What became of us

she thought, walking along the street beside him feeling tremendously comfortable in his company. He was wearing blue jeans and a red polo shirt, the sort of determinedly casual outfit that man-of-the-people Tony Blair usually chose to wear for his refugee-camp walkabouts. Like Blair, Ian looked heavier when he was casually dressed than he did in black tie.
    Usually she fancied skinny men, like Max, whose bum was so small he could probably wear a pair of Mick Jagger’s jeans. If Ian wanted to borrow a pop star’s clothes then he might have to go to Meat Loaf, she thought, although he wasn’t really that fat, but her brain was so tired through lack of sleep that she couldn’t seem to conjure up a medium-build pop star with a slight weight problem, except Gary Barlow, and the younger generation didn’t seem to wear jeans any more. Anyway, it didn’t really matter because if Ian ever had to borrow someone famous’s Levis, then Tony Blair’s would be the perfect fit.
    Sometimes she wondered how it was that she never seemed to have time to get her head around profoundly important issues like the politics of the Balkans, the peace process in Northern Ireland or global warming, but could still manage quantities of energetic thought on irrelevant hypotheses about total trivia.
    She lifted her face to the sun. They walked past Thorntons, the second-hand bookshop, past the bank where she had pleaded so often for an extension on her overdraft, past the paperback bookshop where, just as they were turning the corner into Turl Street, she caught sight of the pair of them reflected in the window. Beside Ian, she looked very slim. Practically sylph-like, she thought. It was almost as good as being with a much older man who made you feel about twenty-three.
    The Taj Mahal restaurant, where she had once been so drunk she had mistaken a month’s supply of birth control pills in her wallet for her credit card and attempted to pay the bill with it, had changed its name to Simla Pinks. There was one of those menus in a glass case outside that described the entire history of the dish as well as listing every ingredient down to the last sprig of coriander. It came as rather a shock to see that something in this fossilized city had changed with the times.
    The covered market was comfortingly the same as it had always been. The cafe had the same black-and-white lino floor and the same red-and-white checked covers on the tables and the menu was still written in little white capital letters on a black pegboard. They ordered bacon sandwiches and tea.
    ‘So what are we going to do today?’ Ian asked.
    He wasn’t one of those dreadful people who said we when they meant you and she was mildly surprised that he assumed they were going to spend the day together.
    ‘Duty calls for me, I’m afraid,’ she sighed, martyrishly. ‘I’ve got to go and see my godchildren, well they’re not really my godchildren, but I sort of think of them like that because Penny told me that if she’d had a third, I would definitely have been its godmother. I know that it shouldn’t bother me so much,’ she admitted, seeing his effort not to laugh at her tortuous explanation, ‘and it doesn’t really matter whether I’m their godmother or not, since I don’t believe in God anyway, but I could understand her choosing Ursula, because she was Roy’s sister too, but Manon...’ She raised her eyebrows.
    ‘Who’s Manon?’
    ‘The extremely beautiful, dark-haired one. She was wearing black last night,’ Annie said.
    ‘Almost everyone was wearing black,’ he said.
    ‘True,’ she acknowledged, then added impatiently, ‘oh, you’d know her if you saw her. She’s stunning. I’m talking supermodel, but irritatingly, not as tall. Have you ever seen a supermodel in real life? As a matter of fact, they look a bit odd, like giants, but not fat, if you know what I mean.’
    This time he laughed out loud.
    ‘Are you always so garrulous when you’re hung-over? Most people are quiet.’
    ‘I don’t think I am hungover. Tired? Yes. Almost unable to move because of muscle strain? Yes. But I think I sweated all the champagne out on the Tour de Oxon last night. Am I giving you a headache?’ she suddenly asked.
    ‘A bit.’
    ‘Well, you deserve it for making me cycle all that way,’ she told him.
    ‘Are they in Oxford?’
    ‘Who?’ she asked.
    ‘Your godchildren.’
    ‘Not any more. Of course, they would have to move miles away the day before I