The Reunion (44 page)

Jen went downstairs. Dan had fallen asleep on the sofa, Isabelle on his chest. It was just after four in the morning, a tinge of grey just starting to seep from the horizon into the inky black sky. The room was cold; they hadn’t had a fire yet, but Jen felt it wouldn’t be long now until they needed one. Wouldn’t be long now. She wanted to take the baby, to lift her into her arms and hold her sweet, soft warmth against her chest, but she didn’t want to wake her, so instead she sat in the armchair watching them sleep, holding a blanket over her mouth so they wouldn’t hear her sob.

Isabelle stirred a little before five. Jen lifted her gently away from Dan’s body, but the withdrawal of her warmth woke him straight away.

‘Is she…?’

‘Still sleeping. I think. She was an hour ago. I haven’t been up since.’

He went upstairs while Jen fed the baby, came down after a few minutes.

‘Still sleeping,’ he said with a nod. ‘Can I make you a tea?’ he asked her.

Jen shook her head and held her hand out to him. He knelt down at her side.

‘I didn’t thank you. For looking after her yesterday while we were at the beach.’

‘You didn’t need to,’ he said. ‘I would look after her every day if I had the chance.’

‘Is that really what you want?’ Jen asked him. ‘Another man’s child?’

Dan sat back on his heels, he gave a little sigh. ‘But she isn’t. She isn’t another man’s child. She’s your child.’ He got to his feet. ‘Sure you don’t want tea?’ She shook her head.

‘I do love you, you know,’ she said softly as he walked to the kitchen, but he didn’t turn around.

Dan rang Zac at half past five, but the phone went straight to voicemail.

Lilah was a little better when she woke just after six. She sat up in bed and asked for water. She asked if she could see Isabelle, so Jen brought the baby to her.

‘I probably shouldn’t hold her,’ she croaked. ‘In case I throw up.’

‘She’s thrown up on you enough times,’ Jen replied with a small smile. ‘She could hardly complain.’

‘I might have a seizure,’ Lilah said, so Jen clambered onto the bed beside her and held Isabelle for her, up against her body, so she could smell her, feel her warmth. There were tears sliding down her face as she said, ‘He isn’t here, is he? Zac isn’t here.’

They arrived at midday. Zac didn’t stop to talk to anyone, he didn’t even look at them, he sprinted straight from the taxi into the house and up the stairs to Lilah’s bedroom, leaving Andrew standing on the lawn, looking up at the house, as though he were too afraid to go inside.

‘He was knocked off his bike yesterday,’ Andrew explained as Jen ushered him into the house. ‘He smashed his phone and had to go for stitches in his head. He didn’t get back home till the early hours, but we managed to get him on the flight.’

Natalie appeared, shuffling down the stairs in filthy tracksuit bottoms, her hair lank about her face. Her face was a dirty shade of grey, like dish water, the circles beneath her eyes the colour of fresh bruises.

‘Jesus, Nat,’ was all Andrew could say as he went to her. Jen left them there, at the foot of the stairs, embracing. She could hear Natalie crying softly and her husband repeating, ‘I should never have left you, I’m so sorry, my love, I should never have left you.’

Jen couldn’t believe that just hours ago she’d been thinking of lighting a fire. It was stiflingly hot, humid and close, the air heavy with moisture. She and Dan were in the kitchen, passing Isabelle back and forth to one another. The baby was angry, fractious, she refused to settle. She cried and cried and cried. Jen poured cold water on the back of her neck and tried to soothe her with a cold flannel, but nothing worked; her face became redder and redder, her furious screams tearing the air. Jen drank glasses of ice-cold water, wishing she could have gin and lime and bitter tonic, something to take away the taste in her mouth; she didn’t know what it was but no amount of brushing would get rid of it. She had never in all her life wanted so much to be oblivious.

When Isabelle finally, finally fell asleep, Jen loaded a tray with glasses and a pitcher of ice-cold water and took it upstairs. The room was rank, close; it smelt of sweat and vomit and worse. Lilah lay on her side in the middle of the bed, the sheets and blankets stripped back, her skin slick and grey. Zac held her hands, Natalie crouched behind her, pressing a cold cloth to the back of her neck.

‘Is she… with us?’ Jen asked.

‘Who’s she?’ came a croak from the bed. ‘The cat’s mother?’

She drifted in and out, from lucidity to hallucination; she ebbed and flowed.

‘Where’s Con, Jen? Is he out back?’

‘Conor’s not here, Lilah. He’s not here, darling.’

‘Oh. Are you sure? He was here yesterday. Just out…’ She tried to raise an arm to point out back to the woods, but could lift it no more than a few inches from the bed. ‘Out there. The edge of the trees. You can see him, if you look. Red hoodie. He’s wearing that red hoodie, the one he always wears.’ He was wearing it the day he died.

‘OK, Lilah. I’ll go and find him later.’

From downstairs, Jen heard a cry.

‘That’s Isabelle, sweetheart, I’m going to go down and get her, OK?’

‘Give her a kiss,’ Lilah said. ‘Give her a kiss from me.’

Jen slipped at the top of the stairs. She clawed at the stone walls to right herself, ripping a fingernail to the quick. She bit down hard on her lip to stop from crying out and stumbled down the rest of the way, leaving a smear of blood on the wall where she’d cut herself. Her legs trembled. She was exhausted. She hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours, she’d barely eaten. She washed the blood from her hands and went to comfort Isabelle. She didn’t want to carry the baby back upstairs to that stuffy, stinking room; she was afraid she might fall again, that she might hurt her daughter.

She took her outside instead, hurrying to the shade of the hammock. She climbed in and lay down, Isabelle hot and angry, squirming against her chest. Jen closed her eyes and they rocked and rocked until eventually she quietened.

Dan and Andrew came out a little while later. They brought cold water with them, and sat on the grass next to the hammock. No one said anything, they sat in silence, listening to the lightest of breezes whispering through the leaves above them, the occasional twitter of birdsong, the low moan, in the distance, of cattle. And then they heard a terrible noise, a cry of agony, like a wounded bear. It was Zac, and they knew then that she was gone.

27 June 1995

Greetings, my darling Nat, from the slopes of sunny Winchmore Hill,

Actually it’s pissing it down and I feel like I’ve been here forever. Am so bloody bored. All that time being desperate for finals to be over and now they are and I’m stuck in London with no one to play with, because Drew’s in Reading with his parents and you’re in bloody Wiltshire or wherever it is and Jen and Conor have gone to Cork to see Conor’s mum. Dan’s around, but he’s got some girl and he’s too busy shagging to hang out with me.

I cannot wait to leave for France. Even if we do have to spend the summer doing manual labour. And there’s no swimming pool. Never fear, we’ll get Drew to drive us to the beach (on our days off!) and have the very best time.

And (drum roll, s’il vous plaît), I have a job! I will be a low-paid lackey at Red, a PR firm in Soho (woo-hoo), starting from September.

And (another drum roll), Drew and I are going to move in. It’s decided. I was thinking of staying with Mum to save money but she is driving me crazy – every time I pour myself a drink she tuts and rolls her eyes (like she’s not a total lush!).

So how bloody great is that going to be? Parties at our place? We will fix you up with a divine young man as soon as you move to London (assuming you don’t pull something hot on the beach in France…)

I am counting my blessings…

I never have to write another exam again.

I have a job.

I have an amazing boyfriend.

I weigh 117 pounds (yesssss! Only five more pounds to go).

I have the best friends, the loveliest friends, and most of all, Nat my darling, I have you. Awwww… But it’s true, Nat, you are top of my pyramid, my very best friend, forever and ever.

We are going to have the greatest summer. It’s going to be epic, baby.

Lots and lots of love

Lilo xoxoxoxoxo

NATALIE SLEPT IN
the hammock the night that Lilah died, and for two nights after that. She barely came into the house. Andrew brought her food outside, most of which she didn’t eat. At night he sat with her until she fell asleep, then went inside, where he lay awake, his heart heavy in his chest like a stone. The heat persisted, draping itself over the house like a thick woollen blanket, stifling, suffocating.

On the fourth day, they scattered Lilah’s ashes in the wood. She hadn’t been clear, in the end, about what she wanted, whether it was to be taken back to England or to stay here. Zac took the decision that she should stay in France. It was, after all, the place she’d chosen to come to spend her last days. The cremation was organised and carried out within seventy-two hours: it was quick and hassle-free, not at all what Andrew would have expected of French bureaucracy. They invited no one else. They told no one else.

‘There’s no one else she would have wanted,’ Zac said.

The sun shone brightly as the breeze took what was left of her, and they stood in perfect silence, even Isabelle falling mute. It wasn’t much of a ceremony. Lilah might well have preferred a smart London funeral with everyone in black tie and a raucous wake afterwards.

‘Funerals aren’t really for the dead though, are they?’ Zac said. ‘They’re for the living.’

Zac stayed up in the woods for a while after everyone else had come back to the house. After an hour or two, Andrew went to find him. He was sitting on a fallen tree, calm and apparently perfectly serene, just listening to the forest. He smiled at Andrew when he saw him.

‘Are you all right?’ Andrew asked him.

He shrugged. ‘I suppose. I don’t know what I’m doing, really. I don’t know what to do.’ Andrew sat down at his side. The forest canopy softened the sunlight, the trees were still. ‘It’s just been the two of us, you know, for a long time. We became quite insular. She became everything to me.’ He shook his head a little, a futile attempt to shake off grief. ‘And it was good,’ he said, raising his head, his eyes up to the forest canopy, ‘to have a part of her. For a while. You understand, don’t you?’ Andrew nodded. He could feel Zac’s eyes on him, searching his face. ‘She’s special. It was something to love her.’ He fell silent.

After a long time, he said: ‘I know about what happened at Christmas.’

Andrew’s mouth went dry, his heart felt small and hard, a peach pit.

‘It doesn’t matter. I mean… It doesn’t matter. Fidelity was never her strong suit.’

‘Zac, Jesus, I am so sorry,’ Andrew said, the words sounding hollow and inadequate as they came out of his mouth.

Zac shook his head. ‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter. She only told me about it when she was trying to get me to leave her. She didn’t want me…’ He stopped and took a deep breath. ‘To have to watch, you know? To have to be there…’

‘But you stayed anyway,’ Andrew said, and for a horrible moment he thought he might cry; he could feel his throat constrict, his voice starting to catch. Zac put his hand on Andrew’s shoulder.

‘I’m not telling you this because I wanted to make you feel bad. I know it seems like I am, but it isn’t that.’

Andrew couldn’t quite believe that Zac was consoling him, that he was letting Zac console him. He got to his feet. ‘Please, please don’t say anything more. I feel terrible about what happened, I wasn’t thinking then, it was such an awful day…’

‘I know all that, and I know why she did it, and why you did it. That isn’t the point. That’s not why I’m telling you this. She talked to me, she told me things, about everything that’s been going on here, with you, Natalie, Jen and Dan. I just…’ He broke off, shook his head a little, looked up at Andrew, gave him a small, sad smile. ‘It meant something to her, that night you spent together…’

Andrew’s chin was almost on his chest, he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt so ashamed. And then Zac reached out and touched his arm, and the shame deepened.

‘It was a good thing for her,’ Zac said. ‘It… gave her something, something I couldn’t, some comfort, it went some way to healing a very old wound, one I didn’t even know about, one I could never help her with. And I’m glad of that, I really am. I mean it, Andrew,’ he said, and Andrew stood there, limp, wordless, taken aback by the depth of Zac’s selflessness. All that mattered to him was Lilah. ‘I’m glad that you loved her. I’m glad that she knew that, in the end.’

Finally, Zac’s head dropped, his shoulders shook. ‘What will I do now?’ he asked. ‘What will I do?’

Andrew tried, as best he could, to put his arms around Zac’s enormous shoulders, and held him tight, the way you would a frightened child. He expected resistance, but got none; he sat there, hugging Zac, this big, gentle man whom he had wronged.