“I know,” Luke says, “but so what?”
“Everyone thought he was dead,” Aïsha says, “only he ain’t. And he’s, like, your mum’s old boyfriend. And he’s your uncle. I s’pose he might even be your dad.”
Trailer trash, Hannah thinks. She makes us sound like trailer trash. She clasps one hand over her mouth and stands on tip-toe to better hear Luke’s reply.
Thankfully, Luke just laughs. “Don’t be stupid,” he says. “Dad’s my dad. So are we going to the river then?”
Once she has dressed, Hannah heads back outside and returns to the corner of the house. With the exception of Luke – who is presumably at the river with Aïsha – the configuration is exactly as before.
Hannah waves to get Jill’s attention, but it is Tristan who spots her and sits up, so she points at Jill beside him and beckons.
“Jill,” Tristan says quietly, nudging his neighbour gently.
Jill lifts her sunglasses and sits up. “Yes?” she says, causing Cliff to turn and peer back at her as well.
“Is everything OK?” Cliff asks.
“Fine,” Hannah says. “I just need Jill for a minute.”
Jill yawns, stretches and then stands. “Oh dear,” she asks jokingly as she crosses the lawn. “What have I done now?”
Once they have reached the patio, Hannah leans back against the wall of the house. “It’s about Aïsha,” she says.
“It’s a tiny river,” Jill says, misunderstanding the reason that Hannah has summoned her. “It’s about three feet deep. They’re perfectly safe.”
“Oh. Good,” Hannah says. “Look, I need to know what you’ve told Aïsha.”
“Oh,” Jill says, pulling a face. “Why, what has she said?”
“Nothing to me. But I overheard her talking to Luke. She was telling him that James is my old boyfriend.”
“Oh God,” Jill says. “God, I’m sorry Han’, I told her not to say anything. I specifically said...”
“You shouldn’t have told her, Jill,” Hannah says. Her voice sounds a little more edgy than she intends it to be, a little more quivery. She clears her throat before continuing. “I specifically asked you not to say anything.”
Jill sighs and gently grasps her sister’s elbow. “I already had. When he phoned. That’s the thing. So I just told her to keep her mouth shut. I didn’t think...”
“She told Luke that James might be his father as well,” Hannah says. “I mean, honestly!”
“No! Really?”
“That didn’t come from you, did it?”
Jill shakes her head sharply. “Of course not,” she says. “He isn’t though, is he?”
Hannah cups her hands across her nose, closes her eyes and murmurs, “Oh God!” before continuing, “Of course he isn’t! How could he be? For Christ’s sake.”
Jill shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Luke was born two years after James... after James supposedly died,” Hannah says.
“Right,” Jill says. “Of course. Sorry. So what? Shall I have another word with her?”
Hannah shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she says. “I mean, I don’t want Luke thinking that James is my ex; but..”
“Even though he kind of is,” Jill says.
Hannah rolls her eyes skywards. “For God’s sake Jill. It’s bad enough as it is, without everyone embroidering the situation.”
“But you two did... you know... Didn’t you?”
“No. We didn’t. We didn’t do anything. I just... I just had a crush on the guy I suppose. That’s all it was. That’s all that happened.”
“Oh, I assumed, you know... What with all the fuss and everything.”
Hannah sighs deeply.
“Hey, it’s not my fault if you don’t tell me anything,” Jill says, relaxing her grip on Hannah’s elbow and gently stroking her arm instead.
“There wasn’t anything to tell,” Hannah says. “Anyway, isn’t there something you want to tell me?”
Jill shrugs, all innocence.
“I came to your room last night,” Hannah says. “You had someone in there with you.”
“Oh,” Jill says. “That.”
“Yes, that.”
“It was just Pascal.”
“Pascal.”
“Yes.”
“Pascal being...? The pool guy?”
Jill licks her lips and attempts to restrain a smirk. She nods and flashes the whites of her eyes at her sister. “He is such a good shag, Han’, you have no idea.”
“That’s outrageous,” Hannah says.
“Why?” Jill laughs. “I’m single. I’m on holiday. What’s so outrageous about it?”
“But...” Hannah shrugs. “I don’t know. You can’t even talk to each other, can you?”
Jill snorts – a genuine out-loud laugh. “You’re so funny Hannah,” she says.
“Why? Why am I funny?”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Jill! Jesus!”
Jill looks so pleased with herself, Hannah becomes confused about whether she herself should feel angry or amused. “Anyway, how did you even book your midnight rendezvous? Was it when you were over there? When you had coffee with his mother?”
“We pointed at the clock,” Jill says, as if this is evident. “And his mother wasn’t really there. You realised that, right?”
Hannah looks confused. “Well, no; no, I didn’t.”
“The mother was a decoy. I just didn’t want to announce in front of everyone,” Jill says. “Even I like to keep some mystery.”
“You didn’t want to announce what?”
“Well, that I’d had a quick shag against the wall of the shed,” Jill says. “It doesn’t sound very classy, does it? Even I know that. I do have some standards, Han’.”
“Of course you do. The highest standards.”
“So again. Do you want me to talk to Aïsha about the James business or not?”
Hannah tips her head back and rubs the back of her head against the cool stone of the wall. “No,” she says. “No, I don’t think so. Luke seemed to just laugh it off. I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie. And anyway, there’s nothing really to tell. But if he says anything...”
“Sure,” Jill says. “If he says anything, I’ll let you know.”
TWENTY-ONE
James III
On the monday, Cliff had to work. I was still trying to avoid James, not out of any logical thought process, but from an instinctive feeling that he was dangerous. I was pregnant with Cliff’s child after all. Perhaps the mother in me felt threatened, perhaps even the baby did.
To avoid James, I told him that I had shopping to do, errands to run. I needed some food from Waitrose, and I had to pick up Cliff’s suit from Moss Brothers and my dress from the seamstress. It was a plain little white dress but expensive and hand-made for the simple reason that I hadn’t been able to find anything straight-forward enough for my tastes anywhere else.
The rain had stopped and James declared himself in need of exercise, so my escape plan failed miserably. We would end up spending most of the day side-by-side.
On the way into town we stopped at Costa and had toasted tea-cakes and mugs of frothy cappuccino. I remember that because James aped around by putting a blob of froth on his nose and going up to the counter to ask for sugar. He wanted to see if the barista would tell him about his nose – she didn’t say a word.
In Waitrose he continued his one-man show by hiding behind the bread-shelf I was looking at and hanging onto the other side of the loaf I selected. It will all sound a bit childish now, I suppose, but it wasn’t. It was charming and funny. We were still so young I suppose.
And then we went to the dress shop...
The assistant assumed that he was my fiance and James played along magnificently. When I stepped out of the changing rooms, James clapped his hands and said, “Wow! Stunning,” and I sensed from his regard that it was true, and felt good
about myself.
The woman smiled at me and nodded her approval, then said to James, “You shouldn’t really be seeing this, you know. People say it’s bad luck.”
“We don’t believe in luck, do we Han’?” James said. “We’re going to make our own luck.”
I felt myself blushing. Because I had momentarily wished that it were true. I had momentarily imagined that it was funny, grinning, blue-eyed James that I was going to marry in less than a week and not Cliff. As I changed back into my jeans, I felt disgusted at myself for even having had the thought.
After the dress shop, James convinced me to go for lunch in a pub we were passing. It was late and I was hungry and my nerves were all jangled from trying the dress on – in short, I felt in need of a drink.
Lunch was nothing special really. I had a not-very-nice burger and James had fish and chips. I downed two glasses of white and James two pints of beer. But the alcohol helped me relax. It stilled my racing heart.
The sun finally came out while we were inside. The rays shone through the dirty pub window and lit up the back of James’ head. He looked freaky really, like some Christian icon. He was talking constantly, being funny still. And then he suddenly changed tack and asked me what it was I loved about Cliff.
I told him I was exhausted thinking about Cliff and the wedding and that I’d rather hear more of his stories. But that wasn’t true. It was simply that I couldn’t, when put on the spot, think what it was I loved about Cliff. Or rather it was that the things that I would have listed, that Cliff was level headed, and good humoured, and reliable, suddenly didn’t sound like love at all. I kept thinking of a song lyric – the Smiths perhaps – that asked how you would know what love looked like if you had never seen it. And I remember thinking, that the more important point was, how would you know what love wasn’t if you had never seen it. My definitions of what love was and wasn’t seemed suddenly to be shifting, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that at all.
James was eating chips and rabbiting on about something or other in that animated manner of his and I saw that he had a spot of mayonnaise on the corner of his mouth.
Without thinking, I reached out and smudged it away, and then I flinched, knowing instantly that some taboo had been breached by my doing so.
In a fluster of false excuses about the food defrosting at our feet – food which had been forgotten until that point – I stood and clumsily knocked over James’ empty glass and announced that we had to leave; that we had to leave right now.
We walked home in near silence. I was carrying the dress and a carrier bag, and James was carrying Cliff’s suit and the second bag of shopping. It crossed my mind that James and Cliff were about the same size and I wondered what he would look like in the suit. The silence between us became quite uncomfortable. I think we were both aware that something had happened.
When we got inside I went straight to the freezer. I could tell from the soggy packaging that things were melting. As I turned from stacking the freezer, I bumped into James – he was standing right behind me. He was just inches away, with an expectant look on his face.
I laughed falsely, and said, “What on Earth are you...?” And that’s when he kissed me.
TWENTY-TWO
Brisbane – 15th December 2001
Dear Hannah,
So I finally managed to get my shit together and drag myself from India. I made it to Australia. The other side of the world. If I go any farther, I’ll be coming back.
This is an amazing place, so English and yet so different.
It is summer here, Christmas will be mid-summer, imagine! The houses are English, the people are English, and yet they’re not. They’re tougher and more friendly, more solid, like country people in England maybe. When you leave the city, amazing animals are everywhere, kangaroos and parrots and crocodiles. It really is like living in a kid’s pop-up book.
I am boarding in a hotel on the edges of Brisbane, a friendly, clean, basic place over a pub. (They call all the pubs hotels here.) I am working for an outfit installing electric fences in the outback. It is not technically breathtaking, and it’s not that well paid either, but my money ran out, so....
I want to tell you about Australia, but I can’t work out what to tell, it is such a strange place, so much is different and so much the same.
I still haven’t found anyone to replace you, I look at this country and I wish you were here to see it with me. Is that crazy after all these years?
I’m still not sure I will be happy here, though, but perhaps one never really ever is. Perhaps they all just pretend.
I hope you are all well, I wonder if you get my letters ? A reply would be cool, just to let me know that you’re OK.
And HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
All my love as always. J.
TWENTY-THREE
After a second night on Triazolam, Hannah wakes up feeling floaty and relaxed. The whole James thing has taken on a surreal, dreamlike quality. She is even starting to doubt that he will come at all.
When, after breakfast, further interrogation of her sister regarding the exact nature of her conversation with James provides nothing further of substance, nothing but further reasons to doubt, she decides, unilaterally, that he isn’t coming. She’s surprised at herself that this leap of faith is not only possible, but relatively easy.
Re-centred in the here and now for the first time in two days, Hannah notices that Luke and Aïsha are becoming bored and argumentative. Tristan, too, is spending more time tapping messages into his phone than interacting with anyone else.
It’s at the moment Hannah suggests that they drive somewhere for dinner that she realises why no one has suggested leaving the villa for the last two days. No one wants to be elsewhere if and when James should finally arrive. No one wants to miss the action.
But her suggestion is seized upon by Luke and Aïsha – who immediately specify that the restaurant must serve pizza – and from that point there is no going back.
Just after four, as they are leaving, Cliff offers to stay behind so that everyone can fit into Tristan’s Jeep.
Hannah is having none of it. There is no way she is letting Cliff head James off at the pass. “Just get in the car,” she says with a sharpness that surprises even her. Cliff, bless him, buckles.
Hannah, Luke and Aïsha climb into Tristan’s Jeep whilst Cliff and Jill follow on in the Mégane. Hannah glances back occasionally and sees that they are engrossed in a very serious looking conversation. She wonders what they’re talking about.
When Tristan hits the open road and accelerates, the present momentarily overwhelms her. She had forgotten that she was in France. She’s in France and it’s hot, and they’re out of the house, and the sensations of driving with the top down and her hair whipping crazily around her head are ecstatic. She’s tapping her hand to Tristan’s crazy electronic music and the kids, in the rear seats, are grinning again. She’s overcome by a surprise wave of the joy of now, so powerful it moves her to tears. She’s tired, she rationalises. She’s tired and drugged – no wonder she’s emotional.
She glances across at Tristan, and he smiles back briefly before his expression changes to concern. “It’s too windy for you,” he shouts. “Your eyes are watering. Do you want the top up?”
“No,” Hannah says, smiling back at him and reaching out to touch his shoulder. “No, it’s fine. It’s better than fine. It’s brilliant Tris’. I love it.”
They end up in a beautiful little pizzeria in a hilltop town called Cabris. The tables are covered with red and white checked tablecloths, and the cutlery glimmers with the light from the oil lamps placed on each table.
Luke and Aïsha leave the table almost the second the pizzas are served, returning only occasionally for another mouthful before running off again to explore the tiny streets.
Hannah cuts into her calzone and watches as raw egg-white oozes out. “Ooh. Look. This egg’s not cooked,” she says. “D’you thi
nk that’s OK Tris?”
Tristan shrugs. “It’s impossible to fully cook the egg inside a Calzone,” he says. “If you send it back they’ll just cremate it.”
“But it’s OK to eat?”
“Sure,” he says. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Hannah nods and starts to cut into the other end of the Calzone. “Look how all the French kids just sit there,” she says, looking around the terrace. There are three French families eating here tonight, and their kids, ranging from about five to fifteen, are without exception sitting elegantly, engaged in polite conversation with the adults.
“Oh, they’re fine,” Cliff says, meaning Luke and Aïsha. “They’ve just been cooped up a bit. It’ll do them good to run around.”
“Anyway,” Jill says. “You wouldn’t want Luke to behave like that, would you?”
Hannah discovers that by tipping each slice of Calzone sideways the raw egg simply runs off. “Maybe,” she says, forking a mouthful.
Jill scans the terrace again and then pulls a face. “They look like they’ve been drugged to me,” she says. “They look like they’ve been given tranquillisers.”
Hannah and Tristan laugh. “It’s true,” Tristan says.
“They do,” Hannah agrees.
“Maybe there’s a special kid’s pizza with Valium. You should have asked.”
“I’d rather Aïsha grows up stroppy and rebellious,” Jill says. “I’d far rather she grabbed life by the balls than became some placid L’Oréal queen.”
Hannah nods. “I suppose,” she says. And there it is again, she thinks. How best to live a life? Respectably? Politely? Or as a stroppy rebel.
“Talking of which, I need to be back at midnight by the way,” Jill says. “We will be back by midnight, won’t we?”
“I would think so, but why?” Cliff asks. “You gonna turn into a pumpkin?”
Hannah glances at Tristan and she can tell from his restrained smile that Jill has told him and that he approves.
“Jill has a regular midnight visitor,” Hannah explains.
The Half-Life Of Hannah (Hannah series Book 1) Page 11
