The Reunion

November.’
    There was a pause, just a beat, then Andrew asked: ‘Who’d she shag in November?’
    ‘That friend of Dan’s, remember, the guy he was working with? Dark hair, high cheekbones, skinny, angsty, a bit of a geek. You know how Nat likes them.’
    He fell silent then; he didn’t talk at all for the rest of the way home, and when he got there, he seemed like he was somewhere else. Lying in bed at his side, she didn’t fall asleep, but for once, she wasn’t lying there thinking about Martin from the office. She was thinking about how Natalie and Andrew were sitting when she arrived at the restaurant, their heads so close together. And then later, when they left Nat at the tube, was it just affection, that look in his eyes as he watched her go? Because when she thought about it now, she wasn’t sure it looked like affection, it looked a bit like longing.
    The next evening, when Martin asked her to go for a drink, she said yes. The look on Andrew’s face when he watched Nat go, the way he withdrew into himself the moment the two of them were alone, was still playing on her mind when they got to the dimly lit basement bar just round the corner from the office. It was on her mind when she agreed to have the second cocktail, and the third. It was on her mind when she agreed to go back to Martin’s place, and when she had desperate, disappointing sex with him on his living-room floor.
    On Saturday morning, two days later, when she walked back to their bedroom from the bathroom in just a towel, Andrew asked her, ‘Lilah, what happened? Did you fall?’ She had marks on her knees, carpet burns. Andrew gave her a smile and put his arms round her. ‘Those heels you wear, they’ll be the death of you one day,’ he said, then he kissed her lightly on her bare shoulder and she burst into tears.
    ‘Please can we go away,’ she asked him, when she stopped crying. ‘I’m so tired, I just want to go away for a bit, just the two of us? Please, Drew? It doesn’t have to be anywhere special or expensive, we can just go to the French house, even if it’s just a long weekend?’
    He said no, of course, there was no way he could take time off now, not the way things were at work at the moment. He’d understand, though, if she needed to get away. He knew that she was tired, that she’d been overdoing it a bit. Perhaps she should suggest a trip with her mum?
    That afternoon she went round to Nat’s tiny little flat in Vauxhall. It was on the second floor of one of those stout Victorian townhouses, with a view over four lanes of traffic. In the corner of the living room, she’d set up a little home office: computer and printer, books piled to waist height on the floor, newspaper cuttings and postcards and other little snippets (‘inspiration’, she said) pinned to a cork board above the desk. And a photograph, too: Natalie, Lilah and Andrew sitting on the lawn outside the French house. Lilah grinning at the camera, Andrew at her side, his face turned a little towards Nat, and Nat looking back at him. Lilah had seen the photo many times before, but she’d never really thought about how they would look to a stranger. Andrew and Natalie together, Lilah the outsider.
    ‘I love that picture,’ Nat said to her. She was standing at her side, proffering a cup of tea. Lilah took the tea and turned to look at her.
    ‘I slept with Martin,’ she replied.
    Nat was furious.
    ‘How could you, Lilah? How can you do this to him? And you don’t even like this Martin guy, you said so. He’s a prat. I don’t understand why you’re being like this, it’s like you’re trying to break everything…’
    ‘Sometimes I feel as though I am, as though I do want to break everything, smash everything to pieces. Start over.’
    ‘Why, Lilah? What is wrong with your life? Your good job, the nice flat, the amazing boyfriend…’
    Lilah gave a little yip of laughter.
    ‘What? You’re going to tell me now that Andrew isn’t a great guy?’
    Lilah shook her head. She wanted to ask her straight out, are you in love with him? But she knew the answer and it would be cruel to make Nat say it out loud. They stood there, just looking at each other, Natalie’s anger subsiding. She couldn’t stay angry with Lilah for long, she just couldn’t. Eventually, she took the mug from Lilah’s hand, went into the kitchen and brought back a bottle of wine and two glasses.
    ‘So, what was he like?’ she asked, the ghost of a smile on her