How To Choose a Sweetheart Read online

  How To Choose A Sweetheart

  by Nigel Bird

  How To Choose A Sweetheart

  nigel bird

  Published by nigel bird, 2013.

  A Sea Minor Publication

  Copyright © 2013 Nigel Bird

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13:

  9781311223821

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  HOW TO CHOOSE A SWEETHEART

  First edition. August 13, 2013.

  Copyright © 2013 nigel bird.

  ISBN: 978-1311223821

  Written by nigel bird.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  How To Choose A Sweetheart

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  THIRTY TWO

  THIRTY THREE

  THIRTY FOUR

  THIRTY FIVE

  THIRTY SIX

  THIRTY SEVEN

  THIRTY EIGHT

  THIRTY NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY ONE

  FORTY TWO

  FORTY THREE

  FORTY FOUR

  FORTY FIVE

  FORTY SIX

  for the birds

  for my dad’s 80th birthday

  with love

  and thanks for everything

  (well, almost everything)

  Also by Nigel Bird

  Mr Suit

  Dirty Old Town (and other stories)

  Beat On The Brat (and other stories)

  With Love And Squalor

  Into Thin Air

  Smoke

  In Loco Parentis

  Nigel’s work also in:

  Speedloader

  True Brit Grit

  Grimm Tales

  Pulp Ink

  Mammoth Best British Crime 8

  Mammoth Best British Crime 9

  Protectors

  Both Barrels

  HOW TO CHOOSE A SWEETHEART

  ONE

  The prospect of meeting up with Jazz always causes a physical reaction in Max. This time, his body is performing worse tricks than usual. His palms are sweating and his stomach lurches as if he’s taking a trip across the sea in the middle of a storm. What he needs to do is to get things over with, to find out exactly where he stands and what Jazz is thinking. The sooner he knows, the better it will be. Unfortunately, the hands on the clock seem to be conspiring with his stomach and appear to be dragging things out as much as they possibly can.

  He idles away his time behind the till drumming his fingers on the books he’s supposed to be putting away and watches the lunchtime rush come and go. Angela hasn’t returned from her break and she’s been at least an hour and ten minutes, which is way out of order.

  Jazz and Max have had a weekly lunch-date in the Garbanzo ever since he started working in the shop. They even carried on getting together when he moved out of the flat. It only stopped happening three months earlier when Jazz told him she needed a chance to cool down. To find some space. Funny that it seemed to coincide with her meeting Alan.

  Today will be their first meeting since then. Max is hoping it will be the first of many, if nothing else giving his lunch-hours a sense of purpose once again.

  A pressure builds up behind Max’s eyes and he’s expecting a headache to arrive at any time soon, when Angela walks through the entrance on the floor below.

  She has a different hairstyle than when she left. Her straight, flat hair has been transformed into gentle curls that bounce with every step. As if that isn’t enough, it’s even changed colour from a mousy brown to a vibrant red. It kind of suits her, but he’s too cross with her to say.

  On the ground floor Chris gives a wolf-whistle and a round of applause as Angela passes by.

  Max doesn’t want to waste another second. He pulls on his jacket and skips past the cafe that has virtually taken up half of the space from the book shelves since he started working there.

  He takes the stairs two at a time as he makes his way down to the ground floor, noticing the poster for the event the following week is crooked and making a mental note to straighten it when he returns.

  For meeting Jazz he’s wearing his favourite work clothes - a tight white shirt with a narrow collar, a yellow silk tie that sparkles in the light, neatly creased drainpipe trousers and polished winkle-picker boots. His hair is perfectly quiffed so that he could be a refugee from The Stray Cats and his face is shaved so that he looks too young to be out of school when the light catches him in profile.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Chris calls him over. “Max. Hey, Max.”

  Even though Max is keen to get out, he can’t resist finding out what has put such a broad grin on his friend’s face.

  Chris leans forward, shifts the pile of ‘Hard Times’ that he was supposed to have put on the classics table at the beginning of the day and whispers behind his hand as if imparting some deep secret of the book-selling world. “He’s in again. Science-fiction.”

  Max turns around slowly, trying to be subtle.

  Sure enough, there he is. He looks like he eats for Great Britain and has a face like the cratered surface of the moon. He’s rocking slightly on his heels as he browses through a book. Max recognises the title from the spine. It’s ‘The Blob’, new in and completely ignored up until now. The man holds it close to his face like always, as if he’s in need of reading glasses. A bead of snot has formed at the tip of his nose and lengthens as the book-sellers watch. The string of snot eventually stretches too far and breaks, the drip falling onto the ‘The Blob’s’ fresh pages.

  Chris and Max cringe together and burst out laughing.

  Max makes another mental note, to avoid the sci-fi section that afternoon, and heads for the exit.

  As soon as he’s outside, he pulls out his packet of cigarettes and takes out a smoke. He lights it with his Zippo and sucks in as much nicotine as he can. It’s supposed to calm the nerves, but instead just makes his heart beat faster and his nausea grow. That doesn’t stop him and he puffs hard as he crosses the road and heads off down the alleyway opposite the shop.

  At the Phoenix Cinema, he takes a copy of the new programme and slips it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He puts out his cigarette in the ashtray that’s attached to the wall outside the foyer and pops a tablet of chewing gum into his mouth.

  Before he goes in to the cafe for his date, he stops to calm his breathing.

  As soon as he’s ready, he wanders over to the door.

  He loves The Garbanzo and the way it never seems to change. Behind the chrome counter there are large mirrors that give the place an open, spacious feel. They’ve been there since the 1950s, as have the black and white Italian tiles and the stools that stand to attention in front of glass cases which are filled with delicious looking cakes and sandwiches.

  From the ceiling hang cotton wool clouds and vario
us model aircraft that are positioned in dog-fights. One of the German planes has a broken wing and points straight at the floor. He’s never understood why, but this plane is Max’s favourite.

  Jazz is already at their table, the one in the corner of the window.

  She looks gorgeous, as ever, not that everyone appreciates her beauty. It’s probably the glasses that mean she doesn’t attract much attention when she’s out – thick lenses and round plastic frames, but she likes them and that’s what matters. Her hair is cut into a short bob and her skin is perfect, but it’s when she smiles that Max feels a wave of joy washing over him. Perhaps it’s the sincerity of it he likes, or the way it spreads right across her face and lights up a room. Whatever it is, she’s smiling at him now and he feels all his agitation leave him just as though he’d left it at the door.

  He kisses her cheek as softly as he can manage, slips off his jacket and hangs it on the back of his chair, careful to make sure it won’t crease while he’s there.

  “Hi stranger,” she says.

  “Stranger?”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Three months.”

  “Since I met Alan and everything got super-intense.”

  The mention of Alan might as well have opened the door and let Max’s anxieties rush back in. His shoulders tense and he has the urge to run. Instead, it’s his words that speed out of his mouth at full pelt.

  “Alan? I’m glad I got to bring you together. I just knew that you’d have lots in common.” That’s an obvious lie and Max tries to cover it up by turning to nod to the waitress.

  The waitress steps over confidently in her high heels, her beehive hair stacked immaculately on top of her head and her body showing all of its voluptuous shape in a black and white uniform that must be at least a size too small.

  “Two Cappuccinos, please,” he says, and the waitress flutters her long eyelashes at him as she writes on her pad.

  “Anything else?”

  “Not for now thanks.” The waitress turns and Jazz lets her eyes follow the wiggle of her hips.

  “She fancies you, you know?” There’s a Geordie softness to her accent that adds to her charm. Boy, he’s missed her being around.

  Max feels his face go warm and gets back to the point. “You and Alan? Do you think it might be serious?”

  He’d meant to be more subtle. Let the story unfold in the telling so that he could find out exactly where he stands without asking. He takes a deep breath as he waits for the answer. If things are rocky, he’s going in for the kill and will ask her for a proper date.

  “Could be.”

  Max’s stomach feels heavy as his heart sinks, as if he’s eaten a box of his gran’s rock cakes. “Like that fairy tale you’d all but given up on I suppose?”

  “I hope so.”

  She hopes so. That’s bad. As if she actually wants it to work out. Asking for a date is clearly out of the question. “It doesn’t seem fair. I should have been your Prince Charming.”

  “Max you are a prince, just not mine, that’s all.”

  “It was nice pretending though, wasn’t it?”

  “I was never pretending.” He knows that’s true. Jazz couldn’t even tell a tiny white lie if her life depended on it. “Don’t worry. Things will all fall into place for you one day. You’ll find your sweetheart.”

  The waitress arrives at the table and carefully puts down two coffees. This time she smiles at Jazz and doesn’t look at Max.

  “See?” Jazz says when the waitress leaves, “she definitely fancies you.”

  “She didn’t even look at me.” Max picks up the glass sugar dispenser and pours a small mountain of crystals onto his sprinkling of chocolate. “How do you know, Jazz? That things will fall into place for me? Sometimes I get the feeling that it’s there waiting and I just never seem to get there. How the hell will I find a sweetheart if I carry on like this?”

  “Just keep turning the corners and see what’s there.” Jazz spoons some of the chocolaty foam from her mug and into her mouth.

  “A lingering smile perhaps. Better still I’ll be the hero of some disaster, helping my true love: the mugger; the dropped shopping; the car that won’t start...”

  “But you’re completely useless with cars.”

  “I could enrol in a class.”

  “Picking up shopping lessons?”

  “I could start with that one.” They laugh and Max stirs his coffee.

  “You don’t need classes in anything, you know plenty already.”

  “If I know enough, why are you going out with someone else?” Here he goes again. Even he’s tired of hearing the old argument.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Sorry.” He can’t help himself. His mind just spins in circles. “What about tonight? Do you fancy....never mind. I’ll shut up and drink my coffee,” which is exactly what he does.

  He gives it some thought and decides to try another angle. “Can you make it here next week? Get back into the old routine?”

  “I’ll make it.”

  “Then don’t forget to bring along a present. It’ll be a year since your big elbow got in the way. We should celebrate.”

  TWO

  Sunday morning in the bookshop feels like the graveyard shift. Light classical music fills the space with what are supposed to be soothing tunes, but are only making Max’s headache worse.

  Everyone looks awful.

  Max and Chris stand together.

  Chris has been leaning on the till trying to sober up, but it isn’t working. Max watches him turn pale, then slightly yellow and then stand bolt upright. He retches, retches again and runs from the till in the direction of the staff door. As he runs, he bumps into a young lady.

  She looks straight at Max as if hoping for an answer that might explain his colleague’s behaviour and then she smiles as if it doesn’t really matter.

  It’s hardly a big smile, nothing like the beam of Jazz. Even so, it knocks the wind out of Max as much as a heavy punch to the abdomen might.

  He watches the woman as she walks away from him towards the notice board at the back of the shop.

  She leaves a delicate scent behind her, something like flowers mixed with coconut oil, and Max hopes it’s enough to cover up the smell of the booze he’s been sweating from his pores since he arrived.

  The lady takes a pin from the board and puts up a message written on a postcard. Before turning back, she checks its position while Max checks her out. Long, sandy-brown hair, a straight back, a slender waist and a sexy pair of jeans. Wow.

  The spell is broken by the ominous tones of the Death March booming from the speakers, and that’s definitely not on the playlist – the manager would have a fit if she was in.

  Chris enters the shop floor again from the staff door, head bowed and stepping in time to the music. He limps straight over to Max’s till and flings himself onto the counter so that he’s lying on his back. He lies there motionless while Max picks up a pen and writes. He holds up two pieces of card, one with the number 4 written down, the other a 2.

  “What do you mean six?” Chris snaps.

  He throws his hands into the air in mock turmoil then turns to look at the girls at the back till. Each of them holds up two cards of their own, a 3 and a 4, and a 6 with a 7.

  “A 6 and a 7! I told you Angela had a thing for me,” Chris says.

  “Perhaps she just likes the idea of you dying.”

  “I caught her watching me at the party a few times. Thirteen, man. It’s the highest I can remember.”

  “What about the Hunchback of Notre-Dame?”

  “That doesn’t count. Mags already looks like Quasimodo. She has an unfair advantage.”

  “And you already look half-dead, friend.”

  Chris turns to look at Angela again. “Kisses sweeter than wine, I’ll bet.”

  She looks cute with her red waves of hair and the long earrings that are big enough to be seen from where they stand.

  “The
y’d have to be the crap you drink.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out. Here goes nothing.”

  Chris dusts himself off and walks over to the girls at the back.

  When he’s gone, Max deserts his post and wanders over to the notice board.

  The card the lady left is written in immaculate handwriting and reads:

  PIANO LESSONS WANTED for girl aged six. Flexible in terms of lesson times. Call Cath on 0207 – 607 3973

  The plan forms in his mind before he has time to give the matter any serious thought.

  Max looks around to make sure no one is watching. He takes the card and then scans the board for another, one he remembers being there forever, a tatty, brown envelope with a scrawled message. He spots it, takes it down and walks back over to the till. He picks up the phone receiver and dials.

  “Mr Evans? I’m interested in learning the piano.”

  “Have you had lessons before?” The voice on the other end of the line is deep and reminds Max of Richard Burton.

  “No I haven’t. I tried the violin, but the teacher didn’t seem to like me.”

  “Which was enough to make you give up?”

  “I think it was a clash of personalities.”

  “Do you own a piano?” It’s a fair, if unexpected, question.

  “I’m still looking. There have been a couple I’ve liked.”

  “When would you like to start?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “How about 6.30? The address is on the card.”

  “Great. I’ll see you later. Goodbye.”

  The phone goes dead before another word is spoken. It seems odd that the man’s so gruff, but he’s not after lessons in politeness. He’s lucky to get a lesson at all, he decides, which maybe means things are meant to go this way.

  When he puts the phone down, he takes a deep breath and considers his course of action. Is he crazy? Asking for lessons like that? He doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. And the teacher sounded a little odd.

  Of course he’s crazy, but knowing it has never stopped him in the past.

  Before he can change his mind, he switches cards and takes another deep breath. He exhales, picks up the receiver and dials the next number with his pen.