So it is goodbye to Portugal, where Hanan’s favourite aunt has looked after us so well, it was like having BA special services with us after all. The intriguing thing about my Palestinian wife is that she seems to have cousins, aunts and uncles in every corner of the world, but one of the best things about her aunt is that she talks to me only in Arabic, even when we’re alone, even though she speaks perfect English, and even though my Arabic is limited to two handy phrases - ‘Can I gave a felafal with extra garlic please?’ and ‘I don’t belong in Guantanamo, but do you have a blue jumpsuit anyway?’ Anyway, thanks to her amazing generosity, our time here has been a wonderful mixture of great food, massages and traditional fado (Portuguese songs of yearning), but not all at the same time.
On the final day, after a morning’s work, we shepherded the boys into the car for a last run around the beach. Hanan had not fully disengaged from work mode so she was driving the way she works – furiously and without noticing that she didn’t own the road. Unsurprisingly, we overshot the turn off to the beach as we thundered down the tarmac road like Thelma and Louise. I hung onto the hand strap and screamed as Hanan wrenched the car into a turn. The boys blanched and nearly threw up as the stench of burned rubber poured through the open windows. Hanan, wearing shades and an oblivious attitude, cranked Leonie Casanova’s ‘I Wanted New York’ louder on the CD to drown out my weeping. It was like a scene from the Bourne Identity. Nauseating, scary but super cool.
On the other hand, all my attempts at coolness come to nothing, and I suspect that is because coolness cannot be bought, learned or faked. Like a sense of rhythm (something that also escapes me), you’ve either got it or you ain’t. But I realized I had crossed the bounds of nerdyness into something more worrying when I got out of the shower, where I had been attempting to wash the smell of scorched tyres out of my hair. I dried off, picked up a bottle of something that looked familiar, and slathered it over myself. Only when I was fully coated in a layer of soapy slime did I realize I had attempted to moisturize with shower gel. I got back in the shower, and recalled another incident the day before that had also made me fear for my sanity. I thought of the movie ‘Iris’ and felt hard done by for I hadn’t imagined losing my marbles until I was at the Judi Dench stage, and here I was, barely past Kate Winslet. I called to Hanan in such a tormented whine that she immediately abandoned her Macbook and strode to the bathroom.
I told her what I had done with the shower gel. She bit into an apple and said nothing, which was just as well, because I wasn’t finished. Eyes misting over as I slipped into a satisfying, treacle pool of self-pity, I begged her to put me in a home at the first sign of dementia, to just lock the door, toss the key into her cleavage and get on with her life without so much as a backward glance. I wouldn’t want to hold her back from finding happiness with someone else, I continued, and she should always remember me as I once was, a witty, brilliant writer, unable to dance but willing to try…Practically sobbing, I watched as she continued chewing her apple impassively.
‘Who directed ‘I Can’t Think Straight’?’ she asked.
Clearly she was testing my memory and sanity. I bridled at the attempt. ‘Martin Scorsese,’ I sniffed, irritated.
‘Who wrote ‘The World Unseen’?’
‘Jackie Collins.’
‘Who buys your bras?’ she grinned. Well, there was no way I was going to lie about that one.
‘Lisa Ray,’ I admitted.
‘I have news,’ Hanan grinned. ‘You’re not senile. You’ve been like this since we met.’
Hmm. I watched her leave the bathroom as I replaced self-pity with self-doubt. What did this mean? Would she lock me up? Would she throw away the key and cavort around the world picking up lesbians at festivals…? Clearly not, because she just reminded me that we have around 30 hours in London before we turn around to attend the TED conference in India. Then she told me the 30 hours included a lunch with friends for Luca’s birthday, trick or treating with the kids, going to the office, cooking dinner for her dad, unpacking and repacking. So why India? Well that was Hanan’s 40th birthday present to me, and how it came about is a story in itself, but I’ll keep that for the next blog. If I can remember to write it.