Chapter 2 #3
Jude had no answer for this, so he said nothing. They both knew why his trip to Australia hadn’t gone as intended – and why it had extended so far beyond the planned eight weeks.
‘When was the last time you went out?’ Joe pressed. ‘Have you been on any dates lately? When did you last have sex?’
‘Oh my god, Joe, I’m not doing this with you,’ Jude said, feeling himself flush. ‘No way are you therapising me. Isn’t it unethical for you to even try? Aren’t there rules about this – family members and privilege, and so on?’
‘This isn’t therapy, this is one brother asking another some very standard, brotherly questions. And your silence speaks volumes.’
‘We can’t all be tomcatting around the whole time,’ Jude said, aware of how defensive he sounded and entirely unable to help it.
‘You know full well I haven’t been tomcatting around for quite a while now,’ Joe retorted. ‘And you know who I’m seeing, entirely monogamously. I’m serious about him.’
Jude sighed heavily, not sure how he was supposed to respond to this.
A year ago, Joe had said he was ‘serious’ about moving to Ireland, where he’d planned to buy a pub with a bearded man named Finnbarr.
Six months before that, he’d been all set to adopt a pair of Jack Russell Terriers and move in with Jean-Luc, a French hairdresser .
. . until Finnbarr strolled into view. Now there was Ed: someone Jude had known since he was a teenager – the person who had regularly saved him from being picked last in their school’s brutal ‘boys only’ PE lessons. An old friend . . . and Hannah’s twin.
Should he be rooting for this relationship to last?
Or assuming – perhaps even hoping – it would fizzle out as painlessly as possible?
Jude genuinely didn’t know. Joe and Ed’s staying together would be weird, but he was equally worried that if they didn’t, Joe would crush Ed beyond all hope of recovery.
Though Ed seemed to think he’d concealed it during their schooldays, his devotion to Joe had been clear even then.
While Jude couldn’t read people as well as Hannah always had, the restless longing he felt for her made it easy to spot the same sort of yearning in her brother.
‘I’m well aware of who you’re seeing,’ Jude said eventually. ‘Please consider its seriousness duly noted.’
‘You’re placating me, which is fine,’ Joe said, though he seemed uncharacteristically affronted. ‘I can understand why you would, I suppose. But you should know, he’s already moved in. It’s different this time. I’m in love with him.’
Joe had never claimed to be in love before, and this brought Jude up short. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. You don’t have the monopoly on deep feelings, you know.’
‘I never said—’
‘You didn’t have to,’ Joe interrupted, sounding almost hurt. ‘Though you may just have inspired me to prove it.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jude asked.
‘It means you should definitely consider an extended holiday,’ Joe said decisively. ‘Book a flexible return. Or better yet, a one-way ticket. Don’t plan on being back in Larry’s clutches until the autumn.’
‘I’ve told you, I can’t—’
‘As we’ve already established, you absolutely can,’ Joe insisted. ‘And while you typically avoid seeking any real insight from me, or asking for the advice you so clearly need, I urge you to trust me on this.’
Jude put his head in his hands, not caring that it made his thick-framed glasses dig into his cheeks.
On paper, he was smarter than his brother, but these verbal gymnastics made his brain ache.
Joe wouldn’t want to hear it, but in moments like these, sparring with him felt scarily reminiscent of wrangling with their mother.
Jude was no match for either of them: he was sincere in nature, logical and mathematically minded.
He’d always approached understanding the world, and its people, in the same way he’d analyse a complex data set – but the older he got, the more easily he saw the limits of this methodology.
While it was possible to misinterpret numbers, they couldn’t set out to obfuscate, manipulate or mislead you in the way your fellow humans might. Numbers, unlike people, couldn’t lie.
‘I’d better go,’ Joe said. ‘I’m shooting some social content tomorrow, so I need my beauty sleep.’
‘OK,’ Jude said, still nonplussed by the turn the conversation had taken. ‘I guess I’ll see you next week.’
‘You will,’ Joe agreed. ‘Love you, brother.’
‘Love you too,’ Jude said.
‘Promise me you’ll think about what I’ve just said,’ Joe put in, a second before Jude could hang up. ‘I’m genuinely trying to help you, here – maybe in more ways than one.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Jude told him, ‘but yes. I’ll think about sticking around for a while, if I can.’
Less than five minutes after they said goodbye, he found himself typing his credit card details into the ‘pay now’ screen on the British Airways website. The extra fee for flight flexibility was eye-watering, but he had an odd feeling it would turn out to be a worthwhile investment.