Chapter 10 #2
For a short, unguarded moment, she smiled at him, and time unspooled between them. They could be five years ago, ten years ago, sharing a small confidence. Understanding each other in a way no one else did.
Jude shook himself. They were here. Now. Despite his support of Hannah this evening, everything they’d ever had was still shattered – and so far, nothing he’d done since coming back to the UK had helped repair it.
It was at this moment that he understood how badly he wanted to fix things; to salvage something, even if it was just the friendly ease they’d felt with one another a few moments ago.
He’d thought he had accepted the permanent, total loss of her – made peace with the pain of it.
It was a surprise to discover he still hoped for better.
‘Hannah,’ he said, voice suddenly serious.
‘I want to apologise for what happened with Clive. It wasn’t a thought-through thing, not telling him I knew you.
It was . . . stupid. But in the split second I had to decide what I was going to say, I worried that any information I offered might make him ask for more.
He’s an amazing man – so kind – but terminally interested in everyone.
I couldn’t face an interrogation about . . . things.’
Hannah nodded. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted that either, to be fair. It was pretty insane of you to shake my hand like we’d never met, though. I wasn’t pleased.’
‘I got that. And I’m sorry. Truly. You . . . deserved better from me. Even under pressure.’
Hannah looked at him, her eyes searching – like she was trying to strip his words down for parts. Seeking to understand every possible layer of meaning in them.
‘I did deserve better,’ she said, after a minute. ‘But on this, apology accepted.’
She let go of a deep breath, then said: ‘God, this is weird.’ She waved a hand at the space between them, her nail-polished fingertips grazing Jude’s left arm. The accidental touch was a shock, even through layers of clothing – a sweet sort of sting that faded too fast.
‘I thought . . .’ She took another breath.
Swallowed, like she was preparing to say something important.
Jude’s heart skipped a beat. ‘I always thought that if I ever spoke to you again, I would eviscerate you for ghosting me,’ Hannah said, her voice strained – like it might snap under the weight of her anger with him.
He didn’t blame her, exactly. He wasn’t proud of his snap decision to blank her; a choice that had rapidly revealed itself as irrevocable.
But what had she thought would happen when she walked away from him and refused to look back?
Had she expected they’d carry on WhatsApping each other funny cat memes from opposite sides of the globe?
That they’d FaceTime and chat about work, or TV they’d watched, or the people they were seeing?
Surely she couldn’t be that naive. That blind to how utterly she’d broken him.
He opened his mouth, not sure how to articulate any of this but seized by the urge to try.
Before he could say anything, though, she carried on: ‘But I can’t do that, can I?
Can’t let you have it with both barrels when we’ve got to be in a wedding together.
And there’s no sense in raking up all the things that a therapist – that Joe – might tell us we should talk about.
Far too messy. We’re going to be around each other way too much to risk that over the next few months, and I have a job to do on behalf of people we both love.
I can’t afford to screw it up because I’m pissed off at you – even though you deserve it. ’
This was typical Hannah. Strong. Selfless. And, broadly speaking, he couldn’t argue with her logic.
There were things he might have thrown at her, too, if she’d been up for arguing about how they ended and what happened after. The fact that she’d never quite trusted him, no matter what he said or did. That she hadn’t believed how completely he loved her. Hadn’t loved him the same way.
With an effort that felt physical, he swallowed the questions he could feel climbing up his throat and said, ‘I suppose you’re right.
For the sake of what’s happening now, we shouldn’t relitigate the past .
. . however tempting it might be. We should commit to civil, sensible interactions only.
Refrain from making any of this about us.
’ He smiled, then. Making it about them had never been his or Hannah’s speciality, and they both knew it.
‘Exactly,’ Hannah said, though he noticed she’d stiffened slightly at his use of the word us.
‘I still can’t get my head around it,’ she sighed. ‘I always suspected there was a bit of a crush there on Ed’s side, but never anything that might lead to a marriage. Did you see this coming?’
‘No,’ Jude admitted, ‘but I did see how deep his feelings went, when we were teenagers. Recognised it, I suppose.’ He’d said too much again, and found himself staring at a knot in the wooden floor so he could avoid looking at Hannah.
‘I have to ask,’ he said, for the sake of changing the subject but also because he wanted to know, ‘how did you end up agreeing to plan this wedding? It seems quite an undertaking, given the timings involved – as well as the, um, personal complications. And if looks could have killed during that Sunday lunch, we’d be at Joe’s wake right now, not his engagement party. ’
‘Ha! I didn’t agree. As you’ve probably guessed, some underhand tactics were used.
I received an anonymous, big-budget enquiry, swiftly followed by a sizeable deposit I didn’t see any reason to turn down.
I guessed I might be dealing with some soap star who’d reveal their identity in the next email.
’ Hannah was shaking her head, but in a way that implied affectionate resignation rather than real annoyance.