The Reunion

kitchen, laid the table and opened a bottle of red to let it breathe. She took a moment to breathe herself. You couldn’t say it was a disaster, not yet. Everyone just needed a moment or two to adjust. She heard a creak of floorboards in the hallway and looked up. Andrew was standing in the doorway, watching her.
    ‘Drink?’ she asked.
    ‘Ah, Jen. Nat’s really not feeling so well, she’s lying down, so… Sorry, we’re going to give dinner a miss.’
    Jen smiled through gritted teeth.
    ‘Shall I bring something up to you?’
    ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘We’re fine.’ He was embarrassed, eager to get away. Jen let it go, this was all her fault anyway. So maybe this weekend was going to be a disaster after all.

 
     
    7 September 1999
    Email, from Dan to Lilah, Andrew, Natalie
    Dear all
    I’m sorry things turned out the way they did the other night. I didn’t set out to hurt or offend anyone, you must know that. I wish you’d given me some time to explain.
    First, the film is fiction. I know there are places and people and events that look familiar, but it’s not supposed to be an accurate reflection of those places or people or events. They were my inspiration. You were my inspiration. But that’s all. I wasn’t making a film about you or about the accident.
    Second, and I know this sounds like a lame excuse, but the final edit was not done by me. There were some scenes, particularly at the end, that I objected to. I fought to have some scenes included and others left out, and I lost.
    I’d like to see you, all of you, to talk to you face to face and to explain exactly what I intended and what I did not intend. Please allow me that.
    Most of all, please know that I never wanted to hurt any of you. You are my family, you know that.
    Dan

Chapter Three

    DAN HAD THE feeling that this weekend was going to turn into a total disaster. Dinner was painful, no two ways about it. It was the kind of scene which would have been difficult to watch if it had been in a movie, the kind that made you cringe, slide down in your seat and close your eyes; living through it was excruciating. Minute upon minute of insufferable silence as they chewed their food (a good rack of lamb, actually, along with the wine, the only positive point about the evening), Lilah sulking, her Action Man boyfriend uttering the occasional platitude, Jen looking pale and tense.
    It fell to Dan to attempt to rescue the evening. He did his best. He told them about Claudia, the beautiful German actress, the new Audi he’d driven all the way from London to Nice, the holiday home he was thinking of buying; finally he talked about his plans for Christmas, the suite he’d booked at the Ritz, where he planned to meet up with Claudia (once she’d broken the bad news to her husband).
    He might as well have been talking to himself. Oh, Jen nodded and smiled and actively listened, but he could tell she wasn’t really engaging with what he was saying. It was frustrating. It was disappointing. If he was perfectly honest he expected everyone to be rather impressed. His girlfriend was a
film star
, for God’s sake.
    Lilah didn’t appear to have listened to him at all, because the second he stopped talking, she changed the subject, launching into an attack on Jen for setting up this weird reunion in the first place.
    ‘You should at least have told
me
that you weren’t telling
them
,’ she said to Jen, arranging her face into a perfect pout. ‘That was really awkward. And in any case, I don’t get why she gets to be pissed off.
She
ran off with
my
boyfriend.
I
should be the one throwing hissy fits.’
    ‘You used to go out with
him
?’ the boyfriend asked, an amused expression on his face. ‘That bloke upstairs?’
    ‘Yes, she used to go out with
him
,’ Dan snapped, instantly feeling defensive of Andrew, who he felt was being insulted in some way. ‘What of it?’
    ‘Leave Zac alone,’ Lilah said, reaching out to stroke her boyfriend’s neck. ‘He was only asking.’ Lilah leaned forward, interlocking her fingers in front of her face and cocking her head to one side. She flashed him her killer smile and he felt his bowels contract. He shouldn’t have said anything; now he’d only gone and drawn her fire.
    ‘Mr Parker,’ she said, taking a slurp of her wine. ‘The great film director. I haven’t seen you for… ooh, I don’t know. How long has it been, Dan?’
    Dan swallowed. ‘You know very well how long it’s been,