The Reunion (30 page)

‘I feel as though I’m losing her,’ Conor said. ‘I can’t even believe I’m saying that out loud. And I know what happens when people feel like this, they hang on and they get all clingy and weird and it just makes the other person pull away more. I’m trying so bloody hard not to cling on to her, and then I’m worried that I’m not doing enough. That I’m
letting
her go.’

There were sitting in the Greyhound, at the table in the corner behind the pool table, pints of Guinness in front of them. The Greyhound was just round the corner from Andrew and Lilah’s flat. Lilah referred to it as ‘that miserable old man’s pub’ and it had become Andrew’s place of refuge when his girlfriend was in one of her more difficult moods, which meant he spent an awful lot of time in there. Difficult moods had become Lilah’s default state of late: she was either manically happy, in which case she tended to drink too much and become loud and lascivious, or miserable, in which case she tended to drink too much and become loud and angry. It was exhausting.

But they weren’t here to discuss Andrew’s girlfriend troubles. This time it was Conor’s turn.

‘You’re not letting her go,’ Andrew said. ‘And I honestly don’t think she wants to go anywhere. Last weekend she was talking about the summer, about how much she was looking forward to going back to the house. She was saying you guys had been talking about maybe converting the barn out back?’

‘Yeah. We did talk about that,’ Conor said, his face brightening a little.

‘Seriously, she wasn’t talking like a girl who’s about to walk out on you. And I ought to know, because I live with a woman who threatens to walk out on me twice a week.’

Conor shook his head. ‘Seriously, man, I don’t know how you live with it. It would do my head in.’

Andrew shrugged. ‘I know she doesn’t mean it. Well, I know she doesn’t mean it all the time. Not even half the time, probably. It’s just Lilah being Lilah.’ He didn’t say it, because they weren’t here to discuss his troubles, that Lilah being Lilah wasn’t quite so much fun as it had once been. ‘I think you’re right, though, the thing about being clingy.’ Conor gave him a sharp look. ‘Not that I think you’re being clingy, that you’ve ever been clingy. It just sounds like it would help her if she felt, I don’t know, like she wasn’t under pressure.’

‘She
isn’t
under pressure.’

‘I know she isn’t. I know.’

‘The odd thing,’ Conor said, taking a slug of his drink, ‘is that after I got back from Cork and we talked about everything, things were going better. It seemed like we were back on track. It was like being on honeymoon.’ He gave Andrew a quick grin. ‘But then, I don’t know, I feel like I’m second guessing myself half the time now, like we’re both being really careful with each other, and we’ve never been like that. I catch her sometimes, you know, just staring off into space and she looks sad, I mean really sad, and I ask her what’s up and she won’t say… I know something is up. I just don’t know why she won’t tell me.’

‘Do you want me to have a word with her?’ Andrew asked. ‘Maybe I could get her to open up.’

‘Nah, you can’t – if you go talking to her now she’ll know it’s come straight from me and I don’t want to spook her.’

‘She’s not a horse, Conor.’

He laughed. ‘You know what I mean. I was thinking of asking Dan to have a word, because they were like, thick as thieves when he was staying, and if Dan asks her what’s up she won’t think that I’m behind it.’

‘That’s a good idea.’

‘Yeah, if I could only get hold of Dan. He’s never bloody around, never returns my calls. And I sent him an email asking if I could come up and see him, thought it might be better if I could ask him face to face, but apparently he’s flat out for the next couple of weeks. I don’t know. I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I? I’m over-thinking.’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’

They fell silent for a bit, sipped their pints, and watched the barmaid, who was tall and curvy and had the most amazing tits, bending down over the table opposite to pick up some empty glasses. Conor caught Andrew’s eye and they both started laughing.

‘You want another one?’ Andrew asked. ‘I can’t face going home to dragon lady just yet. We had an almighty row about my completely unreasonable desire to watch the rugby when it clashed with the
EastEnders
omnibus. I made the mistake of pointing out that she’d already watched all the
EastEnders
episodes this week, but apparently that wasn’t the point. She likes to watch the
EastEnders
omnibus when she’s got a hangover. I should know that by now.’

He left Conor, laughing and shaking his head, and went up to the bar. The sexy barmaid gave him a dazzling smile as he ordered the drinks; she was always very friendly whenever he came in here. He cast an eye along the bar: it wasn’t that surprising that she was pleased to see him, he and Conor were the only people under the age of forty-five in the entire pub. And Lilah was right, it was an old man’s pub, all along the bar they were sitting there, stooped over pints and papers, few of them even bothering to chat to each other. Perhaps it was their refuge from the missus, too.

Oh God, he couldn’t believe he’d become one of those sorts of men, the type that runs off down the pub to escape the woman they’ve chosen to spend their life with. He couldn’t become one of those tedious bores who sees women as a necessary evil, something to be tolerated because they provide food and sex and comfort. He wasn’t like that. He didn’t want to be like that. He picked up the glasses, beamed at the barmaid and walked back to their table, determined that they weren’t going to moan about women any longer.

‘Tell me about the plans for the French house,’ he said brightly as he placed a pint in front of Conor.

‘Ah well.’ Conor’s eyes lit up whenever the house was mentioned, the house and his plans for it. ‘Yeah, as Jen said, we were thinking, if the barn’s structurally sound, and I’m not sure that it is, that we could convert it, into a studio, but also extra living space, in case we wanted to go when her dad’s using the main house or whatever, you know…’ He was off. They might raze the barn and build a whole new extension – a workshop for himself, a place for Jen to work. He wanted to build an enclosure out back because Jen had always fancied keeping goats. They might even move there next year, earlier than expected, they might not go travelling just yet. It was, after all, the place where they were happiest.

They stayed in the pub until closing. They were in good spirits by the time they left, laughing as they told stories they’d told and heard a thousand times of things they did at college, that summer trip to Italy at the end of their first year, the time they stole Dan’s clothes and towel from the shower rooms, forcing him to walk back through halls stark naked.The cold air hit them as they waved goodbye to the barmaid and stepped outside, sobering them up just enough to realise how drunk they were. They weaved their way down the road towards the tube station, Conor’s arm around Andrew’s shoulders.

‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow,’ Andrew said as Conor fished around in his pocket for his travelcard. ‘We can go for a hair of the dog if you like.’

‘Yeah,’ Conor said, ‘that would be good.’ He found the card and looked up at Andrew, his eyes glassy, expression unreadable. ‘She lied to me,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Jen. That week I went back to see Ronan, I told you, we’d had that big fight?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She lied to me. She told me she’d spent the day on her own, she said she’d just wandered around and gone to the cinema. But then, it was like a week or two later, I was looking for my driver’s licence, right, and there were these papers in the spare room and I thought it might have got mixed up with them, and there were some ticket stubs for some Japanese film at the Barbican.’

‘She told you she went to the cinema, though.’

‘Yeah, but there were two. And she told me she was on her own. And the film was at eight in the evening. She didn’t tell me exactly what time she’d been, but I just find it hard to believe she was just wandering about on her own, all day, until eight o’clock at night.’

‘Are you sure it was from that day?’

‘Sure. It was 8 March, the Friday I went to Ireland. And she wasn’t with Lilah, she wasn’t with Nat, and she couldn’t have been with someone from work, because she’d called in sick that day. And if she had been with one of them, she would have told me, anyway. Why would she say she was on her own when she wasn’t?’

Andrew shook his head. He was trying to think of an innocent explanation and failing. ‘I don’t know, man. I don’t know.’

He walked back home disconsolate. He was sure there was an innocent explanation, and the only reason he couldn’t think of it now was because his head was clouded with drink. Jen wasn’t a liar, she wasn’t a cheat and she adored Conor, she would never do anything to hurt him. There weren’t that many things Andrew had unshakeable faith in, but Jen and Conor’s relationship was one of them.

Back at the flat, all the lights were on, the television too. Lilah was asleep on the sofa, an overflowing ashtray and a half-empty wine glass on the floor. He cleared up, turned off the lights and the TV, covered her up with a blanket, went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. There were two empty wine bottles on the counter. He went back into the living room and sat down at the little table. Lilah was lying on her side, one arm flung out, delicate fingers almost touching the floor. Even passed out drunk and dishevelled, she was beautiful, long lashes resting on fine cheekbones, honey-blonde hair all over the place.

Beauty wasn’t enough. He was no longer in love with her, he hadn’t been for a while now. She made him sad and anxious. Still, he couldn’t leave her. She threatened to walk out on him all the time, she might even do it one day. He looked forward to that day and he dreaded it. He knew that if they stayed together, they would end up despising each other and that was the last thing he wanted. But he worried what would happen to her when he was no longer there to calm her down, take her home, to pick up the pieces. He worried what she would do when she was free, free to leave any bar with any man she chose. Andrew worried that Lilah wouldn’t choose well.

But as well as this, he worried that the end of Andrew and Lilah would be the beginning of the end for their little band of friends. When you’re at university, you think it’s going to last forever, it is inconceivable that there will come a day when you don’t see each other all the time, talk to each other every day. But less than a year after graduation, Andrew could see how easily they could drift apart. Already, it felt like Dan was going his own way; they rarely saw him these days, he never seemed to want to come and visit. And if he and Lilah split he wouldn’t see Nat any longer. If she had to pick a side, she’d pick Lilah’s. And then, bit by bit, Nat would drift out of his life, and that scared him more than anything.

On the sofa, Lilah stirred.

‘Drew?’ she croaked.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘No, you didn’t.’ She looked up at him and smiled. Her teeth were stained a deep red from the wine, she looked as though she had blood in her mouth. ‘You didn’t wake me. Come here,’ she said, stretching out her arms to him. ‘Come and lie with me.’

‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘I can’t move,’ she moaned. ‘Carry me?’ He picked her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He could smell cigarettes on her breath and in her hair. He carried her into the bedroom, placing her down on the bed. She pulled the duvet over herself without taking off her clothes.

‘You love me, Drew?’ she asked him.

‘I love you, Lilah.’

LILAH THREW UP
on the way to work. She actually had to get off the tube at Angel to vomit on the platform. It was humiliating, people were walking around her, staring, faces contorted in disgust. Some people laughed. A nice middle-aged lady in a black suit crouched down next to her, put her hand on her back and asked, ‘Are you OK, love? Are you pregnant?’ and Lilah thought, yes, that’s it, that’s a good excuse. That’s less embarrassing than puking in public because you only stopped drinking four hours ago.

‘I think I am,’ she said, accepting the proffered Kleenex.

‘You poor thing. You ought to go straight home and lie down. Morning sickness is just awful.’

Lilah nodded and smiled bravely. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’ve got an important meeting this morning,’ she said.

‘Your boss is a bloke, right?’ the woman asked and when Lilah nodded she tutted sympathetically. ‘You’ll get no understanding from him then.’

She couldn’t bear to get back on the train so she took a taxi the rest of the way to work, which meant she arrived twenty-five minutes late and twelve pounds poorer and she was already pretty much up against her overdraft limit. Everything was such a mess, such a bloody mess, she just couldn’t seem to get her head straight.

She flung her bag down at her desk, tossed her coat over the back of her chair, straightened out her skirt, checked her breath one last time (she’d had four sticks of chewing gum) and ran as quickly as she could to the conference room. Everyone looked up as she pushed the door open.