Page 41 of Love in Tune

Honey went straight back out to the shops when Hal closed his door, and by the time he knocked hers a little after eight, she was ready.

Dinner made? Check. Flat tidied and scented with a candle left over from Christmas?

Check. Her best dress on and her hair fresh and swingy?

Check. Envelope from that morning’s mail, hopefully a birthday card she could read to Hal?

She’d never have guessed when she got up that morning that it was going to be a two dates kind of day.

Not that this was a date, exactly, but birthdays were special, a kind of magical hinterland where the usual rules went out of the window and endless goodwill reigned.

Sort of like Narnia appearing in the back of your wardrobe, as long as you obeyed the rules and only ever visited once a year.

She faltered as she reached for the catch on the door, almost not wanting to open it in case he’d ignored her suggestions and carried on with his party for one. He might be reeling out there, drunk as a skunk and still smelling like one.

‘I know you’re in there, I can smell burning,’ he called out, thankfully not slurring anymore.

She smiled and opened the door. ‘Liar. I’ve got everything totally under control in here.’

A different man stood in front of her from earlier in the day. A scrubbed-up, freshly scented one in a shirt and tie, and most significantly, a man who’d chosen to come over without the shield of his dark glasses.

He followed her down the hallway into the kitchen, sniffing as he went.

‘Garlic with a hint of pine disinfectant. Unusual, even by your standards,’ he said, and she hurriedly blew out the Christmas candle and steered him towards the dining table.

He examined her efforts as she worked behind the kitchen counter.

She glanced at him as he turned her best cutlery over in his hands and rubbed the edge of the oilcloth between his fingers.

No doubt it wouldn’t pass his restaurant standards, but at least he didn’t know it was covered in a kitsch Christmas print.

It had been the only thing she could find that remotely resembled a tablecloth, a gift from Lucille several years ago.

Honey checked the tray of small crispy potatoes and roasted vegetables and then closed the oven.

‘If you were cooking fillet steak, how long would you cook it for?’ she asked, eyeing the lumps of raw meat on her chopping board as if they were her own kidneys.

‘Not very long. Depends how thick they are and who I’m cooking them for,’ he said, pushing his chair back and making his way over to the breakfast bar. ‘Let me feel them.’

Hal tested the meat’s thickness between his thumb and forefingers, and Honey tried not to admire his hands.

‘Do I grill them?’ she asked.

‘Jesus, no.’ He looked aghast. ‘Get the frying pan. And some butter.’

‘Am I about to have my second cooking lesson?’

‘I can’t let you ruin good steak,’ he said. ‘Now melt some butter until it foams.’

She did as he’d instructed.

‘That sounds about right,’ he said after a minute. ‘Season the steaks well and then lay them in the sizzling butter.’

Honey grinned at the satisfying sizzle as she placed one of the steaks in the pan.

‘Both together?’ she said.

He nodded, and then fell silent.

After a minute or more, she pushed a fork into one to check the underside.

‘Leave it,’ Hal said; an order, not a suggestion. Honey eased the fork out of the meat with raised eyebrows and stepped away from the pan.

A minute or so later, he finally spoke again. ‘Now baste them in the butter and turn them over.’

Honey followed his advice to the letter and then stepped away.

‘Don’t touch them until I tell you they’re ready.’

‘You haven’t asked me how I like my steak.’

‘It’s fillet. You’re having it the only way it should ever be cooked.’

‘Rude,’ she murmured, and saw him smirk into the glass of buck’s fizz she’d just pushed his way.

‘Eurgh. What the fuck is this?’ he said, frowning.

‘Buck’s fizz. It’s for your birthday.’

‘Am I fourteen again?’

‘No, but seeing as you were half cut a few hours ago I thought we’d go in easy,’ she chided.

Hal placed the glass down. ‘Take them out, they’ll be ready.’

Honey frowned. She’d have left the steaks in for far longer.

‘Already? They’ve only just gone in …’

He sighed pointedly. ‘Do I try to tell you how to sell dead people’s clothes and cast-offs?’

Honey huffed. ‘Pre-loved and upcycled, actually.’

‘Take the steaks out. Now.’

He waited enough time for Honey to obey his instructions. ‘We can’t eat them straight away, they need to stand for five.’

Honey stared at them. ‘But they’re ready. You just said so yourself. They’ll go cold.’

Hal rubbed a hand over his mouth as if holding in a string of swear words. ‘You can do everything else while you wait. Warm the plates. Pour some actual wine. Put some music on. Sing “Happy Birthday”. Do anything you like, just don’t touch those goddamn steaks.’

Honey stuck her tongue out at him, and immediately regretted it because it seemed mean.

‘It’s rude to stick your tongue out at a blind person,’ he said.

She didn’t even ask him how he knew.

‘So how old are you today?’ she asked, turning the oven down and sliding a couple of plates in with the potatoes and roasted vegetables. She loosened the plastic lid on a tub of ready-made chilled red wine sauce and stuck it in the microwave, waiting for him to reply.

‘Thirty-four,’ he said. ‘Thirty-four years old and going nowhere fast.’

Honey opened the bottle of cabernet sauvignon that the supermarket advice tab had reliably informed was great with steak.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said, pouring the wine into the glasses she’d set on the table and reaching across to flick the radio on in the background. ‘Come and sit down. It’s almost ready.’

Hal listened to Honey moving around the kitchen. The clank of plates, the rush of heat from the oven when she opened it, the scent of food. It was intoxicating, all of it, even more so than the decent glass of red she’d finally given him.

He could practically feel the pride radiating off her in waves when she placed his meal in front of him.

‘Voilà,’ she said. ‘Fillet steak, little potato things, roasted vegetables, and a red wine juice.’

‘Jus?’ he said.

‘Don’t question the chef,’ she warned, sliding into the chair opposite him.

‘Are there any lit candles on this table?’ he asked.

‘Yes, because I’m stupid and want to set your head on fire,’ she said. ‘Of course there aren’t any candles.’

He didn’t reply, mostly because he’d actually been thinking that her first homemade steak dinner deserved the romance of a candle.

‘Oh my bloody God,’ Honey suddenly said. ‘This steak. Hal, it’s perfect,’ she sighed, with something that sounded like rapture. ‘I didn’t think it was going to be anywhere close to cooked, but you were totally right.’

‘Don’t question the chef,’ he quipped lightly, and found that he could only agree when he tasted his own steak.

It wasn’t a masterpiece, but given his diet over recent months it was pretty damn close to perfect.

They ate with the sound of the radio in the kitchen, low music to accompany the chink of cutlery against china and their idle chat about the well-oiled plans for the covert event she’d planned at the home the next day.

‘Will you come?’ she asked. ‘They say an army marches on its stomach, and Skinny Steve is no born leader.’

‘I like him,’ Hal said, jumping to Steve’s defence. His young apprentice for the week might not be a culinary genius, but he was a hard worker and good at following instructions. ‘He’ll make a decent chef one day.’

‘Yeah, but not by tomorrow,’ she wheedled. ‘Say you’ll come?’

‘Fine,’ he relented. ‘I’ll come. But I’m staying in the kitchen, okay?’

‘Deal,’ she said, and he knew he’d pleased her from the smile behind her voice.

Considering the volatile nature of their relationship, Honey was actually a pretty easy person to please.

He’d been accustomed to a life surrounded by high-maintenance people before the accident; demanding customers, his party hard friends, and of course, Imogen.

Had he himself been high maintenance too?

Probably. If a penchant for expensive clothes, good food and fast cars made someone high maintenance, then maybe so.

Honey stood and cleared the plates.

‘I didn’t buy dessert,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a dessert man.’

He didn’t argue. He’d always choose a cheeseboard over a cheesecake. ‘I’ll take some Stilton?’ he said, teasing her.

‘You’re welcome to a Dairylea triangle,’ she laughed lightly.

‘I’ll pass,’ he said, pushing his chair back. ‘Shall we go through to the lounge?’

He followed Honey and settled on the sofa, accepting his refilled glass with thanks.

‘I have something for you,’ Honey said, hovering close enough for him to smell the light scent of her perfume and sounding uncharacteristically shy. ‘For your birthday.’

He put his glass down carefully on the coffee table in front of him. ‘You brought me a present?’

In years gone by, he’d given and received many extravagant gifts.

This year his only wish had been for his birthday to slide in and out again unmarked, so quite why he’d had a skinful and blurted it out to Honey was beyond him.

The fact that she’d gone to all of this trouble and rustled up a late notice gift had actually touched Hal greatly.

Although, knowing Honey, he should probably approach any gift she’d chosen with a certain degree of trepidation.

She perched beside him on the sofa and placed a package into his hands.

‘It’s not much,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know whether to wrap it or not,’ she said. ‘It’s in a box so I left it.’

He felt around the contours of the box and picked open the lid, feeling inside until his fingers closed around something cool and metal.

‘It’s a hip flask,’ she said. ‘I thought it might help you drink less whisky if it comes in a smaller bottle.’