The Reunion (3 page)

She shifted up closer to Zac and hooked one leg over his, so that she was almost sitting on his lap.

Khalid watched them in the rear-view mirror. ‘This is honeymoon?’ he asked.

Lilah laughed. ‘It’s not a honeymoon. Just a dirty weekend.’

‘Dirty?’

‘It’s just a little holiday,’ Zac said.

Thank God for Zac. Even if it was awful and awkward, at least she had Zac, a human buffer zone. He was so ridiculously affable, so likeable, so very nice to look at, that he had a soothing effect on those around him, a tendency to calm troubled waters. He should be a UN peace envoy or a hostage negotiator or something. Not that he wasn’t a damn fine fitness instructor. Such a shame there was bugger-all money in it.

There. She’d gone there and now the thought was in her head, the one she’d had just before she’d retrieved Jen’s letter from the waste-paper basket. Money. She was broke, and she was tired of it. Poverty didn’t suit her, never had. She didn’t know about Jen or Andrew or Nat (and she would never ask them, anyway), but Dan had money. She knew Dan had money and frankly, he owed her.

It was dark by the time they got there, and they almost missed the turning, a sharp bend to the right, up the hill. You couldn’t actually see the house from the road – it wasn’t until you got halfway up the drive that it appeared, looking deceptively small against the rise of the mountain behind. They pulled up out front as the snow was starting to fall. Lilah, determined that if she was going to have to face the past she was going to face it in style, was wearing boots with four-inch heels and open toes; Zac had to carry her to the front door while Khalid took their bags out of the boot.

Zac deposited Lilah on the doorstep.

‘Thank you, baby,’ she purred, and gave him a kiss with lots of tongue, trying to exude a confidence she didn’t feel. She took a hand mirror out of her bag and checked her face. She pinched the skin over her cheekbones and bit her lower lip to redden it. She put the mirror back into her bag and took out the small bottle of vodka. One quick swig, a run of her hand through her hair and she was ready.

‘Let’s do this,’ she said, and pressed the doorbell.

They got there in the end, no thanks to a taxi driver who almost ran them off the road as they turned out of Villefranche, a speeding Mercedes overtaking a lorry as it careened down the hill. Natalie’s yelp of fear caught in her throat, and she’d barely made a sound since. She gripped the door handle, her chin resting on her chest – she didn’t dare look up. They crawled up the hill. She had been right about the roads, narrow and winding. He should have listened to her.

When she did look up, she tried to keep her eyes front, on the road, or to the right-hand side, the mountain side, where a bank of snow piled a metre high served as testament to weeks of heavy snowfalls. But she couldn’t help herself: every now and again she would glance to her left, where the snow had fallen away, over the edge of the mountain into the ravine below. Andrew turned on the radio. Natalie turned it off again.

‘Just concentrate on the road,’ she said, wishing she didn’t sound quite so peevish, so plaintive.

The problem was, she felt peevish and plaintive. What were they doing, flying and then driving all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere for three days? It would have made so much more sense for Jen to come to them. She could have stayed for Christmas. (Christ, Christmas. She had a million things to do, this trip really couldn’t have come at a less convenient time.) She would have put her foot down, point blank refused, only she could see that it meant so much to Andrew, to come back to the old place. The summer they’d spent at the house had been raised, in his mind, almost to the level of myth, it shone golden in his memory. She understood, but she couldn’t help but feel a little sad about it; for her, as sweet as that summer was, it was bitter too. Her feelings about it were always going to be mixed.

And Dan was going to be there, the weasel. She’d promised Andrew that she’d be nice, but it was going to take iron self-control not to give the little git a slap.

And oh God, she wished they could have made this journey in daylight, preferably without snow. Still. Finally, mercifully, there were there. She hadn’t expected it, but she felt a surge of happiness looking up at the house, beautiful in its dusting of white, an idyll standing all alone on the hillside. Lonely, but welcoming, pine-scented wood smoke billowing from chimneys at either end of the roof, a warm glow spilling out onto fresh snow.

‘God,’ Natalie said, ‘it’s so lovely.’ She turned to Andrew and smiled, and he looked so incredibly relieved, she felt awful for being so snappy with him on the way here, for making things so difficult.

‘Sorry, love,’ she said, reaching for his hand.

‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ he said, and squeezed her hand and leaned over to kiss her on the lips.

Andrew fetched their bags from the boot of the car. Natalie stood on the doorstep, her back to the door, gazing out across the valley and to the mountains beyond, white caps illuminated by moonlight. She could hear voices inside the house, laughter. She felt nervous all of a sudden, wished she’d thought harder about interesting things to say, and, looking down at her bootcut jeans, trainers and khaki parka, she wished that she’d made a bit more of an effort. She could at least have had her hair cut.

‘OK, love?’

She nodded and took his hand again, then lifted the iron knocker and let it fall. The sound rang out alarmingly loud, splitting the silence.

‘Here we go,’ a voice called out. ‘I’ll get that, shall I?’

Natalie’s heart did a little flip in her chest. That wasn’t Jen’s voice. She looked over at Andrew; he was looking back at her, his eyes widening. Natalie shook her head a little, something wasn’t right, she knew, they both did, and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth which had fallen open, aghast. The door flew open and there she was, rail-thin and ice-blonde, a smear of vermillion lipstick on her mouth. Lilah.

‘Hello, you two,’ she said, a voice to cut glass, an assassin’s smile. ‘We were just wondering where you’d got to. How the devil are you?’

Monday 26 August 1996

Dear Nat,

I’m sorry I didn’t make it to see you at the weekend. I was all set to drive down yesterday, but Lilah came home in the early hours in a bad way and I couldn’t leave her on her own. Pupils like saucers, chattering and shivering and scared of her own shadow, talking the most unbelievable shit. She couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat anything. She’d been out with the guys from work. She doesn’t handle drugs nearly as well as she thinks she does.

She’s asleep now, finally. I think she’ll be in bed all day. Viva bank holidays. I rang her mum this morning, she seems to think it’s post-traumatic stress from the accident, but that doesn’t really make sense. This has been going on a while, hasn’t it? I mean, I know it’s been worse of late, but the bingeing and the secretiveness, that goes back further. I don’t know what the hell to do. Neither of us are happy in this relationship any longer, but I can’t leave her like this. I’ve suggested counselling, I guess you can imagine how that goes down.

I’m sorry she hasn’t been down to see you these past few weeks, you know it’s not that she doesn’t care. She talks about you all the time. She’ s just not facing up to the here and now particularly well.

God, listen to me whinge.

How are you, Nat? I hope the physio’s going better. I know (what do I know? I know nothing) – I
understand
that you’re working so hard, and I hope that it won’t be long until you’re back on your feet, strong again, like you were. That ridiculously handsome nurse must be easing the pain a little!

How are you getting on with
Infinite Jest
? I found it hard going at first, but I think it’s worth sticking with it. (Lilah doesn’t. She had a quick flick through it and said, ‘What on earth would she want to read that for? Doesn’t she have enough on her plate?’ Then she called me a pseudo-intellectual wanker and went to get herself a drink. She may have a point. She suggested I bring you
Bridget Jones’ Diary
, which she thinks is hilarious. I read a few pages and have to admit, it is quite funny. I’ll bring it for you when I come next.)

I haven’t seen Dan in a couple of weeks, though he rang last week and claims to be working very hard. He and Lilah cross paths in Soho from time to time. He said he was planning to get down to see you soon. Perhaps I’ll bring him the weekend after next? I think this weekend I want you all to myself.

I’ve heard nothing from Jen. I wrote to her mother and she sent back a very short note saying that Jen was no longer in England. No further details. They’re obviously still very angry with me. I wonder whether Jen’s with Maggie, in Cork? As kind as Maggie’s been to me, I can’t help but think I’m the last person she wants to speak to right now. Perhaps you could drop her a line? We’ll talk about it when I see you.

I think about you, all the time. I know I shouldn’t. I can’t help myself. I’m counting the minutes until I’m by your side, it’s the only place that makes sense to me right now.

With all my love,

Andrew

P.S. I have a court date, by the way. It’s 12 December, just in time for Christmas. Frankly, the sooner the better, I just want it over.

NOTHING WENT THE
way she’d imagined it would, and yet, as it played out, Jen kept thinking, well of course this was the way this was going to go, how stupid of me to think otherwise. She’d expected, based on where they were all coming from, Andrew and Natalie to be the first to arrive. Jen had estimated that she would have a good half an hour with the two of them before Lilah got there, which would give her ample time to explain that she hadn’t been 100 per cent honest about the guest list. If she broke it to them gently, just the two of them, over a glass of wine, it would be all right.

But it didn’t happen like that. Dan was first to arrive. He pulled up outside the house in a flashy silver car, and she watched from the living-room window as he climbed out, looked up, turned to look down the valley, and then back towards the house. He stood there, hands on hips, the trace of a smile on his face, looking ludicrously boyish. His hair was cropped close to his head, the skin over his nose a little freckled, like he’d spent some time in the sun.

When she opened the door, he looked almost as though he were surprised to see her, as though he’d been expecting someone else. He seemed lost for words. And she was taken aback, too, because he wasn’t what she’d been expecting. She’d read about his films and his success, she’d seen him ‘linked’ with any number of women and she’d expected him to be brasher, bolder, louder than the old Dan, and yet there he was, smiling diffidently at her, stumbling over his words when he said hello, shyly kissing her on the cheek. She remembered why he’d got to her the way he did. The lost boy.

He stepped inside and she closed the door behind them, and they stood there for a moment, just looking at each other, not saying anything, Dan’s face a little flushed, and Jen started laughing and offered him a drink. She didn’t have time to get it, though, because it was just then that she heard another car pull up, heard doors slamming and laughter and a loud, confident knock. She smiled at Dan and took a deep breath, opened the door and was knocked back by a blast of cold air and by Lilah, hurling herself into Jen’s arms.

‘Jen! Oh God, Jen!’ Lilah was laughing and crying at the same time, her arms wrapped tightly around Jen’s body. She clung to her, and Jen couldn’t say a word, she could barely breathe, she just stood there, locked in an embrace, feeling the sharp edges of Lilah’s scapulae rising and falling. It was like hugging a skeleton. Eventually, Lilah pulled away.

She laughed, wiping the tears from her cheeks, smearing mascara towards her hairline.

‘Jen! Oh my God. Look at you! You’ve put on weight.’ She laughed again, pulling Jen towards her. ‘It suits you! No, it does, I mean it. You look wonderful.’

‘And you look exactly the same,’ Jen said, although this wasn’t quite true. Lilah was even thinner, even blonder than before, her blue eyes huge above razor-sharp cheekbones. She looked almost other-worldly, a caricature of herself.

‘Oh, you are kind,’ she said, flicking her hair over her shoulder in a parody of coyness. ‘This,’ she said, waving her arm grandly in the direction of the man she’d brought with her, ‘is Zac.’ Zac, who was extremely handsome and looked around twenty-five, shook hands with Jen and then with Dan, while Lilah inspected the place, making funny little noises of exclamation. After a few moments she acknowledged Dan’s presence, greeting him not quite coldly but not warmly either.

Jen was in the kitchen pouring drinks when she heard the third car arrive, and halfway through uncorking a bottle of red wine when she heard Lilah call out, should she get that? And before Jen had time to step in, Lilah had flung open the front door, Natalie and Andrew were standing on the doorstep, open-mouthed, shocked, and when Andrew at last looked over at Jen, he looked like he’d been punched in the gut.