The Reunion (35 page)

They got a table in the beer garden. Jen perched on the edge of the bench with Conor at her side, Nat to his right. Across the table from her sat Lilah with Dan to the right, as far away from Jen as he could get. Andrew appeared with a tray of drinks, placing it down in front of her with a wide grin and sliding onto the bench beside Lilah. They clinked glasses – ‘Congratulations!’ – and a little cheer went up and Jen took a long slug of ice-cold, bitter gin and tonic and she felt better.

Conor’s hand rested lightly on her lower back. Opposite her, Andrew sat sipping his beer and holding court, sitting there in the bright sunshine, his smile broad. He was golden, victorious, all that hard work rewarded, everything he’d been striving for over the past few years achieved. Next to him sat Lilah in a vivid yellow mini-dress, hopping up to sashay across the lawn to fetch more drinks, every man in the place turning his head to watch her go. Natalie was laughing at something Conor said, laughing until the tears streamed down her face. Conor turned to her, he smiled and held her eye.

‘You OK?’ he mouthed, soundless.

‘I’m good,’ she said softly, and gave him a light kiss on the lips.

Conor’s gaze held hers for a moment or two. ‘You sure? You seemed…’

‘Just tired, Con,’ Jen said, and she kissed him again and wished she couldn’t feel Dan’s eyes on them.

She wished too that she was a little further away from Dan so that she wouldn’t be able to overhear his conversation with Lilah, which lurched at breakneck speed from cars to parties to mutual contacts in London to hangovers to girls, to the girl he’d met last night, to the one last weekend and the one before that, lovely legs, fantastic tits, blonde, brunette, redhead. What was the redhead’s name? He couldn’t remember. Fun though. Jen wished she could stop herself from wondering how, if he ever bothered to do so, he would describe her to someone she’d never met? How would she match up to all the others? Did she figure in the top ten, the top twenty? She wondered if it were all true, if he were trying to make her jealous, or if he really didn’t care at all.

She finished off her gin and tonic and gratefully accepted a second. Conor was smiling at her, he pushed a stray strand of hair from her face.

‘Steady,’ he said. ‘You didn’t have breakfast.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ she said, and allowed him to squeeze her closer. She let her head rest on his shoulder. Three weeks. Three more weeks and they would be at the French house. If she closed her eyes she could see them there, working side by side in the barn, sunbathing on the front lawn, or spending all day in bed just because they could.

‘Told you to take it easy,’ Conor said, nudging her knee with his. ‘You’re falling asleep already.’ He was grinning at her, his blue eyes warm, freckles across the bridge of his nose a little darker in the sun. Her heart swelled. ‘I was dreaming of France,’ she said softly.

The perfect moment was marred, though, because when she looked up she saw Dan watching them, face expressionless, cool grey eyes on her face, the slightest twitch around his mouth. He was looking at her face, her neck: hungry, predatory. Jen got to her feet.

‘Just going to the loo,’ she said, and walked away as quickly as she could without breaking into a run.

She sat in the stall for a moment, breathing deep, waiting for her heart rate to slow. She heard the ladies room door swing open and slam shut. Someone rummaging around in a handbag, a sharp intake of breath. The door again, and Natalie’s voice saying, ‘Lilah! What the hell?’ Then there was whispering, then the door banging again, then nothing.

Jen washed her hands and splashed water on her face, pinched her cheeks to put some colour back into them. She left the bathroom and headed back through the pub towards the garden. Just before she reached the back door, someone grabbed her by the arm, pulled her roughly into a little alcove.

‘I can’t stand this,’ Dan said to her. He was gripping her arm too tightly.

‘Let go, you’re hurting me.’ He didn’t let go, but he loosened his grip, he ran his thumb up and down the inside of her wrist.

‘I can’t stand this,’ he said again. They were standing opposite each other, very close together, close enough that if she stood on her toes and leaned forward she could kiss his lips.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Can we just… I don’t know. I don’t want this to be it.’

‘It has to be. I’m sorry. It has to be. It was a mistake, Dan. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry.’

‘It wasn’t, it wasn’t a mistake.’ He let go of her arm and reached up to touch her face. She pulled away. ‘I’m in love with you,’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Jen.’

‘You’re not. You’re not in love with me.’ He was in love with her. She knew it, he was telling the truth. A shadow passed over his face, not just exasperation but real anger. He started to say something to her but then he stopped, shook his head.

‘This is bullshit,’ he said, his voice low and gentle. ‘You know it. We both know that was more than just a mistake.’

‘I don’t love you. I don’t. I won’t.’ The lie slid off her tongue, bitter, acrid. Dan put his thumb at the base of her throat and looked into her eyes; he leaned forward and put his mouth on hers.

‘Yes, Jen. You will.’ He turned and walked away from her, leaving her standing there, in the alcove, leaning against the wall, her eyes closed, heart banging against her ribs.

‘Jen?’ Conor had appeared in front of her. The world went silent. She thought her heart might break her ribs, burst through her chest. She stared at him, unmoving, her blood ice water. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came. ‘Are you OK, Jen?’

She gathered herself, wiped the tears from her eyes, forcing her face into a smile.

‘I’m fine, I’m fine. You were right. Gin and tonics at midday without any breakfast. Bad idea. Plus I think I might be getting hay fever. My eyes are bothering me.’ She was babbling a little, she could feel that her face was red.

Conor gave a little nod, took a step towards her and reached out his hand, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘You OK to go back out?’

‘Yes, of course.’

He led her back outside, gripping her hand so hard it hurt.

In the car park after lunch, Lilah and Andrew were having an argument.

‘Jesus Christ, Lilah,’ Andrew was saying, ‘you couldn’t hold out until this afternoon? We agreed… You said…’

‘Oh my God, Andrew. I’m fine! Just give me the keys. Give me the bloody keys!’

‘No, no. Look at you, you can’t…’

‘For fuck’s sake, you are driving me up the bloody wall!’ Lilah walked away from Andrew, stomping towards Dan’s car.

‘Conor!’ she called out. ‘Switch cars with me, will you? If I have to sit next to
him
for five more minutes I’m going to bloody strangle him.’

Conor hesitated. He looked at Jen. For just a moment, Jen thought about volunteering to go in Andrew’s car instead, but she was afraid – she was afraid of leaving Conor and Dan in the car together, she was afraid of what might be said. She shrugged. Conor took a step towards her, he smiled and reached over to touch her face. ‘I’ll go with Andrew,’ he said. ‘Keep the peace.’

‘OK.’

He didn’t go right away; he just stood there, smiling at her, then he slipped his arms around her waist. ‘My beautiful girl,’ he said, giving her a kiss, pressing his face against hers. ‘Do you have any idea how much I love you?’ Her cheeks were wet, but she wasn’t crying. Conor kissed her again, and again, one more time, then he walked away.

July 2013

DAN COULD FEEL
his eyelids starting to droop. The gentle drone of bees in the lavender was making him soporific. That and the heat. He was working in the barn, the sliding doors wide open to let in the faintest of breezes, the warm air carrying with it the scent of the herbs outside. He’d bought pots of lavender and rosemary to place in the courtyard – the bees loved them, as did the cat, which had appeared from nowhere three weeks ago. It lay, jet black and sleek, beneath the lavender blossom, occasionally stretching out a paw to bat at an insect, or raising its head to sniff the flowers. The cat was wild, wouldn’t let Dan anywhere near it, but it happily ate the leftovers he put out. Dan found its presence soothing, he’d never had a pet. He was thinking about getting a dog, but, he wondered, would that mean the end of the cat?

He took a swig of lukewarm coffee and considered making some more, but it really was too hot for coffee, it must be well over thirty degrees and not quite ten thirty in the morning. Maybe Lilah was right, maybe he would need to build a pool. There was a perfect spot for one, just in front of the oak trees to the south of the house, a flattish piece of land which got the sun all afternoon. Not this year, he thought, although if not this year, it wouldn’t be much good for Lilah, would it? He shook his head, rolled his shoulders back a couple of times, went back to his script.

It was going well. It was, he didn’t mind saying so himself, the best work he’d done in a very long time. And it was flowing out of him – he’d been writing solidly for days, for weeks, without stopping, without wanting to stop. He honestly couldn’t remember feeling like this about work, not for years, not since – well. Not for a long time.

The work was cathartic. Rejuvenating. He felt stronger than he had in ages, he was living better than he had in years: getting up early, running, drinking less, eating well. Eggs, milk and chickens from the farm up the road, game birds from the hunters.

‘This thing you’re writing,’ Lilah said, ‘I hope it’s not a year in fucking Provence.’ It wasn’t, but it could have been, the way he was feeling. He was in love with the countryside, with the quaint hilltop villages, with the broken-down stone farmhouses. He loved buying cheese and oil and wild boar sausage from the market, he was even trying to learn French.

He bought the house on a whim. He woke up one morning, roughly four weeks after Claudia left him, walked around his flat in his boxer shorts, counted the empty bottles of Scotch in the recycling bin (four, with two days still to go until collection day), checked his phone and discovered that he had dialled her number eighteen times the night before between the hours of twelve-thirty and two. If things carried on like this, he was either going to fall drunkenly down the spiral staircase and break his neck, or Claudia was going to report him for harassment. Neither was an attractive prospect.

So he rang Jen. She’d sent him an email when she moved to Oxford in January. He’d ignored it. Now, in late March, he dialled her number.

‘Have you sold it?’ he asked her. ‘The house, I mean. Is it gone?’

‘Not a chance,’ she said. She sounded weary. ‘There was one offer, 50,000 euros below the asking price. The weather’s been bloody awful over there, I don’t think the agent’s had more than three people to see it. I think they’re just going to forget about it for a few months, try again in the summer.’

‘I’ll take it,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy it. I want to buy the French house.’

‘What? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not desperate for the cash, Dan. Not yet anyway.’

‘No, I want it. I want to live there. I’ll take it.’

At first she refused. Perhaps she thought he was buying it out of pity for her, or perhaps she thought he had some other, darker motive. A way to get a piece of her, an unbreakable link to her. He upped his offer, which only strengthened her resolve not to give in to him. Then he told her, ‘This isn’t for you, Jen, I’m not doing this for you. I want it, I feel as though I need it. I’m desperate to get away. Please.’

And she gave in.

He moved into the house on 1 May. It was a different place to the one he’d left in December and so like the one he’d left sixteen or so years ago. The day of arrival was spent in a daze, walking from room to room, in shorts and T-shirt, bare feet on cold stone tile, gazing out of the windows. He kept expecting to see the others, to catch snatches of conversation, to hear laughter ringing out from upstairs. He understood what Jen meant now, when she’d talked of ghosts. It was uncanny.

He found it so unnerving that he moved himself into the barn right away, a place that hadn’t existed back in those days, and so could not be haunted. It too had a completely different character in summer than it had in winter, flooded with warmth and light and the occasional waft of the farm yard. He moved into the barn and he started to write, and he’d barely stopped since.

He was still required to go to London from time to time, to speak to his agent or to producers, to go to parties. He kept the socialising to a minimum, though; there were so few people he wished to see and so many he wanted to avoid. At the last thing he’d attended he’d ended up with a glass of champagne in the face and a two-inch scratch on his throat, courtesy of Claudia.

And there were disruptions here, too. The biggest one was heralded three weeks after he moved in by a phone call from Zac of all people, asking for a favour. And that was how he found that the place he’d escaped to, to be alone, turned out to be the place he started to build something like a family.