The Reunion (27 page)

‘I’m sorry about France,’ she said.

‘It’s OK,’ Nat said. ‘It’s understandable that Conor would have to go home. Big Catholic family and all that – Christmas is a big deal.’ She was trying to be reassuring, but she looked a little forlorn.

‘I know, but I know you were all looking forward to it. I was looking forward to it. But you guys could still go, you know, there’s no reason to cancel just because Con and I can’t come…’

‘It wouldn’t be the same,’ Nat said firmly, shaking her head.

‘In any case, I’ve got loads of parties on around Christmas, work things, you know, so I’m OK to stay in London,’ Lilah said, with a little shrug.

‘Oh. Well…’

‘Christmas in Ireland will be fun, though, won’t it?’ Nat asked her. ‘You get on well with Conor’s family, don’t you?’

‘I do. I do. It’s just…’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m just a little annoyed. And I promise you I’m going to stop complaining, any minute now, but the thing that bugs me, the thing that drives me mental, is that he didn’t even ask me. I was just told: we’re not going to the French house, we’re going to Cork! Just presented to me, fait accompli. It was the same with the thing about Dan, it wasn’t even a discussion, it was just: Dan’s coming to stay for a couple of weeks, fait accompli. It’s just… infuriating. I mean, I don’t even mind Dan staying. I like having Dan around, but it’s the way the decision was just made for me, you know?’

Natalie and Lilah exchanged a look. Jen wasn’t quite sure what the look meant, but she was sure she didn’t like it.

‘What? What?’

‘Well…’ Lilah shrugged, giggled, drank some more of her drink.

‘It’s not really such a new thing, is it?’ Nat said, playing with the cocktail stick in her glass.

‘What do you mean?’ She couldn’t imagine what they were talking about.

‘He’s always been like that,’ Lilah said matter-of-factly. ‘He takes control. He’s an alpha male. You like that about him. Well, you used to like it anyway. You’ve always let him make decisions for you.’

‘I have not. I absolutely have not.’ Lilah didn’t know what she was talking about, she was wasted. But Natalie was nodding, a half smile on her lips, as though she agreed with what Lilah was saying.

Jen stomped off to the loos, irritated. Had she always let Conor make decisions for her, she wondered, grumpily and rather sloppily reapplying her lipstick. She didn’t feel as though she had. She wasn’t that sort of person, was she? She wasn’t some meek little girl running around after her boyfriend. It was absolute bollocks.

By the time she got back to the table, they’d bought yet another round. Jen felt a little sick – she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, it was probably time to call it a night.

‘You can’t go now!’ Lilah protested when she said as much. ‘It’s quarter past ten. There’s a thing later, some people from work are going, it’s at a club somewhere…’

She leaned forward and tidied up Jen’s lipstick with the edge of her thumb.

‘Don’t be cross, sweetie,’ she purred.

Jen could feel the eyes of the blokes at the next table on them, watching Lilah touch her face. She smiled.

‘I’m not cross, I’m just knackered. I think I ought to just go home.’

‘Oh, all right then,’ Lilah said, pouting. ‘Give my love to your annoying boyfriend. And to Dan. How has it been with Dan, anyway? Is he driving you mental, too?’

‘Weirdly, no,’ Jen said. ‘It’s been nice having him there. Conor’s working ridiculous hours most of the time, so it’s been fun to have someone there to hang out with, go to the cinema, watch
ER
.’ She started laughing. ‘He does this hilarious thing where he dances to the
ER
theme music… you kind of have to be there. And I cook for him, because, you know, he’s totally undomesticated, can’t do anything for himself. It’s nice. It’s like looking after a stray.’ She was babbling a little and she wasn’t sure why – she really was drunk, she could feel a prickle of heat at the base of her neck, Jen and Lilah looking at her intently, quizzically, a slow grin spreading over Lilah’s face.

‘Oh, so that’s it!’ Lilah said, giggling. ‘That’s how you do it. You get two boyfriends, that way when one of them pisses you off, you just bring the other one off the bench. Bring them off? Pull them off?’

‘Jen, Dan and Conor, sitting in a tree…’ Natalie sang happily.

They had been joking. Everyone was pissed. So why was she sitting in the back of a taxi, fuming? Why had she had a complete sense of humour failure, stomped out of the bar in a huff? She could feel herself blushing just thinking about it, she’d been ridiculous, and they would be wondering why she’d been ridiculous. Something about their teasing just stung, and in the back of her mind there was a reason. She wouldn’t let it come to the fore, so she left it there, to prick and to fester.

The flat was in darkness when she got home save for the blue flicker of the television. Dan was on the sofa, an ashtray at his side, a beer bottle at his feet.

‘You’re back early,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Good night?’

‘All right,’ she said. She could feel her anger slipping away; she was relieved to be home. ‘Where’s Con?’

‘He’s in bed,’ Dan said, ‘party animal that he is.’

‘Right. Well.’ She hovered in the doorway for a moment. ‘What are you watching?’

‘Nothing, really. Flicking around.’

‘OK.’

He looked up at her and smiled. ‘You look nice.’ He patted the sofa next to him and shifted up a little. ‘Join me? There’s another beer in the fridge.’

She shook her head, kicking off her high heels. ‘I think I’ve had enough.’ Still she stood in the doorway, just looking at him.

‘You all right?’

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said, ‘’night.’

‘’Night, Jen.’

Conor was asleep, his body spread out over the bed, arms flung wide. The curtains were still open, light from the street lamps bathing the room in an orange glow. She pulled the drapes shut and undressed as quietly as she could, slipping beneath cold sheets until she was close enough to him to feel his heat. He stirred, reached one arm around her body, murmured something quietly, she couldn’t make out what he’d said. She was wide awake. She could hear the faint sounds of the television below and thought for a moment about getting up again, going downstairs and sitting on the sofa with Dan. She knew that it wouldn’t be long before he said something to make her laugh, made her feel better. She closed her eyes and listened to Conor’s breathing, slow and rhythmic. She could feel his heart beat against her back. She thought about how good her life was, how lucky she was, and how it made no sense at all for her to feel so sad.

March 1996

THE PLANE PITCHED
sharply to the left and Conor felt his stomach lurch. His hands gripping the arm rests, he kept his head down, listening for changes in the tone of engine noise. He glanced to his left; the middle-aged woman sitting at his side was smiling at him reassuringly. He wasn’t afraid of flying. He’d never been afraid of flying. Now he was filled with dread.

‘It’s just a little turbulence,’ the woman said to him, and he nodded and smiled and felt like a fool.

He was a fool. He should never have walked out like that. He could still picture her, sitting up in bed, holding her hand out to him, knowing that even if he was angry, even if they had had a horrible argument, he wouldn’t just walk out without saying a proper goodbye, without a kiss. He could see the expression on her face change, the moment he turned to go, when she realised that he was leaving, just like that. He could picture the hurt, and he felt wretched.

If this plane fell into the freezing Irish Sea, he’d never have the chance to tell her he was sorry.

It had all started over a takeaway. He’d been packing for his trip to Ireland, a week-long trip this time, not just a weekend, to help with the renovations on his brother’s house. He’d been going over quite a bit lately and he knew that Jen wasn’t happy about it, particularly since Dan had moved out. She was feeling a little lonely in the flat on her own. Everyone was so busy these days, they didn’t see each other so often.

They had been planning to go out for dinner, but he was just dog-tired, he’d been working long hours all week, so he suggested a takeaway instead. Jen was fine with that, or at least she said she was. She wanted a curry, but Conor fancied a pizza. It was as simple and trivial a matter as the choice of menu. They bickered about it a bit, until Jen said, fine, OK, pizza, and went downstairs to order it.

It should have been over then, it wasn’t a big deal. Only when the pizza arrived, she sat there, plate on her lap, then took one bite and set it aside, her face hard as granite, jaw clenched. She was fuming. It was ridiculous. He said so.

‘For God’s sake, Jen, do you want me to call out for a biryani for you? Is that what you want? I’ll do it! Christ, it would be preferable to sitting here looking at you with that face on.’

‘Just forget about it, OK?’ she said, getting to her feet and taking her plate into the kitchen. She stood there at the counter, her back to him, as though she couldn’t bear to look at him.

‘How can I forget about it, with you standing there, I can almost see the steam coming out of your ears!’ He laughed. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Jen, it’s just a bloody pizza.’

She turned to look at him, pure hell in her eyes, and he wished he hadn’t laughed.

‘It is not. About. The bloody pizza!’ she yelled and he ducked as a slice of the offending foodstuff came hurtling right at him. It landed tomato sauce-side down on the sofa. He could feel his mouth fall open; he was astonished, he’d never seen her behave like this, so petulant, so childish.

‘Jesus, Jen, what the hell is wrong with you?’

And then she burst into tears, which really got his back up – he couldn’t stand it when girls did that, behaved badly and then cried to make you feel bad. That was Lilah behaviour, it just wasn’t like Jen. He strode past her into the kitchen, not reaching out for her or trying to comfort her, grabbed a cloth from the counter and returned to clean up the mess.

‘It’s not about the pizza,’ she was sobbing, ‘it’s not about that.’

‘Well, tell me what it is about then, for God’s sake,’ he muttered, scrubbing furiously at the sauce stain on the sofa, grinding the mess into the fabric. ‘I’m not a bloody mind reader.’

And then she went off on this unbelievable rant; it came out of nowhere, he could scarely believe what he was hearing.

‘It’s about you,’ she cried, ‘always getting your way. No matter what the issue, from deciding what we’re having for dinner to deciding where we’re going to spend Christmas, when and where we’re going travelling, when we’re going to get married, how many bloody children we’re going to have, it’s all about you.
Everything
is about you. I feel like I don’t have control over anything any more. I feel like your bloody wife!’ She spat the last word at him, stormed out of the room and up the stairs, slamming the bedroom door as hard as she could.

He sat there, stunned. It wasn’t just the unfairness of it, it was the vitriol. His bloody wife? She felt like his
bloody wife
? As though that were something abhorrent. He picked up his plate with its half-finished pizza slice and carried it with shaking hands to the kitchen, dumped it in the rubbish bin. He couldn’t eat another thing, could barely swallow. He stood there for a moment, hands gripping the kitchen counter, and felt his shock turn to anger.

He stormed up the stairs and flung the door open, the handle smashing into the bedroom wall. She was sitting on the bed, looking out of the window. She didn’t look round, didn’t even flinch.

‘I thought you wanted to be my bloody wife,’ he said, trying his best to keep his voice low and even. ‘I thought you wanted to have my bloody children. I thought you wanted me, to be with me, to marry me. Now you make it sound like a prison sentence.’ She didn’t say anything, still didn’t turn around. Silence stretched out. But as he stood there in the doorway with his hand against the frame, steadying himself, anger falling away, he felt desperately sad. He felt afraid.

‘Do you not love me any more, Jen?’ he asked her, but he couldn’t bear to hear the answer, so he turned quickly away, closing the door behind him. He grabbed his coat in the hallway and left the flat.

She was in bed when he came home, after the pubs had shut. Her eyes were closed, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t sleeping. He slipped into bed and lay beside her, his eyes fixed on the tiny mole between her pale shoulder blades, that place he loved to kiss. He willed her to turn around, to put her arms around him, to apologise. She didn’t. Eventually, he fell asleep.

He got up early to finish packing; he needed to be at Gatwick by nine. He brought Jen a cup of tea, placing it on the bedside table. Her eyes remained closed. When the time came for him to leave, he stood there for a long time, in the doorway, just as he’d done the night before, when he asked her the question she still hadn’t answered.

‘I’m leaving now,’ he said, and she sat bolt upright with a start.

‘Conor,’ she said softly, ‘please, I’m sorry. Don’t go yet. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I was just feeling…’