Charlie waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen, and – her own buffet table now fully arrayed – Hannah followed her.
‘He’s usingmathsto help cure cancer?’ Charlie hissed, the second the door had closed behind them. ‘Not once in my GCSE lessons did my dullard teacher ever imply that might be possible. It was all “the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the blah-something-blah”. Nothing that seemed like it might actually be useful!’
‘I’m pretty sure Pythagoras’s theoremisconsidered useful – not least by anyone who’d prefer their house not to fall down,’ Hannah said. She was impressed with herself for remembering this, but all too aware she’d only ever understood it because Jude had explained it to her during one of their many interminable study sessions.
‘I think what he’s talking about is AI,’ she went on. ‘Artificial intelligence. Algorithms, maybe? Not that I really know what they are. What his team has created doesn’tcurecancer, but from the sound of things it can read scans quickly, without mistakes, and speed up diagnosis. That’ll help get people the right treatment more quickly. It sounds like the sort of thing my mum would go mad for, to be honest.’ Over many years and through much hard work, Jane had risen through the ranks to become lead cancer nurse at their local NHS Trust. It was a position of such awesome responsibility that it blew Hannah’s mind a little; she could barely imagine looking after one person with cancer, let alone helping to co-ordinate care for thousands.
Charlie whistled under her breath. ‘Then I’m sorry to say it, but maybe we’re not dealing with a cyborg here after all. This is .?.?. confusing?’
‘It is,’ Hannah agreed. Though a treacherous voice – one that sounded an awful lot like Jude’s mother – whispered from somewhere inside her that, actually, the situation was devastatingly simple.
Lillian had once told her – in an out-of-earshot moment Jude had missed, but which Hannah would always remember – that if she held onto him, she’d only ever hold him back.
Add it up, Hannah told herself now.Two plus two is four.The evidence is here in front of you.
This project, this research, was what Jude could do.Thiswas what leaving her had empowered him to achieve.
Perhaps Lillian had been right all along. Justified in relentlessly pushing her favourite son to pursue bigger, better things, even when he didn’t seem sure he wanted them.
6
When the barman at Charlie’s local asked whether she and Hannah wanted glasses or a bottle of the wine they’d selected, his question was met with wry laughter. In Hannah’s mind, this was the only appropriate response.
‘A bottle would be great, assuming it doesn’t come in buckets,’ she said – pleased that, despite the harrowing day she’d had, her ability to make lame jokes remained intact.
‘Er – no. Sorry,’ the barman replied, blank-faced. It appeared his own sense-of-humour bypass had been an unqualified success.
Charlie rolled her eyes, then tapped her bank card against the proffered reader with a decisive, ‘I’ll get this.’ She swiped their glasses from the bar and strode in the direction of the pub’s beer garden. Hannah followed, clutching a shiny silver bucket, the neck of their wine bottle visible above the rim. Its body sloshed noisily amid the already melting ice that had been packed around it.
It seemed churlish to complain about the weather being too warm when you lived in the UK and spent half the year being rained on, but – as she made a beeline for a table with a sunshade – Hannah was sorely tempted. Her pale skin was inconveniently prone to sunburn, and the current run of bright, thirty-degree days also felt like a deliberate mockery of her glum mood. It had inspired a sort of holiday-ish cheerfulness in the general population that was wholly at odds with how heartsick she suddenly felt.
As she looked around, she took in several couples, all of whom were laughing, chatting and enjoying al fresco drinks or dinner. She eyed them with the sensation she imagined an expat might experience when passing back through their native country. Hannah recognised love when she saw it, and it sent a sharp pang of homesickness through her – but it was a state she could no longer imagine living in herself.
She knew her behaviour this afternoon had been cowardly, but she didn’t have it in her to regret ducking and diving her way through the final two and a half hours of the conference. Though she hadn’t expected Jude to seek her out again – especially given that he was inundated with attention from excitable conference delegates – she knew she couldn’t rely on herself to react rationally if he did.
‘Feel free to tell me to do one, Hannah,’ Charlie said, picking up their dripping wine bottle and pouring two large measures into the glasses in front of them, ‘but you’ve been off balance since your sister spilled the truth about Jude at the Ashfield wedding. We can sidestep talking about him entirely and spend the night dissecting the last series ofLove Island, if you like .?.?. but youdoneed to talk to someone about this, even if it isn’t me.’
Hannah took a sizeable gulp from her wine glass and swallowed hard. The truth was, she’d never spoken properly to anyone about how things had ended with Jude – or how thoroughly it had crushed her.
Mum knew more than Ed or her sisters. Upon Hannah’s surprise return from Heathrow Airport, Jane had taken her broken, tear-stained daughter in her arms and let her cry for twenty-four hours straight. She hadn’t asked many questions, but nor had she needed to. Somehow, she’d understood the bare bones of the situation: that it had devastated Hannah to let Jude go, but also that coming home alone had been her only choice.
All cried out, Hannah had worn a brave face ever since. Aside from what Ed and Claire referred to as ‘The Christmas Eve Incident’, she’d never again lost control of her feelings – or her eyeballs. Said incident, six months after Jude left for Australia, had involved a pub in a nearby village, copious quantities of gin and a karaoke rendition of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’. This became so unexpectedly maudlin that Hannah had sobbed through the final verse and accidentally snotted on the microphone. She’d awoken on Christmas Day and resolved that a) she would never touch Bombay Sapphire again, and b) she would pretend she had no memory of singing anything whatsoever. The fact that Mariah Carey’s voice still triggered flashbacks was one she kept to herself.
As if she could read Hannah’s thoughts, Charlie went on: ‘Your silence doesnotlead me to believe you’re over whatever happened between you, by the way. I’d be surprised if it’s fooling anyone – aside from your brother, maybe, but he’s got a vested interest in you being OK.’
Hannah hadn’t thought about it this way, and it was disquieting to consider the possibility that Hannah 2.0 – her post-Jude reinvention of herself – might only have convinced people who hadn’t known her previously. Charlie’s point about Ed underlined Hannah’s own, growing awareness of how her relationship with her twin might be affected if Ed and Joe stayed together. Already, Hannah was dreading the ‘Matthews family Sunday lunch’ Ed had summoned them to, which would take place with Joe in attendance at a local country pub this weekend. She guessed that, on Ed’s part, it would involve a lot of waxing lyrical about how serious things had turned between the boyfriends, now they were cohabiting. On hers, there’d be barely suppressed anxiety and a lot of smiling that she could only hope appeared sincere.
Belatedly, it occurred to Hannah that – given the connection between their brothers had solidified – it was now more likely than ever she’d cross paths with Jude. This morning’s episode felt like a shot across the boughs. A warning from the fates that something like this could happen any time, anywhere and with no warning.
‘I barely know where to start with this story,’ Hannah said to Charlie, her words coming out like a groan. ‘All I’ve wanted in the past few years is to move forward – move past it.’
‘I see that,’ Charlie said. ‘But maybe there’s a difference between moving past something and pretending it doesn’t exist? When you bury a hurt this deep, Hannah, you don’t confirm it as meaningless – you only prove how much it still matters.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Hannah moaned, ‘are you planning to charge for this therapy session? If so, can I afford you?’
Charlie smiled. ‘My listening ear is free. It always has been.’
As on the night of Pooja and Tim’s wedding, Hannah felt the injustice of how reticent she’d been with her friend. She’d baked inequality into a relationship that meant a great deal to her – yet Charlie instinctively understood Hannah’s feelings anyway.
