Waiting For Hannah

A lasting friendship

I’m early. But I’m always early. One of my many foster parents had said it was because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. There’s some truth in that. If I was late or showed less than total interest in something then I might not be able to go to the cinema… a school trip… a family picnic.

I had always aimed to please. To be accepted.

But today is different. It is excitement and a sense of wonder at the ways of the universe that has me sitting in the tearoom, sipping cappuccino and facing the door. Beside me on a chair are library books. The library is just through the archway and past the café counter is the museum. This place is my second home.

It is a follow-on from the school library, my refuge, where I once spent every spare minute of my school day – together with Hannah. It is Hannah I’m waiting for. It is fifteen years since I’ve seen her and I wonder if I will recognise her. I remember her as tall, blonde and angular; her ambition was to fill a bra cup. Her parents, high flyers, had wanted her to become a doctor or a solicitor.

I smile at the thought of Hannah in one of the professions. She had been more than clever enough but it wasn’t what she wanted to do. And it was her rebellion which had attracted me to her. She said things which I had secretly thought but daren’t say aloud.

“They can think again,” she announced on the day she chose to sit beside me.

I had been surprised. I had never been in any clique or part of an incrowd. I was a free floater – I could float in and out of people’s lives and they hardly registered it. Fortunately, I got used to being on my own. And I wasn’t entirely sure what I thought of Hannah spreading her books and portfolio out over the library desk. She was like a tsunami sweeping all before her.

“And what would you like to do?” I had asked.

“I,” she announced, with a flick of her hair, “am going to become an artist.”

The confidence of that statement had taken my breath away. Hannah looked at me as if daring me to challenge her. And I surprised myself by asking, “Are you any good at art?”

Instead of answering, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and started to draw me.

I’ve brought the drawing with me and I look it out. I had always thought that it had flattered me. And I still do. I study the sketch. My hair was a corkscrew of ginger curls; it is tamer now, sleeker. But it is the eyes that capture my interest. They look large, startled, almost as if I’m not sure of what to expect next.

Though I could not articulate the thought then, I now know that Hannah sees beyond the surface of things and into their heart.

Ilook at my watch. Twenty minutes to go and I’ve drunk half my coffee. Outside, in the car park, people come and go. But there is no one who remotely resembles Hannah.

Being on time had never been Hannah’s forte. We used to meet between periods in the library.

“What do you want to do when you leave school?” she’d asked one day when she came in with paint under her nails.

I had shrugged. Other than being financially self-sufficient and going it alone, I hadn’t a clue. But Hannah wasn’t satisfied.

“What do you really like doing most in life, Izzie?” “Reading books,” I said. I could get lost in books. The family I had been staying with then had Kim, a two-year-old. I loved snuggling down in the evenings with her and reading her stories and sometimes making up my own. It was then I’d often felt my mum beside me. She had died when I was eight yet… at times I could still sense her presence. “You could become a librarian?” But the future had been a scary thing for me to contemplate and I would not be drawn. It just spurred Hannah on. Everyone is good at something, she would say. I smile. “I wonder if she is still a bossy boots?” A woman at the next table looks at me. Did I say that out loud? I tap my feet, finding it impossible to keep still. If Hannah doesn’t come soon I’ll be dancing between the tables. Would she dance with me? I feel sure she would.

On the phone, she had sounded irrepressible. We had squealed our excitement as our words tumbled out and fell on top of each other. “It was meant to be,” she’d said. “Synchronicity,” I had replied. Even at school we had known that the world worked in mysterious ways. Look for the signs, Hannah always said. Be true to yourself, I would say when we were trying to keep our lives on track. But I’m sure if it wasn’t for Hannah I would have been derailed.

It was she who, unknown to me, had sent one of my stories I’d written for Kim off to a competition. I had won.

And after the shock of it, that was the start of my writing. Hannah had her art and I had my writing. Later we used to go to the woods so that Hannah could draw some landscapes. I would sit next to her and make up stories. Sometimes Hannah would bring my imagination to life with her art.

Drawing at home was never encouraged and had only led to arguments. We were in a little bubble all of our own until one day it burst.

“She’s VERY GOOD – and a right LIVE WIRE who KNOWS her own mind”

Hannah had come to school, ashenfaced and raging. Her parents were taking her out of school and sending her to a private one. Art, they argued, was a hobby, not a career. And they meant business. She had to get top grades.

Soon after, she disappeared from my life. I was devastated. Her new school was an hour’s train journey away. I could not contemplate her life with the uniform which included a straw hat, or the school building with its majestic turrets.

AMini noses its way into the car park and gets the last available parking place. Senses alert, I watch with interest when a tall, willowy, blonde woman climbs out and hauls her portfolio out the back seat.

It is Hannah. She is ten minutes early. I want to run out and meet her but content myself with rapping on the window. She sees me and gives a little jig. I laugh.

“What’s the illustrator like, Shirley?” I had asked my editor.

“She’s very good. Her work will be ideal for your book.”

“Yes, but what does she look like?” I asked, intrigued by the name, Hannah, but not recognising the surname.

“She’s a lovely person, a right live wire who knows her own mind.”

A few more questions and I knew. “She was my best friend at school!” I had squealed. The revelation had been as exciting as getting my first picture book published.

Hannah starts to run and drops her portfolio. I laugh. She looks so ditzy. Any moment I expect a handsome hero to come and help her until I realise it should be me. I head for the door but she beats me to it and shoulders her way in, arms full. Then she drops everything and holds out her arms. “Izzie!” “Hannah!” A man trips over one of her bags and we break off our hug to apologise. He helps pick up her things. Just an ordinary man who, infected by our happiness, laughs.

“I’m over there,” I say. “What do you want to drink?”

Afew minutes later I return with her coffee and just like all those years ago Hannah has spread the contents of her portfolio all over the table.

“They’re the rough sketches for your book, Izzie.”

I stare at the illustrations and start to cry. She has captured my imagination perfectly.

“And that’s not all,” says Hannah, sticking out her chest. “Look!” “You have a bust!” Then we are both laughing and crying at the same time. Finally, we look at each in silence and then both burst out at the same time.

“Wedidit!”