The Reunion

decided, was not a good sign. He should, by rights, still be burning with righteous anger, fired by jealousy. Why didn’t he give a shit?
    This crossroads he was at didn’t really have anything to do with Jen. It would be easy to allow himself to think that it did, because he was here with her, because she still looked so beautiful and she still had that way of looking at him which made him feel as though he had a metal hook in his heart and she held a line attached to it and she could tug, tug, tug, any time she liked. But if he was honest with himself, this feeling wasn’t completely new.
    Zac came lumbering back into the kitchen. Dan groaned, louder than he’d intended.
    ‘You OK there?’ Zac asked. He was so solicitous. Why was he so solicitous?
    ‘Fine, thank you,’ Dan replied, trying to keep the edge of irritation out of his voice.
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘I’m all right, Zac. I’m just… Well. Girl trouble.’ The moment the words left his lips, he regretted them. Why was he telling Zac?
    ‘Ah, right. The actress. The married actress.’
    ‘Mmm-hmmm.’
    ‘I went out with an actress once. She was on
Casualty
, or
Holby City
or something.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah. She was mental. Is yours mental?’
    ‘No. She isn’t mental.’
    To his chagrin, Zac sat down across the table from him. ‘Has she changed her mind? About leaving her husband?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘So what’s the problem?’
    Oddly, Zac’s questioning style, utterly lacking, as it was, in finesse, took Dan to the crux of the matter.
    ‘It’s me. I feel… honestly? I feel like I may have made a huge mistake. Not in being with her, but in suggesting to her, persuading her, even, that she ought to leave her husband. It’s a big responsibility, you know.’
    ‘Breaking up someone’s marriage, you mean?’
    Dan sighed. ‘No. I mean, yes. Well. It’s complicated.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘OK. You’re making me sound like a dickhead, and I’m not. I didn’t get into this lightly, OK? I’ve thought about it, long and hard. For ages, I agonised over this.’
    ‘Ages.’
    ‘Yes, ages. We met… I don’t know, five months ago.’
    ‘Five months? That long?’
    ‘Just… listen, OK. I saw her in a film last year.
The Hunger
. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it.’ Dan didn’t imagine that Zac was a fan of German art house. ‘Very interesting, very erotic. She was phenomenal and I just couldn’t get her out of my head. When I was writing
The Lost Girl
– that’s the film we’ve just finished shooting – I wrote the character of Ofelia with her in mind. I contacted her agent and persuaded her to audition. Not that she really needed to, of course, because I’d written the part for her. But I wanted to be sure, really sure. And it was just as I’d imagined it, imagined her. She was perfect.’ Just thinking about it now made his breath quicken. ‘There was this instant, fierce attraction between us. Undeniable. Obviously mutual, right from the start. But we didn’t do anything. Partly out of respect for her marriage, but also because of the work.’ Dan closed his eyes, thinking back to that time, all those torturous hours spent together, close enough to touch, often actually touching (he was known as quite a physical director), the long nights discussing the script and rehearsing, the ache, the physical agony he felt, wanting her so badly. He shook it off. ‘It wasn’t until the end of shooting, when we realised that we weren’t going to see each other every day any more, that’s when we realised that we had to be together.’
    ‘Sounds… great,’ Zac said. ‘Hot. The whole thing sounds really hot.’
It sounds hot?
Dan’s shoulders slumped. What on earth was he doing talking to this man? What insights could he possibly offer? ‘Working together, wanting each other, sneaking around… sounds exciting. Doesn’t really sound like real life, though.’
    Dan shook his head, gave a wry little laugh. He tried to think of an appropriate way to demonstrate to Zac that what he had with Claudia was very real indeed, but he faltered. Infuriatingly, he was struck by the notion that Zac had a point. It didn’t sound like real life. Even as he was telling the story, talking about her, he realised how much it sounded just like that – a story. With a beginning, a middle, an ending. What was the ending going to be? Happy ever after? He couldn’t quite picture it. In fact, if he were honest, whenever he pictured Claudia, whenever