The Piano Man Project (34 page)

‘Can someone shut that ice-cream van up?’ the camera-man yelled, and the white-haired Italian ice-cream man zipped back across the grass to kill the music. He’d heard about the protest on the radio and turned up an hour or so back to hand out free ice creams to all the kids. It would have been another streaked-cheek moment for Honey, had she had any mascara left on to cry off.

‘One minute and counting,’ the cameraman said, and they all squared their shoulders in readiness.

Troy opened with an introduction to camera about the protest, and then turned to Honey with his mike in his hand.

‘So Miss Jones, did you anticipate that the protest would be so well attended?’

Honey smiled. ‘We hoped, obviously, but no, I never expected this many people to come out in support. We’re grateful beyond measure, and only hope that it makes the owners of the home think again. There’s more than thirty residents living in the home, and the idea of having to leave has most of them terrified.’

Troy nodded with a solemn frown on his face. ‘And your own job is presumably on the line too?’

‘Mine and everyone else’s who works here too,’ Honey said. ‘The home employs more than fifty staff, it’s a lot of jobs to lose. But in all honesty, this is about the residents, not the staff. We can get other jobs, but would you want to be homeless at ninety? Or would you want that for your parents, or grandparents?’ Honey could feel her blood starting to heat up in her veins, all of her frustrations from the day channelling themselves into that one important moment.

‘This home is full of amazing people. War veterans. Women who kept the home fires burning and raised their babies in a blackout. A generation of people who’ve already seen more hardship than most of us will ever encounter. How can it be right to toss them out onto the street like yesterday’s newspaper, or to rehome them scattered across the county like a pack of stray dogs?’

The look on Troy’s face told her that she’d already given him far more than he’d counted on from her, but the words wouldn’t stop falling from her mouth, and worse, hot tears were gathering in her eyes.

‘These people …’ she looked at Lucille and Mimi. ‘These people stood up for us when we needed them, and today we’re standing up for them.’ A tear slipped down her cheek and she swiped it with the back of her hand. ‘We’re standing with them, and we’re asking everyone out there watching this to stand with us too. Stand in your living rooms, stand with us on Twitter, or on Facebook, or in your local pub right now!’

Troy looked alarmed, and the cameraman was drawing a line across his throat with bulging eyes. Honey could understand it, but couldn’t find it in herself to be bothered if she’d made a fool of herself. She stood stiffly beside the others as Troy threw back to the studio, and finally the cameraman raised his hand and switched off the light on the camera.

It was only then that Honey realised that the protesters had fallen silent to listen to what she said, and as she turned to look across at them a ripple of applause began, quietly at first, rising to a thunderous noise as Honey clamped shaking fingers over her mouth. Troy Masters shook her by the other hand, and then Billy grabbed it from him and lifted her arm aloft as if she were the victor in a boxing ring. Honey’s ears rung with the noise, and she found she was half laughing and half crying. They hadn’t won yet, but maybe, just maybe, they’d just moved a step closer.

In the dining room Skinny Steve had turned on the TV to watch the segment, and he sat alongside Hal at the nearest table as Honey appeared on the screen.

‘She looks hot, just so you know,’ Steve muttered.

‘She sounds nervous,’ Hal said, listening to her as she started to speak.

They sat in silence as her speech gathered pace and passion, and heard the crowds outside begin to clap when Steve turned the TV off afterwards.

Hal laughed and shook his head. Honeysuckle Jones, slayer of evil giants, Svengali of the masses. He pushed his chair back and stood up.

‘I think we’re going to need some extra help in the kitchen, Steve,’ Hal said.

A mile or so away in The Cock Inn, the Sunday afternoon drinkers watched Honey’s impassioned plea go out live on the news and to the last man, they stood up and raised their glasses.

By three o’clock, Nell had given up trying to count the newcomers or marshal them into position. The pavement was packed, the grass was covered, and the road itself was three or four deep with people sitting on the tarmac. Strangers happily fastened themselves onto the human chain in any way they could; Honey had even seen a gaggle of little girls tying Old Don’s wheelchair back to the railings with daisy chains after he’d appeared on the TV. Tash winked at her as she clicked away with her iPhone, recording the day for them all to look back on when it was over. She wasn’t the only photographer there by a long way. The press were all over the protest in earnest now it had made the national news, snapping pictures and interviewing as many of the protesters as they could. Every once in a while the radio blasted out a country hit especially for Robin and the parole boys, and they’d lead the crowd in a heel-clicking line dance to keep the morale sky-high. It was unfortunate for Christopher that he was chained up right next to them and thus found himself regularly hauled to his feet and forced to half-heartedly dance, all arms and legs, rather like an outraged puppet on a string.

The kitchen played its part valiantly too, ordering in more supplies from a local supermarket who delivered within half an hour once they realised that they’d get a boatload of feel-good free publicity when their vans arrived in the street. They even threw in freebies; sweets and biscuits that lent the whole affair a ‘picnic in the park’ atmosphere, regardless of the fact that it wasn’t the warmest of days. It was good-natured, and as the TV station ran the story regularly across the day, their numbers continued to swell.

‘I think we might have to start turning people away soon,’ Nell worried.

‘No bloody way,’ Tash said. ‘We’ll just go around the corner and start filling the next street when this one’s chocka.’

Honey shook her head. ‘I just can’t believe it’s turned out like this. It’s huge!’

‘Fucking gargantuan,’ Tash nodded sagely. ‘
And
we met Troy Masters.’

They looked up as someone picked their way through the crowds.

‘Nell!’

Nell’s face broke into a big smile when she saw her husband.

‘Simon, you made it. I knew you would.’ Honey was surprised when Simon pulled Nell into his arms and placed a lingering kiss on her mouth until she pushed him away, laughing.

Tash made heaving motions behind them. ‘Get a room, kids.’

‘There’s no handcuffs left, Simon,’ Honey smiled warmly at him and leaned in to peck him on the cheek. He glanced at Nell, and a private look passed between them before he reached into his pocket and withdrew a pair of silver ones.

‘No need. I’ve come prepared,’ he said, and had the good grace to go slightly red-cheeked. In the whole time Honey had known Nell’s husband she’d never before thought him impish, but in that moment, being led away by his wife with his handcuffs and his schoolboy embarrassment, it was the only way to describe him. Honey could only wonder at how it might feel to be with someone who understood you as innately as Simon understood Nell, someone who celebrated your strengths and encouraged you to be more than you imagined you could be.

Tash had drifted away and was caught up in conversation, so Honey wound her way between people until she made it to Mimi and Lucille. Dropping gratefully into Billy’s empty seat between them, she looked from one perfectly lipsticked sister to the other.

‘How do you two still look as fresh as daisies when I look as if I’ve run a marathon?’ she grumbled, pulling out her hairband and re-tying it more securely.

‘Because we’ve just sat here while you’ve done all the hard work, dear,’ Lucille smiled, patting her knee.

‘Some people would call that plain lazy,’ Honey laughed. ‘How’s the ankle bearing up, Mimi?’

Mimi waved the question away airily. ‘I ploughed fields when I was twenty-one and still managed to jitterbug with the GIs in the evening. My ankle is perfectly fine, thank you very much.’

‘She asked Nikki for an extra painkiller earlier. I heard her,’ Lucille supplied, and Mimi shot her a look. There had been the smallest of power shifts between the two sisters since the incident with Mimi’s ankle; less of an imbalance in Mimi’s favour and it suited Lucille well.

Honey looked over her shoulder. ‘Where’s Billy got to again?’

‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ Mimi grouched. ‘Give him an audience, and the man has to act the goat. He’s been here, there and everywhere all day.’

Honey rolled her shoulders and stretched her legs out in front of her, suddenly aware of how much her feet were aching now that she’d sat down. She could easily forgive Billy for deserting his post if it meant she got to spend five minutes recharging her batteries between the two main reasons she was doing any of this in the first place.

Gazing down the road, her eyes came to rest on a small dark-haired woman pushing a wheelchair in their direction. Catching her eye, the woman broke into a wide smile and raised her hand.

Beside her, Honey heard Lucille’s soft gasp and a second later felt her fingers grip her wrist.

‘I know,’ Honey said, raising her hand and smiling in acknowledgment. ‘I see them.’

‘Who?’ Mimi said, peering around them to see who they were looking at.

From a distance, it might have been Mimi in the wheelchair, the resemblance was so strong.

Honey reached out and picked up Mimi’s hand in her own. She didn’t miss the fact that it was shaking slightly. Lucille’s fingers tightened around Honey’s wrist and they sat in silence until their visitors came to a halt in front of them.

‘Well there’s no denying whose brother you are, is there?’ Mimi said brusquely, dashing her spare hand across the back of her eyes.

‘Ernie!’ Lucille cried, springing up and kissing his cheek.

‘I saw you both on the news and I had to come,’ he said, holding on to her hand. ‘You girls are being so brave, I thought I should be too.’ His gaze moved to Mimi, uncertain. ‘Is that okay?’

Honey stood and moved her chair out from between Mimi and Lucille.

Mimi sighed. ‘You better park yourself up here,’ she nodded at the freshly vacated space. ‘Honey, you better go and get Ernie a nice cup of tea.’

Billy wasn’t acting the goat or entertaining the crowds. Shirtsleeves rolled back and pinny on, he was working up a storm alongside Hal and Skinny Steve, reacquainting himself with knife skills gained in the army kitchens. There was something about their new chef that intrigued him. Maybe it was the fact that he reminded him in some ways of his much-missed brother. Maybe it was that he sensed a deep melancholy in him, and innately understood it. Maybe it was purely selfish, that every now and then Billy needed to turn the showman off for a while. Or maybe he wanted to check Hal out as a potential suitor for Honey, because it was written all over the girl that she was in way over her head. Perhaps it was a jumble of all of those things that placed Billy in the kitchen, but whatever it was, Hal was grateful for both his help and his company.

A second TV company had been and gone by half past four, and the protest had managed to make most of the national news channels as well as the local ones. It was the kind of story that caught hold of everyone’s imagination, and Honey’s impassioned speech had set Twitter on fire with the hashtag #standwithus trending across the country. Going make-up free had been an unintentional stroke of genius; she’d become the tearstained poster girl that everyone wanted to wade in and support.

‘Five hundred tealights,’ Nell puffed, dropping a straining carrier bag down and rubbing her fingers where the plastic had bit into them. They were going to lose light soon and no one was showing any sign of going home, so they’d decided to break just about every health and safety rule in the book and hand out tealights.

‘Candles create atmosphere,’ Tash had reasoned. ‘They make people feel all sentimental. Imagine how it’ll look on the TV, Honey, like one of those vigils that makes everyone pick up the phone to give money they don’t have.’

‘Have we heard anything at all from the owners of the home?’ Simon asked, standing with his arm around Nell’s shoulders.

Nell shook her head. ‘The only thing they’re saying on the TV is that they’ve declined to comment.’

‘Well, they’re just about the only one who has,’ Nell looked up from her mobile and grinned. ‘Phillip Schofield’s just tweeted the standwithus hashtag to over three million followers!’

‘Oooh, I love Phillip!’ Lucille piped up, her hand fluttering over her hair as if he might appear at any moment. ‘What’s a hashtag?’

‘Oh my God, look,’ Tash said, turning her screen around to show Honey the shot of Davina McCall in daisy chain handcuffs underneath #standwithus. ‘If this doesn’t make the difference, I don’t know what will.’

Skinny Steve couldn’t believe anyone would ever want to interview him, and he fell over his words when a reporter from one of the nationals waylaid him en route back to the kitchens with empty coffee flasks.

‘You’re doing a fantastic job here today, congratulations,’ the pretty reporter gushed.

‘Thank you,’ Steve stammered. ‘But it’s not all down to me. I wouldn’t have known where to start without Hal to tell me what to do.’

The woman smiled winningly, and Steve really liked the way her kind blue eyes twinkled.

‘Hal?’ she said.

Steve nodded. ‘He’s amazing. I can’t believe I’m being taught to cook by someone as famous as him.’

The reporter tipped her head to one side. ‘Do you think we could meet him too?’

Steve frowned, realising that he might have said too much.

‘I don’t think so. Hal doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here.’ He bit his lip. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

The reporter drew lines over her heart with her shell-pink nails.

‘Cross my heart.’

She reached inside her shirt and pulled a business card out of her bra, then reached out and tucked it into Steve’s apron pocket.