‘Jesus,’ Charlie said, placing her hands on Hannah’s shoulders and pushing her down until her backside hit the nearest available seat. ‘Breathe,’ she said, ‘that’s it. Good. In and out.’
When Hannah no longer seemed in immediate danger of keeling over, Charlie said: ‘I don’t want to stress you out again, but .?.?. what the chuff is he doing here?’
‘It turns out he’s one of the speakers,’ Hannah said wretchedly.
‘But I thought this event wasmedical. For GPs, hospital folk .?.?.?’ Charlie riffled through the cardboard box that Hannah had already filled with spare delegate packs and goody bags. She pulled out a glossy A5 booklet that set out the programme for the day and urgently flipped through its pages. ‘Shit. We had it all wrong,’ she said after a moment. ‘This event’s about medical technology – stuff that getsusedby doctors. Equipment. Software.’
All Hannah could do was shrug.
Charlie ran her finger down the booklet’s final page, then turned it so Hannah could see. Jude’s name was right there, next to a paragraph of jargon-heavy blurb about the LogicLabs product he was here to present. Hannah winced and looked away without reading it, and Charlie cast the programme aside.
‘What Idon’tunderstand,’ she said, sounding pained, ‘is that this must have crossed your desk at some point. Didn’t you organise all the printing, like you usually do? And what about the talk he’s giving? Did you not see his name anywhere in the packs of slides you were sent?’
‘No,’ Hannah moaned, clutching her head in her hands. ‘Obviouslynot. It was all sent through to me about six weeks ago and I was snowed under .?.?. It was before Livi came back from uni, so I was on my own juggling prep for three different weddings. Everything came via Clive, and I didn’t read it – I just forwarded it all on to the audiovisual team and told them to shout with any problems.’
Charlie groaned, but nodded in understanding. Gus and Megan, a husband-and-wife team who ran the small AV firm Hannah typically used for corporate events, had been here first thing this morning setting up computer equipment and microphones.
Prior to today, they’d provided graphic design services for the conference programme, posters and presentations. Hannah had sent their design files to Clive for approval roughly a fortnight ago, after a quick, cursory scan. It wasn’t like her not to properly check content before returning it to a client, but – just this once, and confident that Meg and Gus knew what they were doing – she’d waved it through.
Partly for the sake of professional pride, but also because the truth seemed to be clawing its way up her throat, Hannah said: ‘I think .?.?. IknowI also deliberately swerved looking at anything too closely connected to theuniversity. I didn’t want to open the email attachments, let alone read them. I’ve felt weird about this job since I booked it.’
‘Why?’ Charlie asked, bewildered.
‘Becausehecame here. Did his PhD here after leaving Cambridge, much to the disgust of his mother,’ Hannah explained. ‘It was easier for us to see each other again after that, and things got better – went back to how they’d always been, for a while. Until we ended up .?.?.’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘We weretogether, here.’
‘Oh, Hannah,’ Charlie said, shaking her head in sympathy. ‘I know this is rich coming from me, but has it ever occurred to you that your work ethic istoostrong? Feeling odd about this job was a good enough reason to turn it down and commit to a day of watchingBake Offreruns in your pyjamas instead.’
Stricken though she was, Hannah laughed.
‘Did you talk to him?’ Charlie asked.
‘Sort of,’ Hannah mumbled.
‘What does that mean?’
‘We were .?.?. introduced,’ Hannah choked out.
‘Introduced?By who? You already know one another – and in the biblical sense!’
‘The guy who hired me to run the conference,’ Hannah said. ‘Clive. I can’t believe his name didn’t ring bells for me when he first got in touch. He’s a professor – one of Jude’s old tutors.’
‘Did you set him straight?’ Charlie said. ‘Explain no introductions were necessary?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
Hannah supposed she could have corrected Clive. Maybe even should have. But the shock of seeing Jude again had robbed her of her usual quick-thinking composure. She’d been lost for a way to speak the truth without speakingtoo muchtruth – without exposing the fact that Jude’s presence in the room was simultaneously a miracle and a catastrophe.
How could she find the words to smooth Clive’s misunderstanding away when the sight of Jude had flooded her chest with an anger so intense it left her breathless? He’d once assured her they’d always be friends, even if their romantic relationship didn’t work out. It was a promise she’d extracted from him, that she’d desperately needed, before letting herself cross the line. But he’d lied to her. When his word was tested, he’d thrown her away as if she meant nothing.
As she’d stared him down while Clive looked on, Hannah had been silently daring Jude to confirm how little she had mattered to him – yet simultaneously willing him to show some sign that he’d missed her. But what had she expected? Paroxysms of joy at the mere sight of her? A desperate display of remorse? In fact, his expression had been pure shock, shot through with panic. Hannah scrunched her eyes shut and sighed. This was quite a way to discover that, four years later, she hadn’tfullyiced out the hope that he’d come back and make things right between them.
‘He pretended not to know me,’ she said to Charlie, forcing the words out before she could swallow them and then store them somewhere they’d fester. Hannah needed the awfulness of what had just happened corroborated by someone she loved, and whose judgement she trusted.
‘Hewhat?!’ Charlie gasped, shaking her head in confusion.
‘Shook my hand like he’d never met me before,’ Hannah said, discovering via the tremor in her voice that she was on the verge of tears.
‘That is some ice-cold, tech brobullshit,’ Charlie said, horror-struck. ‘Has he turned into a cyborg? He must have, to be that insensitive.’
