The Reunion

they?’ he asked. ‘Because I reckon I’ll probably need to get going this afternoon.’
    ‘Oh. Yes. They will, this afternoon I think. The driveway, though…’
    ‘It’s all right. I can do the driveway.’
    So that was it. She searched his face for some trace of the tenderness there had been last night, but it was gone. When he smiled at her it was the polite smile of a friendly acquaintance, and his chatter had reverted to the slick, superficial glibness of his first night here. She hadn’t given him the response he wanted, so that was it. Shut down, closed off. It was all or nothing with him. She felt desperately sad, bereft almost, to have the glimpse of something, friendship or more, to be able almost to grasp it, and then to have it snatched away, just like that.
    It made her feel impossibly tired, her limbs leaden. If she didn’t have guests she would quite happily have gone back to bed, she was sure she could sleep all day. But there were things to do, food to cook, people to entertain. She was dismayed to notice that there was barely any firewood left, either next to the burner or in the living room; it meant a steep climb up the hill to the woodshed. The sound of Zac’s heavy footfall on the stairs lifted her spirits; she knew very well that there was no way he’d let her do the heavy lifting.
    In the end he took Nat out with him – she was eager to get out of the house after more than thirty-six hours of being cooped up. Jen saw the look of panic flit over Dan’s face as he realised he was going to be left alone with her and for the briefest of moments she considered letting him off the hook, disappearing upstairs, but the impulse passed.
    ‘I wish you wouldn’t go,’ she said. He was looking out of the window, he didn’t turn to face her. ‘Stay until tomorrow.’
    ‘No. It doesn’t feel right now,’ he said. He still hadn’t looked round.
    ‘You’ve spoken to Claudia?’
    ‘I phoned her last night. And she rang back this morning. She’s spoken to her husband. She’s told him about us. She’ll be in Paris tomorrow.’ This was expressed without emotion. He sounded neither happy nor excited. He got up from the table and turned to look at her at last. ‘So it’s all sorted.’ As he walked past her to go back out to the barn, he touched her arm, gave it a squeeze. ‘No going back now,’ he said.
    Zac and Dan spent the best part of an hour shovelling snow off the driveway. They were almost finished when she heard the steady tractor-like chug of the snow plough coming up the hill.
    ‘Nat,’ she called out, ‘they’re back.’
    Natalie almost fell down the stairs, yanked on her boots and ran out into the snow. Jen hadn’t seen her move that quickly all weekend.
    ‘Andrew!’ she called out. ‘Oh, thank God you’re back.’
    Jen stood on the front door step, watching Andrew and Lilah clamber down from the snow plough; Zac scooped Lilah up into the air, effortlessly spinning her around, kissing her on the mouth. Andrew and Natalie just stood there hugging each other. Jen wished she had a camera, they looked so beautiful out there in the snow and the sunshine. Dan, standing next to his car, turned to look at her, and he smiled, a real smile this time, and she felt tears come to her eyes.
    ‘You should stay,’ she called out.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I said you should stay!’
    He started to walk towards her, Andrew and Natalie caught up with him, Andrew slapped him on the back, they were laughing about something, Jen couldn’t hear them though, there was an odd sound, a kind of ringing in her ears, she looked up at the sky and it was blinding, her heart, oh God, her heart was racing, racing, racing, and then the light was gone.

Part Two

Chapter Twenty-seven

    May 1996
    SHE’D KNOCKED HER head on something. She could feel the lump forming on her temple, the blood already starting to collect in her eye socket. She was going to have one hell of a shiner.
    ‘Jen? Jen, are you all right?’
    She looked up. Conor was kneeling down, at her side. She hadn’t knocked her head, she’d fallen down. She was lying on the floor.
    ‘Jesus, Jen. What happened? Are you all right?’
    She tried to sit up, but her head was throbbing painfully. She felt like she was going to throw up.
    ‘I think I fell,’ she said.
    ‘You did, babe, you fainted.’
    ‘Oh. God. Really? I fainted. How melodramatic. How very Victorian of me.’ She smiled at him, reached out for his hand. ‘Conor. It’s