The Reunion

accidents in this country.’
    She was nervous, but not about the driving. The whole situation was a little bizarre. About a month ago, she’d received a letter written in a hand she’d known immediately. Jen, writing to tell her that the French house was on the market, and wondering would she like to come and see it, one last time. She’d invited the others, too – she felt a reunion was long overdue. Lilah’s first reaction had been to throw it in the bin. She retrieved it, hours later, and read and reread. It would be lovely to see Jen after all this time. But all of them? In one house? Blood would be spilled.
    She talked it over with Zac when he came home from work. Old friends, a get-together at a house we went to one year. We spent the summer doing it up for Jen’s dad. She’s selling it now, and she’s invited us out there, to visit.
    ‘Sounds like fun, babe,’ he said, but what did he know?
    Now, sitting in the car, she was certain that this was a terrible idea. What were they all going to say to each other, after the initial hellos and how’ve you beens? It was going to be like Facebook, where you make contact with people from your past, only this would be like real-world Facebook where you couldn’t just turn off your laptop and walk away when you realised that actually there was a perfectly good reason why you weren’t friends with these people any more.
    Zac reached over to her, grazed the side of her face with his fingers, nudged her chin gently towards him.
    ‘You look so worried, babe.’
    ‘It’s just weird, you know, her contacting me after so long. I mean, we used to send Christmas cards and stuff but I haven’t actually laid eyes on her in about fifteen years. I can’t believe this is just about the house.’
    ‘Didn’t you ask? When you emailed her, to accept?’
    ‘I did. She just said she wanted to see us. Christ, I hope she isn’t dying.’
    ‘Lilah.’
    ‘Well, you never know, do you? Although I suppose she wouldn’t have invited a plus one if she was dying, would she?’
    ‘I’m sure she’s not dying.’
    ‘No, probably not. I’m excited to see her,’ she said, hoping to convince herself as much as her boyfriend. ‘I really am.’
    She shifted up closer to Zac and hooked one leg over his, so that she was almost sitting on his lap.
    Khalid watched them in the rear-view mirror. ‘This is honeymoon?’ he asked.
    Lilah laughed. ‘It’s not a honeymoon. Just a dirty weekend.’
    ‘Dirty?’
    ‘It’s just a little holiday,’ Zac said.
    Thank God for Zac. Even if it was awful and awkward, at least she had Zac, a human buffer zone. He was so ridiculously affable, so likeable, so very nice to look at, that he had a soothing effect on those around him, a tendency to calm troubled waters. He should be a UN peace envoy or a hostage negotiator or something. Not that he wasn’t a damn fine fitness instructor. Such a shame there was bugger-all money in it.
    There. She’d gone there and now the thought was in her head, the one she’d had just before she’d retrieved Jen’s letter from the waste-paper basket. Money. She was broke, and she was tired of it. Poverty didn’t suit her, never had. She didn’t know about Jen or Andrew or Nat (and she would never ask them, anyway), but Dan had money. She knew Dan had money and frankly, he owed her.
    It was dark by the time they got there, and they almost missed the turning, a sharp bend to the right, up the hill. You couldn’t actually see the house from the road – it wasn’t until you got halfway up the drive that it appeared, looking deceptively small against the rise of the mountain behind. They pulled up out front as the snow was starting to fall. Lilah, determined that if she was going to have to face the past she was going to face it in style, was wearing boots with four-inch heels and open toes; Zac had to carry her to the front door while Khalid took their bags out of the boot.
    Zac deposited Lilah on the doorstep.
    ‘Thank you, baby,’ she purred, and gave him a kiss with lots of tongue, trying to exude a confidence she didn’t feel. She took a hand mirror out of her bag and checked her face. She pinched the skin over her cheekbones and bit her lower lip to redden it. She put the mirror back into her bag and took out the small bottle of vodka. One quick swig, a run of her hand through her hair and she was ready.
    ‘Let’s do this,’ she said, and pressed the doorbell.
    They got there in the end, no