She decided not to mention this to her friend though, first because naming her fear might deepen it – and secondly because Charlie was currently handling the preparation of two three-course gourmet dinners. She had enough to be getting on with.
They were in Charlie’s kitchen: a large, professional-grade space that she’d had built onto the small end-terrace property she’d bought in the wake of her divorce from Neil. Accessible through Charlie’s cottage but removed from it, it was her equivalent of a home office. Hannah loved it here; with its spotless stainless-steel surfaces, neatly ordered pantry and shining racks of carefully hung cooking equipment, it radiated Charlie’s commitment to her craft. A small, neatly set table and two chairs had been set up at the far end of the room for Ed and Joe, separated from the cooking area by a bookcase that housed Charlie’s most treasured cookery tomes. Hannah was familiar with how tasting evenings went: they were informal affairs during which Charlie left a couple to enjoy the food she’d prepared in peace. Between courses, she’d retreat to the main house, giving them the privacy they needed to discuss flavours, make notes and help themselves to more drinks.
The kitchen was warm, but not unpleasantly so, despite the gas flame currently burning hot beneath the copper pan Charlie was holding. It housed two neat cylinders of potato that she was lovingly browning in butter. Roughly thirty minutes from now, they’d be goldenpommesfondant– the perfect accompaniment to the seared salmon she’d just prepared, and which she’d serve up tonight alongside five other dishes for Ed and Joe to sample.
Although she’d usually stick around, Hannah was planning on heading home once they arrived. She was tired, and felt more than a little grimy after running around a rustic wedding venue for eight hours straight today. It had been a lovely event: the bride and groom had five children between them, and they’d chosen to embrace the chaos that came with their blended family, plus numerous young cousins. They’d tied the knot on a family-owned smallholding that doubled up as a kids’ petting farm. It had baby goats, rabbits, piglets and ponies. Several pint-sized, pale pink flower girls’ dresses had been comprehensively destroyed during the course of the day.
Though she worried she smelled faintly of animal feed, Hannah glowed with the satisfaction of a job well done. Livi had been a tremendous help today, too – she was easily as good as Claire at herding small children into position. Increasingly, the thought of parting with her sister at the end of the summer felt wrong. Depressing. But Hannah still couldn’t reconcile herself to loosening her grip on Eventurous, or being the reason why Livi eschewed a fancy corporate job in favour of wrangling wedding guests every weekend. She put the thought out of her mind.
Hannah had brought nine different bottles of wine to Charlie’s for tonight’s menu-tasting, so Ed and Joe were cabbing it here from her mum’s house. She’d order whatever they selected from her usual wholesaler, then have it delivered directly to Renfrew for the wedding. Six white and rosé wines were chilling in Charlie’s massive, double-doored fridge, and the three reds were already uncorked. The rich scent of malbec was making Hannah slightly twitchy. She couldn’t wait to go home, have a long, cool shower and pour herself a well-deserved drink.
‘Wherearethey?’ she grumbled, glancing at her watch-slash-activity tracker. It informed her she’d done 12,322 steps today, and the dull ache in her legs gave her no reason to doubt it.
‘You told them eight, didn’t you?’ Charlie asked, pointing at the digital clock on the wall. ‘It’s only three minutes past.’
‘Ha!No. I told them half seven,’ Hannah said. ‘Ed’s timekeeping is shocking. It’s no coincidence he’s settled in a job where a bell tells him when he has to do things.’
Just then, Charlie’s doorbell rang, and she laughed. ‘There you go – perfect timing.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Hannah said. ‘You put those spuds in the oven.’
She made her way back into the main house, down the short corridor and to Charlie’s front door. When she opened it, she found Jude standing on the other side of the threshold. His jaw dropped at the sight of her.
His face briefly betrayed shock, then worry, then resignation. Finally, a disbelieving laugh burst out of him, and he shook his head.
‘Let me guess,’ Hannah said, sighing and moving aside so he could come in, ‘Ed and Joe can’t make it.’
‘Joe called and asked me to step in,’ Jude told her. ‘Said something about a technical problem during a podcast recording that meant they’d never make it in time. Now I’m actually here, I realise that was utter bollocks, obviously.’
‘Total bullshit,’ Hannah agreed. She was seething that their brothers had done this; livid that they’d thrown Jude at her when she was sweaty, knackered and had spent the day on a literalfarm. But she was also glad to see him. The sort of glad that scared her a bit. It felt like waking up and remembering it was Christmas morning, or getting somewhere you hadn’t wanted to go and being thrilled to find your best friend was already there.
‘Their loss is your gain,’ Hannah said, hoping she sounded calm despite the fierce hammering of her heart. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks, and after the shag party the level of weird between them was at an all-time high. ‘You’ll eat and drink very well this evening,’ she went on bracingly, ‘plus you’ll get the casting vote on what’s served at the wedding.’
‘What? Notjustme, surely? You’re going to help decide, too,’ Jude said, looking panicked at the prospect of taking sole responsibility. She recognised the expression – it was the wide-eyed, slightly desperate one he’d sometimes worn as a teenager, especially when faced with any kind of curveball.
Hannah – ever his fake-it-till-you-make-it foil – felt an age-old instinct kick in. The irrepressible urge to make his frown go away. ‘Yes, I’ll help,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
And just like that, she realised she’d agreed to have dinner with him.
‘This isinsanelygood,’ Jude said of the crab and saffron tart he was sampling. ‘I can’t believe Joe and Ed are missing it. I almost feel sorry for them.’
‘Screw that,’ Hannah argued, through a mouthful of burrata and prosciutto salad. ‘I hope that whatever Joe’s eating tonight tastes like sawdust. I’ve never knownanyoneso Machiavellian.’
‘Fair,’ Jude agreed, before realising that Hannah had just said the quiet part out loud. ‘I’m sorry he keeps doing this, by the way,’ he said. ‘Deliberately engineering situations where you and I are .?.?. stuck together.’
‘Don’t be,’ Hannah reassured him.Shit. She shouldn’t have said that, but they’d cracked into the top-tier red she’d brought, as well as a bottle of sauvignon blanc. The wine had already loosened her tongue.
‘I mean, er—It’s fine,’ she said, trying to row back. ‘Not that bad.’
‘Great,’ Jude said with an eyeroll. ‘Good to know that’s your final verdict after all these years. Put it on my tombstone:here lies Jude Michael Gibson, he was Not That Bad.’
Hannah laughed and shook her head. ‘Somehow I think you’ll get a better write-up than that when the day comes. Something far grander to go with your inevitable obituary inThe Times. “Inventor of such-and-such a thing”, perhaps. “Mathematician who discovered XYZ”. “Prize-winning academic”, maybe?’
‘Hmm. Not “beloved husband”, then,’ he said. ‘That’s depressing.’ He seemed to mean it.
‘Come on, I was only—’
‘I know. I do wonder what the point of it all is lately, though. Seeing Joe with Ed – seeing how happy they are .?.?. It’s reminded me there’s a lot to live for besides work. Besides achievingsuccess, whatever that means.’
