The Reunion (16 page)

With all the drama and the throwing up, Jen hadn’t really given herself time to think about what Natalie had said. It was only now, with the house empty, silence filling up the spaces left by her departed guests, that she had time to reflect. And the thought that struck her straight away was that it made no difference. It no longer made any difference who was to blame. Conor was dead, Andrew was punished, Natalie had suffered, they had all done their time. Knowing about Lilah’s behaviour changed none of that. It didn’t bring Conor back, it didn’t give Andrew back the life he might have had, it didn’t take away Nat’s pain. All Natalie had achieved was to rip open an old wound, deepen the divisions between them, lessen the chances that they – all of them – might find a future together as friends.

Jen walked into the living room and stood at Natalie’s side.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked her.

‘What do you think?’ came Nat’s reply, spoken barely above a whisper. She was leaning forward, her elbows resting on her thighs, head in her hands, furiously rubbing at her forehead with the tips of her fingers. ‘I can’t believe him,’ she kept saying, over and over. ‘I can’t believe him.’

Jen placed a hand on her shoulder, but Natalie shrugged it away.

There were a lot of things that Jen wanted to say to her. She wanted to point out that Natalie had done no one any good today. She wanted to express her hurt at what Natalie had said about her before she’d started in on Lilah, that her leaving was meant as punishment for the rest of them, in particular for Andrew. She wanted to say that she thought that, right at this moment, Natalie was behaving like a spoiled, petulant child. Instead, she said: ‘He did what he thought was best. He always does, doesn’t he?’

Natalie exhaled sharply, half laugh, half sigh. ‘Yes, he does,’ she replied, her tone hard-edged, sarcastic. ‘He does what he thinks is best. And apparently, what was best in this situation was not to support me. What was best was to take Lilah’s side, your side… Jesus. He’s always on your bloody side.’

Jen took a deep breath, trying with all her might not to let her irritation get the better of her. ‘Hang on, Nat. I don’t think he was taking Lilah’s side, I think he was trying to calm a difficult situation. And as for
my
side… since when are you and I on opposite sides, Natalie? I really don’t get this, why are you so angry with me?’

Natalie shook her head. ‘Why am I angry?’ She sighed heavily, she raised her eyes to look directly at Jen. ‘I begged you, Jen. I
begged
you, just to contact him, to let him know you were OK. We heard nothing from you. Nothing. For years. I begged you to come to our wedding, not for me, not because it meant so much to me, but for him. Jesus.’ Her head dropped again. ‘How can you say you didn’t punish him?’

‘I didn’t mean to,’ Jen whispered, her words never sounding emptier. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Jen,’ Natalie raised her hand in supplication, all the sting gone from her voice. ‘Please. I cannot have this conversation with you. I mean, I literally can’t right at this moment. Please. Could you get me my pills from upstairs? They’re in the washbag on the counter.’ She arched her back for a second and Jen could see the pain flit across her face, a passing shadow. ‘Sorry, sometimes it’s just really bad.’

The mean and uncharitable part of Jen wanted to believe that Natalie was creating a diversion, looking for sympathy, but the better part of her triumphed, though, because she knew that seeking pity was not Natalie’s style. In any case, she’d seen the look on her face, she recognised the shadow that pain casts. And why would she seek a diversion now that she had Jen on the ropes? Jen ran upstairs to fetch the pills and brought them back with a glass of water, a glass of whisky in her other hand as a chaser. Nat had moved from the armchair; she was standing by the window, her shoulders rounded, head down, arms wrapped around herself. When she heard Jen behind her she turned and reached for the pills greedily, gratefully, and took a slug of the whisky straight afterwards.

‘Not supposed to drink with these,’ she said. ‘But I think today’s pretty much fucked anyway, isn’t it?’ She gave Jen a tired, rueful smile. For a moment, Jen caught a glimpse of the old Nat, the one who was always ready to laugh at herself. She reached out for Jen’s arm. ‘Give me a hand, will you? I’ve totally seized up.’

Jen helped her back towards the armchair, but Nat steered her into the middle of the room. ‘Sometimes it helps if I lie flat,’ she said. Jen sat on the floor next to her as she lay prone in front of the fire. They stayed like that for a while, listening to that wind, its low howl building, rattling at the window, tearing at the tiles on the roof. The fire spat and crackled; Jen hoped they’d have enough wood to last the night.

Eventually, Natalie spoke, her voice low and strained.

‘You remember that interview that Princess Diana gave?’ she asked.

‘Um. Vaguely, I suppose. Why?’ Nat raised her head and Jen fed her a sip of whisky.

‘Thanks. That thing she said, about there being three people in her marriage. That’s what I feel sometimes.’ She smiled, then she started to giggle.

‘So Lilah’s Camilla? I wouldn’t say that to her face if I were you.’

‘No, no. Lilah’s not Camilla. You are,’ she said, and she giggled some more. She laughed louder and louder, shrieked with mirth.

‘I am not Camilla!’ Jen protested. ‘How am I Camilla?’ She was laughing now too, and for a minute or two they were unable to speak, tears coursing down their cheeks.

When she finally stopped laughing, Nat said: ‘You’re not really Camilla. It’s just that I feel as though I share him with you. Even though you’re not there, maybe even
because
you’re not there. It’s not that you’re Camilla, it’s the past that’s Camilla. You’re a part of it, you, Lilah, Conor… I want us, Andrew, me and the girls, to have a life without that shadow.’ She reached both her arms up above her head, stretching her spine as far as she could, then relaxed. ‘I just don’t want all that to be a part of us any more.’

Jen took a sip of the whisky, enjoyed the feeling of it burning all the way down her throat and into her gut. The baby probably wasn’t enjoying the burn quite so much. She put the glass down.

‘The problem, Nat, is that all that is a part of you. There’s really not much you can do about that. You can’t make it go away. You can’t make
us
go away.’

Natalie took one of Jen’s hands in hers and squeezed it. ‘I know that. I don’t want you to go away. It’s just… You know what the really awful thing is? When I think about everything that happened, the aftermath, the way Andrew and I got together, I can’t shake the feeling that he’s with me out of guilt.’

‘Nat…’

‘No, listen. He’s dutiful. It’s like you said, he does the right thing. He feels he has a duty of care to you. It’s his job to look after you in some way, because Conor isn’t here to do it. Because you’re his little sister. And I think’ – her voice broke a little – ‘that he feels he has a duty to me, too. And I don’t want to be part of his penance.’

The front door swung open violently, the metal handle crashing against the wall. Both girls jumped. Zac and Dan trudged in, stamping the snow off their boots, bringing with them an arctic blast. Zac closed the door, leaning his full body weight against it in a fight with the wind.

‘No sign,’ Dan panted. ‘Can’t see a bloody thing.’

Natalie sat up, her head in her hands.

‘Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?’ She started to whimper. ‘I didn’t mean it, Jesus. I didn’t mean it.’ She looked up at Jen and there was fear in her eyes, genuine panic. ‘What if something happens to him, Jen?’

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Jen said, keeping her voice as even as she could, attempting to demonstrate a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘He won’t have got far. He’ll be sitting in the car with the heating on, waiting out the storm. There’s a bottle of water in there, there might even be a packet of biscuits. Nothing’s going to happen,’ she said, trying her best to force from her mind visions of collisions with tractors, cars sliding off the mountain into the gorge, Lilah lying freezing by the side of the road. In her mind’s eye she kept seeing that spot of blood on the stairs, the one she thought she’d cleaned up and seemed to come back. She got to her feet, went into the kitchen, grabbed a cloth and climbed the stairs, but she could no longer find it.

She was being ridiculous. There was no omen, and it was perfectly likely that, as she’d said, Andrew, and probably Lilah too, were sitting in her car eating chocolate biscuits and watching the snow fall.

‘I’ll make us all some coffee,’ Jen said to her guests, who were standing in the centre of the living room, looking glumly out into the storm. ‘There’s some cake somewhere, I think. Let’s cheer ourselves up. I’m sure they’ll be fine. We’ll probably get a mobile signal back quite soon. Try not to worry too much,’ she said, and turned to go into the kitchen, and at that moment all the lights went out.

19 April 1999

Dear Jen,

Andrew got your letter yesterday. I can’t tell you how upset he is. I know that you’re very busy, I understand that it’s hard for you to come back to England and to see everyone, I do understand that, but this is our wedding. Surely you can change your plans! Lilah isn’t coming, of course, but Dan will be there; and both my parents and Andrew’s would love to see you. I want to see you.

But more than that, more than any of that, Andrew wants to see you. Jen, I’m writing to beg you to come, because it will break Andrew’s heart if you’re not there, and I don’t want him broken-hearted on our wedding day. There, I’ve said it. You can think me selfish if you like, but please try also to think about how he will feel if you say no, the message it sends to him. You know how he feels about you, you know how heavy his burden. Please lighten it.

We miss you terribly.

With love,

Nat

LILAH HAD NO
idea how long it had been since she left the house. It seemed like hours. Despite the cold and the darkness, despite her fear and wet feet, she was feeling oddly cheerful. At least they were moving again. At glacial pace, granted, but moving nonetheless.

For what seemed like an age, they had been stuck in a snow drift on the side of the road. Andrew, determined to get back to his wife, was adamant that they should turn the car in the road and drive back up to the chalet as soon as possible. And no matter how much she begged, pleaded, cajoled and just plain shrieked at him, he refused to drive her down to the village to the B&B.

She’d got her way in the end, though. His attempts to do a three-point turn failed miserably: they ended up sliding off the road (fortunately on the mountain, rather than the cliff side) into thick snow, and it had taken them until now to get the car back to its original position, facing downhill. Andrew had finally had to concede that there was no way of turning back, so the village was their only option. He wasn’t particularly happy about it.

This and the knowledge that Natalie would be worried sick about him, would be feeling horribly guilty about what she’d said and done, had cheered Lilah up no end.

‘It would’ve been quicker if I’d walked,’ she remarked drily, scooching down in her seat, arms wrapped around herself, trying to warm up. They had the heating on full blast, but the windscreen kept misting up so they’d had to open the windows a crack.

‘I’m not exactly used to driving in blizzard conditions,’ Andrew replied. She looked over at him. His jaw was set and he was hunched forward over the steering wheel like an old man. He looked terrified. ‘And I’m over the limit,’ he said to her. ‘Again.’

She didn’t reply. There was nothing she could say to that, so she just reached over and placed her hand on his leg. It was supposed to be reassuring, but he flinched. ‘Don’t, Lilah,’ he said.

It was weird, being in this car with him, after such a very long time. Weirder still as it felt as though they were alone in the world, drifting slowly along in the eerie white night, waiting to fall off the edge of the world. She thought about asking him why it was he who had come to get her, rather than Zac, but she knew the answer. Andrew couldn’t help himself. Once upon a time, he wanted to be liked, to be loved, to be good; now he wanted to save everyone. Zac wasn’t so easily manipulated.

A sharp gust of wind blew a flurry of flakes into the car through Lilah’s open window. For some reason this seemed funny to her and she started to giggle. Andrew looked over at her and shook his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to straighten her face.

‘You should be,’ he replied, but his voice had softened, his jaw looked less rigid, his shoulders had dropped. The slope of the road was gentler now, the hairpins less terrifyingly sharp. They were approaching the village, it wouldn’t be far now.

‘Hey,’ Lilah said, nudging his leg with her own. ‘Do you remember the last time we went for a drive together?’

He gave a little sigh. ‘Of course I do,’ he replied quietly.

She nudged him again. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, smiling, ‘I’m not angry with you any more. I’m still pissed off with her, but I forgave you long ago.’