‘How do you know that?’ Hannah asked, taking a sip of her piping hot drink and burning her tongue. She didn’t want to give Harry the satisfaction of seeing her mulled wine-related injury so she pretended it hadn’t happened, internally wincing from the pain.
‘I was quite the Smurf obsessive as a child.’
‘Really? I liked Sylvanian Families.’
‘Yeah I never really understood them. Too furry.’
Hannah laughed, suddenly liking talking to him a bit more. He hadn’t seemed the type to reveal a childhood passion for Smurfs. He hadn’t seemed the type to reveal anything or, for that matter, to have anything to reveal. She glanced at him standing there dressed in his suit trousers and white shirt with no tie and the top button undone, unshaven, hair a bit awry, certainly not slicked for a wedding. One little quip about his childhood and suddenly he seemed to change from flat to 3D. It was as if his eyes suddenly led back into a real person – albeit one still sporting a set expression of sardonic disinterest.
They were silent again for a moment. And in an attempt to keep up the chit-chat, Hannah picked up a little Smurf and said, ‘So did they inspire you to become a chef?’
Harry frowned. ‘How do you know I’m a chef?’
Hannah swallowed, realised that the only way she knew was because she had talked about him with her brother when she got home after the dress fitting. ‘My brother’s eaten at your restaurant.’
‘Oh yeah? Is he here?’ Harry glanced round the room.
Hannah shook her head. She saw Harry’s lips twitch a touch. Saw the little train in his brain toot-tooting with smug delight, fully aware that she’d talked about him after their first meeting in the café.
‘Did he like the food?’ Harry asked after another silence.
She could only remember him talking about the people being told off about their phones rather than anything they ate. ‘I think so.’
Harry scoffed. ‘Doesn’t sound particularly memorable.’
‘Oh I’m sure… You know?’ She struggled for more to say. Her brain bashing into walls with every starting topic. ‘Do you like being a chef?’
Harry shrugged. ‘When I get feedback like that it makes it all worthwhile.’
Hannah looked down at her feet then across at the kitchen where the waitresses were starting to bring out platters of tapas canapés. She was finding this hard work. But she’d been out of the casual small-talk scene for so long that she didn’t know if it was her fault or his. She fished around in her head for more to say, aware that she probably hadn’t helped matters by telling him off for moaning earlier. The baby seemed to like him. They were good judges of character. Although if she thought of Jemima, she liked anyone who knew all the dance steps to the latest Little Mix album. In the end she said, ‘Do you march around the kitchen shouting orders like Gordon Ramsey?’
Harry’s brows folded into a pitying glance. ‘No.’
Hannah bit her lip and looked away. She tried to focus on the decorations. The whole café had been decked out like a vintage grotto. The tiny multi-coloured baubles she’d watched Annie hanging were looped from one side of the café to the other. Old 1950s tablecloths of varying Christmas design covered all the booth tables. The pictures had been replaced with blown-up images of retro Christmas cards – one of little bunnies and squirrels gathered under a huge white snowy tree, another of a young boy skating on the lake, a Christmas tree over his arm. Every table had a miniature hot-pink Christmas tree in the centre and a collection of figurines – Bambis and Santas and kittens playing in the snow. Then, over the counter, hung what looked like a hundred vintage baubles, each one from its own coloured ribbon, like it was raining a rainbow. ‘It looks amazing, doesn’t it?’ she said, the decor seeming like much safer ground.
‘It looks like someone vomited up Christmas.’
‘OK, I’m done talking to you.’
‘What have I done?’ Harry said.
‘You hate everything I say,’ Hannah sighed.
Harry laughed. ‘OK then, fair enough. I’m going to go and find a drink.’ And with that he walked away in the direction of the bar at the far end of the café. Hannah exhaled as she turned in the opposite direction - back towards the entrance where most people had congregated. She had to squeeze her way through the crowds. All of them chatting, laughing and cooing over canapés. The windows were steaming up. It couldn’t be all her fault, she thought as she put some distance between her and Harry. There must be easier people to talk to in the building than him. She looked around for someone else she knew but Emily was over in the other corner and Holly was deep in discussion with Wilf.
She tried to join a group chatting animatedly about something but when she stood next to them the guy just stepped back and said, ‘Sorry do want to get through?’
Maybe it was her?
She had a canapé and stood by the window. Pretended to check her phone and then quickly popped the garlicky prawn into her mouth and took a moment to savour the flavour. All around her was the bubbling rise of chatter. Everyone seemed to know each other. Seemed to know what to say and how to say it. She felt devoid of chat. A couple of people patted her on the arm and said, ‘Great dress by the way,’ but then moved on. She felt out of practice and out the loop. She looked at the clock on her phone and wondered when it would be polite to leave.
She thought perhaps a moment of fresh air might help and pushed her way towards the door, only to be pushed back again by the arrival of Annie and Matt, the bride and groom.
Annie was radiant. Her whole face had changed since the Christmas Eve fitting and before. The tension was gone, the panic, the stress. Now she was all soft skin and beaming smiles. ‘Hannah!’ she shouted. ‘Hannah! I’m so pleased you stayed. Look…’ she said, pointing down to the dress. ‘You did it. You absolutely made my day. I feel like a princess. You’re a miracle worker. Can you believe it rained? Apparently it’s meant to be good luck!’
As Annie rambled on with joy and praise and happiness, Hannah realised that that was why she was here. To see her, to see the dress, to see the magic.
Thoughts of terrible small talk with Harry chugged to the back of her mind as Matt leant forward to kiss her on the cheek in greeting and at the same time whisper in her ear, ‘I’ve never in my life seen Annie happier. Thank you.’
Hannah had to swallow down a lump in her throat. She’d done it. All those nights with her family sewing metres and metres of white ruffles and beading peacock feathers. She’d achieved what she’d only faintly believed she could do.
Emily and Holly appeared, both with glasses of champagne and different tapas on napkins.
‘So what happened to you, Hannah? Where did you go?’ Holly asked as Annie was drawn away, mobbed by her guests for photos and congratulations.
‘Oh I was just talking to that miserable chef.’
‘No.’ Holly bashed her on the arm. ‘I mean in life. I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘I know, it’s been so long.’ Hannah nodded. ‘Do you remember we used to sit in here after we’d been to that terrible club over there…’ She pointed towards the other side of the river. ‘What was it called?’
‘The Black Room.’
‘Yeah.’ Hannah laughed. ‘God, it was awful. And do you remember, we’d come straight from the club to this place and wait outside in the freezing cold for it to open.’
‘And have coffee and slice of cherry pie.’ Emily smiled at the memory.
Hannah could almost taste it. The sharp, bitter cherries and the sweet snap of the pastry. ‘I was always so jealous that I didn’t live on the island.’
‘Where are you living now, darling?’ Emily asked.
‘Still at home.’ Hannah made a face like she was embarrassed to admit it. ‘I had a baby,’ she said.
‘Did you?’ Emily looked surprised, as if she should have been privy to the news.
‘Yeah.’ Hannah looked a bit sheepish. ‘I kind of went under the radar with it all.’
‘I can understand that.’ Holly nodded. ‘This is one of the first times I’ve left the house since Willow,’ she said. ‘Everyone assures me it gets easier,’ she added with a slightly hollow laugh.
‘Oh it does, I promise.’ Hannah smiled.
‘So what about the father?’ Emily asked, plucking a couple more little canapés from a passing waiter’s tray.
Hannah shook her head. A touch taken aback. No one ever asked. ‘There’s no father.’
‘Goodness. A virgin birth. How timely,’ Emily laughed and swept her hand around to take in all the Christmas decorations, almost whacking Annie in the face in the process, who was coming over to join them.
‘Am I missing the reunion?’ Annie asked, champagne in one hand and a silver glittered fairy cake in the other.
‘Hannah’s just enlightening us on the immaculate conception of her child,’ Emily said.
‘You have a child?’ Annie asked. ‘God, sorry I didn’t even ask. This wedding, it was just all-consuming.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I have a little girl, Jemima. She’s five. And there is a father but he’s not in the picture.’
‘Well I’m sure you’re a fabulous mother,’ Emily said, with a big, beaming smile. ‘I had about a gazillion fathers and all of them were useless.’
Hannah was about to reply, about to make a quick joke about how she really wasn’t that good a mother, it was all trial and error and winging it, but instead she said nothing. She thought how easy it had been to describe her past. Her name’s Jemima. She’s five – just started school. The father’s not in the picture. Done. That was all they needed, wanted, to know. The thought was surprisingly liberating.
But then Holly asked, ‘So why go out of circulation? If you don’t mind me asking.’ And she felt herself clam up.
Luckily distraction came in the form of a waiter with a tray of pink champagne and miniature fairy-cakes. As the others cooed over the dainty pastries, Hannah found her mind consumed by the memory of telling her boss she was pregnant.
She’d been working for a supplier at the time that designed, manufactured and delivered garments to a big high-street retailer. The clothes were for a dated, middle-aged clientele and the office environment suited the product. Most of the middle-management and above were men who’d been in their jobs for decades and still had mind-sets from back then; they made crass jokes and drank gin in the boardroom on a Friday. It was like being part of an old golf club. But the job was good. High pressure but fun. Exhausting and frustrating and nail-bitingly stressful, but the most enormous buzz when the retailer liked their designs or they beat their targets. She got to go to the Far East to source fabrics and trade shows in Paris. When she told her friends that she was off shopping to New York with the company credit card they’d roll their eyes and say, ‘You call that work?’
She was twenty-five, what did a couple of misogynist bosses matter when she was making enough to pay her rent at the same time as jet-setting around the globe? But then she’d got pregnant and suddenly they mattered quite a lot.
The news of her pregnancy had gone down like the biplanes in the war that they regularly discussed by the water fountain. She’d walked in on one of them blaming the downfall of both the economy and society on the breakdown on the traditional family unit and they’d had a big row in the middle of the kitchen area. She’d been called into the MD’s office and told that it was best if she kept a low profile. Told not to flaunt her condition. Told not to expect any favours or shortcuts. Told perhaps it would be better if she brought a partner to the Christmas party.
She should have left. She knew she should have left. But she was about to be a mum and she needed a job – no matter how ashamed, how small they had made her feel at a time when she had been at her most vulnerable. Coupled with the fact that she had worked her way up at the company. She wasn’t officially trained and, at the time, that was a permanent source of insecurity. Would often be referenced by some of the older designers the few times she made a mistake.
In the end it didn’t matter. They made her redundant three months into her maternity leave and she didn’t have the money, or the energy, to fight it.
But once she’d picked herself up, she promised herself she’d never be in such a weak position again. Taking an office manager role at another supplier, she enrolled in a part-time fashion degree and, four years later, here she was.
The funny thing was that a hundred different things could be said over a period of time and yet only a couple would stick. Standing there in The Dandelion Café with Holly, Emily and Annie all staring at her – the waiter now gone – she realised that she had ‘kept a low profile’ for five years. And only now was she beginning to understand the effect it had had on her reality.
Hannah frowned. Then she swallowed. Then she said, ‘I hid for a while, I suppose. I think it was everything. The unexpectedness of the pregnancy. It didn’t go down well with my work.’ She looked at the three sets of eyes looking back at her, nodding, and felt like, in the talking, it was as if she was slipping off a cardigan, shedding a skin that hadn’t fitted her for years. ‘It just took a little bit longer than I thought to adjust. To work out who Hannah was again.’
The corner of Holly’s mouth quirked up as if she knew the feeling.
Annie put her hand on Hannah’s arm and said, ‘And now you know?’
Hannah took a sip of her pink champagne and nodded. Felt her shoulders relax. ‘Yeah I think so. Maybe.’
Emily laughed. ‘Try being in the film industry, darling. I lost Emily about fifteen times over before I had the good sense to get out. Ooh look!’ she added, pointing towards the kitchen. ‘Here’s the cake. Annie, go, go, go, you should be over there with your husband.’
Hannah turned to see the cake gliding above the heads of all the guests, held aloft so that everyone could see it in all its glory. It was magnificent. Like something out Dynasty. Four tiers of white. Each cake square with piped edges and latticed columns. There were garlands of gold and peach on each side, curled ribbons, sugar-flowers, blue doves, curled necked swans. And on the top was a plastic gazebo capped with white feathers and flowers and in it a plastic bride and groom, slightly askew, a little worn, clearly found at the bottom of someone’s car boot sale box. Out the corner of Hannah’s eye she could just see Harry, leaning against one of the booths, the baby asleep in the crook of his arm, roll his eyes heavenward as the creation moved past him as if he’d never seen anything quite so ghastly in all his life.
She realised then, as she stood relaxed and happy with her friends, that it was him, not her, that was terrible at small talk.