The Reunion

seen that one? At the bar, dark hair, jeans, black T-shirt, right over there, at the end? Oh my word, I
so
would.’
    ‘Lilah!’ Natalie threw the lemon rind back.
    Jen’s head was swimming a little, due to gin combined with Lilah’s peripatetic conversational style.
    ‘I’m only joking. I would though, honestly. Look at his arse. There’s this guy at work who has the most amazing body I’ve ever seen. Seriously. I could spend all day looking at him. But… what was I saying? Oh yeah. Living together is kind of shit, isn’t it? I don’t know, I just feel like the fun’s been sucked out of everything and we argue now. So much. Like, all the time. Do you argue all the time?’ Jen opened her mouth to answer but Lilah wasn’t listening. ‘I’m seriously considering moving back in with Mum. That’s how crazy Drew is making me at the moment. Crazy enough to make me consider living with my
mother
.’
    ‘Your mother’s great, though,’ Natalie said wistfully. ‘Living with your mother would be like living with Marianne Faithfull or Greta Garbo; she’d be able to give you sage advice about men and what to wear. Living with my mother is like living with Felicity Kendal.’
    Jen and Conor weren’t arguing. Not much. Not
all the time
, anyway. She was happy living with Conor. Very happy. It wasn’t exactly how she thought it would be, Lilah was right: they did go out less, but that was a good thing, because neither of them had money to burn, and London was so expensive. And, yeah, OK, apart from the first few weeks, they did have sex less often than before, but that was probably just because they felt awkward with Dan sleeping downstairs and they were always both knackered anyway because they weren’t used to having to work for a living.
    So, he got on her nerves a little more than he used to. That was normal, wasn’t it? She’d shared a house with Lilah in the second year of university, and there were plenty of occasions, daily occasions, on which she’d wanted to kill her with her bare hands. To say Conor was driving her mental was a bit strong. It was just… different to what she’d expected. But it was fine. It was better than fine, it was good.
    ‘We don’t argue all the time,’ Jen said softly, speaking to the dregs of her gin and tonic, but the others weren’t really listening.
    Lilah was back on the guy at work with the great body.
    ‘He’s not my boss as such, but he is senior to me in the company, obviously – everyone is senior to me because I’ve only been there five minutes. So it wouldn’t be, like, a problem from a sexual harassment point of view or anything like that…’
    ‘Lilah, why are you even talking about this? You’re not actually considering this, I know you’re not. So just stop it, because it isn’t funny.’ Natalie’s face had reddened, she wasn’t joking around any longer.
    ‘Oh, Nat!’
    ‘She’s right, Lilah, it isn’t funny. Andrew’s our friend, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend and it really isn’t cool to go on and on about how you want to cheat on him all the time.’
    ‘Oh girls!’ Lilah got to her feet and hugged each of them, long and hard. ‘You know I’m joking! Fuck! Aren’t we here to get pissed and talk rubbish? I just like to look, that’s all.’ She pouted at them, looking up from beneath lowered lashes, couldn’t hold the pose for more than a second or two before starting to giggle. ‘I’m off to the loo. And when I come back I want you both to have chilled the fuck out.’
    They watched her weave her way towards the ladies, turning heads as she went. Natalie and Jen looked at each other, indulgent smiles on their lips.
    ‘Is she OK, you think?’ Jen asked.
    ‘A bit all over the place. Andrew says she’s caning it pretty hard with people from work.’
    ‘She’ll be all right,’ Jen said. ‘She’ll settle down. It’s an adjustment period, that’s all. That’s what Conor keeps telling me. An adjustment period. If he says it one more time I think I’ll beat him to death with a frying pan.’ Natalie giggled. ‘How are
you
anyway, Nat? God, you haven’t got a word in for all our whingeing. How’s work? How’s your love life?’
    ‘B plus for the former, D minus for the latter,’ Nat said with a laugh. ‘Andrew tried to fix me up with this guy from his work last week but it was pretty disastrous.’ Her laughter had turned brittle: she looked down at the table and then away. Jen felt a pang for her,