What became of us

about Broadstairs without thinking about the flavour of regurgitated salt and vinegar crisps and Number Six. She’d never been able to eat that flavour again, but the aversion therapy oddly hadn’t extended to cigarettes.
    The fact that Ian lived in Broadstairs made it almost more impossible for them to see each other again than the fact that he was married, she thought. It was so far away, and it just wasn’t the sort of place where you did that. It was provincial. He was a provincial doctor, she was a metropolitan media personality. Even though shambling bookshop owners could fall in love with film stars in romantic movies, it didn’t happen like that in real life.
    Anyway, she wasn’t in love with him, she reminded herself, and he certainly wasn’t with her. Oxford made you do mad things for a weekend, and then you went back to your life.
    As a matter of fact, she thought, she could write a movie about that very thing. She could see Hugh Grant pushing Julia Roberts along in a shopping trolley on the posters already. Dreaming Spires. It was such an obvious theme for a romantic comedy, but had anyone actually done it?
    ‘I suppose this is where we part, then,’ she said as they came out of the gloom of the covered market into hot sunshine. ‘I have to get some presents for the girls.’
    ‘There was a jewellery shop back there,’ he said, pointing inside again.
    ‘Oh, really?’
    They went back in together and he showed her a tiny boutique they had passed without her noticing which sold exactly the sort of jewellery she would have coveted as a child.
    ‘How did you know about this?’ she asked him.
    ‘It’s having a daughter,’ he said. ‘I was looking round yesterday afternoon, during the thunderburst. I usually buy Zoe something, but this would not be quite sophisticated enough for her these days.’
    How sweet he was, Annie thought, falling upon a couple of little silver chains with sparkly cubic zirconium pendant hearts. They were expensive enough not to give the girls a rash, but not so dear that it would matter too much if they lost them.
    ‘And perhaps a little bag to put them in?’ Annie said, as they emerged again. ‘The thing I loved most as a child was the idea of a present with another present inside it, didn’t you?’
    He pointed her in the direction of Next, where she found two miniature straw carrier bags in the shape of orange and pink daisies, and then, as they were passing Laura Ashley she could not resist buying them each a dress and hat.
    ‘My goodness, you are a good godmother.’
    His patience with all the shopping made her feel warm all over.
    ‘Listen,’ she said in the lobby of the Randolph, not wanting to say a final goodbye, ‘I could give you a lift back to London. Or,’ she decided to make it an irresistible offer, ‘you could give me a lift.’
    She paused long enough for him to work out what she meant, then had the pleasure of seeing his eyes light up like a little boy’s.
    ‘Drive a Ferrari?’
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘What about insurance?’
    ‘Oh, it’s fine for anyone over twenty-five or something. I’m sure they infinitely prefer to underwrite the risk on you than me.’
    ‘Wow,’ he said.
    ‘OK,’ she said, looking at her watch, ‘rendezvous outside at four o’clock.’

Chapter 39

    Roy knew logically that nothing Manon had told him should matter. He had known that she had lovers: how could she not in almost twenty years? He had seen her in Rome with Rodolfo, and he had felt then that she had sold herself to him. So why did it matter? It was only her body that she had sold.
    She made love to him with her entire being. It was that feeling of totality that made her like no-one else he had known. When he climaxed inside her it felt as though he was on the perimeter of humanity where love was so intense it was almost terror.
    But was that how she was with everyone? Was that the 10,000 franc fuck? Did you get less for 5,000 — a quick detached blow job, and nothing more before she saw the colour of your cash?
    If he asked, would she tell him? If she told him; would he believe her? She must be very experienced at telling men what they wanted to hear. He realized that he probably would not believe her unless everything she said fell in with his worst suspicions.
    Yet she had told him. She had told him something that he would never have found out. She must have thought that there was a chance that he would understand, not just react like a character in a