How To Choose a Sweetheart

by Nigel Bird

  Max watches her concentration. The effort on her face as she plays. The joy she radiates as they clap and cheer when she’s done, like she’s won an Olympic gold. His insides dance with happiness.

  “That’s wonderful,” he tells her, meaning more than the words suggest. Sure, the tune was pretty rubbish, but it meant the world. “You know, I didn’t start writing my first composition until a little while ago, so you’re way ahead of me.”

  “Have you got a name for it yet?” Alice asks as one composer to another.

  “How about Ice Lolly Drip?”

  Alice doesn’t look sure.

  “It’s a good name,” Cath says. It’s kind of like she’s encouraging him to get it finished so that he can play it and put the last piece of the romantic jigsaw into place. “Anyway, poppet, you need to be getting yourself ready for bed. Off you go.”

  Alice gives Max another hug. When the thought of his deception swoops through his mind like a vampire bat, his heart skips a beat.

  “When’s your next Sunday off,” Alice asks him.

  “This weekend, I think.”

  “Can we go skating then?”

  “Definitely.” The word’s out and there’s no turning back.

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.” Doubly so.

  “Good night Max,” she says and pecks him on the cheek. He wraps his arms around her and holds on tight for a second.

  “Good night,” Alice says when Max lets go.

  “Will you come and get me ready Mum?”

  Cath stands up without being asked twice. “Let’s go Chicken,” she says and they walk off into the bedroom like a large pea and a small one in a pod.

  Soon as they’re gone, Max sits on the piano stool and tries to copy Alice’s tune. It’s hopeless. He can’t even recreate the first three notes.

  THIRTY ONE

  Max and Cath doze on the sofa, Max curled into the contours of Cath’s body, half aware of the perfect fit and half dreaming about a cricket match from his schooldays.

  The scuffle of slippers on the floorboards wakes him enough to force open his eyes until there’s a tiny slit to let the light in and for the cricket game to vaporise just as he was about to come in to bat.

  Alice is there carrying a glass of water.

  She drinks it quickly and puts the empty glass down on the coffee table.

  For a while, she just stands there looking at the couple. Her head shifts from side to side and her brow furrows as she looks at the bodies in front of her and then she disappears.

  Max lets himself forget that she was there and tries to slip back into his dreams so he can find out how many runs he’s scored.

  The sound of Alice’s slippers and something dragging along the floor wakes him again.

  Next thing, he feels the bounce of the sofa cushions as Alice steps up onto them, followed by a small body curling into his back. A cover of some kind is pulled over his legs and waist and he drifts off again, 99 not out and about to face the new ball.

  THIRTY TWO

  Even though it’s early summer, their breath makes little clouds in front of their faces.

  The ice rink is busy with skaters who are making circles to the sounds of cheery supermarket music.

  Max, Cath and Alice walk awkwardly in a chain, the blades under their boots making them look like a drunken trio on their way home from the pub.

  Alice is the first to step onto the ice. She’s wearing a red bobble-hat with matching gloves that were taken out of the cupboard of clothes set aside for winter. She slides onto the ice like a pro.

  Max and Cath stumble onto the rink, their legs spreading unnaturally until they’re forced to hang on to each other for support. Alice laughs and points at them and then leaves them to it to go skating off around like she was born to be on the ice.

  After her first lap a boy skates over to her, speeding like a hockey player until he’s right in her way.

  Max eyes him up and down. About Alice’s age, dressed in jeans and a Gap hoodie and wearing a pair of glasses that make him look like he’ll go far one day.

  “Hi, I’m Josef,” the boy announces to Alice.

  “Hello Josef,” she says back.

  “Do you think if we really practice we can get to be as bad as our parents?” He points to the opposite side of the rink. A couple who are overdressed in anoraks and scarves are clinging on to each other as though they’re on a sinking ship.

  Alice smiles and shrugs her shoulders.

  “My dad keeps telling me he’s got a style of his own,” Josef says and then waves his arms wildly in a very good impression of a novice skating really badly. “Some style, huh?”

  Max likes the boy. He’s got charm and guts and a nice sense of humour.

  Alice smiles again. She holds up eight fingers, counts them by nodding at each in turn and then shows them to Josef. “Eight,” she says.

  “More like one for driving me here.”

  They’ve run out of things to say. The silence practically gathers icicles. Alice looks at the floor as if she’s hoping the ice will open up and take her below.

  “Would you like to skate with me for a while?”

  Alice doesn’t say anything. Max feels himself tense up and Cath’s grip on him tighten.

  They needn’t worry. Alice knows what she’s doing. She holds out her hand and Josef takes it like a true gent. A young couple whizz by them and carry on with a series of tricks involving the man lifting his partner over his head and spinning.

  Alice and Josef take off at a sedate speed, keeping their eyes on the couple. They might be show-offs, but they’re very entertaining.

  The couple in the middle spin at a faster rate and the man lowers the girl towards the ground. As she touches the ice again, the man loses his footing and the woman skids off at crazy speed, towards the side.

  Their momentum takes her straight into Alice and her new friend, knocking them over and twisting them all into a tangled pile as they all go thudding into the barrier at the side.

  The bump sounds big, like elephants beating drums.

  “Alice” Cath screams as she makes her way over to the scene of the accident with all the grace of an orangutan.

  THIRTY THREE

  The hospital smells clean, an overpowering scent of disinfectant and hand gels making Max feel sick.

  He’s doing his best not to look around, but can’t help taking a peek at some of the others making their way in from the waiting room. There’s the man with the bleeding head and a woman with a finger that’s bent in the wrong direction. Even though the sight makes his stomach shrivel, he can’t help looking over at the injuries at every opportunity.

  Alice is on a bed that has its back raised and she’s sitting up. Her tears have stopped, but her face is still blotchy and she’s watching a nurse who is carefully plastering her arm up to the elbow with some sticky, wet gauze. The nurse has deep brown skin and her black hair is cut short. She has big, dark rings under her eyes. Poor thing’s probably been up all night, Max thinks.

  “How does that feel?” the nurse asks as she works.

  “Sort of warm,” Alice says.

  “This will have to be kept on for the next couple weeks. You’ll have to try very hard not to bang it or get it wet, OK?”

  Alice nods and the nurse carries on, this time looking at Cath and Max.

  “Then we’ll take it off and it should be as good as new. She can take painkillers if you think she needs them and if she gets itchy under there, I’d recommend a knitting needle or a chopstick. Keep it dry and avoid any active games until she comes back in to check all’s well.”

  Max feels something unfamiliar growing inside him. Could it be responsibility or pride that he’s been taken seriously? It’s hard to tell, but he feels good about it, whichever it is.

  “Maybe the doctor will let you take your x-ray picture to school,” Cath says, stroking her daughter’s hair back from her face.

  “I’m sure we can manage that,” th
e nurse says.

  “Can I take it in, Mum? Please.”

  “As long as your arm’s ready.”

  “Everyone will want to write on it you know,” Max tells her.

  “Why?”

  “It’s some kind of tradition. You hurt yourself and everyone draws silly pictures on the plaster to cheer you up.”

  “But I’m not sad?”

  “They’ll just be trying to be nice,” Cath says.

  “And when we take it off,” the nurse joins in, “you can take it home and you’ll be able to remember all your friends.”

  Max feels a sudden, desperate need to get out of there for a while. Above all, his craving for nicotine has exceeded his patience levels. “Will this take long to finish off?” he asks, trying to sound neutral.

  “Ten minutes or so.”

  “Then I’ll pop out to get you something for when you’re done.” He winks at Alice and Cath opens up her bag, taking out Max’s cigarettes and lighter.

  “Here,” she says. “You might be needing these. It’s her turn to wink.

  “I’ll take them just in case.” Max heads off past the A&E counter and to the automatic doors.

  Soon as the doors open, he put a cigarette to his lips and clicks his lighter.

  The first burst of smoke clears all the clean smells and the scents of the injured from his nose and lungs. The second is pure, uninterrupted nicotine rush.

  He steps out of the doorway and leans against a wall.

  There’s an ambulance, pulled in to the bay with its lights flashing and its siren off. The driver leaps out dressed in green from top to bottom and opens the doors. The paramedics lower a stretcher from the back and carefully wheel it into the hospital.

  Max can’t help but watch, his curiosity overcoming his squeamishness.

  He sees grey hair flopping over an old man’s face, most of the features blocked from view by an oxygen mask, but he still has the unmistakeable features of the man he’s come to know over the last few months.

  “Mr Evans,” Max shouts, throwing his cigarette to the floor. “Jesus! Mr Evans.”

  He chases the paramedics into the building and catches up, taking Mr Evans’s hand and feeling just how cold it is in spite of the warm night air.

  THIRTY FOUR

  “Hang on a minute,” Chris says after taking the end of a bottle of beer from his mouth. He sits with Max at the bar of a quiet pub that smells of beer and bleach. Chris’s face is twisted in a shape Max doesn’t recognise, eyebrows down and mouth bent like Mick Jagger’s. “Your man Evans is in the hospital recovering from a heart attack and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself? That’s pretty poor, even by my standards.”

  The words hurt. It’s the truth and Max knows it, only it sounds different coming from another human being. Especially his best mate.

  “I am worried about him and everything...” Max tries to protest.

  “But Cath’s going to find out.”

  Max picks at the corner of the label of his bottle. When he gets his nail under it, he lifts it and proceeds to peel the whole thing off in one. “It’s not just Cath,” he says. “Alice will be so disappointed.”

  “It’s the bed you made, fella.”

  “What should I do, Chris? I need help.”

  “Running away springs to mind.” That was the first thing Max thought of.

  “I can’t do that,” which was the second thing. “I’ll never feel like this about anyone else.” He’s sure now of his feelings. It’s not about him, it really isn’t. His first thought was for how Cath would feel if she were to find out. He’d do anything to protect her from pain and, because of that, it feels like true love. Unconditional and unwavering. And that’s not to mention Alice. Just the thought of never seeing them again makes Max feel utterly despondent, as if the world has been stripped of light and he’s gazing down at the rocks below from the top of a very high cliff. He feels the pain in his soul and the dizziness of having the ground taken out from under his feet and then he swigs his beer to see if it will help. It doesn’t help with the anxiety, but the cold, bitter taste relieves the dryness from his throat.

  “How do you know?” It’s a fair question.

  “I just do, that’s all.” It’s a cop out of an answer, but explaining that the universe seems to lose all its oxygen when he thinks that she won’t be there seems a little over the top. “I can’t just give up on the best thing that ever happened to me.” He sees it now, the journey he had to make with school and uni and Jazz and how it was all leading to this.

  “Then the cards are dealt,” Chris says and downs the rest of his drink. “All you can do is put them down on the table.”

  “You’re a great help.”

  “Maybe you can play them gently.”

  “Thanks a mill.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The idea of telling the truth splits Max’s heart down the middle as if it’s been lying on a fault line all these years and it’s finally burst on him. “All you’ve done is make me feel worse.”

  Chris points his bottle at Max’s chest. “This is one thing you can’t pin on me.”

  He has a point, but, “That tune I’m supposed to be composing. You owe me for that one.”

  Chris looks over to the barman and holds up his glass with one hand and two fingers on the other.

  The jukebox clicks into being. A young couple, rucksacks heavy and clothes looking like they’ve been travelling for weeks have settled in at the back without Max noticing.

  A guitar strums. The song begins. ‘Poetry In Motion’ fills the bar with a cheery bop of a tune. Chris lifts his head as if it’s a Pavlovian reaction and looks up into empty space, his eyes seeming brighter than they were a few moments earlier.

  “I think I’ve got it,” he says to Max. “I may just have thought of a straw for you to cling on to. Here’s what you should do.”

  THIRTY FIVE

  The hospital ward is a gentler space than Accident and Emergency. There are no bleeding wounds or bent limbs. Here, instead, are four old men in a room, each lying back on a bed and looking as though there may never be a way out for any of them other than in a wooden box.

  The difference between Mr Evans and the others is that he has a visitor.

  Max takes a chair from beside the wall, puts it closer to the bed and sits down.

  Mr Evans appears to be sleeping. It’s the first time Max has seen him in clear light and the old man’s skin somehow looks softer. There’s a small bandage around his arm and a cable leads from it to a monitor that blips at every heartbeat.

  “Max. What a surprise.” The voice is a hoarse whisper, but it’s unmistakably Mr Evans. How he worked it out who was there without opening his eyes, Max has no idea.

  “You don’t mind, I hope.”

  “No, not at all. In fact you’re my first visitor. Ever.”

  Max puts a bag on the bedside table. He takes out a book, an old Western he got from work using his staff discount after scouring the sales table. It wasn’t easy trying to find something an old guy like Evans might appreciate.

  “I brought a book,” he says, in case it’s not obvious. ”I don’t know if you read, but cigarettes and booze were strictly off the menu.”

  “Then a book’s a great choice. After booze and music, it’s the next best means of escape.”

  “If you like it, I can bring another. There are loads of them.” A whole series going for almost nothing. “So how are you doing?”

  “They keep insisting I’m going to be fine. The bastards.”

  “Great.”

  “Great indeed. And here I am waiting for my grand exit.”

  “Don’t think like that.” It’s shocking to hear a man inviting death in that way. Makes Max uneasy. Like the Grim Reaper might come in and take them both in one huge mistake. “You’ve got to think positively.”

  “I thought I was.”

  “You may feel like you’re ready to die, but you don’t even know how to.” He
’s pleased with himself and decides he can have this conversation, no sweat.

  “For once, you might be correct.”

  “Good.” He’s headed the old guy off at the pass. Now he just needs to lead him back into civilisation.

  “They’ll get rid of me in a couple of days, you know. Like the last time. It’ll be back to the usual stagnation, only they’ll say I shouldn’t drink or smoke.”

  “This time, I’ll be taking my lessons. That’ll bring cheer into your life.”

  Mr Evan’s raises one eyebrow and sweeps his hand through his fine, grey hair. “And that’s to be my raison d’etre?”

  Max brightens. “I think I’ve got another pupil for you.”

  “Another? I’ll have no patience left.”

  “Left? I think you ran out of that way before I met you.”

  “I performed admirably under the circumstances. Did my best to scare you away and it only had the opposite effect.” He sits forward a little and adjusts himself on the pillow. “No, this time I’m hanging up my metronome for good.”

  “You can’t.” The words are high pitched and full of worry. “I mean, you can, but you’ve got to listen to me first.” It occurs to Max that this is his only bite at the cherry, which reminds him that he should bring fruit on the next visit. His lungs itch and his scalp spangles, like he’s having an allergic reaction to the ‘last stand’ thing.

  “Seeing as I’m a captive audience,” Mr Evans says, “you may let your monologue begin.”

  Max dives in, feet first, not unconcerned about the temperature of the reaction.

  “You told me about your love and that you lost her. I think I can understand. You see, I’ve met her. Mine. My love. She’s let me look through windows to life that I never even knew existed. Windows into places I don’t think I was even supposed to see.”

  “This sounds good,” Mr Evans says, and props himself up to listen.