The Reunion Read Online Free

she felt peevish and plaintive. What were they doing, flying and then driving all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere for three days? It would have made so much more sense for Jen to come to them. She could have stayed for Christmas. (Christ, Christmas. She had a million things to do, this trip really couldn’t have come at a less convenient time.) She would have put her foot down, point blank refused, only she could see that it meant so much to Andrew, to come back to the old place. The summer they’d spent at the house had been raised, in his mind, almost to the level of myth, it shone golden in his memory. She understood, but she couldn’t help but feel a little sad about it; for her, as sweet as that summer was, it was bitter too. Her feelings about it were always going to be mixed.
    And Dan was going to be there, the weasel. She’d promised Andrew that she’d be nice, but it was going to take iron self-control not to give the little git a slap.
    And oh God, she wished they could have made this journey in daylight, preferably without snow. Still. Finally, mercifully, there were there. She hadn’t expected it, but she felt a surge of happiness looking up at the house, beautiful in its dusting of white, an idyll standing all alone on the hillside. Lonely, but welcoming, pine-scented wood smoke billowing from chimneys at either end of the roof, a warm glow spilling out onto fresh snow.
    ‘God,’ Natalie said, ‘it’s so lovely.’ She turned to Andrew and smiled, and he looked so incredibly relieved, she felt awful for being so snappy with him on the way here, for making things so difficult.
    ‘Sorry, love,’ she said, reaching for his hand.
    ‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ he said, and squeezed her hand and leaned over to kiss her on the lips.
    Andrew fetched their bags from the boot of the car. Natalie stood on the doorstep, her back to the door, gazing out across the valley and to the mountains beyond, white caps illuminated by moonlight. She could hear voices inside the house, laughter. She felt nervous all of a sudden, wished she’d thought harder about interesting things to say, and, looking down at her bootcut jeans, trainers and khaki parka, she wished that she’d made a bit more of an effort. She could at least have had her hair cut.
    ‘OK, love?’
    She nodded and took his hand again, then lifted the iron knocker and let it fall. The sound rang out alarmingly loud, splitting the silence.
    ‘Here we go,’ a voice called out. ‘I’ll get that, shall I?’
    Natalie’s heart did a little flip in her chest. That wasn’t Jen’s voice. She looked over at Andrew; he was looking back at her, his eyes widening. Natalie shook her head a little, something wasn’t right, she knew, they both did, and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth which had fallen open, aghast. The door flew open and there she was, rail-thin and ice-blonde, a smear of vermillion lipstick on her mouth. Lilah.
    ‘Hello, you two,’ she said, a voice to cut glass, an assassin’s smile. ‘We were just wondering where you’d got to. How the devil are you?’

 
     
    Monday 26 August 1996
    Dear Nat,
    I’m sorry I didn’t make it to see you at the weekend. I was all set to drive down yesterday, but Lilah came home in the early hours in a bad way and I couldn’t leave her on her own. Pupils like saucers, chattering and shivering and scared of her own shadow, talking the most unbelievable shit. She couldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat anything. She’d been out with the guys from work. She doesn’t handle drugs nearly as well as she thinks she does.
    She’s asleep now, finally. I think she’ll be in bed all day. Viva bank holidays. I rang her mum this morning, she seems to think it’s post-traumatic stress from the accident, but that doesn’t really make sense. This has been going on a while, hasn’t it? I mean, I know it’s been worse of late, but the bingeing and the secretiveness, that goes back further. I don’t