‘Yes, definitely familiar.’ She nudged her husband, who was still beaming at Anouk. ‘Don’t you think so, Jonathon?’
He pondered the question for a moment.
Anouk tried not to tense, not to react, but she could feel herself sway slightly. Not so much that a casual observer might notice, but enough that a man standing with his hand on her back might. Certainly enough that Sol did.
His head turned to look at her but she kept staring straight ahead, a tight smile straining her lips.
‘Around the hospital, no doubt.’ She had no idea how she injected that note of buoyancy into her voice. ‘Or maybe I just have one of those faces.’
‘Oh, no, my dear, you do not have one of those faces.’ The woman chuckled.
‘More like a screen icon,’ her husband agreed, then his face cleared and Anouk’s stomach plummeted. ‘Like Annalise Hartwood.’
‘Annalise Hartwood,’ the woman echoed delightedly. ‘And she had a daughter...what was her name, Jonathon? Was it Noukie?’
How she’d always hated that nickname. She was sure her mother had known it, too. It was why Annalise had used it all the more.
‘Noukie...’ He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think it might have been. You’re Noukie Hartwood.’
As if she didn’t already know! They said it as if it were a nugget of gold, a little bit of information that they were giving her.
Anouk wanted to shout and bellow. Instead, she stood exactly where she was, her smile not slipping, muscles not twitching.
‘Anouk Hart.’ She tried to smile. ‘Yes.’
‘My goodness, I can hardly believe it. Annalise was such a screen icon in my day. But, my dear, you don’t have any American accent at all, do you? How long have you been over here?’
How it hurt to keep smiling.
‘My friend and I came to university over here...’ she paused as if she were searching for the memory, when the truth was she knew practically to the week, the day ‘...so a little over ten years ago.’
The moment her mother h
ad died and Anouk had finally felt free of her. What kind of person did that make her?
But then, after her mother’s deathbed revelation, who could blame her? To realise that her mother, her grandmother, had been lying to her about her father for eighteen years.
What kind of people did that make them?
‘It was awful what happened to your mother, dear. God rest her soul.’
Their sympathy was apparent, but all Anouk could feel was how relieved she’d been. It had been awful, but it had also been liberating.
What had felt awful had been getting to the UK, tracking down her father from an address on a fragment of paper, only to discover that he had died a few years earlier. Her eyes pricked, hot and painful, at the memory. It had been the moment she’d realised the truth had been buried from her, quite literally if she thought about it, for ever.
She hastily blinked away the inconvenient tears. This was no time for sentimental nonsense. Sol’s eyes were boring into her. Seeing her in a new way. Or maybe seeing her in the old way, the way she hadn’t wanted anyone to look at her ever again.
‘Yes, well...’ The smile was as rigid as ever but suddenly she felt like a sad, lonely, frightened kid all over again.
You are a successful doctor, she chanted silently to herself. Successful. That wasn’t her life any more.
‘I know it wasn’t public knowledge, my dear. But we knew of the rumours. The things you did for her.’
‘No... I...’ The practised denial was on her lips but it had been so long. So many years.
‘What a marvellous ambassador for the young carers you will be.’ The woman brightened up, and it took Anouk a moment to realise what she was implying.
She opened her mouth to interject but the woman was already turning to her husband.