“Do you know, no one ever has?” Tristan laughs. “Though I have been trying to tell everyone that for years.”
“He has,” Jill says. “He even has it printed on a t-shirt.”
“Tristan’s a chef,” Hannah explains. “Which is why the food’s so good.”
“Ah, I guessed as much,” James says.
“Come to my room later, and I’ll show you just how well I fulfil my other wifely duties,” Tristan comments. He has had a bit too much to drink as well.
Hannah fears that the comment might be a little too much for an Australian farmer, and says, “You’ll have to excuse Tristan. He likes to shock.”
James, though, appears to already have Tristan’s measure. “I’m afraid I don’t bat on your side of the fence mate,” he tells him. “But I’m one happy guy as long as the food keeps coming.”
“You know what they say,” Tristan says. “If you like it, try it. If you don’t like it, try it, you might like it. My room’s the one at the end of the corridor on the left.”
Everyone laughs.
“Anyway,” Tristan says. “Who wants a slice of dessert. I knocked up a little raspberry charlotte earlier on.”
“You did?” Hannah asks. “When?”
Tristan sends Hannah a theatrical glare. “OK evil one,” he says, putting one hand on his hip and camping it up. “So it’s frozen, OK? It still looks pretty tasty though.”
“Can we do the thing after?” Aïsha asks.
“The thing?” Cliff asks.
“Yes,” Jill says. “Yes, we have little surprises for everyone. Go get them. They’re in my room.”
That night, in bed, lying plank-like, side by side, Cliff says, “That was nice of Jill to buy us all gifts, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Hannah says. “Yes, they were nice gestures.”
“Not sure I’m ever going to wear skimpy orange Speedos, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“Yes.”
“And James is a nice guy, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Hannah agrees. After everything that has happened, there’s something not right about discussing James with Cliff in a polite manner, so she adds, “I’m glad he’s not dead.”
After a minute’s silence, during which Cliff considers rising to that particular challenge but decides against it, he continues, “You maybe shouldn’t ask him about his wife though.”
“Why not?” Hannah asks. “Do you know something?”
“No,” Cliff says. “I just get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk about it. I don’t think it’s a very happy story.”
“Yes, I picked that up for myself,” Hannah says.
For ten minutes Hannah lies thinking about James sleeping next door in Aïsha’s bed, about Australia, about farms, and horses, and crocodiles and combine harvesters, and about how alien the life he leads is, compared with their own suburban existence.
She’s assuming that Cliff is asleep, but he suddenly says, “So how do you feel about him? Seeing him after all these years, I mean.”
She waits a full three minutes before she makes what she considers to be a pretty convincing snoring, snuffling sound and rolls onto her side. But Cliff isn’t fooled one bit.
THIRTY-TWO
It’s five am. To be precise, it’s five thirteen am. Hannah has been awake for forty-two minutes.
She had hoped that, by lying very still and concentrating on her breath, she would be able to get back to sleep, but now her back is aching and she feels hungry and thirsty – too hungry and thirsty to stay in bed.
In the kitchen, she finds James eating a cheese sandwich. “James,” she says quietly. “Gosh, you’re up early.” She closes the kitchen door behind her. Should she kiss him good morning? Of course not. The British don’t kiss each other. Why did she even think that?
“I have jet-lag,” he says wearily. “What’s your excuse?”
Hannah fills the kettle and plugs it in, aware that James is watching her as she moves around the room. “I don’t know really,” she says. “I just woke up feeling hungry. It happens sometimes.”
“D’you want a sandwich?” James asks. “This cheese is really good.”
Hannah shakes her head. “No, I’ll stick to muesli thanks.” Once she has made two cups of tea and filled her bowl with cereal, she adds, “I’m going to take this outside. It’s lovely out there first thing.”
“I’ll join you,” James says. “Unless you want to be alone with your thoughts.”
“No, please feel free.”
Outside the air is still cool and the air vaguely misty. The grass is covered with dew and the low sun is cutting atmospherically through the trees.
“So how has life been?” James asks once they are seated.
Hannah smiles and shrugs. “Oh, it’s been fine,” she says. “Just normal life really. You know how it is.”
James nods.
“I think yours has been more exciting by the sound of it,” Hannah says.
James copies her shrug. “Well it’s been a mixed bag,” James says. “Plenty of joy and a shed load of sadness.” He has to clear his throat before he can continue. “It’s good to be away,” he says. “It’s good to be elsewhere frankly.”
Hannah nods, detecting something in his voice, yet understanding nothing.
She eats in silence with only a pair of warring birds in one of the olive trees for accompaniment.
“So how long before the rest of the mob wake up?” James asks once Hannah has finished her cereal.
She leans back in her seat in an attempt at checking the kitchen clock, but the reflection of the sun on the window makes this impossible. “I’m not sure what time it is now,” she says, “but they generally wake up between eight and nine at the moment. Luke’s usually first, but after yesterday, well, it wouldn’t surprise me if he sleeps in. Why?”
“I thought we might have time for a walk,” James says.
Hannah stares at him. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, we do. I’ll show you the stream if you want.”
“We have a stream?”
“We do. It’s lovely down there.”
Once they have sprayed each other with insect repellant, Hannah leads James past the pool to the back of the house and over the fence. “You have to beware of snakes apparently,” she tells him.
“Venomous snakes?” James asks.
“I don’t know really,” Hannah admits. “Just keep your eyes open.”
As they walk single file along the track, the sun is warm on her face and contrasted against the cool, damp, morning air, it feels quite special.
After the intersection of the two paths, they are able to walk side by side once more.
Hannah is hyper aware of James’ hand swinging mere inches from her own as they walk, but rationalises that the desire to take it is as absurd as her desire to embrace him at breakfast. She’s amazed though to discover that the attraction between their two bodies is still here after all these years.
“So you must really like Australia,” Hannah says.
“Must I?” James laughs.
“Well, you took Australian nationality,” Hannah says. “And you never came back.”
“Yes, I guess so,” James says.
“So why now?”
“I don’t know,” James replies. “I think I needed to touch base with my roots, if that makes any sense.”
“Maybe,” Hannah says.
“I had a bad few years. I think sometimes you need to remember who you were before. Remind yourself that you even existed before, so maybe you can survive now, on your own again...” James’ voice fades.
“Are you talking about your divorce?” Hannah asks.
“There was no divorce,” James says as they reach the climb down to the riverbank.
As they file down the steps Hannah thinks about James’ words, about the fact that if there has been no divorce then she is about to be cast in the role of confidante. She promises that she will be generous. She promises to herself that she w
ill help James and his wife get over whatever their problems are. She is not Jill. She does not see every man as a potential conquest.
Once they reach the river bank, they start to walk slowly downstream. The babble of the brook combined with the screeches of the birds makes the place sound like a tropical rainforest this morning.
“Marriage is tough,” Hannah says. “There are always problems. You always have to fight for it if you want it to survive.”
“Yes,” James says. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“So what happened, James?” Hannah asks, eventually.
“A car accident,” James says, and Hannah’s heart lurches in two directions at once. “They were both killed outright.”
Hannah stops walking, and turns to face him. “Both of them?” she says.
James closes his eyes briefly and nods his head. He swallows and licks his lips. “A truck driver ... he was texting,” he says. “She had broken down and he...” he shrugs. “He just drove into them. He didn’t brake at all apparently.”
Hannah takes James’ forearms in her hands. She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry James,” she says. “I... I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s not much to say,” James says.
“No.”
“But I needed to remember, you know? I needed to remember who I was before.”
“Yes, that makes perfect sense.”
“She...” James pauses and looks up at the sky. When he returns his gaze to Hannah his eyes are watering. “She was six...” he says, his face screwing up. “Hannah, she was only six.”
Hannah’s eyes are watering too now. She leans in and takes James in her arms and hugs him tight. “I’m so sorry,” she says again.
It is James who ends the embrace. He pushes Hannah to arm’s length, and smiles sadly. “Let’s walk,” he says, swiping at a tear on his cheek. “I’m tired of blubbing. Honest I am.”
Beyond the bend, the path is blocked by a fallen tree, so James climbs on top and pulls Hannah up and then lowers her down the other side.
“When was it James?” Hannah asks. “How long ago did this happen?”
“Two years last February,” he says.
They continue to walk and then after a while, Hannah says, “Losing a child is the worst thing of all.”
James nods. “You can just never get your mind around that one really.”
“No.”
“Is that what happened to you as well?” James asks.
“Kind of,” Hannah says.
“I did wonder,” he says.
“Because I was pregnant?”
“Yes. It looks like this is it,” he adds, nodding at the way the riverbank they have been walking vanishes just ahead.
“There’s a path up there,” Hannah says, pointing higher up the bank.
“Let’s do that then,” James says.
“So how old was yours when...” James says once they have scrambled to the higher path.
“It was before she was born,” Hannah says. “It was a miscarriage.”
“God,” James says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Well, no,” Hannah says. She shrugs. “It was a long time ago now,” she adds.
“Sure.”
“It was the day after you left,” Hannah tells him.
“Really?”
Hannah nods.
“It wasn’t... you know... the stress of... all of that?”
Hannah shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No that wasn’t it. It was just one of those things, I think.”
THIRTY-THREE
James V
I waited for Cliff to leave for work before I got up. As soon as I heard his car drive away, I dressed and went downstairs. My stomach was fluttering weirdly as I made two cups of tea and carried the one I had made for James upstairs.
I hesitated outside his bedroom for a moment – I had no idea what was going to happen but a compressed sensation of excitement seemed to fill me. Life seemed full of possibilities, both terrifying and exciting. I felt as though I was reading a novel and couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. I knew we needed to talk about what had happened. I suspected that we might end up kissing again, and that with Cliff out we might even end up sleeping together. But I also knew that it might all simply be imaginary. James would perhaps apologise for his behaviour and I might feel nothing more than silly and the whole story could end right there and then. I was convinced that the second I saw him I would know, that the instant our eyes met, everything would be clear one way or another. There was only one possibility that I hadn’t imagined.
I opened the door and was surprised to see that the room was lit – the curtains were still open.
I threw the door wide open and saw that James’ bag was no longer on the floor. The bed had not been slept in.
I put the mug down on the dresser and ran downstairs, still hoping that I might find James in the lounge, watching TV and smiling up at me. When he wasn’t, I walked nervously to the window and looked out. The Volvo was gone.
I sat on the sofa and tried to imagine a reasonable scenario in which James would have had to leave so early but I couldn’t come up with one at all.
I went back upstairs to the bathroom where the lack of James’ toothbrush finally convinced me that he had really gone, that he had left in the night.
I waited a full hour before I phoned Cliff at work. In a rehearsed voice, feigning casual interest, I said, “James seems to be missing this morning. Any idea where he is?”
“James has gone,” Cliff replied, and I wasn’t sure if he was repeating my phrase in surprise or confirming it.
“Do you know where he has gone, Cliff?”
“No, I have no idea,” Cliff said.
“So do you know when he’ll be back?”
“No,” Cliff said.
“I just need to know how many people I’m catering for,” I told him.
“Two by the sounds of it,” Cliff said. “You and your fiancé.”
“OK. See you this evening.”
The house was entirely silent. I sat on the sofa and stared at the wall until a postman pushed something through the letterbox making me jump. And then I started to cry.
I don’t think I did anything that day. I made a sandwich at lunch time and ate it and drank tea and stared into the middle distance. Occasionally I would look out at the street and hope and pray that the orange Volvo would reappear.
Dinner was not ready when Cliff got home that night. He was pretending that everything was normal, that everything was fine, but I could sense that he was lying – I could tell that he was angry.
He spoke about his day at work and I pretended to listen, and then he asked what was for dinner, and I silently went through to the kitchen where I boiled potatoes and sliced carrots and fried pork chops. I felt like a robot performing to a script. I felt as if the part of my brain that controlled emotion has been surgically removed.
I was just serving up when Cliff came into the kitchen. “Is that going to be long?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
“It’s ready,” I said, moving my body so that he could witness that I was in the process of serving up.
“Good.”
“So do you have any idea where James went?” I asked without looking up from the plates.
“None,” Cliff said.
“But why would he leave like that?” I asked.
“I think you know the answer to that,” Cliff said.
He picked his plate up and carried it through to the dining room and I followed.
We sat in silence, and began to eat.
“Presumably he’ll be back,” I said, aware that this was dangerous, but unable to stop myself. “I mean, our shed is full of all of his stuff.”
Cliff put his knife and fork down. As he stared at me he started to redden. His head seemed to swell, and for a second, I became worried about him – I wondered if he was having a heart attack or a seizure or something. And then his arm twitched violently
to the right, and his plate slid across the table like an ice-hockey puck and flew into the wall. Without a word, he stood and left the room.
I sat for fifteen minutes looking at the stain on the wall before I got up, picked up the broken plate and the food and went through to the kitchen for a sponge.
Outside in the fading light of the garden I could see that Cliff was lighting a bonfire.
I finished cleaning the stain from the wall and then I took my coat and left the house. I went to the park where I sat on a bench until the sky was dark. I still felt entirely numb.
When I got home, the bonfire was still burning. Cliff was sitting on a fold-up chair swigging at a can of beer, his face lit by the flames.
I brushed my teeth and went to bed, and pretended, an hour later when Cliff arrived, that I was asleep.
He undressed, got into bed, and then reached over to pull me towards him. “Kiss me,” he said.
I told him that I wasn’t in the mood.
“Kiss me,” he said again, more insistently.
“No, Cliff. I’m tired,” I said. “I just want to sleep.”
Then he pulled me towards him and rolled on top of me. He did a lot of sports in those days – he was strong. And I don’t think I fought either. I don’t remember actually fighting.
But I did say “no.” I did turn my head away. I did say, “Please, don’t.”
“You’re my fiancée,” he said, forcing his legs between mine. “You’re my fucking fiancée.”
And as he started to fuck me, I began to cry.
As soon as it was over – and because I was crying, he gave up quite quickly – I went to the spare room. Cliff didn’t follow or try to stop me.
I locked the door behind me and crawled into the single bed. And there, in sheets that still smelt of James, the ceiling still flickering from the flames that outside were slowly consuming his every possession, I cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I awoke at dawn to find that the sheets were cold and clammy – there was blood on them. I lifted the covers and saw that there was blood everywhere, pints and pints of it and knew that the worst thing possible was happening.
The Half-Life Of Hannah (Hannah series Book 1) Page 19
