Chapter 26
Hannah wasn’t sure when she’d see or hear from Jude again after they parted on Sunday morning. The need for them to put a pin in whatever was happening between them was clear, and it wasn’t like he had a strong track record when it came to keeping in touch.
They’d kissed and said a slightly stilted goodbye, neither of them seeming quite sure where they stood.
After the gorgeous intensity of their night together, the revelation of Marc’s public attack on her had felt like a drive-by shooting.
Jude had told her he didn’t want to head home while she was upset, and she’d felt sure he meant it.
However, she’d insisted she’d be fine with Charlie and told him not to change his plans on her behalf.
At Hannah’s insistence, she and Jude hadn’t hashed out some new, mutual understanding of their past – and in the present, he seemed as fearful as ever of disappointing his mother.
Hannah reminded herself he was going back to Australia after the wedding, anyway.
Yes, he’d said, ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ and it had plucked at some tender, fragile thing buried deep down inside her – but it had felt like a fleeting confession, not a statement of intent.
They’d made one another no promises, and perhaps they never would, now.
Perhaps what had happened between them on Saturday was how they’d say their final farewell. Maybe that would have to be enough.
After Jude had gone home yesterday, Charlie had stayed by Hannah’s side all afternoon.
For the sake of occupying her thoughts productively, they finalised the menu for Ed and Joe’s wedding, then did some very early prep work for a charity event they’d be collaborating on in November.
Once Charlie had headed home, Hannah stress-cleaned the flat and took the decision to phone her mum and Claire.
Livi had already clocked the social media disaster, thanks to her access to the Eventurous accounts and near addiction to checking their performance.
Hannah decided it would be cowardly to let the rest of her family hear about ‘Never The Bride’ second-hand, and she also knew contacting them directly would be a show of strength.
They’d worry if she seemed to be running from it, rather than considering it a temporary blip she could handle.
Both Jane and Claire had been typically stoic, with Jane assuring Hannah she was far too talented and hard-working for something as silly as this to derail her success.
Meanwhile, Claire had declared, ‘As Taylor wisely tells us, trash will take itself out.’ Hannah hadn’t known what she meant by this, so her sister clarified: ‘He’ll overplay his part.
Stretch the story too far. The nice-guy veneer will come unstuck and people will see Marc for what he is.
All you have to do is wait.’ Hannah hoped, rather than believed, this to be true.
Twenty-four hours after the release of Marc’s new single, the Eventurous Instagram and TikTok accounts were officially out of control.
Comment after comment had been left on old images, carousels and videos over the past twenty-four hours, and the firm had been tagged in what felt like thousands of posts.
Hannah had been linked to reposts, shares and screen grabs of Marc’s latest (definitely not greatest) release.
‘The song is utter shite,’ Livi said, wrinkling her nose. ‘That’s what riles me most.’
‘Is it?’ Hannah asked, incredulous. ‘Not the two thousand followers we’ve haemorrhaged, or the unexplained cancellation we’ve already had for next June?
’ It was Monday morning, and they were in her sitting room, attempting some sort of crisis management after her breakfast time call with Tamsin, Joe’s agent.
‘Hm. Those things are riling me as well,’ Livi conceded. ‘I still can’t believe he’s done this. I thought he was way too old to pull this sort of shit – not to mention a nice, romantic sort of guy.’
‘Age is no guarantee of maturity,’ Hannah interjected. ‘Trust me on that.’
‘As for the idea he’s a “nice, romantic sort of guy”,’ Charlie added, ‘that’s definitely how he thinks about himself – as well as what his record company’s trying to put over.
In fact, he is a thunderous dickbag. This entire episode is founded on a delusion: the belief that because he’s singing sad songs about love, he must be some sort of wounded Romeo.
What’s depressing is the number of people buying into this mass hallucination.
Marc not naming Hannah isn’t the same as not identifying her: he doesn’t get a fucking prize for refusing to reveal her identity, like that idiot Mail journo made out.
How can people not see that the breadcrumb trail he’s left is, at best, unforgivably careless and, at worst, a form of doxing? ’
‘Because they’re thunderous dickbags, too?’ Livi said.
‘Exactly,’ Charlie agreed. All Hannah could do was nod.
‘Honestly,’ Charlie went on, ‘would anyone be feeling sorry for Marc if he’d posted a bunch of fake one-star reviews of Eventurous on Trustpilot?
I don’t think so. But that song is just as toxic!
Even worse, because it’s all about his feelings, because he’s warbling about having a broken heart in a minor key, it’s hard to fight back without coming off as callous.
At least with Trustpilot you stand a chance of getting bullshit reviews deleted, as Felicity the vegan discovered. ’
‘Those are some excellent points,’ Livi said. ‘Are you sure it’s your ex-husband who’s the lawyer?’
Charlie tilted her head to indicate, Yes, but I was always smarter than him. She preened a little, then tore open a Tupperware containing six freshly baked, chocolate-covered marshmallow teacakes.
On Tamsin’s advice, their first step today had been to assess and try to categorise the reactions they were seeing to ‘Never The Bride’. Then, it would be up to Hannah to decide whether her accounts should remain open or be locked down while she waited for the fuss around Marc’s song to die away.
Hannah had prepared a statement on her history with Marc before her Teams meeting with Tamsin: an honest account of what had passed between them, including how he’d intimidated her at Ed and Joe’s engagement party, then again in a professional setting.
It was well written, the agent had said, but she’d advised caution – suggested that posting it could inflame the situation further, even unleashing a new wave of misogynistic rage if the story ended up in the manosphere.
At the very least, Tamsin explained, Hannah putting forward an alternate narrative would prolong the life of the problem.
‘It’s the equivalent of throwing another log on the fire, I’m afraid,’ she’d said in clipped received pronunciation, her sharp blonde bob swinging as she shook her head through Hannah’s iPad screen.
‘I sympathise, but I’d be inclined to keep this back for now.
Deploy it only if you have no other choice a little later down the line. ’
The good news, Hannah supposed, was that the comments on ‘Never The Bride’ weren’t universally pro-Marc.
A few had criticised it as facile and poorly written, and a handful of people pointed out that Hannah had every right to end their relationship.
To Charlie’s delight, several comments also argued that making Hannah so easily identifiable, and gunning for her livelihood, were clear acts of aggression.
The Daily Mail hadn’t helped in this regard, with this morning’s story on Marc’s new single reproducing – and analysing – the lyrics in full, both in the paper and online.
The ‘speculative’ annotations provided drew a line from Marc to Hannah that was so clear even a Premier League referee couldn’t miss it.
Hannah hadn’t told Livi or Charlie this, but seeing it first thing had been enough to make her bring back her coffee.
As she heaved over the kitchen sink, she knew lines like ‘your smile’s a mile wide, but you’re never the bride’ and ‘my heart’s on my sleeve, but you just don’t believe’ were so objectively bad, she should find the song funny.
Unfortunately, she’d discovered she was unable to laugh at any of this.
Who would want to employ a wedding planner who didn’t believe in love?
That was the question Marc’s song posed, and Hannah feared the answer was ‘nobody’.
He’d made her out to be some hardened cynic, imposing on her clients and laughing at them behind their backs.
This was crazy, but it was with some discomfort that she remembered how readily she’d once leaned into a sceptical ‘too smart for this’ persona – how she’d convinced even Charlie she was .
. . what had she called herself? A realist who enjoys her independence.
The truth, of course, was that she’d always wholeheartedly believed in true love, in soulmates, in one person being the right person.
It had just been easier to pretend that wasn’t true, to build a life where she didn’t want it to be true, when she thought she’d never see her ‘right person’ again.
Hannah felt worst about how Ed and Joe had been dragged into this.
Their engagement and upcoming wedding had already garnered plenty of coverage, but Marc’s attack on Hannah had added a new and interesting dimension to their story.
They were mentioned in every single article about her – even referenced in many of the headlines.
The two of them had cried laughing at ‘SEX DOCTOR’S SIREN SIS-IN-LAW brOKE MY HEART, SAYS FORMER LITE SKY FRONTMAN’. Hannah had been mortified.