What became of us

hold out until at least our second date.’
    ‘But you’ve been holding out nearly twenty years,’ he protested.
    ‘But do you think that counts? Because I didn’t even notice you then,’ she said.
    ‘It counts.’
    He kissed her again, for longer this time.
    ‘I don’t want to have children,’ she said, breaking away.
    ‘Suits me,’ he said.
    They kissed again. This time she let the dress fall to the floor.
    He stood back and stared at her wearing only her knickers.
    ‘You are gorgeous,’ he said, like a hungry child looking at a table laden with party food unable to decide what to try first.
    ‘Do you think we should join the Euro?’ she suddenly demanded.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you a Woody Allen fan?’
    ‘Can’t stand him.’
    ‘Do you like my show?’
    There was a definite hesitation.
    ‘Not as much as the real thing,’ he said.
    ‘Is that a nice way of saying no?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s a qualified way of saying yes.’
    ‘Oh, so what’s wrong with it?’
    ‘I think Annie should move on.’
    ‘You think there’s been one series too many?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So, what should happen to her?’ Annie asked.
    He gave the question serious consideration.
    ‘I think Annie should find someone who loves her, fuck him senseless, and see how she feels in the morning...’
    ‘Hmmm,’ said Annie thoughtfully, ‘it might just work, but I don’t know about leaving the ending so open...’

    THE END

WHAT BECAME OF US
    Imogen Parker
    Reading Group Supplement

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Imogen Parker says: ‘I began making up stories when I was a little girl in order to entertain my younger sister who was often poorly. Now she is a healthy woman in her thirties, but I still think of her as the person I am telling my stories to.

    ‘I was brought up in Hertfordshire in an old house that was filled with books. My father could not resist buying books, particularly bargain lots at auctions. I always read voraciously, but it never occurred to me to consider a career in publishing because it was a world I did not know until I went to New York after graduating from university. In New York, I worked as an au pair to a literary agent and she used to bring home manuscripts for me to read. I often answered the phone to her authors when they called her at home, and I ended up doing some editorial work with one or two of them. Very soon I decided that I wanted to be a literary agent myself, and when I returned to England, I got a job as a secretary in a literary agency. One part of my work there was to read the many unsolicited manuscripts that were sent to the agency, and after discovering a number of very talented writers that way, I became a literary agent myself.
    ‘I spent ten enjoyable years in the business but when I reached my early thirties, I wanted a change, so I left England and went to live in Spain. But a year’s break in Madrid was not quite the romantic idyll I had expected it to be, and with my husband working long hours, I was often lonely. When I started to write a novel it almost felt as if I was making up friends to talk to, and that was the beginning of my writing career. We returned to England in 1994 and I have written six novels since then.’

    IMOGEN PARKER — A BRIEF CONVERSATION

    Q: What is What Became of Us about?
    A: It’s about a college reunion that takes place during the last summer of the twentieth century. I wanted to try to encapsulate four women’s lives in just one weekend and to say something about where we are now and about that pivotal time in our lives, our early twenties, when there’s everything to play for.
    What Became of Us is the fourth in a series of books I have written about contemporary women. I wanted to write about the generation now approaching forty and about the impact of early friendships on later lives. Like one of the central characters, Annie, I believe that we are uniquely privileged because we have benefited from feminism without having to fight for it. We have a real choice about birth control, and we have the real possibility of being financially independent. But there’s also an enormous pressure on us to be successful and I think that sometimes we get so caught up in the whirlwind of expectation (from ourselves as much as from our mothers, peers etc) that we forget to ask what being successful might actually entail.
    The book is also a love story and a story about friendship, and it’s about doing that most difficult thing — letting go of