The Reunion Read Online Free PDF Page A

plight. But he had only just met her, well since childhood
anyway. How much should he be relating about personal matters that were still
painful to think about?
    “It was not a happy time, for me or the children. Sam was
convinced everything would end up fine and Rachel was threatening to murder her
mother. It was a mess and to a large extent still is. If you don’t mind I’ll
leave it at that for now. Suffice to say it was clear that Jane wasn’t going to
change her mind. She’d already packed suitcases to take to Jim’s and she’d even
lifted some of what she wanted from the house, including a painting we’d bought
soon after we married which I’m very fond of. I was annoyed that she thought
she could take whatever she felt like without even asking.”
    Bill, Ben and five other men came into the reception area.
David tensed up but the group walked past without eye contact, cigarettes at
the ready to be lit as soon as they stepped outside.
    “And Jane still hadn’t sat down with the kids to explain
what was going on. She should have tried harder. Even though Rachel rejected
her approaches, she should have persevered.”
    Bridget nodded. Her sympathetic face was as beautiful as
her smiling one. David had succumbed to teenagesque passion together with the
angst that invariably goes with it. He was an adolescent again, the twenty-five
years since being at school washed away by this chance meeting.
    “I’ll tell you what’s odd though,” he continued. “I was
unhappy, I still am. But just a few weeks on I’m not nearly as unhappy as I
thought I would or even should be. It’s made me realise the relationship
between Jane and me had become distant; her walking out brought the reality
home. My anger’s pretty well gone because I recognise that at least in part I’m
responsible for what happened.”
    Bridget interrupted. “Wait a minute. It’s good of you to
think that, but you weren’t the one who ran off with someone else without any
discussion.”
    “No, true enough. Thanks for saying so, Bridget. And I
must admit the shock was huge. Luckily friends and work colleagues rallied
round. I was invited to the cinema, bowling, clubbing, dinner parties. Some of
them suggested strategies for getting a new partner, but that was the last
thing on my mind. In fact I haven’t taken up any offers because I feel the pressure
of being responsible for looking after the kids.”
    “So how come you came to this reunion?” Bridget
persevered.
    David wanted to impress her with light and witty patter.
Instead it was like being in a counselling session. “Another drink first?” he
asked.
    “No, I’m fine thanks. Carry on.”
    With reluctance he did so. “Well one evening I was
watching some TV drama and there was a young girl who looked the spitting image
of Marianne Dunnell. Do you remember her?”
    “I certainly do.”
    “We used to call her Marianne Faithfull. She looked just
like the singer – an absolute stunner all the boys thought.”
    “Us girls called her Marianne Unfaithful. She hopped from
boyfriend to boyfriend every day and her girlfriends didn’t last much longer.”
    “Oh I didn’t know that. Anyway, I had a sudden impulse to
contact her even though she’d had little to do with me at school. My Rachel
uses Facebook, for far too long I tell her, but I wondered whether it could
help me get in touch with Marianne. The next evening Rachel showed me how it
all worked. I set up a profile and password and went on the search for friends.
When I typed in the name up came one Marianne Dunnell, she listed Dunnell as
her maiden name as well as Peters which is her married one. She was located in
Oxford, Boars Hill to be exact. I was pretty sure it had to be her, bearing in
mind the unusual surname and where she lives. I sent a message asking her to be
my friend and the next day I had a reply. Do you use Facebook?”
    “No, my kids do but I can’t be bothered with it. My two
say they’ve got about three