well.

T
he next day Max sits in Mr Evans’s armchair admiring the work. He lights up a smoke and takes it all in. The cheery lightness of the place. He sees the pictures in their nice new clip frames ready to go up and the extra touches like the coat-hooks and mirrors that will make it all come alive when they’re done.

Jazz comes in, her hair more ruffled than usual. She’s carrying a laundry bag that’s full to the brim in one hand and a sports bag in the other, a bunch of flowers resting on the top of it between its handles. She puts the bags down and looks around. She hasn’t seen it since she took off to get the materials clean.

Her eyes moisten and her smile is as broad as he’s ever seen it. “It’s wonderful, Max. I can’t believe it.” She walks over and gives him a hug. “You’re a lovely man.”

“Hey,” Max says, “I couldn’t have done it all by myself. Alan and Chris did all the bits that needed any skill and Angela brought her moral support. It’s not as if I’ve much else to do.”

She places the bunch of flowers on the top of the piano and goes over to unzip the sports bag. “Guess what I’ve managed to get?”

“Give in.”

She empties the bags onto the floor and picks up a set of curtains with a floral motif. “These are for in here. There’s a matching one for the door – it’s a bit bigger than the old one, but it should work.”

They’ll bring the whole thing together Max realises. “That must be what they call a woman’s touch.”

Jazz hasn’t finished and brings out more.

“Maybe. I picked out this rug, too.” It has red and yellow stripes and will pick out the yellow of the wall and the red in the flower pattern of the curtains. “It will definitely help.”

“Funny, but I’d never noticed those stains on the carpet before.” They’re dark and spread in ways that suggests all sorts of unsavoury goings on.

“Perhaps that’s why he always kept it so dark in here. I’ve got another rug for upstairs, but I couldn’t get it here just now, so Alan’s going to drop it round later with the washing.”

“You’ve all been great,” Max says. “Alan, too. I’ll admit it. You’ve got a good one there. Don’t let him escape.”

“I’m holding tight.”

Jazz picks up the flowers and walks into the kitchen. “Don’t suppose there’s a vase anywhere near the building.”

“There is one on the top shelf. A cut glass affair that’s got to be a thousand years old.”

Max lights another cigarette as Jazz clinks and clunks around in the kitchen. She comes back out with the flowers in the vase and puts them on the new coffee table that Max picked up from Oxfam’s furniture shop. She rearranges the flowers, a mix of wild flora of many colours, and sits on the arm of the chair upon which Max sits.

“Flowers always make a difference, don’t you think?” she asks, brushing a stray hair back into Max’s quiff.

“Till they die and start to smell bad.”

“You’re supposed to throw them away before that happens.”

“I wondered about that.”

“You know, I’ve still got the first flowers you ever gave me.” Max’s jaw drops so that he sits with his mouth open, staring back at her. “Come to think of it, they were the only flowers you ever gave me. I dried them and now they’re stuck up in my bedroom.”

Max feels a pang of happiness that’s mixed with a splash of melancholy.

“They bring back some good memories every now and then. If I’m feeling down, they cheer me up.”

“I’m tired of memories. Too many teardrops,” Max sighs.

“Chris told me all about you and Cath. Want to talk about it?”

He does, but the idea brings on a stabbing pain in the front of his head. “There isn’t much to say.”

“You could tell me what happened.” Max remembers her pragmatic side. Always comes in useful to be practical from time-to-time.

“She doesn’t want to see me anymore.” It’s the truth. In fact, it’s a slightly positive take on the truth. “She hates me.” He inhales especially deeply on his cigarette until he can feel the smoke catch on his throat and fill every available space in his lungs, then he blows out a series of smoke rings.

Jazz puts her finger through the rings as the go by. “Are you sure?  Lying about being a piano teacher doesn’t exactly make you a monster.”

“No, but it means she doesn’t know who I am. Besides, I think she was more upset about what it might mean to Alice. She’s right, too. How the hell can a six year-old get to understand that sort of thing?”

“Have you tried to explain?”

“I must have filled her answering machine ten times over by now.”

“Gosh.”

“And I’m feeling like one of those plants that only flowers once every hundred years or so and all that’s left is a piano that’s too big and an old man who seems to be just like me except old.”

“That old man might cheer up a bit when he sees this house and realises there’s someone out here who cares for him.”

Max leans his head back into the chair and stubs out his cigarette without looking. The air that escapes him forms a sigh of despair.

“If she really means that much to you, you can’t just give up. You’ve got to fight this one till she comes back.”

“What?  And make a bigger fool of myself than I’ve done already?”

“If you have to.” It does make sense. “Wouldn’t you rather look back and know that you did everything that you could instead of regretting what might have been if you hadn’t just curled up into a ball of self-pity?”

The self-pity jibe has been levelled at him before. He hates it almost as much as being called a sulky child. “I haven’t even got to self-pity yet.”

“But we both know it’s coming. Maybe I could meet up with her. She might listen to me.”

It’s not something that’s occurred to him, but it’s possible. “What can you say that might make a difference?”

“The same things that you say, but in a different way.”

“That woman’s touch again.”

“Not just any woman, Max.”

He picks up her hand and kisses it. “I hadn’t forgotten.”

“Come on,” Jazz says. “Let’s get these curtains up and we can think out what I’m going to say.”

Jazz stands up and ruffles Max’s hair. Apart from Cath, he reckons she’s the only person in the world who could get away with that with all their fingers intact.