The Reunion (45 page)

‘I don’t know,’ Andrew said eventually. ‘I don’t know what you do. But you can come here. You can always come here. When you think you can’t bear it, come here.’

Andrew understood more than most how important it was to have somewhere to go, even if it wasn’t a grave site. The graveyard in Ireland where Conor was buried, lush and verdant and populated with solemn slabs of grey stone, was beautiful and peaceful, but did nothing for Andrew, made him feel no closer to his old friend. For that, he had to come here, to the French house. Still, he visited sometimes; he had been back just a few weeks before, after he left France, after all the rancour with Jen and Dan, after hurting Natalie. He had to go somewhere.

Conor had no answers for him, but Maggie, Conor’s mother, had a few things to say. He couldn’t tell her, of course, what the nub of the problem was, but he did let on that his marriage, for the first time ever, wasn’t the haven it had once been.

‘Do you remember, Andrew, that I told you, a long time ago, to find someone who valued you? You remember that? I feel so bad now, because I never much cared for the blonde girl, and now she’s not well I feel like a right old witch, but there you go. When you came to visit, just after your girls were born, remember, you and Natalie – well, I saw you then and I thought, that’s bloody perfect. He’s done exactly as I told him.’

Andrew smiled at her. It was just like Maggie to take credit for something that had absolutely nothing to do with her. She regularly claimed that Conor would never have been the rugby player he was had it not been for her cooking.

‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it won’t be a lack of respect. She cherishes you, that girl. And you’re old enough now – what am I saying? You’ve been old enough for a long old while, to know that kind of thing is not replaceable. You aren’t careless with love like that. You have a partnership, not just a marriage. A partnership. It made me happy to see it all those years back, it would break my heart – break my heart! – to see you throw that away now. And you wouldn’t want to break an old woman’s heart, would you now?’ She poured him another cup of tea, then took it away before he could drink it. She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Bushmills and two glasses. ‘I’ll tell you what makes me sad, Andrew. It’s that Jennifer never found a partnership like you have. And now she’s alone with a baby. It’s such a terrible thing, isn’t it? That beautiful girl bringing up a baby by herself. It’s not right, is it? My son would not have wanted that.’

On the way back to England he composed letters to Jen and to Dan, telling them he was sorry for the things he’d said. He’d been a stupid eejit, as somebody once said, and worse than that, a hypocrite, a fool. He didn’t send them. He didn’t write to Natalie; there wasn’t a way of saying what he needed to say in a letter, there wasn’t a way to bridge the gap between them unless she were standing there in front of him.

He kept thinking about what Lilah said the night before he left France, when he was sitting on the bed with her in the dark. She hadn’t said it in so many words, but she suggested that the problem wasn’t really about them, about Andrew and Natalie, it was about him. His need to atone had made Natalie feel terrible, as though she were a price to pay. Only, she couldn’t always have felt that way, could she? They wouldn’t have been happy, and they had been, for a long time. Only now he thought about it, maybe it came to her, from time to time, maybe it was something she lived with, without ever speaking it, or at least without speaking it until now. It was amazing, he found, what we can live with when we set our minds to it, whether it be pain, or guilt, or ghosts, or the suspicion that the man you are married to doesn’t love you in quite the way you want him to.

He realised then that he had to find himself again, to find a way to live without the guilt and ghosts, then maybe she would see how he loved her. He booked a flight to France: he’d go the following weekend, he’d speak to Nat. He had things straight in his head, he’d been straightened out by Lilah, of all people. He drove the girls to school, he worked, he slept. And then he got the message from Natalie, telling him to come as quickly as he could, and he understood that the weekend would be too late.

He was terrified that he wouldn’t make it, not just that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye, but that he wouldn’t be there for Nat, that in the end she’d have to do it alone and he’d have let her down, again. He felt grateful, for the very first time, that at least when Conor went it was with the brittle snap of a vertebra, quick and clean. But he was there. He made it, and he brought Zac with him, so at least he had got something right.

Andrew walked Zac back from the woods to the house in silence. The light was just starting to fade, and he thought he detected for the first time since he’d returned a coolness in the breeze, just the faintest scent of rain. He found Natalie outside, sitting in the hammock, feet tucked up under her, back perfectly straight, looking out over the valley. She smiled at him when she saw him.

‘Please come inside tonight, Nat,’ he said. ‘Sleeping out here has got to be killing your back. And anyway, I think it might rain.’

Natalie looked up at the perfectly clear sky, then looked back at him, cocked her head to one side. ‘You think?’

‘Please, Nat?’ He sat down next to her.

‘OK,’ she said. She gave him a very small smile. ‘She’s gone now anyway. She was here, yesterday, I could feel it. But she’s gone now.’

Andrew didn’t say anything, he just smiled at her, touched her face. It wasn’t like her, to talk like that; she didn’t believe in ghosts or afterlives, she was staunchly rationalist. But you never knew how you would feel, until it was someone you couldn’t bear to lose forever.

‘Are you OK?’ Natalie was looking at him, her brow furrowed. She leaned closer to him, brought her hand up to her face to hold his. The hammock rocked ever so gently from side to side. ‘You look so tired,’ she said.

‘I’m fine. I was just thinking about… practicalities,’ he lied. ‘I have to go back the day after tomorrow. I want you to come with me, Nat. I want you to come home now.’

‘Of course,’ she said, as though there were never any question, as though she had completely forgotten the horrible way he’d treated her the last time he left. ‘Of course I’ll come back with you. I haven’t seen the girls for three weeks.’

He winced a little, he wasn’t sure what she meant by that. She was coming back for the girls, or coming back for him? Was it an either/or thing? Couldn’t she just be coming back?

‘I can’t wait to get home now,’ she said, ‘I just can’t wait.’ And she smiled at him, green eyes looking up from under lowered lashes, and he knew that it wasn’t just for the girls, it was for him, too, and his heart skipped a beat.

Natalie slept in the house that night, she slept soundly at his side. Andrew lay awake again, listening to the noises of the house and the night. He heard Jen padding around in the room next door, shushing the baby. He heard low cries in the distance, strange, ghostly sounds that made him irrationally fearful. Natalie didn’t stir once.

When he slept, it was fitful and he woke with a terrible start from a bad dream he couldn’t remember. Still, Natalie slept. He slipped out of bed and crept downstairs, where he found Jen in the living room with Isabelle; he had a flash of déjà vu, back to the day when he and Jen had argued, the day Jen had told him about Dan.

‘Hello,’ he said softly and the pair of them turned to look at him, two sets of enormous brown eyes set in pale, drained, unhappy faces.

‘Bad night?’

Jen nodded.

‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked her.

She shook her head.

He made her some tea anyway, brought it to her and sat down in the armchair opposite hers. They hadn’t really spoken since he got there, not about anything other than Lilah, in any case. It hadn’t been the time. Now, perhaps, in the chilly early morning, just the two of them and the baby, he could apologise to her, tell her he’d been wrong, judgemental, unkind, a hypocrite. But he couldn’t find the words, so they sat quietly, just the occasional fretting from Isabelle breaking the silence.

‘It’s harder than you think it’s going to be, isn’t it?’ Jen said eventually. ‘Babies, I mean. And you had two at the same time. I’ve no idea how you coped.’

‘There were two of us, too, that makes a difference. You can’t do it alone. Well, you can, I suppose, people do…’

He had nothing for her but platitudes – it was so long since the girls had been that age, he barely remembered what it was like. He remembered great happiness, wonder, that constant sense of astonishment that they were really
there
, after all the waiting, and they were so small, so impossibly tiny, so fragile. He didn’t remember exhaustion, he didn’t remember Natalie ever looking like this. She probably had done, all the time, but all he recalled now was the happiness.

Jen smiled at him, a slow, watery smile. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said, ‘but I feel as though she knows about Lilah. I feel like she’s missing her. She’s been so unsettled the last couple of days.’

‘It’s not ridiculous, Jen. They feel things, don’t they? That’s what people say, in any case. Your distress, your sadness, maybe she senses it?’

Jen shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I believe that. I think it’s more than that, it’s like Isabelle misses her. You know how Lilah adored her, how she was always touching her. All those afternoons in the hammock…’ Jen wiped the tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands. ‘I thought,’ she said softly, a catch in her voice, ‘because we knew it was coming, because it wasn’t a shock, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad…’

Andrew took Isabelle while Jen cried, but the baby protested, loudly, angrily, her little face screwed up and angry red. He got to his feet and tried to calm her, but she only cried harder. Jen didn’t move, she clutched the armrests of her chair, her head down. Andrew took Isabelle into the kitchen, he bounced her on his hip, he cooed and ga-ga-ga-ed, and Isabelle screamed. Andrew took her outside, into the courtyard, he walked around and around, trying to distract her, until Dan came out of the barn and took her in his arms, and within seconds, literally seconds, she calmed. Dan looked at Andrew – he looked embarrassed, guilty almost – and he said: ‘Sometimes they just need a change of arms,’ and Andrew started laughing.

‘That must be it,’ he said. He put his hand on Dan’s arm, gave it an awkward little pat. He turned to go back into the kitchen. Jen was standing there, watching them, her expression unreadable.

Letter, from Andrew to Jen, dated 17 September 2013, unsent

Dearest Jen,

I was a fool. I had no right to speak to you the way I did. Please forgive me.

I’m writing this on the plane, I’ve just been to see Maggie. She set me straight. I don’t mean that I told her about anything, please don’t think that, but she could see that I wasn’t right in my head and she deduced, quite rightly, that it was about Nat, and she talked to me about the way things should be and she set me straight.

But also, she spoke about you. Jen, she talks about you with such love, still, after all this time. You are the daughter she never had, I think. She wishes you happiness, she talked about how much she wished you had a great love in your life, and she shamed me, because I know I should be wishing you the same, instead of judging you and trying to smother your happiness.

I’ve been a fool. You are not, and could never be a disappointment to me. I’ve been a disappointment to myself, lately, but I think I know what I need to do now, I know where I need to be.

I wish you love, my girl. And you will always, no matter what you say, be my little sister.

Love, and apologies,

Andrew

THE HEAT BROKE.
Overnight, banks of gunmetal clouds blew in from the coast, became trapped above the mountains and burst. The rain was heavy and relentless; it came in cold, driving sheets. Streams of water running down the road became rivers and it was dark even at midday.

Natalie looked for Zac. He was leaving that afternoon; his bags were packed, piled neatly in the hallway, but he was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in the house or in the barn with Dan, he hadn’t taken the car out. Nat put on her hiking boots and borrowed a jacket from Jen and walked up the muddy slope behind the house towards the woods. She found him there, in the clearing where they scattered Lilah’s ashes. He was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, his hands clasped in front of him, head bowed as though in prayer. His clothes were soaked through.

Natalie sat down at his side, and he placed a sodden arm around her shoulders.

‘I keep asking myself,’ he said, ‘keep asking everyone, what shall I do? She was… she’d become everything to me. I just don’t know what to do.’

‘Go home, work. Lean heavily on your family, on your friends. Lean on us, you have us. Andrew and I are in Reading, the girls would love to see you any chance you have to visit. Honestly, they both fancy you something rotten. They’d
love
to show you off to their friends. Dan will welcome you here any time, you know that.’