Chapter 4
4
JESSE
Six Months Ago – December
‘Why are you upset?’
‘What?’ There was a brief and tense pause at the small kitchen table. ‘Why am I upset?’ Jesse was dumbfounded.
‘No, sorry,’ Hannah said quickly. She looked like she’d forgotten. Among the box files, folders and wine glasses, lit by the screen of the laptop she kept staring at, her face gave all the tells that she had, for a second, forgotten.
Hannah had been doing that thing Jesse hated but never pointed out: when she pretended to listen while stealing longing glances at the email she was partway through writing or the text she was trying to read. She looked away from the screen and up at her husband while she tried to suppress her resentment. She had a lot going on too.
‘Look, if you need to go, go. I can ask friends to help.’
Jesse wondered who those friends might be. Hannah didn’t have many friends out of work. All of the friends they’d made through parenthood were friends Jesse had cultivated. He had been the parent who was able to go to the baby groups, the sing and sign classes and the toddler jams around his agency work, while his co-worker, Max, had held the fort. It was impossible for Hannah to do all of the ‘toddler treadmill’ stuff, she called it, with her job and her busy life.
‘I do need to go. I need to be with her.’
‘Then go!’ Hannah added a smile to downplay the undertone of snappiness, and stole a quick glance of her screen. ‘I can call in favours for a few days. We had the twins over for a playdate a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure Andrew and Elena will help out.’
Jesse had had the twins over a couple of weeks ago. It was a playdate Jesse had managed. He had looked after Ida, Oscar and Fred one day in half term while Oscar and Fred’s parents, Andrew and Elena, went to the West End to choose their wedding outfits. Jesse had taken the day off work so he could play Hungry Hippos, go to the park, and cook spaghetti Bolognese for three six-year-olds, before clearing up the chaos of the aftermath in their flat. Jesse had told Andrew and Elena to take as long as they needed, so they went to Randall plan their epic honeymoon to Australia. It was a rare day for them. Hannah had joined them at 8p.m. after a corporate dinner nearby, and all of them had arrived back at the flat in an Uber at 10p.m., the twins asleep on the sofa while Ida was in her bed.
‘I don’t think we can call in that many favours. I was thinking of going for a couple of weeks.’ Jesse swept breadcrumbs off the kitchen counter as he spoke.
‘What?’
Panic washed over Hannah’s face. She didn’t sort the breakfast chaos, the packed lunches or the school run. She didn’t know the after-school club routine the way Jesse did. He had the luxury of working for himself and managing just one person in a shared space on Gray’s Inn Road. He was his own boss and could fit his work around Ida. Hannah had fifteen direct reports and multimillionaire clients. This was the deal.
‘How am I supposed to?—’
‘I’ll take Ida with me, it’ll just be a fortnight then I’ll be back for… the service… and for Christmas.’
Hannah looked aghast. She took another sip of red wine while she processed it.
‘You’re going to go for two weeks? In winter?’
‘France keeps running in winter, Hannah.’
‘No but?—’
Every summer since Hannah and Jesse had got together in their teens, she had enjoyed the ochre-hued buildings and the lavender-bursting fields of his parents’ holiday home in the South of France – which had become his parents’ permanent home when Jesse went off to university. But Hannah had never seen the Luberon valley in its starkness. The curved stone walls of the abbey at Sénanque looking heather grey under a cloudy sky. The dry brush of the lavender fields out of season. The boarded-up houses and cafes with signs saying fermé . Something about Ida seeing the South of France in a new state, without Hannah knowing what it looked like, without being able to picture Jesse and Ida there so clearly, gave her a sense of panic. A feeling of being out of control.
‘School will understand,’ Jesse reasoned. ‘Given the circumstances. What do they do in December anyway?’
Hannah’s brow creased as she took another large sip from her glass next to the laptop. Jesse, standing, topped them both up. She looked back at her screen, trying not to read an email while Jesse tried to read her face. Then a wave of relief washed over Hannah’s angular features. One that Jesse could understand. This could work . Hannah was good at making things work.
She softened as she realised she wouldn’t have to feel bad about missing all the Christmas activities – the school play she didn’t want to go to anyway. She could get as blotto as she wanted at all the dinners she was expected to go to. She could live free and not feel guilty about work taking priority, for one joyful fortnight.
‘You can join us for the funeral, and we can all travel back to London for the service,’ Jesse suggested.
That put a dampener on things. Hannah rearranged her features.
‘OK.’