The Reunion (42 page)

‘Andrew.’ Lilah’s voice was a breath. ‘You don’t have to be so strong all the time. You aren’t responsible for everyone.’

‘She says that, you say that, Jen says it. I don’t know…’ His voice cracked a little, he felt as though he were going to cry and he wasn’t sure why. ‘I feel as though I lost myself, somewhere that weekend before Christmas, and in the weeks that followed. I think that so much of me was caught up in how Nat sees me, in what our life is together. Do you know what she said to me, Lilah? That she didn’t want to be my penance any longer. I don’t know what to do with that. She says things like that, she talks about our life as though it weren’t a good one, and I just don’t know what to say, it’s as though we haven’t been in the same marriage all this time, as though we haven’t been living the same life.’

‘Some of those things…’ Her voice faltered a little, her head dropped, her fingers pressed to her temples.

‘Lilah?’

‘It hurts.’

He moved closer to her, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest.

‘Some things are said in anger. But Andrew, there is a side of you…’ She stopped talking, breathed deeply.

‘Lilah, you need to lie down, you need to rest now. We’ll talk again tomorrow.’

‘No, no!’ Her voice was a hiss, a harsh whisper as though from an old woman. ‘We have to fix this, you have to fix this. Some part of you is only about atonement, she sees that. You’ve done enough. You have paid your price. Now stop. You’re done now. You’ve done everything right. You married a woman, such a woman! And she loves you. You raised beautiful, clever girls. They are the best of you both, those two, they’re spirited, they’re clever, they’re beautiful. You worked hard. You have lived a good life.’ Her face was pressed against him, her tears soaking through his sweatshirt. ‘I envy you. I wish I had lived the life you have. I was always planning to do something right, but somehow I never got round to it. Isn’t that silly?’

They sat in the dark, he held her and he talked softly about the things she’d done right: the way she loved people, totally, without restraint, the care she took of her mother, her generosity. He wasn’t sure she was listening, wasn’t sure that she could even hear him, but at last the crying stopped and her body went limp and she fell asleep in his arms. Afterwards, once he’d disentangled himself and slipped off the bed, he stood in the doorway for a long time, watching her. He was afraid to leave, so sure that he would never see her again.

19 July 2013

Darling Drew,

You’ll know by now, Natalie will have told you. Don’t be sad. Well, you can be a bit sad, but not for too long. As I keep telling Zac, I wasn’t making a terribly good go of things anyway.

Laugh. You have to.

This letter is just for you. Don’t show it to anyone and for God’s sake if you’re reading it out loud to the family at the breakfast table, stop.

This is just for you and me. I wanted to tell you this before we are all together again, before I have your wife at my bedside, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, but that I regret nothing. That I wouldn’t exchange that night in the auberge for anything. OK, that’s a lie. I would exchange it for a brain free of tumour or for Conor’s life. There aren’t many things I would exchange it for.

I don’t regret it because the way that you and I ended was terribly wrong, and this wasn’t. This felt like friendship, it felt like love, it felt like you and me aged twenty-one. And for that, darling Drew, I am grateful.

Please don’t tell her.

I hope to see you very soon.

With love,

Lilah

September 2013

THE HOLIDAYMAKERS WERE
gone, the pop-up beach bars had all closed up, they’d packed up their tables and chairs and marquees and gone wherever they all went until next summer. Next summer. The promised land.

Lilah, Natalie and Jen were alone on the beach, save for a handful of pensioners shuffling along the sand or sitting on the promenade, feeding the gulls. They’d found themselves a sheltered spot at the furthest end of the stretch of pale yellow sand, and Jen and Nat had erected one of those windbreaker things, although there was only the gentlest of breezes. Still, it was nice, it gave them the sensation of being alone in the world with just the sand and the water and the birds overhead for company. Lilah sat on a deckchair, a towel flung over her legs. She couldn’t bear to look at them any longer.

‘Like a chicken,’ she said to Natalie. ‘I look exactly like a chicken.’

When she’d stepped on the scales the previous morning, she’d weighted ninety-seven pounds.

‘And at least three pounds of that is tumour,’ she said.

She was already feeling sleepy – they’d got up early to drive to the beach. It was just going to be a day trip, and Jen and Nat weren’t even sure that was a good idea. Lilah, however, had insisted. She’d been feeling a little stronger the past couple of days and she had to take advantage of the good days, she was determined to do that. Plus, she wanted to spend quality time with the girls: Zac would be back from London at the weekend, and Nat was leaving on Monday, so who knew when the three of them would be together again? When, if.

Jen looked distracted. She kept checking her phone. This was the first time she’d left the baby for more than an hour or two at a time, and she’d left her with Dan.

‘Dan, of all people,’ she fretted. ‘He’ll probably get caught up in his writing and forget all about her. She’ll be starving and howling and wet by the time we get home.’

Natalie rolled her eyes. ‘Bullshit. He won’t do a scrap of work, he’s going to sit there making goo-goo noises and funny faces at her all day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so smitten with an infant. Andrew was never that sappy over our two.’

‘He’ll make a good dad,’ Lilah said. Jen looked at her sharply. ‘I don’t mean to Isabelle, necessarily. God, you’re so touchy. I was speaking generally. Although, if it came to it, he’d probably be a good dad to Isabelle. All I’m saying is, he’ll be good at it, when it happens for him.’

‘I’m not sure it will, though,’ Natalie said, giving Jen the side eye. Jen either didn’t notice or was ignoring her. Nat waited for a couple of seconds and then asked, ‘Do you think it will happen for him, Jen?’

‘How should I know?’ she asked, grumpily. ‘Why are you asking me?’

Nat made a guilty face at Lilah, who just laughed.

‘Why do you think she’s asking you? You do know that the whole Dan and Jen cat is out of the bag, don’t you?’

‘There is no Dan and Jen cat,’ Jen muttered.

‘If you say so,’ Lilah said archly, closing her eyes and relaxing back into her deckchair.

When she opened her eyes again, Jen was sitting up dead straight, picking the nail polish off her toes, a deep furrow between her brows.

‘Jen,’ Lilah said. ‘Chill. We were only joking.’

‘It isn’t funny,’ she said.

Lilah looked over at Natalie, who shrugged. ‘Oh, come on. What are you so worried about? Andrew? Because, seriously, he’s just going to have to get over it.’

‘It’s not that,’ Jen said, shaking her head, squinting out to sea. ‘That isn’t the problem.’ She paused for a few moments, she was looking up at the horizon, she brought her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘It’s just difficult. Things are difficult. I do have feelings for Dan, but I just don’t know if I can be with him. It’s complicated.’

‘How so?’ Nat asked her. ‘Not Nicolas, surely?’

‘God, no. If I never see him again for the rest of my life it’ll be too soon.’ Almost as she was saying the words she shot Lilah an anxious glance. Lilah shook her head with a smile. They did this now. They blushed at references to ‘the rest of my life’, they got terribly overwrought if anyone said, ‘I’d rather die…’ It was sweet, endearing really, but it was also doing her head in.

‘Well then? Is it Isabelle? Because I’m serious, he really does seem to adore her, and it’s not just the thing where she’s a novelty, and fun to play with.’

‘Because let’s face it,’ Lilah said drily, ‘she isn’t that much fun to play with yet.’

‘Lilah!’ Nat admonished her.

‘No, it’s true,’ Jen admitted. ‘She really isn’t that much fun yet.’

‘In any case,’ Natalie said with a sigh, ‘what I meant was that he’s happy to muck in, to do the boring stuff. I can quite easily see him changing nappies and puréeing apples and getting up in the middle of the night if you’re too tired.’

‘Oh, I know. I know. I think that he’d actually be rather good at all the domesticity. To be honest, I haven’t even been considering practicalities, that’s not why I’m…’ She tailed off.

‘Conflicted?’ Lilah offered.

‘For want of a better word.’

‘You’re not in love with him?’ Nat suggested.

‘Oh, she is,’ Lilah said. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at him.’

It was a funny thing about being ill, Lilah had noticed that people became less guarded around her. Well, they were guarded about some things – any discussion of health or death or plans for next year were obviously off the table – but she felt as though sometimes they forgot that she was there, that she was watching, perhaps because she was quiet, immobile. A sickly piece of furniture. In any case, she’d seen glances exchanged, between Dan and Jen, the way their hands touched when they passed Isabelle between them, the way Jen watched him when he was sitting at the seat in the living-room window, writing in his notebook. It was unmistakeable.

Jen remained silent, she continued to ruin her pedicure.

‘So what is it then?’ Nat asked. ‘If it’s not practicalities, and you do feel something for him, then…’

Jen looked over at her, her face grave. ‘There are things you don’t know. Things no one knows,’ she said.

‘Well, that sounds ominous,’ Lilah said. ‘But if you’re talking about you and Dan, Andrew told me. And I told Nat. So we know all about that. I mean, we don’t know the details, I don’t think we want to know the details…’

Natalie, catching the expression on Jen’s face, said: ‘You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.’

‘Yes, she does,’ Lilah said.

‘Lilah.’

‘If not now, then when? Tell me, even if it’s just me. It might help.’

‘I got pregnant.’ Jen blurted it out so loudly they all jumped. ‘Sorry,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I got pregnant.’

‘You mean, other than with Isabelle?’ Lilah asked.

‘Obviously,’ Natalie said, sucking her teeth at Lilah.

‘Yes.’ Jen hung her head, she put her chin on her knees and closed her eyes. ‘Ninety-six. A few months before the crash. I had an abortion. Conor never knew.’

‘Oh,’ Natalie said.

Lilah was quiet for a moment, then she said: ‘Is that it? I don’t understand. I mean, I know that’s not very nice and everything, but how does it affect you now, how does it affect you and…’ She broke off. ‘Oh.’

‘Oh!’ Natalie said.

‘I don’t know,’ Jen said. She looked up at them, mortified. ‘It sounds like the most horrible thing in the world, the most awful, horrendous thing…’

‘No, it doesn’t, Jen.’

‘I didn’t know. Who the father was. Fuck’s sake, Lilah, of course it sounds awful, it sounds like I should be on the
Jeremy Kyle Show
.’

Lilah laughed. ‘You wouldn’t get anywhere near Jeremy Kyle, sweetheart, not unless you were choosing between your brother and your cousin as the father of your child. You slept with two men, both of whom you had feelings for, at least one of whom, and probably both, you were in love with. It’s hardly the stuff of great scandal.’

Natalie moved back a little so that the three of them could sit facing each other, a tiny closed circle. ‘Jen, why didn’t you say anything? We could have helped you.’

‘Nat, you would have been horrified. I was horrified. I was ashamed,’ she said. She took a deep breath. ‘And to be honest, I didn’t even allow myself to think about it. I found out, I booked the appointment, I got it done, as quickly as I could. I never gave myself the opportunity to think twice about it because I couldn’t bear to. But now… You know how Dan feels about family, about his childhood, about having missed out on having a family? And now I’m thinking about being with him – can I do that, without telling him? I mean, I think telling him would be a mistake, it would be an awful thing to do because then he’d know, or at least wonder about, this thing, this child he’d missed out on. But not telling him, it seems such a dishonest way to start something…’

Lilah cut in. ‘Don’t you dare tell him,’ she said, her voice almost menacing. ‘Don’t ever tell him. Nothing, absolutely nothing good can come of that.’

A cloud passed in front of the sun, it felt chilly for just a few moments, then the shadow passed and it was warm once more. Jen started to talk again: ‘I’ve wanted to tell you for such a long time. Not because I wanted you all to know about my horrible behaviour, but because I thought it might help everyone understand what happened afterwards, the way I ran.’

‘You didn’t have to explain…’ Natalie started to say, but Lilah cut in.

‘Nat, let her say it,’ she said, and Jen smiled at her and took her hand.