The Reunion

thought, anyway.’
    Dan smiled. ‘Jen, it was amazing.’ He put his coffee down, he turned to face her. He placed his hand on her cheek, he let it slip slowly down, to her jaw, to her neck. He traced the tip of his thumb across her collarbone. ‘I don’t know what to think. I mean, I know how I feel, but I also know that we shouldn’t have.’ His breathing was quick and shallow. ‘I’m finding it hard to regret it, though.’ He was speaking softly, moving closer to her, their bodies almost touching. He slipped his arms around her waist, placed his hands on her lower back, pulled her closer, gently tugging at the fabric of her robe. She drew back a little, raised her head, and kissed him, feeling again the rush she’d felt the night before. They moved into the living room, onto the sofa, her robe was on the floor, she couldn’t stop this, she didn’t want to stop it.
    The phone started ringing.
    ‘Leave it,’ he said, ‘please.’
    And then the voicemail clicked in and the second before she heard his voice she knew who it was going to be.
    ‘Jen? You there? I’m starting to worry now. Can you pick up?’
    ‘Fuck,’ Dan said. ‘Oh, fuck.’
    Jen picked up her robe.
    ‘I’ll go,’ Dan was saying. ‘I’ll go now.’
    For a long time after Dan left, Jen sat on the sofa, watching the light on the answering machine blink. She needed to call Conor back. She needed to do it now, he was worried about her. But she couldn’t do it, she was so afraid. He would know, the second he heard her voice, he would know what she’d done, what she’d been doing when he dialled their number, when he said her name.
    He didn’t, of course. He didn’t sound hurt, or outraged or betrayed. He sounded annoyed.
    ‘Jesus, Jen. I was really worried. I called you at work, they said you were ill, I called the house a dozen times, no answer, I left you messages, I called Nat, I called Lilah…’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say.
    ‘Where the hell were you? Why didn’t you call me back?’
    ‘I went out,’ she said stupidly.
    ‘You went out?’
    ‘Yes, I…’ the lies just wouldn’t come fast enough, why wouldn’t they come? ‘I called in sick, and then I just… wandered around by myself. I went to the cinema by myself. Then I came back and went to bed, I didn’t even check the messages…’
    She tailed off, waiting for him to say something. Eventually, he did.
    ‘You didn’t check the messages? You didn’t think I might have called you, that I might have wanted to talk to you? You didn’t want to talk to me?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I’m sorry,’ and the tears came.
    ‘I’ve got to go, Jen,’ he said wearily. He hated listening to her cry, she knew that. ‘I hope you’re OK.’
    She stripped the bed in the spare room and put the sheets in the washing machine. She cleaned the flat more thoroughly than it had ever been cleaned during their occupancy: she scrubbed every surface, she vacuumed under the beds and tables and wardrobes, she mopped and dusted, she even cleaned the windows, as though trying to rid the place of every trace of her betrayal. But still, she couldn’t stop the images from the night before that appalled and thrilled her. The noise of the vacuum cleaner couldn’t stop her hearing the things Dan had said to her. And nothing could stop her replaying the scene that morning; she and Dan with their hands all over each other and Conor’s voice as soundtrack.

Chapter Thirty-five

    April 1996
    ANDREW HAD NEVER seen Conor like this before. Conor was the most relentlessly cheerful person he’d ever met, his tendency to look on the bright side bordering on the irritating. He had self-confidence in abundance, he knew his place in the world. To see him now, so unsure, so uneasy, was disheartening.
    ‘I feel as though I’m losing her,’ Conor said. ‘I can’t even believe I’m saying that out loud. And I know what happens when people feel like this, they hang on and they get all clingy and weird and it just makes the other person pull away more. I’m trying so bloody hard not to cling on to her, and then I’m worried that I’m not doing enough. That I’m
letting
her go.’
    There were sitting in the Greyhound, at the table in the corner behind the pool table, pints of Guinness in front of them. The Greyhound was just round the corner from Andrew and Lilah’s flat. Lilah referred to it as ‘that miserable old