The It Girl(30)
The door opened slightly farther and Dr. Myers stood back.
April gave a dazzling smile and stepped forward into his rooms, but as she did she turned, momentarily, and Hannah saw her give the smallest of winks over her bare shoulder. And then she disappeared and the door closed behind her.
AFTER
The meal is delicious and somehow, over the three courses and coffee, Hannah manages to forget Neville and April and all her worries—or at least push them to the back of her mind—and just enjoy being with Will. They may not have that many of these nights left, after all. Once the baby comes, that will be an end to cozy little bistro suppers, at least for a good few months. She needs to make the most of this, make the most of the time they have left with just the two of them.
They talk about Will’s boss—about the possible partnership position and what it would mean for Will if he got it. More money, yes. But also longer hours, more responsibility, more pressure to bring in new clients. All of which would be a double-edged sword, with a new baby at the same time. They talk about the birth—the weird mix of emotion and admin that having a baby entails. The deadline is coming up for choosing a hospital, and they haven’t even started to look into antenatal classes yet. Hannah talks about work, about the funny customer who comes in every few weeks asking for books he’s read about in the paper but can never remember the titles. This week’s was Scots author. Cover’s got a wee lad on the front and a funny name. Will guesses the answer correctly without too many clues—Shuggie Bain. Sometimes Hannah wonders if her customer’s memory is really as bad as he makes out, or whether it’s become like a game between them. And there’s another, an elderly lady who comes in every Tuesday and buys a book, and then comes back the following Tuesday and tells Hannah how many marks out of ten she would award it. She has never, ever given ten. Hamnet got 8.75. This week Razorblade Tears got 9.2. The first Bridgerton novel got 7.7. Lord of the Flies got a surprising 4.1. Hannah finds it impossible to predict what will score high—some of her most confident recommendations bomb, but she lives in hope of finding something that will hit the magic jackpot.
At last Will asks for the bill, and then gets up to go to the bathroom. The check arrives while he is away. Normally Hannah would just glance at the total and then shove the printout across the table along with their joint account card, but this time she looks at it—really looks at it. The starters alone were more than a tenner each. And twenty-seven pounds for a bottle of pinot grigio—Will hasn’t even drunk all of it, just half. Why on earth did they order a bottle when she’s not even drinking? And the breadsticks! Three pounds for breadsticks. She had no idea they even charged for those.
She pays, and is sitting, chin in her hands, waiting for Will to come back, when she hears a clear, carrying voice from behind her.
“Darling, you call this a Vesper? It tastes more like a gin and tonic, and not a very good one.”
All the hairs on the back of Hannah’s neck prickle. The voice is coming from the restaurant’s bar. It is drawling, confident, and achingly familiar.
Before she can think better of it, Hannah stands up, swings round, sending her chair clattering to the floor. But even as she scans the row of backs at the chrome counter, her heart is sinking, and she knows the truth. It wasn’t April. It’s never April. It was just a well-to-do woman with an English accent. Hannah’s own longing did the rest, just as it has a hundred times before.
“Allow me,” says a voice at her elbow, and Hannah turns to see a tall, bespectacled figure holding out her handbag.
“Hugh!” She manages a smile as she takes the bag. “This is a nice surprise. And thank you.”
It’s not a surprise—not exactly. Edinburgh is a small city in a lot of ways, and Hugh’s practice isn’t far from the restaurant. But it’s a big enough place that it’s still fairly unlikely to run into friends at random.
“You’re most welcome,” Hugh says, with that oddly shy formality he’s had for as long as she’s known him, even after a decade of friendship and more landmark events than she can remember—he was Will’s best man at their wedding, for goodness’ sake.
They kiss each other on both cheeks, and as she breathes in Hugh’s expensive aftershave, Hannah remembers with a laugh at herself how strange and performative that continental kiss first felt to her when she arrived at Oxford. And now look at her—air-kissing without a second thought.
“How are you?” she asks.
“I’m all right,” he says thoughtfully, looking at her with a slightly discomfiting air of appraisal, like she is one of his patients. “More to the point, how are you? I thought of you yesterday, when I heard the news.”
“I’m… I’m okay.” It’s not a lie, not really. But Hugh is Will’s best friend and confidant—not hers. Hannah… well, she hasn’t really had a best friend, if she’s being honest, not since April. It’s not that she doesn’t have friends—she goes for a drink with Robyn every now and again, and there’s a handful of people she knows through work, or from her various short-lived hobbies—pottery was the one that lasted longest. But you don’t have to be a psychoanalyst to join the dots, and Hannah’s not an idiot, she knows the truth—since April died, she hasn’t allowed herself to make anyone that important to her. Because she doesn’t trust them not to get snatched away. Will is the sole exception—the only person who has penetrated that self-protective armor. And maybe he only managed it because she had let him under her skin before April died.