Chapter 7 #2
Jane sent Jude a soft smile that felt almost sympathetic, and his heart twinged with sudden awareness that he’d missed her.
She was warm and reliable – an adult that had always felt safe and trustworthy, who’d hovered on the periphery of his childhood, never interfering but close enough that he knew she was there.
She’d always been kind to him, too – was being surprisingly kind now, if she knew what had passed between him and Hannah two days ago.
Jane was seated next to Livi, who was so grown up he might not have recognised her, were it not for the family resemblance to Ed, Claire and their mother.
Hannah was something of an outlier; the only sibling with ‘Dad’s side’ colouring – green eyes and reddish-blonde hair – instead of the dark honey curls and hazel irises Jane had gifted her other children.
Today, Hannah looked as lovely as ever: her long hair loose, soft and shining, spread over mostly bare shoulders.
She was in a strappy, olive-green dress that promised sunburn if she stayed outside too long.
He wondered if she still used the same coconut-scented SPF cream she used to favour, then instantly admonished himself for remembering how he’d loved the way its fragrance lingered on his bedsheets during the summer they’d spent together.
A waiter in a pale blue polo shirt with ‘The Bluebell Inn’ and a picture of the flower embroidered on it appeared to Jude’s right.
He was clutching a tray that held seven small tumblers and a large jug of iced water.
Behind him was a similarly attired colleague, who promptly set down a copper-coloured ice bucket and stand.
Inside the bucket was a magnum of Taittinger champagne.
‘Oh,’ Jude said, confused. ‘I think you have the wrong table – this isn’t for us, we haven’t ordered drinks yet.’
‘It’s fine,’ Joe shouted from several feet away.
‘It’s ours. Preordered.’ The waiters retreated, one returning a moment later with another tray, this time laden with flutes.
Joe got to his feet and ensured they were passed around.
The returned waiter twisted the champagne bottle around its cork until it popped, the sound assaulting Jude’s ears like a gunshot.
His whole body hummed with awareness of some imminent danger – like he was an animal in a BBC nature programme who could sense, but not yet see, the predator about to end its life.
He felt eyes on him and turned, astounded to find they were Hannah’s.
As he met her gaze, he felt a jolt of recognition – the clunking into place of a connection he’d long considered lost. It was like finding a rusty key and discovering it still fitted a disused lock.
They’d had it since the early days of their friendship, this ability to communicate wordlessly.
Jude had never found it with anyone else – never expected to, either – and it was one of the reasons he’d always been so sure about Hannah.
He guessed it must be different for her; she probably had a similar dynamic with her twin, and in any case had never been socially awkward in the way he often was.
They held one another’s eyes for seconds that felt like hours, silently agreeing that neither of them understood what was happening here – but also that it seemed significant.
Exchanging information like this felt risky.
Transgressive. It broke rules Jude had fully committed to following when he decided his only hope of surviving Hannah was trying to forget her.
That said, he supposed the state he’d been in since Friday had already proved that plan a failure – and on a scale that, even in his bleakest moments of missing her, he’d never have predicted.
‘You may have guessed by now why we’re all here today,’ Joe said indulgently, to smiles and nods from Jane and Claire.
To Jude’s amazement, Hannah shot him another look – a new, different one seemed to say, ‘Oh my fucking god. Is this actually happening . . .?’ It seemed that she, like her mum and sister, was a step ahead of him.
Joe went on: ‘I wanted all of you to hear this news together, since – for the first time in so long – getting you in the same room was actually a possibility.’ Jude squirmed as his brother nodded in his direction.
‘This wonderful man’ – Joe now gestured at a blushing, starry-eyed Ed – ‘has agreed . . . to marry me.’
There were oohs and aahs. Exclamations of excitement. A ripple of applause. And from either end of the table, two sharp intakes of breath that nobody else seemed to notice.
‘If you could all please raise your glasses . . .’ Joe said, and Jude mechanically did as he’d been told. ‘To my fiancé, everyone,’ Joe went on, ‘and to our forthcoming wedding. Which – assuming the event planner I’ve engaged can get the job done – will be this September.’
The ramifications of Joe and Ed’s engagement were, in mathematical parlance, exponential.
They seemed to keep growing, and worsening, the more Jude thought about them – which he found himself doing as he forced down a dessert of pistachio cream-filled profiteroles.
These looked, and should have tasted, delicious, but the adrenaline coursing through his body appeared to have obliterated every sensation but panic.
The pastry felt like sawdust in his mouth.
Jude’s first problem was that there was now no way he could head back to Australia in haste.
Not unless he was prepared to repeat the whole sorry experience of travelling here again in the autumn.
Joe had boxed him into the extended visit he’d suggested in the neatest, most effective, most public way imaginable.
He’d pitted sticking around for an unmissable family occasion – not to mention being here for the engagement and stag parties in the run-up to it – against the inevitable awfulness of another round-trip to Sydney.
Then there was Lillian to consider. Her reaction to the news would surely be the sort of looming, icy displeasure that Joe completely ignored and Jude found himself scrambling to soothe – not least because its shadow would pervade every corner of the house he would now be sharing with her for months.
He doubted there’d be much he could do to placate her, given her chief objections would be to things he had no control over.
He could already hear her bemoaning the ‘vulgar spectacle’ of what promised to be a stylish, celebrity-packed event, as well as the grooms’ ‘dreadful choice’ of wedding planner.
Because yes. Of course. Hannah would be managing it.
There was something off about that, though Jude couldn’t put his finger on what.
The revelation that his twin would be organising his nuptials had apparently astonished Ed, who seemed overjoyed that Hannah had agreed to take on the task.
Likewise, Livi – who it appeared was working for Hannah these days – was surprised and delighted at the prospect of helping to plan her brother’s big day.
As the two of them chattered excitedly about potential venues, colour schemes and cake options, Hannah had stared daggers at Joe across the table.
Totally uncharacteristically, he had eventually quailed and blinked first. Hannah had always been able to handle herself, so this didn’t surprise Jude so much as impress him – but he couldn’t help wanting to understand the source of whatever animosity lay between them.
Jude’s most immediate challenge, however, was that he and Hannah would both be in the wedding. Joe had sauntered to Jude’s end of the table, clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder and casually asked, ‘You’re in for best man duty, yes?’
Still reeling, Jude had mumbled, ‘Of course.’
Meanwhile, a choked-up Ed had seized Hannah’s hand and declared he had no male friends who meant as much to him as she did – that there was nobody he’d trust more than his twin to stand beside him on his big day.
Brushing tears from her eyes, Hannah had laughed and pointed out that most of Ed’s male friends considered drinking Guinness a competitive sport and therefore couldn’t be trusted to do anything.
But she’d hugged him and said yes to being his best woman in a sincere, full-hearted tone that betrayed how much this meant to her.
Seeing her so happy had made Jude’s chest ache.
In the space of a few days, he’d gone from assuming he might never see or speak to Hannah again to discovering they were key players in an event that would throw them together all summer, then unite their families forever.
The wedding meant he and Hannah would become brother- and sister-in-law, and this knowledge crystallised in his brain as he swallowed a mouthful of fragrant, nutty whipped cream.
Suddenly bilious, he shoved his half-finished dessert aside.
This was ridiculous, like a plotline from some histrionic Aussie soap opera.
It was all kinds of weird: the woman he’d both loved and lusted after for as long as he’d been capable of either would soon be legally defined as his sibling.
He didn’t miss the surge of possessiveness that reared inside him at the thought that Hannah was his before Ed was ever Joe’s.
This was the wrong wedding – it should have been him and her promising each other forever, not standing on the sidelines as they watched their brothers do it.
‘I still can’t believe this,’ he heard Livi exclaim, beneath the roaring in his ears. ‘It’s going to be so incredible!’
No, it isn’t, Jude thought. It’s going to be the slowest, most brutal form of torture imaginable.