The Half-Life Of Hannah (Hannah series Book 1)
Page 16
“Both?”
“Yes. I mean, you can’t have the excitement and the stability. It’s life’s great dilemma. That every choice excludes something else.”
Tristan nods thoughtfully. “After Paul, I thought I wanted to be single forever more, but then I got bored with that too, so I thought maybe I needed someone really adventurous. An extreme sports enthusiast or a mountaineer or something mad like that.”
“Right,” Hannah says. “And?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a tall order, isn’t it?” Tristan says. “I mean, I can’t even find someone who wants a relationship most of the time. It’s never really going to happen.”
“No.”
“So I went out with Matt. But Matt was just a butterfly. You know, flitting from one thing to the next. So he flitted on elsewhere. And now I think that I should have stayed with Paul really. I think that leaving Paul was my greatest error probably.”
“And is he still... I mean, couldn’t you get back with him?”
“Nah, he’s married now. Well, civil partnered. To a really nice guy. A bit boring too. They watch Coronation Street together and eat too many doughnuts. It probably wouldn’t have suited me anyway.”
“Life’s complicated,” Hannah says.
“And there’s no instruction manual, is there?”
“No. I guess you always regret the choices you didn’t make, because you imagine that they would have been better choices, that’s the thing. But in the end, you just have to choose something and get on with it. Because if you hedge your bets forever, well, you end up with nothing, don’t you?”
“Like me?” Tristan says.
“No, I was thinking of Jill to be perfectly honest.”
“Yes. We’re very similar that way, Jill and me,” Tristan says. “Never satisfied. I often think that people all have different genes or skill sets or whatever and, you know, perhaps, I just didn’t get the one called ‘making a relationship work.’ Maybe that’s just bad luck for me. But maybe I can’t really do anything about it.”
“I suppose,” Hannah says.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not sure it’s a skill,” Hannah says. “Or a gene. And I’m not sure it comes down to luck either. I tend to think it’s a choice. I tend to think most things are a choice.”
Tristan chews his lip as he thinks about this.
“God, it’s only twenty past,” Hannah says, nodding at the clock.
“I know.”
“I saw a drinks machine down the hall,” Hannah says. “Have you got any change? I haven’t got a penny. Or a centime or whatever.”
Tristan stands and jingles his pocket. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll go. What do you want?”
“Coke I think,” Hannah says. “I could do with some caffeine.”
“Diet, or...”
“Normal. I think I need some sugar too.”
When Tristan returns, he hands Hannah her bottle of Coke. “Open it carefully. The machine shook them up a bit during delivery,” he says, lifting his half-empty bottle to show her. “Mine went all over the place and I had to get someone to mop it up.”
“I hate that,” Hannah says. “It happened to me in a supermarket once.”
They stand side by side at the window and sip their drinks. “Crazy to build the whole town on the hill like that,” Hannah comments.
“I suppose it was so they could see the enemy coming or something,” Tristan says.
“Yeah,” Hannah says vaguely – she’s thinking about something else. “Last night you said that Jill is jealous of me,” she says.
“Did I?”
“Yes. You did. Is she really?”
Tristan nods. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, she is a bit.”
“It’s funny,” Hannah says. “I was thinking about that last night after you went to bed. We’re all jealous of what we haven’t got, aren’t we?”
“Well, except those of us who have got it all,” Tristan says, nudging Hannah vaguely with his hip.
“Me?” Hannah says. “You have to be joking.”
“A husband, a son, a house...”
“A dishwasher. Three bedrooms. A Dyson,” Hannah continues.
“Exactly. So what’s missing from your life?”
Hannah shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I guess a proper career, a daughter, passion, excitement, adventure, travel.”
“We’re in France. Doesn’t that count?”
“If you knew how hard I had to twist Cliff’s arm... But you can always find something to feel dissatisfied about I suppose. It’s like you say, maybe none of us can help wondering if this is really all there is. If this is really it.”
“There’s Cliff,” Tristan says.
“Yes, Cliff...” Hannah says. “I’m not sure what I...”
Hannah belatedly realises that Tristan isn’t discussing Cliff, he’s pointing at him in the square below. “Oh! Yes!” she says.
They watch him cross the pavement and then attempt to pull a door open before realising that it opens the other way, then he enters the building and vanishes from sight.
“I’ll go down and meet him,” Tristan says. “I wonder where he p–. Shit!”
Hannah turns and she and Tristan stare into each other’s eyes, and then, in unison, they say, “The car!”
Despite Tristan’s directions, it takes fifteen minutes for Cliff to find the opthalmology waiting room. He crosses the floor and hugs Hannah, and notices, but doesn’t comment on, the brevity of the embrace. “Any news?” he asks.
Hannah shakes her head. “Nothing new yet. Only what I told you on the phone. He’s still in there.”
“Tristan’s car got towed,” Cliff announces. “Apparently he left it right in front of the ambulance bay.”
“I know, I was there,”
“Daft bugger.”
“Well, we were kind of in a hurry.”
“Sorry, I know that. I just meant...” Cliff’s voice fades out.
“Poor Tris’,” Hannah says.
“He’s gone to get it from the pound – is it called a pound? Anyway it’s walking distance, so...” Cliff says.
“We must give him money to pay the fine or whatever,” Hannah says. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”
Cliff vaguely resents what he perceives as the implication that Tristan succeeded where he himself has failed. “I don’t think Tristan is short of a few bob,” he says.
“Neither are we,” Hannah says.
“No.”
“Well then.”
“I could kill Tristan for giving him that shitty mask,” Cliff says.
“Don’t Cliff,” Hannah says. “He feels terrible about it already. Personally, I could kill Aïsha for smashing it.”
“Yes, she did too.”
“So do we know what actually happened? How, I mean.”
“She dive bombed him in the pool – put her foot through it.”
“Stupid little bitch.”
“Quite. She cut her ankle too. Nothing major. She didn’t even notice till later. But, yes, proof if any were needed.”
“That girl needs some proper discipline,” Hannah says.
“She does,” Cliff agrees. He crosses to where Hannah is standing and looks out at the window. “That’s a view,” he says.
“It is.”
“Did they give you any prognosis whatsoever?”
Hannah sighs. “I told you all this Cliff,” she says.
“I know, I’m sorry. It’s just been difficult, not being here. I keep feeling like I’m missing some vital piece of information.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Hannah says. “They vaguely said that he should be fine. But in that bland way hospital staff always do.”
“Under-promise, over-deliver,” Cliff says.
“Well, hopefully.”
“I contacted the assistance people. They said they’ll pay part of the cost.”
“And the euro-thingie covers the rest?”
“And you do.”
“Of course.”
“Thank God for that,” Hannah says.
Cliff slides one arm around her and says, “See, I am good for something.”
Hannah shrugs him off. There’s something unsavoury about the comment that she can’t quite put her finger on, but something about it displeases her profoundly.
“We will be OK, won’t we?” Cliff asks.
“What do you mean?” Hannah asks, mainly to gain extra thinking time.
“I mean with Luke and Aïsha and all this hassle and James maybe arriving.”
“Yes? And?”
“Well, you won’t let it... you won’t let it wreck everything?” Cliff says. “You won’t let it wreck us. Not when Luke needs us? Not when he’s depending on us.”
Hannah’s feelings about Cliff, which have been a maelstrom of confusion for the last few days, solidify at that second into hatred. She has never liked it when people attempt to manipulate her feelings – no doubt because her mother was such an expert – but such blatant use of their injured son strikes her as beyond the pale.
“Of course I won’t,” she says sharply.
“You promise?” Cliff asks.
“Of course I promise,” Hannah says. But childish or not, she has her fingers crossed behind her back.
Just as Cliff starts to lurch towards her for another attempt at a hug she is saved by the appearance of a short, black female nurse pushing through the double doors. She continues along the corridor past them and then suddenly doubles back. “Monsieur et Madame Parker ?” she asks.
“Yes,” Hannah says. “Oui.”
“Il est sorti,” the nurse says. “Il est en salle de réveil. Tout va bien. Il...”
“Sorry do you speak English?” Hannah asks, interrupting her.
“Est-ce que je parle anglais ?” the nurse says. “Non. Je suis désolée – vous êtes en France. Nous parlons français ici.”
Hannah shrugs. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We don’t speak French.”
The nurse rolls her eyes, pushes her lips out, makes a short sharp “pff” noise by blowing through her lips, and then spins on one heel and returns from whence she came.
“She seemed stroppy,” Hannah says.
“What was all that about ?” Cliff asks.
“I don’t know,” Hannah says. “I don’t, as you know, speak French.”
“I expect she’s gone to get someone else,” Cliff says.
“Do you think Luke’s OK?” Hannah asks. “She didn’t look happy.”
“She didn’t look like anyone’s died either,” Cliff says.
“Don’t!” Hannah says, genuinely shocked.
“I didn’t mean... I only meant...”
Hannah starts to pace the floor anew. At one point she approaches the double doors and peers through, but there is nothing but another stretch of endless corridor on the far side.
After ten minutes of this, and specifically when Hannah says, “God, I wish Tristan were here,” Cliff – despite the bilingual Staff Only sign – pushes through the doors, but within seconds the same black nurse as before appears to march him back to the waiting room.
“Can you please find someone who speaks English?” Cliff asks. “We need to know how our son is.”
“Non, non, non !” is all the nurse says.
It’s another half an hour – half an hour that stretches like a day – before another nurse, a man this time, comes to speak to them.
“Vous ne parlez pas français ?” he asks.
“Sorry,” Hannah says.
“Luke is waked up,” he says. “He ask for you. Why you ‘ere? Come!”
“No one told us,” Hannah says, as they follow him back down the long corridor again. “Is he OK?”
The nurse doesn’t answer their question, but leads them back to the lift, up one floor, and then down an identical corridor to an individual room which Hannah guesses must be almost exactly above where they were standing before.
Inside the room, Luke is lying in bed, his eye bandaged. “Is he awake yet?” Hannah asks.
“Mum?”
“I’m here baby,” Hannah says, running around the bed so that Luke can see her with his good eye.
“I didn’t know where you were,” Luke slurs, his pronunciation that of someone who has just left a dentist’s chair.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Hannah says, pulling up a chair and taking his hand. “They didn’t tell us you were awake. We came as soon as we knew. We’re here now. Is he going to...?” Hannah begins to ask, but as she looks up she sees that the nurse has already gone.
Reassured that his parents are there, Luke ceases fighting the anaesthetic and falls asleep again. While Hannah strokes his hand, Cliff makes repeated sorties in an attempt at getting some information about the success, or otherwise, of Luke’s operation, but succeeds only in annoying the staff nurse so seriously that, reminding him that he’s outside visiting times, she threatens him with eviction. Returning to the room, his tail between his legs, he tells Hannah, “I think we had better just shut up and wait or they’ll kick us out.”
“He woke up again,” Hannah says. “Just for a few seconds.”
“Any pain?” Cliff asks.
“No, I don’t think so,” Hannah says. “I just hope that behind that bandage...” She pulls a face.
“I know,” Cliff says.
It’s not until Tristan returns at four-fifteen that they are able to get fresh information.
“We don’t know anything,” Hannah tells him, her voice panicky. “Can you do something, Tris’?”
“Sure,” Tristan says, “I’ll go give them hell.”
“I tried,” Cliff says. “But they won’t know anything until the surgeon does his rounds.”
When Tristan returns less than a minute later with a perfectly-informed, English-speaking, male nurse, only Cliff’s solace at getting some information counteracts his desire to punch Tristan.
“Is good,” the nurse tells them, and Hannah gasps with relief.
“He have three little glass in his eye, but is OK now. All gone.”
He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a tiny plastic jar. “Glass,” he says.
“God,” Cliff says, taking it from his grasp, shaking it, then holding it to the light. He tries to hand it back, but the nurse says, “You can keep. But not for the boy. Is dangerous.”
“Sure,” Cliff says.
“So he’ll be OK?” Hannah says, slightly frustrated by all this boyish gloating over the fragments of glass.
“Perfect,” the nurse says.
“And his sight?” Cliff asks. “Will that be affected?”
“Perfect,” the nurse says. “La rétine.... retina?”
“Yes, retina.”
“The retina was not affected. Nor the...” he points vaguely to his eye. “The lentile,” he says. “So it’s good.”
“Oh thank-you,” Hannah says, sensing fresh tears forming. “And the eye-patch?”
“I’m sorry?”
“This?” she says, pointing.
“Ah, quarante-huit heures.”
“Forty-eight hours,” Tristan translates.
“And before we can go home?”
“Non. This...” the guy mimes an eye-patch. “Is for forty hours. Two day.”
“So we can go home when? Now?”
“Non !” he laughs. He checks his watch. “Twenty hours.”
“In twenty hours?” Hannah asks, trying to calculate what time that will be.
“I think he means at eight o’clock,” Tristan says.
“Yes at eight clock. I’m sorry, my English is not so good,” the nurse says.
“No, it’s very good,” Hannah says. “Thank you!”
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�So now I go get you some ordonnance for antibiotics...”
“Yes.”
“And someone must come with me for...” he makes a money gesture.
“Right, that’ll be me,” Cliff says, eager for an opportunity to prove his worth in all of this.
“Sorry, do we need to come back for a checkup?” Hannah asks.
“Checkap? What is checkap?”
“Must we come back here? In a day, a week? To see the doctor?” Hannah paraphrases.
The nurse shakes his head. “No. It’s not néccessaire...” he says. “OK.” He turns towards the door, but then hesitates. “I’m sorry, but only one person in the room,” he says. He looks at Hannah. “Maybe you are staying?”
“Yes,” Hannah confirms. “I’ll stay.”
“I’ll come with you,” Tristan tells Cliff. He turns to Hannah and adds, “Just in case he needs help with the forms or something,” and winks.
“So I can’t come back here when I’ve paid?” Cliff asks.
“No, I’m sorry. Only one person in this room.”
“It’s fine. Go home. Have a rest. I’ll meet you downstairs at eight,” Hannah says.
“At the reception? In A and E?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there,” Cliff says. “And if there’s some delay, don’t worry, I’ll wait.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t have a phone, do you?” Tristan asks Hannah.
“No,” Hannah says. She left her battered Nokia in England.
“Here, have mine,” Tristan says, proffering his iPhone.
“It’s better if I take Cliff’s, isn’t it?”
“No,” Cliff says. “Take Tristan’s. My battery is nearly dead.”
Tristan hands his phone over. “The code is two-four-six-four,” Tristan says.
“Two-four-six-four,” Hannah repeats. “Got it.”
“And don’t go chatting the boys up on Grindr.”
“No... no, well, I wouldn’t even know how.”
Tristan flashes the whites of his eyes at her, and then the three men file from the room.
Hannah sits for a moment thinking about Tristan’s strange glance. What did it mean? And then she realises, and shakes her head at the fact that even here, even in the midst of this mayhem, Tristan has spotted a cute male nurse.
She peers in at Luke. He is still sleeping. She strokes his forehead gently, then kisses it and pulls her chair a little closer so that she can lay her head next to his body.