Chapter 9 #2
She shoved her phone back inside the small black evening bag she carried, then made her way to the bar.
Her mum was on the far side of the room, chatting with Martin – a sturdily built, kind-faced kidney doctor she’d recently begun seeing.
Hannah waved and smiled, but resolved not to interrupt their date.
There was no sign of Jude yet, while Ed and Joe had already been swamped by friends, acquaintances and well-wishers.
It blew Hannah’s mind a little that they even knew this many people.
Everyone on the first floor of Crockett & King was here by invitation – though, slightly annoyingly, there was a problem with the downstairs men’s toilets, so this storey’s gents would have to be shared with the bar’s regular patrons.
Hannah guessed there must be more than a hundred and fifty guests milling around already, drifting in and out of various rooms, alcoves and ‘snugs’ – and the evening had only just started.
She couldn’t help noticing her brother looked slightly overwhelmed. He was naturally gregarious, but it was clear to her that the parameters for this party had been set by his limelight-loving fiancé. It occurred to Hannah that Ed might not know quite as many of these people as Joe did.
She ducked beneath the wildly gesturing arms of a stocky, well-groomed man in a three-piece suit so she could stand next to her brother, then felt him relax a little as she wound her arm around his waist.
‘Drink?’ he asked her. ‘Cocktail? Fizz?’
Hannah considered. An Old Fashioned would certainly take the edge off her unease, but she needed to keep her wits about her this evening. ‘Fizz would be great,’ she said.
Ed leaned towards the bar and poured her a shallow coupe of something pink and sparkling that she sensed was not prosecco.
Joe had, in a typically extravagant move, put some money behind the bar tonight, and there were rows of sparkling glasses positioned strategically on every surface, along with gigantic ice buckets stocked with bottles of champagne.
Hannah sipped from her glass, and the fizz shimmered on her tongue: vibrant and delicious, with a slight flavour of tart strawberry.
‘Oh my god,’ she moaned, a little overcome. ‘That’s delicious.’
Ed shot her a wry smile. ‘The man knows how to pick a wine. If it had been left up to me, you’d be on Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference cava.’
Hannah laughed. ‘But can Joe corral groups of thirty teenagers at a time, or kick a drop goal from fifty metres?’
‘Unlikely,’ Ed conceded, and they began to mingle.
Hannah was introduced to everyone as his twin, best friend, best woman and wedding planner.
She met people she’d heard of, and whom she’d encountered via radio, podcasts or TV – but for the most part, Joe’s showbiz pals struck her as normal and nice.
She congratulated herself on not being awestruck at meeting Dylan Byrne and Nathan Lambert, the leading man and director, respectively, of Mary Quinn: a dark BBC period drama she’d recently inhaled, and which was tipped for several Emmy nominations.
Unfortunately, it was a different magnitude of struggle to keep her face neutral when she saw Jude chatting with a tall, slender woman in the far corner of the room.
She had no idea when he’d arrived, but the tight bodice of Hannah’s dress immediately felt like it was constricting the action of her lungs.
As she scanned him, noting the casual cool of his expensive-looking jeans, grey marl t-shirt and stone-coloured chore jacket, she cursed herself for dressing up.
Perched on her three-inch heels, she felt exposed: idiotic, rather than empowered.
His head was tilted in the way that meant he was listening to his companion intently, killer cheekbones sharp in the low light of the room and teeth flashing as he smiled.
Only the woman’s back was visible from this vantage point, but Hannah didn’t need to see her face to feel sure she was attractive.
She was wearing a simple, A-line dress made of thick black organza: almost shapeless, but semi-transparent, and very much the sort of thing Hannah herself might have worn, under different – normal – circumstances.
The woman’s hair was mahogany dark and cut in a razor-sharp bob that fell to just below her earlobes.
Hannah was torn between admiring the woman’s style and .
. . yes. Wanting to shove her from the nearest open window.
The hot rush of jealousy she felt was wild.
Shocking in its headiness. Hannah berated herself for her failure to contain it, her brain supplying words like ‘inappropriate’ and ‘unreasonable’ and ‘undignified’.
The burn didn’t fade, though, and she felt maddened by the need to know who this woman was.
There was a fresh flash of heat at the back of her neck as it dawned on her that her refusal to think about Jude or his new life in Australia – let alone ask mutual acquaintances how he was doing – meant that, for all she knew, the dark-haired stranger might be someone significant.
She might be a partner of the kind Hannah hadn’t found herself.
Hadn’t, even for a moment, sought, if she was honest.
She turned to Joe, who’d appeared to her left and was grinning indulgently at Nathan Lambert’s insistence that his fiancée, screenwriter Jess Mackenzie, was the true talent behind Mary Quinn.
‘I’m just going to find another drink,’ Hannah said, the words coming out thin and scratchy.
Joe looked beyond her, easily spotting his brother.
He shot Hannah a penetrating look. ‘That’s our cousin, Tamsin.
She’s visiting from Toronto, and she’s happily married to a man called Chad. ’
‘I . . .’ Hannah groped for words and tried to prevent herself from physically sagging with relief. ‘Good for her,’ she managed after a moment, then moved as quickly as she could in the direction of the nearest tray of champagne.
Glass in hand, she retreated around a corner, then through an archway, and found herself back in the building’s rear stairwell.
There was nothing here but the entrances to the bathrooms, so – aside from the odd person coming and going – she was free to catch her breath.
Her heart was thumping like it was trying to punch its way out of her ribcage.
What the hell was wrong with her?
For the first time, she wondered whether Jude might have done her a favour by disappearing from her life so completely four years ago.
Given the seething, vengeful fury that had just engulfed her at the sight of seeing him chatting to his cousin, she had to reason that she wouldn’t have coped well with Instagrams of him and some gorgeous Aussie girlfriend loved up on Bondi Beach.
‘Hello,’ a voice said, and she felt dread drip down her spine as she realised who it belonged to.
She turned to see Marc emerging from the gents, dressed impeccably in box-fresh trainers, high-end denim and a graphic-print t-shirt.
Hannah could tell it was one of those items designed to look vintage and worn-in, but which was actually brand new and cost as much as a night in a nice hotel.
‘What are you . . .?’ She faltered, totally astonished to see him so far from home. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, as he smirked at her speechlessness from a couple of metres away.
Was it possible he’d come here to see her?
She had no clue how he’d have tracked her down, and the idea seemed mad – born of the sort of main character syndrome Hannah wasn’t usually prone to.
Yet there was something too satisfied in Marc’s expression: the gleam in his eyes spoke of a gamble that had paid off.
‘Just using the loo,’ he said, shrugging.
‘The one downstairs is closed.’ He said this with a light nonchalance that, to Hannah, appeared entirely feigned.
‘I’ve been in Manchester today to meet with some people from my old record label,’ Marc went on.
‘I’m writing again, and they’re interested in putting out some new stuff – a solo album, maybe. ’
Hannah sensed she was supposed to be impressed with this, but refused to give Marc the reaction he was angling for.
He stepped towards her, and Hannah instinctively shrank back against the wall.