The Reunion

couldn’t read her expression.
    ‘I’ve decided to move back to England,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t want to be here any more. And I don’t mean here, exactly, I mean in France. As for here, in this house, as I said. It’s so isolated, it’s not the right sort of place… It’s lonely. And everywhere I look, in every room, on every wall, in every joist and hinge and door handle, at the table we’re sitting at, there are reminders, of what it once was. That once upon a time it was anything but lonely, when it was so full of us.’ She looked up at him and smiled. ‘But more than that, it’s just not practical. So I’ve decided to sell up and move to England. And I want…’ she hesitated, her voice cracking a little. ‘Look, I know I don’t deserve this, but I want to be part of your lives again. I want you to be part of mine. I want to know your daughters’ – she held up her hand to stop him talking – ‘and yes, I know, it’s a bit late for that, but I’m asking anyway. I’m asking you to forgive me.’

 
     
    1 January 1998
    Dear Andrew,
    I should have done this ages ago, I’ve tried so many times to put down in words how sorry I am for leaving the way I did, for abandoning you. I find it impossible.
    My mother has forwarded the letters that you wrote to me. Thank you.
    I am starting over. Trying to start over. I saw no other way.
    I am all right. I am living in France now, working in the translation department at one of the big advertisers. It’s not thrilling, but it is absorbing, as well as really hard work. Absorption and exhaustion, I think, have been good for me. I imagined, when I left, that I would be gone for a matter of months and here I am eighteen months on and still trying to start over.
    I think that I did the right thing, by leaving, though I understand if you don’t see it that way. I think about you all the time, you and Lilah and Nat and Dan. I think about you, but I cannot imagine how I would cope with being around you again, without him there with me. I cannot imagine it, just the thought of it sends me into a panic, it closes my throat.
    My life here is quite solitary, and although I am lonely, I don’t mind it all that much. I work all week and on the weekends I shop and cook, but mostly I walk. I feel I know every inch of Paris now, every park from Luxembourg to Buttes Chaumont, every cobbled street and every market. One day, when things are better, I would love to show it to you.
    I was not in the least surprised to hear that you and Nat are together now. I think that the two of you were always going to end up together, no matter what. I think we all did, even Lilah. I imagine she took it hard, but she falls on her feet, that girl. She will forgive you.
    If you see him, will you give Dan my love?
    I hope you don’t think me too selfish, I know you must think me weak. I don’t know what to say. Only, every night I have the same nightmare, and every morning I wake up to find out that it’s true.
    I love you, dearest friend. I miss you.
    Jen

Chapter Six

    ABOUT A QUARTER way up the stairs, Lilah stood silently, eavesdropping. Straining to hear what was being said, trying to gauge the mood. She could hear Andrew and Jen, no one else. Jen was talking about selling up and moving to England. Oh Christ, maybe she
was
dying. She didn’t look like she was dying, though. She looked positively Rubenesque. Lilah tiptoed down a couple more steps. Now Jen was apologising to Andrew.
    What for? It couldn’t just be for inviting him here without giving him the full guest list, surely? She must be talking about before. Leaving the way she did. It had been cold, sure enough, but Lilah might well have done the same thing herself, had she been in Jen’s shoes. Just get away, start over. Nothing worse than the post-mortem, the endless dissection and reconstruction of events. Better to just put it somewhere, store it away and try to forget. She doubted Andrew would understand. He had the opposite reaction to momentous events: he wanted to examine everything in minute detail, as though somehow meaning could be found there.
    She decided to slip outside for a preparatory cigarette before she faced the others. Stealthily she crept past the entrance to the kitchen, her red silk kimono swishing gently against the stone walls, lifted the heavy latch on the front door and snuck out into the snow.
    The cold took her breath away; it was like having a bucket of ice water thrown in her