The Half-Life Of Hannah (Hannah series Book 1) Read online

  “The culture gap was just too vast to be bridged, really,” Jill is saying – Saïd again. “They expect you to do everything, Muslims. Shopping, cleaning. He liked his dinner to be on the table when he got in, d’you know what I’m saying? It was crazy.”

  Hannah knows she’s a bit old-school, but she doesn’t consider that crazy at all. Cliff, after all, is right now ensconced in his crime novel while the women present clear the breakfast table. Hannah doesn’t consider that macho. She considers it fair. Cliff’s long days at the practice pay, after all, for all of this for all of them.

  “He was working, though, wasn’t he?” she asks.

  “Yeah. I told you. At Stanstead.”

  “Yes. Really long hours you said.” Hannah doesn’t really know why she bothers to scatter pointers this way. Jill has never seemed able to spot them.

  “Yeah. It was a drag,” Jill says. “Sometimes he didn’t get home till ten.”

  “I think I’d want my dinner ready if I got home from work at ten.”

  “All the same. I mean, we’re not in the ‘fifties anymore, are we? Just because he’s the breadwinner doesn’t give him the right to meals on wheels and sex on demand.”

  “You’ve never been one to complain about sex on demand,” Hannah says, straightening from the dishwasher and smiling at her sister, who, she sees, is still drying the same mug in slow, circular movements.

  “Well, no,” Jill says. “That was the upside really. He was very pushy in bed.”

  “Pushy?”

  “Yeah, you know. Do this, do that. Suck this. Roll over. And lord knows I like a man who knows what he wants in the bedroom.”

  And there, Hannah thinks, is Jill’s problem. She likes pushy men. She needs to feel that the man in her life is running the show, is attracted, in a nutshell, to arrogant bastards. They excite her. Of course she splits up with them, every time, for exactly the same reasons. It’s a tiny psychological conundrum, an insoluble riddle so simple you could describe it in its entirety on the back of a postcard. But it’s sufficient to wreak havoc throughout Jill’s life.

  Back in the conversation, Jill is still talking. “... he actually bought me a dog collar. Can you imagine? He used to put it on me and then I knew we were gonna have a really good session. I mean, I wasn’t complaining. I like a bit of kink, as you know. But it’s pretty revealing, you’ve got to admit. It’s pretty revealing about how the guy sees women.”

  “But you liked it,” Hannah says, throwing her sister another pointless pointer.

  “Yes. Well, yes and no,” Jill says.

  Hannah turns back to the sink so that Jill doesn’t see her roll her eyes.

  NINE

  They are trying to read. Theoretically, all three adults are trying to read, only Jill can’t concentrate, which means, of course, that no-one can concentrate.

  “The guy in this book reminds me too much of Saïd,” she says. She’s reading – theoretically – Wuthering Heights. All roads, it seems, no matter how unlikely, lead to Saïd. From past experience Cliff, listening despite himself, would place money on the fact that they’ll get back together.

  “Have you read it?” Jill asks.

  “Of course,” Hannah says. “Years ago though. Heathcliff is the archetypal bastard.”

  “At the beginning of May,” Jill says, “we went to Margate for a weekend. Saïd found this really good hotel deal, so we just went for it. It was a four star hotel and everything, but really cheap. I thought it was a great idea until we got there. What a dump! Margate that is, not the hotel. Do you know the shops in the high street were boarded up there? I mean talk about recession. Anyway...”

  Hannah closes her book. She does this gently so that Jill won’t think (or rather realise) that the gesture is reproach for her blathering. She sits and listens as each of the standard elements of a Jill story are revealed: the disappointing surroundings, the determination to have a good time despite it all, a soupçon of rude service wittily put-down, an evening of alcohol, rough (but good) sex, and finally, of course, The Argument.

  “We didn’t speak to each other the whole way home,” Jill says, concluding her story.

  It was rather a good story actually. They generally are. But Hannah wants to read. “No, well,” she says, faking a yawn. “I’m still sleepy. I might go have another snooze.”

  Cliff peers over the top of his novel and winks at her, and Hannah, realising that Jill must be driving poor Cliff insane already, raises one eyebrow conspiratorially.

  No sooner has Hannah lain down and re-opened her book than Cliff enters the bedroom locking the door behind him.

  Hannah realises that he has misinterpreted her complicit eyebrow wiggle and thinks, Oh well, we might as well get it over with. She chides herself immediately for the thought, unsure even as to why she is so uncharitable. In truth, she acknowledges, she wants this. In truth, she needs this.

  Sex has always been complicated for her. In fact, pleasure, in general, has always been something slightly alien to her. She has always felt a requirement to accept it under duress rather than throw herself into it. She really doesn’t know where that comes from.

  “Lord, your sister can talk,” Cliff says, shucking his shorts and shirt.

  “She can,” Hannah agrees, wriggling out of her dress without standing. Cliff yanks off his underpants as she removes her bra. There was a time, at the beginning, when they found undressing embarrassing. For almost a decade, she undressed in the dark or in the bathroom, then sprinted beneath the covers. This easy familiarity is so much easier, yet so much less exciting.

  “So are we reading, or...” Cliff says, now naked and crawling up the bed towards her, tiger-style.

  “‘Or...’ I reckon, don’t you?” Hannah says.

  The sex follows the dots and squiggles they have laid down over the years – he kisses her like this, she slides a hand there and pulls him in... and though predictable, Hannah decides that it’s none the worse for that. No-one complains that the Four Seasons sounds the same every time, do they? Things don’t have to be original and unique to be satisfying. They just have to be faithfully performed.

  When it’s over, they fall into a surprisingly deep slumber and wake two hours later, sweaty and hungry and groggy from too much sleep.

  “Half three,” Cliff says, answering an unspoken question.

  “Wow.”

  “I’m starving,” Cliff says. “I wonder when Master Chef gets back.”

  “I’ll make a sandwich,” Hannah says. “We have cheese, and ham. Smoked salmon... Gosh, I’m hungry too.”

  “Is that allowed?” Cliff asks, sitting on the side of the bed and rubbing his face in his hands.

  “What, is anyone except Tristan allowed to prepare food?” Hannah asks, laughter in her voice.

  “I guess we don’t have to tell him,” Cliff says. “But if you use up some vital ingredient he’ll go crazy.”

  “He will not,” Hannah says.

  “Anyway, they’re back,” Cliff tells her, cocking one ear.

  Hannah holds her breath and hears the slamming of doors and Luke’s bouncing voice. “They are,” she agrees. “God, I feel so woozy!”

  “It’s the heat,” Cliff says. “We’re not used to it. Maybe we need to drink more. Water I mean.”

  By the time they have showered and reached the patio, Tristan is seated, gutting fish. Aïsha is taking photographs of the removed fish innards.

  “Ew, you’re brave,” Hannah comments.

  Tristan shrugs.

  “We bought fish from the fisherman,” Luke tells them. He is, for no apparent reason, wearing a diving mask.

  “What’s with the mask?” Hannah asks.

  “Tris’ bought it,” he explains.

  “He was chatting up all the fisherman,” Aïsha says. “It was awful. Embarrassing.”

  “Not all of them,” Tristan says.

  “Just the hunky one,” Luke says, and both Hannah and Cliff bristle at some subconscious discomfort.


  “You don’t even know what hunky means,” Tristan laughs. “But, yeah, he was. He was gorgeous. I was powerless to resist.”

  “I saw fish in the sea,” Luke says, thankfully moving on. “Like, this big,” he says, holding his hands apart to demonstrate an unfeasibly large fish.

  “Did you see any fish Aï?” Hannah asks.

  She shakes her head.

  “Missy forgot her cossie,” Tristan explains. “We tried to buy one but she didn’t like any of them.”

  “They only had these lame Paris Hilton things,” Aïsha says, and Hannah thinks she can read between those particular lines.

  “You could have swum in shorts and a t-shirt,” she tells her. “Like the Australians do.”

  Aïsha shrugs – her standard response – but then she belies her indifference by asking, “Do they really?”

  Hannah nods. “I saw it on TV. The sun’s really strong there so they get lots of skin cancers and stuff.”

  “It’s the hole in the ozone layer,” Jill says. “From aerosols.”

  “So they swim in t-shirts to protect themselves from the sun,” Hannah continues. “They have a TV campaign. Slip, slop and slap or something.”

  Egged on by the fact that Aïsha looks, for once, genuinely interested, Hannah explains. “I think it stands for slip on a t-shirt, slop on some sun-cream, and slap on a sun-hat. Something like that anyway.”

  Aïsha wrinkles her nose. “But they swim like that?” she asks.

  “They do,” Hannah says with a serious nod. “They think it’s cool.”

  “I’m gonna check on the pool,” Luke says, standing.

  “So tell me about the spunky fisherman,” Jill says.

  Aïsha groans and heads off after Luke.

  Tristan looks up from his gutting. “He was beautiful,” he says. “He looked like Jean-Marc Barre in The Big Blue. D’you ever see that?”

  Jill shakes her head. Hannah shrugs.

  “I did, I think,” Cliff says, surprising them all. “French film, right?”

  Tristan raises his eyebrows and nods to show that he’s impressed. “Well, he looked like the diver guy from that.”

  “The younger one, presumably,” Cliff says.

  “Yeah, not Jean Reno,” Tristan laughs. “Though he’s hot too. If you’re into older guys. But no, this one was all muscles and five-o’clock stubble. I was in heaven.”

  Cliff catches Hannah staring at him, staring though him. “It was on Film 4,” he tells her. “You went to bed to read, so I watched it. It’s about competition divers.”

  “There’s a guy like that here,” Jill says. “Something to do with this place. He came by yesterday to fill the pool when you were cooking. He’d be right up your street. He’d be right up my street.”

  “We have a hot pool guy and you didn’t come tell me!” Tristan protests.

  “Sorry,” Cliff says and then, suddenly embarrassed yet unsure why, he dips his head and stares at his book.

  TEN

  Tristan

  Tristan came to us through Jill. They met in Ibiza as I recall, during one of the summers when Aïsha and Luke were over at our place. (In theory the kids spend alternate summers at Jill’s, but as this rule is suspended anytime Jill meets someone new or anytime Jill splits up with someone, they’re more often than not at ours...)

  I honestly didn’t expect her friendship with Tristan to last so long. As I explained, Jill doesn’t really do stable relationships, whether they be friends or romances. And Tristan Wilde (his real name is Brian Smith or something – he changed it) seemed highly strung enough that I assumed he wouldn’t put up with Jill for long. But eight years on he’s still here, and we’ve more or less got used to him. He’s a pretty good friend to her, and I’m grateful for that. It takes some of the pressure off me at least.

  I felt pretty uncomfortable around him at first, it has to be said. Of course I have known gay guys before, but I’ve never been privy to quite so much detail about their personal lives. Tristan is a chronic over-sharer and it’s hard not to be shocked by some of what he gets up to. But you get used to being shocked by people. You get to appreciate it even. Difference is good. Difference is interesting. That’s what Tristan taught me.

  He has some great qualities as well. He’s a brilliant chef (Rez, his first restaurant, has Michelin stars) and he loves to cook even when he’s on holiday which suits me just fine. He’s always bouncy, always ‘on’ and even when he isn’t – because Tristan clearly has his share of heartache, perhaps more than his share – he has a unique ability to turn disaster into amusing fiction. If you see him regularly you can witness him telling the same story over and over, and each time it becomes a little funnier, a little more ridiculous, and a little less painful.

  As I say, the over-sharing made me nervous at the beginning, especially because he does it in front of the kids. Of course I didn’t actually think that Tristan talking about his boyfriends would make Luke into a gay, but, well, as a mother, you wonder, don’t you. You have to wonder if it’s healthy.

  Tristan must never find this out – I’d be mortified – but I asked the psychologist at the first school where I worked what he thought about it.

  He said, with reassuring certainty, that there was nothing to worry about, that if Luke is going to be heterosexual then he’ll be heterosexual, and that if he’s going to be a homosexual, he’ll be one, whatever goes on around him. He said that the only effect having a gay ‘uncle’ would be likely to have would be to make Luke feel comfortable around gay men no matter which way he turns out.

  I had a drunken conversation with Tristan once about Luke, too. He asked me how I would feel if Luke turned out gay (his own father threw him out) and I said, quite honestly, that I’d be OK about it. I’d be worried that he’d be lonely of course, but then plenty of heterosexuals manage that. I’d be worried about Aids, and I suppose I’d be disappointed not to have grandchildren too. So it’s hardly my ideal. But I’d be OK about it. And I remember I asked Tristan how I would know if Luke was going to be gay, and what I should do, what I should say. Tristan made me laugh so much. He said, “Honey, he likes insects, football, video games and guns. If you catch him playing with your jewellery then call me, but until that day, relax.” And the very next time I looked at Luke I realised that I knew already. I realised that I don’t have anything to worry about. Or not on that score, at least.

  ELEVEN

  After a lunch of tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad (the tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes here) followed by the fish, snapper, en papillotte with asparagus and wild mushroom risotto – a lunch that lasts so long it merges into dinner – Cliff proposes that they go for a walk, and Tristan suggests a bar he has spotted as an ideal destination.

  As the sun sinks lower, throwing ever-longer shadows across the garden, they lock up the house and start, en masse, to crunch their way along the lane.

  Each property is set within an acre or so of land, so they walk for five minutes chatting quietly, and then pause to peer over a gate or through a hedge, commenting, “Nice pool,” or, “Grass could do with a cut,” or, “Someone’s a hoarder.”

  “Most of these look empty,” Cliff says.

  “Holiday homes, I guess,” Hannah says, taking his arm.

  “But it’s July,” Cliff says. “Shouldn’t people be in their holiday homes?”

  “It’s weird,” Tristan agrees. “I thought that as well.”

  Hannah watches Luke and Aïsha walking in front. Luke’s gait is still boyish and sprightly. Aïsha has picked up a stick and is whacking the plants at the side of the road mercilessly as she walks.

  “Must be amazing to live somewhere like this,” Jill says. “I mean somewhere where it’s hot all summer long. It must be heavenly to wake up in the morning and just know it’s gonna be sunny.”

  “Maybe you should move,” Hannah says. “I wouldn’t mind visiting.”

  “I would,” Jill says. “If I met a bloke who lived somewhere like this,
I’d move in a second.”

  “You’d never put up with the French,” Tristan says.

  “Really?” Hannah asks, a little shocked. “They can’t be that different, can they? Surely people are people wherever you go.”

  “Tris’ is just being racist,” Jill says.

  “Not racist,” Tristan says. “Xenophobic. Anyway, I did my training in Paris. I think I know what I’m talking about.”

  Aïsha turns around. She looks vaguely panicked at the tenure of the conversation. “Jill, we are so not moving to France,” she says.

  “Wouldn’t you like that, sweetie?” Jill asks, her tone mocking.

  “No,” Aïsha tells her. “It’s well boring.”

  Once Aïsha has returned her attention to whacking the bushes, Hannah murmurs, “Well, that told you.”

  Jill sighs. “That’s what they’re like at that age. You’ll see soon enough. Everything’s boring, or...”

  “Or?”

  “Aïsha? What’s that word you use for anything that’s rubbish? She uses it all the time, only I can’t remember.”

  Aïsha looks back at them and shrugs. “Gay?” she says.

  “Hum, not too keen on that one,” Tristan says.

  “It doesn’t mean gay,” Aïsha tells him. “It just means lame.”

  “Lame! That’s the one,” Jill says. “Yep, everything’s boring or lame. Once in a blue moon something is awesome, but it really is once in a blue moon.”

  “It’s all very American,” Hannah says. “Lame. Awesome...”

  “Still not keen on the whole gay equals rubbish analogy,” Tristan says.

  “She doesn’t mean anything by it,” Jill says.

  “I know,” Tristan says, “but all the same...”

  The bar, when they reach it, is tiny. It comprises a single room (Formica and strip-lights) and a small roadside terrace covered with a vine-woven trellis.

  There are three clients in the bar, without exception ageing alcoholics with pickled eyes and red noses. As there is no sign of a barman or owner, they return to the terrace and brush leaves from the seats.