The Reunion

his hands over the walls and testing the floorboards as though he were looking for subsidence or dry rot. He took a good look at the beams in the ceiling, inspected the window frames and finally, his survey complete, he turned towards her. He stood tall, hands on hips, looking her directly in the eye for the first time since he’d arrived.
    ‘The place looks great,’ he said, and before she could reply he went on: ‘I can’t believe you’re selling it.’
    Jen sighed, got to her feet, and stood in front of him. She’d known he’d be upset, but looking at him now, seeing the satisfaction it gave him to see the house again, to stand here in the place they’d worked so hard, she realised that it was going to be harder than she’d imagined.
    ‘I never use it. Obviously I’m here now, but this is the first time in ages. And now, Dad’s gone and Mum certainly doesn’t want to come here…’ She shrugged. They smiled at each other awkwardly for a second. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, she could hardly believe that he was actually here, standing in front of her. It didn’t seem real.
    ‘Andrew!’ Natalie called him from the bathroom. ‘Can you come in here for a second?’
    Andrew shrugged, holding his hands out, palms up.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Jen said, voice little more than a whisper, ‘about the thing with Lilah.’
    Andrew shook his head, waving the apology away. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk in the morning.’ He smiled at her and for a second he looked like his old self, or at least he looked to her as though his old self might be in there, somewhere, behind the mask of an old man.
    Jen paused, halfway down the stairs, resting her hand against the cold stone wall. She felt breathless, her heart beating a little too fast. As she steadied herself she looked down and realised she’d missed another drop of blood.
    ‘Out, damned spot,’ she muttered as she continued downstairs and into the kitchen. Dan was waiting for her, leaning against the counter, drinking a beer and checking his phone. He looked at once at home and completely out of place, the dissonance made her head spin. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on it too much. Not yet, things to do.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said to him, ‘I thought it would be best to get the others settled in first.’
    He looked up and smiled, then went back to his phone.
    ‘Would you like to go through and see your room now?’
    She took him through the back door, across the yard to what was once the barn, now a low-slung modernist apartment with sliding glass doors, a bedroom on the mezzanine level and a wet room.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘This is an improvement.’
    ‘Well,’ she said, giving him a smile. ‘It’s not every day I have a famous film director to stay.’
    He shot her a look, there was a flicker of defensiveness in his eyes as though he thought she might be taking the piss.
    ‘I’m joking,’ she said quickly. ‘It was the tenant. This writer from Paris, quite famous actually, long tomes of rather awful pop philosophy.’ She was babbling, sentences running into one another. ‘Anyway, he rented the place for ages, years and years. He used to come here for half the year, use it to write, you know, and to entertain women. This was his writing studio.’
    ‘So you haven’t been using the house?’ Dan looked surprised.
    ‘No. It was supposed to be Mum and Dad’s bolthole, but that never happened because they never actually wanted to go anywhere together. Then they got divorced, and after that Dad got ill. I didn’t really want to come back here. Not all alone. So Dad decided to rent it out and Delacourt – that’s the writer – just kept taking it, year after year. He eventually bought a place of his own a couple of years ago, so it’s been empty since then. Well, until I got here.’
    ‘And now your dad wants to sell it?’
    ‘It’s mine now, actually. Dad died last year.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
    The words were spoken completely without emotion. The diffident, lost boy who’d appeared on the doorstep just a few minutes ago was gone, now, replaced by a different Dan, rather controlled, curiously blank, disconnected. He seemed to be trying not to meet her eye. Jen waited for a second, for him to say something.
    ‘I’ll leave you to it then, shall I? Come through and have some dinner when you’re ready. OK?’
    ‘Great. Thanks, Jen.’ He was looking at his phone again.
    Jen went back to the