How To Choose a Sweetheart by Nigel Bird Page B

when he returns and he holds the book out to her.
    She turns to him and checks the title. “I’ll take it.”
    That was easy. “Don’t you want to know what it’s about or anything?”
    “It would spoil the surprise.”
    “Suppose so.” He looks around checking for his boss. She’s staring at him like an owl might eye up a mouse on a plate. “If you can hang around I can get it on staff discount. I just have to be sure the old dragon isn’t watching.
    “I’ll take it as is,” she says. “I need to pick Alice up. Thanks all the same.”
    Max scans the book, puts it into a bag and takes a note from Cath. He taps the till then hands over the change and the receipt.
    “Maybe we could talk about it sometime.”
    Slam dunk. “I only talk about books when I’m drinking.”
    “So let’s do some drinking then. How about I cook us dinner next Thursday after the lesson? As a kind of thank you.”
    Hasn’t she seen the size of the book? Max wonders. “That would be wonderful, but...” And where the hell did that ‘but’ come from?
    “You’re already busy, right?”
    She looks genuinely taken aback, her eyes opening with surprise and her cheeks and her ears pinking up immediately.
    Surely he can’t blow this one. “No, no, that would be lovely. If you’re sure.”
    It’s like someone has run on, painted relief onto her face and disappeared without being noticed.   “Absolutely.”
    “Great.”
    “I can cook while you’re working.”
    Which is fantastic because then he’ll be able to bluff his way through another lesson unobserved. “I’ll bring the wine then. Red or white?”
    “How about one of each to be on the safe side.”
    This really could be the woman of Max’s dreams, even if she might have to share the space with Jazz.
    Cath takes her new book from the bag. She puts it up to her nose, flicks the pages and takes a sniff. “You wouldn’t believe the things Alice comes out with. This morning she swore she could smell green eggs and ham.”
    Max’s face heats up a little.
    Cath returns the book to the bag and gets set to leave. “I’ll look forward to it then.”
    Just as she sets off, Max remembers something. “Wait. I’m sorry, I’m a vegetarian.”
    “And I thought you were English.” The look she gives him over her shoulder is irresistible. It’s the perfect cure for a hangover.
    “Hope you like the read,” he calls after her as she leaves the shop.
    As soon as the door closes behind her, Chris appears at Max’s shoulder. “Tell me that was her.”
    Max nods, and puffs out a deep sigh of relief.
    Chris puffs out his cheeks to give his best wow face. “You can keep the piano after all. I’ll sleep inside it if I have to.”
    He pats Max on the back and rubs the top of his shoulders before leaving. Max just stares at the door.
    The music in the shop changes to ‘Poor Little Fool’ by Ricky Nelson.
    Amelie wanders by and passes a card into his hands.
    He raises it, looks at it and smiles. In the middle of the card, she’s scribbled a huge 10.

ELEVEN
    S unday night and Max walks in to Mr Evans’s living room all prepared for his next lesson, only a couple of minutes late.
    Mr Evans is sitting in his armchair coughing into a handkerchief. It’s a wet cough, the kind that sounds like it could kill an ox. His grey hair has flopped forward and looks out of control.
    Without any first aid knowledge, it seems to Max that the best thing to do is to get a glass of water. He goes into the kitchen. The place is tiny and he stretches out his arms, managing to put a flattened palm onto each wall. It has a Belfast sink and, like the city, it’s clearly been through the wars. The two taps are huge and they’re covered with white scale. When Max turns the cold tap to leave it to run, there’s a judder that runs through the pipes and sounds as if it might wreck the place.
    On the shelves there are various pots and pans and crockery. He takes a glass that has lost something of its