What became of us

Prologue
    June 1982

    The women were wearing black. The sombre solidity of the colour in the shimmering sunlight stopped him in his tracks. He took a deep breath and began to walk towards them.
    ‘Find the Parks and head for the river,’ his sister Ursula had instructed.
    She and her friends had that morning finished their finals and were still dressed in the gowns the University required examination candidates to wear. A picnic was spread out in the dappled shade of a huge weeping willow whose branches canopied the river.
    He recognized Ursula before he was close enough to distinguish her features because her finger was stabbing the air to emphasize a point she was arguing. Next to her, a tall blonde was lying on her side, her head propped up on her arm, and only just enough buttons done up on her blouse to keep her decent.
    As he came into earshot, he heard his sister saying, with a note of disapproval in her voice, ‘You’ll no doubt be famous.’
    To which the blonde replied, ‘And you’ll probably be Prime Minister, God help us!’
    Ursula frowned, then caught sight of him and waved.
    ‘Roy, over here!’
    For one excruciating moment, all four female faces turned in his direction. Then Ursula stood up, took his arm and marched him the last few paces.
    ‘Girls, this is my brother, Roy. Roy, this is Annie...’
    The blonde languorously pushed herself up to sitting and held out a bottle.
    ‘Have some champagne!’
    He stooped and took the neck of the bottle, not knowing quite what to do with it.
    ‘... and this is Penny,’ Ursula continued.
    Penny was fair and neat, and her dimply s mil e made him feel a little easier.
    ‘Have a cup,’ she said, looking into the picnic hamper and taking out a paper cup in one hand and a clean plate in the other. ‘Are you hungry?’
    ‘Not half,’ he grinned at her.
    ‘And that’s Manon over there.’ Ursula pointed at the girl with long black hair who had her back to them and was dabbling her feet in the river.
    ‘Penny will be doing something really worthwhile,’ Annie took up their conversation again.
    Penny shot him a sympathetic look understanding how embarrassing it must feel to be thrust into the midst of their intimacies.
    ‘And Manon, what will Manon be?’ she asked, as if trying to hurry the conversation to an end before embarking on a subject that could include him.
    He stared at a Japanese-style footbridge a little way downriver and pretended not to listen.
    ‘Manon will be a femme fatale ,’ Annie declared loudly.
    The silence that greeted her announcement made the air feel thick with shock.
    After a few seconds, the dark-haired one stood up. Her legs were slim and bare and brown.
    ‘Don’t go... she didn’t mean it,’ Penny began to protest.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Manon’s voice had a slight foreign accent, ‘I’ve got things to do.’
    ‘But Roy’s only just arrived,’ Ursula said.
    ‘Tell Manon not to go,’ Annie ordered him, half joking, half earnest.
    He shrugged his shoulders, not understanding what was going on.
    ‘Don’t go,’ he said.
    Manon’s eyes were pale green and he was suddenly aware that she was very beautiful and he was staring. He felt the blush rising from the collar of his shirt and looked away back towards the arc of the bridge.
    When he looked again, she was walking away, and everyone seemed to breathe again.
    ‘You and your mouth,’ Ursula scolded Annie.
    ‘I didn’t think...’ Annie tried to defend herself.
    ‘Well, that makes a change!’
    ‘Come and sit down, Roy,’ Penny urged, trying to make him comfortable.
    ‘Yes, come and tell us what you think,’ Annie said, drawing her knees up to her chin. She was wearing black tights and there was a ladder all the way down one leg.
    ‘About what?’ he asked, crouching nervously a few feet away from them.
    ‘We were trying to guess what will become of us.’

PART ONE
Wearing Black

Chapter 1

    July 1999

    ‘Cinderella?’ asked Annie, twirling to look at herself from the side.
    The men didn’t seem to know whether she wanted them to agree or vehemently disagree.
    ‘An ugly sister?’ she asked.
    ‘ No! ’ This time the denial was immediate.
    ‘More a touch of Liaisons dangereuses ,’ Maurice suggested.
    ‘Really?’ Annie smiled at herself. ‘I don’t look fat, do I?’
    ‘Absolutely not!’
    Annie glanced away from the huge mirror above the mantelpiece in her living room, and back again quickly, to catch out the reflection in case it was