Chapter 27 #2
‘Ed,’ Hannah said, ‘I used to sit in the living room window and wait for him long after the rest of you when we were kids. Have you forgotten that? I was such a daddy’s girl when he still lived with us.
I adored him. Worshipped the ground he walked on.
I even look like him, for god’s sake – I have his hair, his face.
’ She swallowed and forced herself to go on.
‘He used up his credit with me faster because I was even more desperate for him to care than you, Liv and Claire. I’m not smarter than you, it was just easier – quicker – for him to break me.
And then I had no choice but to rebuild. ’
‘But you’ve never wavered since. You’re so strong, and I’m .
. .’ Ed took a deep breath, and Hannah could see he was fighting the urge to properly cry – to do the sort of ugly sobbing that would leave his eyes red-rimmed and his face swollen up.
The event planner in her reared to life then.
She wouldn’t have him looking anything other than lovely, smiling and handsome in his wedding photos.
She wouldn’t have him looking unlike himself.
‘I did waver. Once,’ Hannah said. She knew this news would shock him out of his despair.
‘What? When?’
‘The evening before Jude and I were supposed to fly to Australia, I went to meet him in Derby, where he was living then. Took the train over.’ Hannah glanced at Ed, who was looking at her like she’d just grown a second head.
‘I don’t know why,’ she went on, ‘but . . . something about leaving the country for two months – being further away from home than I’d ever been in my life – made me not want to go without trying to patch things up.
Call it superstition, if you like. Jude’s always been terrified of flying, convinced it’ll kill him. Maybe he’d got me spooked.’
‘What happened?’ Ed asked.
‘What always happens,’ Hannah said. ‘He completely forgot. When I got to his flat, there was nobody there. I had to call him five times before he picked up. Then he said he was in London, on a work trip. Based on the background noise, it was pretty clear to me he was in a pub or restaurant, probably out with some woman – and not too far away, either, based on the accents I could hear.’
‘Fucking hell, Hannah. That must have been . . . just . . . shit.’
‘It was,’ she said, laughing a little at his speechlessness.
‘I think it was the most he’d ever hurt me, actually.
’ As she said this, some part of her brain quietly set about drawing dots between this event and what had happened the following day.
Making connections that her determined suppression of this attempt to reach out to her father had rendered impossible before.
Hannah’s stomach dropped as she saw, for the first time, the clear link between what her dad had done and how visceral her reaction to Jude’s fuck-up had been.
She’d treated the incidents as though they were linked, and they weren’t.
She’d approached judging the men as if they were alike, and they were not.
It wasn’t her fault, but that was what had happened.
‘I can’t believe this,’ Ed said, plonking his backside down on the sofa. The feather-filled cushions made a low whoosh as he landed. ‘I wanted him here, Han. Stupid as that makes me, it’s true. And I couldn’t give a damn about half the people who are going to be here . . .’
Ah. Here was the other problem. The one Hannah had known was on the horizon for weeks, and which she’d hoped she’d done enough to stave off.
‘Listen,’ she said bracingly, ‘you and Joe are going to have a brilliant day. You trust me, right? I’ve seen to it.’
Ed nodded, but didn’t look fully persuaded.
‘The magazine people have all been told they have to take pictures discreetly. That they’re to keep well back from the action unless invited in.
There are no interviews today – all that happens later.
And there are social rules, too, all squared with Tamsin.
People can say they’re excited to see you guys today and no more – no location-sharing, no livestreaming, nothing.
There’s no posting content until tomorrow, when everything’s done and you guys are already home. ’
‘You think it’ll work? That it’ll feel like a wedding, not some media circus?’
‘I’m going to make it work,’ Hannah said, decisive. ‘Now, I’m going run down to the bar – yes, in this dressing gown – and get us a whisky each. I reckon we need them. You get in the shower, and it’ll be here for you when you get out.’
‘OK,’ her brother said, standing up and scrubbing his hands over his face.
Hannah did as she’d promised, thankful that only a few people had checked in to the inn so far, and her risk of being spotted was low.
The sole barmaid on duty didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at Hannah’s attire, so she figured she was far from the first scantily clad woman who’d appeared on a mission to buy emergency wedding day drinks.
Given that Livi, Claire and her mum were somewhere in the building, it might be she wasn’t even the first one to turn up today .
. . It would be very like Jane to insist they enjoy a flute of fizz as they had their hair and makeup done.
When Hannah got back to the bridal suite, the shower wasn’t running. The bathroom door was open. She felt her stomach flip.
Her hands shook, and she put the two tumblers of whisky she was carrying down on a side table before she could drop them. Ed’s phone was resting there, but – as she’d suspected the second she returned – her brother was gone.