Chapter 25
The atmosphere inside his mother’s house was stale and tense. Lillian was in the garden doing odd jobs, but some unspecific threat seemed to be radiating from her anyway, creeping in through the open sash windows.
Jude took the opportunity to race upstairs and make himself presentable before she could accost and question him.
He was so angry on Hannah’s behalf right now, and so powerless to do anything to help her, that he knew he’d lack the mental dexterity to explain why he’d ‘been for a run’ in jeans and a henley.
Jude was stunned. There’d been a time when he’d thought he wanted this – when he’d even said he wanted it.
Then, the prospect of starting a completely new life would have felt like a gift.
Now, it simply left him cold. What life could he ever really have, beyond people who truly knew, valued and cared about him?
The past few months had reminded him that they might be few, but they were all here: his brother and Ed; Livi, Claire and Jane; Clive; maybe even Suni.
And then there was Hannah. It seemed absurd to him now that he’d spent so long trying to redraw the boundaries of his life – trying to doctor the map so he could pretend every road on it didn’t lead back to her.
You could paint a new picture, he realised, rearrange how things were displayed, but you couldn’t change true north.
She was it, for him, and he needed her to know, even if she didn’t feel the same.
And if she did . . . If she did, there was nothing in the world – no one in the world – that would persuade him to part from her again.
There was a knock on his partially open bedroom door, and Jude steeled himself for the day’s first encounter with his mum.
He breathed out when he saw Joe pushing his way into the room.
His brother looked as serene and superior as ever, but surprised Jude by asking, ‘Have you any idea why I’m here?
This is the first time I’ve been asked to lunch in eight years.
Morbid curiosity demanded I didn’t decline the invitation. ’
‘No clue, I’m afraid,’ Jude told him, reeling a little at this revelation.
He’d long known his mum and Joe essentially had no relationship, but seeing the dysfunction up close remained deeply uncomfortable.
For years, he’d written it off as none of his business – told himself there was probably fault on both sides, reasons for the rift he just didn’t understand.
His perspective had shifted in recent weeks.
Joe was a lot, but he had integrity and empathy.
Fundamentally, he was kind. Yes, he’d been scheming like a Bond villain to push Jude and Hannah together, and it had been infuriating at points – but he’d done it based on a solid understanding of Jude’s heart, of what he truly needed to be happy.
As Jude thought this, a parallel idea took shape in his mind; one that had been drifting in and out of focus for a while, undulating like smoke.
Lillian had once done the reverse, desiring the opposite outcome, with no regard for how it would damage him.
Even as Jude questioned whether this could possibly be right, his whole body seemed to vibrate with certainty that the only things up for debate were how far she’d gone to separate him from Hannah, how hard she’d tried .
. . and how stupid he’d been not to see it at the time.
He felt a little sick as he thought again about how he’d behaved this morning.
When his mum had questioned him, he’d pretended he wasn’t with Hannah on fearful instinct; he’d denied her, like some character from the Bible.
He recalled what Hannah had said at the shag party, too – remembered how her use of the term ‘unsuitable’ had bothered him, lurking afterwards like an unpleasant odour that wouldn’t dissipate.
It was a Lillian word; one he now guessed Hannah had heard from her repeatedly, in moments when he wasn’t listening.
Then there were his own memories: things he recalled his mother had implied, or suggested, or insisted upon .
. . a litany of small, seemingly unimportant things she’d said and done that extended over years.
Moments that had redirected his focus, shaken his faith in things he’d been sure about, or fed his deepest insecurities.
In isolation, each could be written off as innocuous.
Together, they added up to a darker sort of manipulation than he wanted to believe Lillian capable of.
Jude had never thought his mum nice – even as a small child he hadn’t been that naive – but it had never occurred to him before that his happiness mattered less to her than bragging rights.
Than simply having him under her control.
‘Are you OK?’ Joe asked. ‘You look like you’re doing algebra in your head.’
‘I sort of am.’
‘Worried about Hannah?’
‘Yeah,’ Jude said. It was the truth, but he was also relieved Joe had misread him. He wasn’t sure how to voice any of this; he was scared to utter it aloud, in case saying it made it all true.
‘Thank you for putting yourself out to help her,’ he added. ‘For getting your agent involved, and all. I’m grateful, and I know she is, too.’
‘Of course. No thanks needed. But does this mean . . .?’ Joe said, deliberately leaving the question unfinished.
‘I don’t know yet. But I know what I want it to mean.’
Joe nodded, pleased, then seemed to remember what he was here for. ‘We’d best go down,’ he said with a grimace. ‘We’re having duck, I’m afraid.’
Ugh. Jude knew immediately it would be the dish with cherries and port.
It was their mother’s favourite, but he actively hated duck – could barely face it after a bout of serious food poisoning when he was twelve.
He’d spent two days hunched over the toilet bowl after a badly cooked restaurant dinner.
He, his mum and brother had been on holiday in France, the Easter before they’d moved to Beckford.
Even now, remembering how ill he’d felt brought Jude out in a cold sweat.
Lillian had claimed emetophobia, so fifteen-year-old Joe had looked after him, keeping him clean, hydrated and eventually getting him to nibble on unbuttered chunks of baguette from the local market.
The vomit cloud had lifted on day three, but the memory of the incident never did.
Even the smell of duck – the sight of the pink, fatty meat – still made him want to hurl.
Jude wondered whether Lillian had forgotten all this, didn’t care or hadn’t even noticed in the first place. Perhaps, he told himself, all of those possibilities added up to the same thing.
After thirty-five minutes of stilted conversation, feeling nauseated by the sight of the uneaten poultry slowly congealing on his plate, Jude finally learned why he and Joe had been asked to lunch.
‘I understand congratulations are in order, darling,’ his mother said, the endearment jarring as she eyed him, unsmiling, from the other side of the dining room table.
She’d changed out of her gardening clothes and was dressed in her standard uniform of slim navy slacks, silk blouse and pearls.
Her silver hair was styled in a sleek bob that, if Jude were feeling uncharitable, he might have described as severe.
For a split second, he thought she knew what had happened between him and Hannah; that she might even be happy for him. Then he remonstrated with himself. That wasn’t it at all.
‘What’s this?’ Joe asked, sipping from his water glass.
‘I got a job offer this morning,’ Jude said, suddenly feeling like his clothes were on too tight.
‘A permanent job, with the promise of permanent residency,’ Lillian said pointedly.
‘Lots more money, lots more responsibility . . . It’s marvellous news.
’ She did smile then, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes.
She had eyes like Jude’s, though with fewer shades of blue shot through the irises. They were greyer. Colder than his.
‘Citizenship?’ Joe said, setting his glass down. ‘Since when has that been the plan?’
‘I’ve thought about it, on and off,’ Jude admitted, uncomfortable beneath his brother’s scrutiny.
The air in the room felt like it was full of static electricity, the way it sometimes used to before Lillian and Joe argued. Jude felt his stomach turn at the thought of being stuck in the eye of the storm.
‘And you applied for this job? Recently?’ Joe asked. His tone was calm and measured, but his face was a riot of conflicting emotions. It was years since Jude had seen his brother struggle to master himself like this, and it alarmed him. Something was very wrong, here.
‘Not exactly,’ Jude said. ‘In fact . . . no. Not at all.’ As the words came out of his mouth, he heard how weird they sounded. Registered how mad it was that this had landed in his lap, unasked for.
‘He didn’t need to,’ Lillian said, blithely waving an elegant hand. ‘I heard from dear Larry last week; he said he was struggling to convince you to sign a new contract. I suggested to him that his offers simply hadn’t been good enough, so far.’
‘But this one is, I take it?’ Joe ground out, his dark eyes flashing from beneath his furrowed brow.
‘It’s . . . insane, to be honest,’ Jude said, shaking his head almost apologetically. He felt guilty, he realised. Why did he feel guilty? He hadn’t done anything wrong.
‘And do you want this job?’ Joe demanded, his self-control fraying a little. ‘Do you want to go and live permanently in Australia, when you’ve just this morning managed to salvage something with Hannah?’
‘What has she got to do with anything?’ Lillian asked sharply. ‘That girl has never been anything but bad news. A bad influence. She never understood what you were capable of – could only ever have held you back.’
‘Held me back from what, Mum?’ Jude heard himself ask, his voice heavy and sad. ‘What you thought was best? What you wanted me to do?’