The Reunion (8 page)

Nat went into the room next door and robbed a spliff out of Dan’s cigarette case. They sat on the bed and smoked it, and then Nat decided that, because Lilah had been denied the joys of Radio Mélodie FM, she would sing French pop songs, to cheer her up. They lay on the bed and laughed and laughed until tears ran down their faces, until they were gasping for breath. All of a sudden Nat leapt up, scrambling to get off the bed. She just about made it to the door and then she stood there, bent over a little, her knees knocking inwards, her face red turning to puce.

‘Nat? Are you all right? Nat? Are you peeing yourself?’

Seventeen years later, Lilah stood on the doorstep and laughed out loud. She flicked her cigarette butt into the snow, desperate all of a sudden to run inside and say, ‘Do you remember the time Nat peed herself?’ But she couldn’t, of course, because she was sworn to secrecy on pain of death, so the only people who knew that Nat had peed herself were Nat and Lilah. And she had a feeling Nat wouldn’t find it funny any more.

She was too cold to stand outside any longer, so she pushed the front door open and crept back inside.

‘Good morning,’ she said, popping her head around the kitchen doorway. ‘Any coffee going?’

‘Lilah! Jesus. You’re blue, do you know that?’ Jen looked horrified. ‘Were you outside? I thought I heard the door go – what on earth were you doing?’ Jen caught hold of her wrist and pulled her over next to the wood burner. ‘Sit there. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.’

Lilah allowed herself to be dragged over to the fire; she flashed Andrew her best naughty little girl smile.

‘Went out for a fag, innit?’ She gave him a wink. ‘How are you, Drew? You look knackered.’

‘Thank you, Lilah. You look… freezing.’ Lilah sat down and crossed her legs, allowing her kimono to slip off her thighs. From underneath lowered lids, she looked up at him.

‘Oh, come on. I look better than that, don’t I?’

He shook his head impatiently, as though dealing with a naughty child, but she could see the blush creeping up from the neckline of his sweatshirt.

Fights over radio stations notwithstanding, they had been very happy here, she and Andrew. Yes, she would have liked to escape to the Riviera to drink cocktails and go dancing every once in a while, but most of the time she was content, working on the house and working on her tan, playing volleyball on the lawn, making love with Andrew on steamy afternoons in the bedroom upstairs, the two of them bronzed and fit, as perfectly, beautifully athletic as they were ever going to be. Looking at him now, greying, a little overweight, his shoulders a little hunched, his jaw just a bit too heavy, the contrast with that Andrew might have been shocking. Only Lilah wasn’t shocked, because the grey, and the exhaustion, and the slope of his shoulders, that hadn’t taken the best part of twenty years. That came pretty much overnight, and she’d been there to witness it.

Dan and Nat entered the room, from opposite directions, at almost exactly the same time. Lilah smiled at Natalie, who ignored her, and went over to speak to Andrew in hushed tones. Lilah sighed loudly.

‘Do you have tomato juice, Jen? I fancy a Bloody Mary. Dan? Can I tempt you?’

Dan shrugged, then nodded. His eyes were only half open and bloodshot, he looked like he hadn’t had much sleep.

‘Bloody Mary, Jen?’ She declined. ‘How about you two?’ she asked, addressing Andrew and Natalie.

Natalie looked up at her, face expressionless, mouth set in a line.

‘Ummm…’ Andrew said.

‘No, thank you, we’re fine,’ Natalie said. Nothing. Not the slightest flicker of emotion.

Lilah lowered her eyes, looking over her shoulder at Andrew, a half-smile on her lips. ‘You sure? Drew?’ She could see the muscle tense in Nat’s jaw, but she didn’t say anything. Lilah was a little disappointed, she thought that one would have landed for sure. After all, no one but Lilah had ever called him Drew: to them he was always Andrew. She’d just have to push harder. ‘Come on,’ she said, grin widening. ‘You know you want to.’ She slid one leg off the other and got up to make the cocktails. She could feel Natalie’s eyes boring into her back and her adrenaline starting to rise.

Lilah turned her attention to Dan, who was eyeing her a little nervously. He was thinking about what she’d said the night before, she could tell. He was wondering whether she was going to start up again, to give him a hard time. She smiled at him sweetly as she handed him his drink.

‘You sleep OK, sweetie?’ she asked.

‘Uh. Yeah, fine, thanks.’ He looked puzzled, which was just the way she wanted him. She needed to throw him off his game, wrong-foot him. Start off mean, then go charming. Like negging, only backwards. That’s the way to get what you want from them. She sat down at Dan’s side, directly opposite Andrew, diagonally opposite Natalie. Jen buzzed around them, bringing food, pouring coffee. The fire crackled, the sun shone. Lilah raised her glass.

‘Cheers, everyone,’ she said with a smile. ‘It really is lovely to see you all again.’

They clinked. Lilah enjoyed their slightly bemused expressions.

‘Is your… uh… is Zac not joining us for breakfast?’ Jen asked her, placing a large jug of orange juice in the centre of the table.

‘He’s still in bed,’ Lilah replied. ‘Let him sleep,’ she went on coyly, keeping her eyes down. ‘I think I may have worn him out.’ She looked up at Andrew and smiled.

Andrew’s cheeks reddened again, Natalie rolled her eyes, exhaling through pursed lips.

Lilah wasn’t looking for the eyeroll, though, she didn’t just want an exasperated sigh. She wanted Natalie to say something, she wanted her to react. Any sort of reaction would do, even a furious one. She just couldn’t bear
this
, the silence, the sense of being ignored, the utter disconnect. Even last night, when Natalie was angry, she was angry with Jen, she engaged with
Jen
. Lilah got the feeling that all Natalie wanted of her was to go away.

There had been a time when she and Nat had lived each other’s lives, shared every joy and failure, finished each other’s sentences. They used to talk for hours and hours into the night, planning their glorious futures. They were going to share a flat together in London; Nat would be working on her novel, Lilah, with visions of Sam Jones in her head, would make a fortune in PR. They were going to travel to the Far East, to South America, drive across the United States or Australia. Sometimes Andrew was going to come with them, sometimes he was curiously absent. They had such plans, before the fall. Before.

14 January 1996

Email, from Natalie to Lilah

Hi Lilo,

I hope you’re feeling better. I thought I’d write this down, as we don’t seem to be getting anywhere on the phone.

I’m worried. This isn’t like you, it isn’t like you to not show up when we’ve arranged to meet, or to ignore my calls.

I know you said it was nothing I’d done, but I can’t help but feel that it must be: why else wouldn’t you talk to me? You always talk to me. Sometimes even when I don’t want you to… !

I know you’re feeling bad about the office party, but come on. Everyone behaves like an idiot at office parties. Don’t feel too bad. I’m sure you weren’t the worst.

I was thinking, maybe we could do a January health kick thing together. I am huge (134 pounds! Aaargh), and I could really do with a fitness buddy. We can stay off the booze for a bit, eat healthy, go running… It’ll be fun. OK, it’ll be hell, but we’ll find a way to make it fun.

Love you

X Nat

15 January 1996

Email, from Lilah to Natalie

Hi darling. In haste, at work with hangover from hell, trying not to catch my colleagues’ eyes as there was a bit of an indiscretion last night. Again. I know. Bad, bad Lilah. No way in hell am I going teetotal in January. I’d rather die. Talk soon xxx

Lilo

15 January 1996

Email, from Natalie to Lilah

Lilah, come on. You need to sort this, you can’t keep doing this. And I don’t want to know, I don’t want to be told these things. Andrew is my friend, you know very well how much I care about him. Don’t treat him like this. Come round tonight? We’ll have a quiet night in, talk a bit.

X Nat

17 January 1996

Email, from Lilah to Natalie

Hello. Sorry I didn’t get back to you, it’s mad busy here. Don’t go mental! When I say indiscretion, I don’t mean that kind of indiscretion. Just a bit of silly flirting and then I felt like an idiot the next day. Same old, same old. And yes, I know you love Andrew. I love Andrew too, but oh God, Nat. I need to talk to you because things are just going badly and I don’t know what to do, stick or twist. When I think about it clearly, I think it might be over. Can we meet up? You free on Tuesday? I have to go to a cocktail thing in Soho but we could do something after xx Lilo

17 January 1996

Email, from Natalie to Lilah

You don’t mean that, Lilo. It’s not over.

19 January 1996

Email, from Lilah to Natalie

Nat, I need to cancel tonight. Sorry sorry sorry. Had a very late one last night, feeling totally ragged, just have to sleep. And you’re right, I didn’t mean it. I need him so much right now, sometimes I feel like he’s the only thing anchoring me to the earth.

Xx Lilo

JEN WASN’T SURE
the Bloody Marys were a very good idea. She wasn’t sure that alcohol before lunchtime was ever a great idea, but in a situation this delicately balanced, it was almost certain to cause trouble. Unless, of course, it served to lubricate away the friction. So far, it was difficult to tell. Lilah was being oddly charming to Dan, with whom she’d been so sharp the previous night, and predictably spiky with Nat, obviously trying to bait her by flirting with Andrew. So far, Natalie had maintained a dignified, tight-lipped silence, but Jen couldn’t see that lasting.

They needed a distraction. Jen needed to wrest control of the conversation from Lilah. She sat down at the table, topped up everyone’s coffee, and cleared her throat, as though about to give a speech. They all looked up at her, expectant.

‘I know that you must all think it odd, this sudden urge to get the old gang back together. It
is
odd. And, of course, it isn’t just about this house. It’s hard for me to explain, but I wanted to apologise to you, all of you.’ She was looking at Andrew as she said this. ‘I never meant for things to turn out the way they did, I never meant for my absence to be so permanent.’ Andrew covered her hand with his, but she didn’t look up at the others, she needed to get this said. ‘When I left, I thought it best that I just had some time, a little while, cut off. Not just from you – from London, from England, from everything he touched, everywhere we’d been together. I meant to come back. Only, I got stuck. It’s difficult to explain. I said that already, didn’t I?’

She looked up at their faces, all of them were watching her intently, expressions ranging from the compassionate to the quizzical. ‘You think this is ridiculous. It sounds so self-indulgent.’ Jen couldn’t miss the dip of Natalie’s eyes, silent acquiescence. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. For running away. For making things worse.’

There was a moment of silence, then Lilah spoke.

‘So what happened? We heard you went to Ireland, to stay with Conor’s mother. Which, to be honest, Jen, doesn’t sound much like
getting away from everything he touched
.’

‘That was only for a few weeks, Lilah. I went back to my parents after that, and then I got a job offer in Paris and it sounded like the perfect thing. I could go for six months, a year, get my head straight, come back. We could pick up again, we would be together again.’

‘Only you didn’t come back.’ Dan had that look again, that cool detachment, as though he were watching her at one remove.

‘As I said, I was stuck. The story I’d written for myself, about what happened, to us, to Conor, about how I was going to live with it, to cope, it became this inescapable thing, as though it had its own life. It took over mine.’

‘But you did move on, didn’t you?’ Natalie said. ‘You got married to Jean-Luc, you made a life for yourself.’

‘And it didn’t work out. It felt as though I wasn’t on the right road, as though I’d taken a diversion. And it wasn’t fair on him. He was a good man and I made him unhappy. So the marriage ended, and I tried to start again.’ She turned her coffee cup in her hands, round and round. ‘There was someone else. I met someone else, a long time after Jean-Luc. Nicolas. It felt different this time, it felt real, as real as anything I’ve felt since Conor.’

She ran the fingers of her right hand along the surface of the table, all the way to the corner.

‘Do you remember the grand unveiling?’ she asked them. Dan looked down, surprised.

‘This is it? This is Conor’s table? It’s still here? God, I didn’t realise…’