“It’s fine,” she says, because it is now that he’s here. “I get it. Now isn’t the time to be coasting, what with the partnership thing.”
“I know, but today of all days…”
“I’m fine. I didn’t sit at home all day moping. I went to the park, then the cafe. I talked to Mum—she’s going to come for a visit sometime, bring some maternity clothes. And, well, actually—” She pauses. For some reason the words don’t quite come naturally. “I, um… I also talked to Emily.”
“Emily?” Will raises an eyebrow. She’s not sure if he’s surprised or just… making conversation.
“Yes. She called me, in fact—she’d seen the news. Did you know she was back in Oxford?”
“Yes, I told you, remember? I heard it from Hugh.”
Hugh is the one person from college they both still see regularly. He and Will are best friends—have been since they were little prep school boys in short trousers, and perhaps because of that, their bond survived the earthquake of April’s death. It helps that Hugh also lives in Edinburgh, in a beautiful bachelor’s flat in the elegant Georgian quarter near Charlotte Square. He and Will play cricket for a local team in the summer months, and Hugh comes into the bookshop most Saturdays, buying whatever literary hardback the Sunday Times has recommended. The three of them meet up for dinner or brunch every few weeks.
But until today she had no idea that Hugh and Emily were in contact at all. They weren’t even particular friends at Oxford—they hung around together because Will was dating April, and Hannah was April’s roommate, and Emily liked Hannah. But beyond that, they had nothing in common. Hugh was shy and bookish, and thirteen years at an all-boys’ school had left him awkward around girls. Emily was sharp and spiky with absolutely no time for the kind of old-fashioned courtesies Hugh had been brought up to think were necessary when dealing with women.
“Emily said he’d been down for the Gaudy,” Hannah says now. “It’s weird, I would never have put them down for the ones to keep in touch.”
“I know.” Will takes a breadstick and crunches it meditatively. “They were never that close at Pelham. In fact I always got the impression she thought he was a bit of a joke.”
“He is a bit of a joke,” Hannah says, but not unkindly; she doesn’t mean it as a put-down. It’s just that Hugh is… well, he’s Hugh. Posh, floppy hair, smudged glasses. He’s Dead Poets Society crossed with Four Weddings and a Funeral—everyone’s caricature of a public school boy grown up.
“That’s just the surface, though,” Will says, and she nods, knowing it’s not just Will defending his best friend, it’s also true. Because although Hugh may come across as slightly effete, the reality is very different. Underneath the self-mocking veneer, Hugh is tough, and driven, and very, very ambitious. It’s why he’s done as well as he has. Will’s family is old money—not that there’s much of it left now, apart from some land and a few paintings. April’s was new—her father came from nowhere, a brash Essex boy who made his fortune in the city and cashed out at the right time. But Hugh’s family were neither, in spite of his schooling. His father was a GP, his mother a housewife, “county” folk who scraped together the money for their only child’s education, going without themselves, even as they pinned all their hopes on him.
That sacrifice is something Hugh has been trying to justify ever since he left Pelham—and now, to a large extent, he has succeeded. He followed in his father’s footsteps as far as graduation, but then went swiftly and lucratively into private practice—he’s now the head of a very successful plastic surgery clinic in Edinburgh. One of his first clients was April’s mother. Hannah doesn’t know how much he earns, but she can tell from his flat that he must be extremely comfortable—you don’t get a place like that in central Edinburgh for small change.
“So, what was she saying?” Will continues, and Hannah has to drag her mind back to Emily’s conversation. The sinking feeling in her stomach returns.
“She was saying…”
She breaks off. The waiter has arrived with their starters and there’s a moment’s respite as they sort out whose is whose, but then Will prompts, “She was saying?”
“She was asking if I was okay and…”
“Yes?” Will says. He’s looking worried now, and puzzled, and maybe slightly irritated too, it’s hard to tell.