What became of us

at her face to see if she was joking, but she wasn’t.
    ‘How could I have fallen for someone with not an ounce of subversion in her?’ he asked himself out loud.
    ‘I’ve never understood it,’ she said, matter-of-factly.
    And then they both started giggling.
    Love made conspirators out of ideological opponents, Roy thought. And if having children didn’t drive out ideology, then death put an end to it. Since Penny had gone the only thing that had felt significant to him was survival. His mind was fully occupied trying to achieve the purely practical tasks of getting the children up each morning into clean clothes, having food on the table, entertaining them and still finding space for them to talk if they needed to.
    He swung his legs out of the bed. The carpet beneath his feet was warm from the sun. On his way to the bathroom, he looked in on the girls. Lily was covered, only a brightly coloured arm of her outgrown Teletubbies pyjamas showing. Her left hand was tightly clasped around a hard plastic Barbie doll also dressed for bed in pink baby doll pyjamas. Saskia was lying on top of the bedclothes. Her floral sprig nightie had ridden up and her legs were flung wide, in a position of exhausted abandon. In her fist was a little stoppered bottle filled with layers of coloured sand. Gently he unfurled her fingers and replaced the bottle on the bedside table where it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up.

Chapter 9

    ‘My cab’s here,’ Ursula whispered into her sleeping husband’s ear.
    ‘Uh? Do you want us to meet you at the station?’ he asked, sitting up rubbing his eyes.
    It was endearing when he woke up saying something that didn’t quite make sense, as if he was trying to show that she had not caught him napping in the middle of a conversation.
    ‘I’m not sure what time I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll call you. I’ve felt George’s forehead. I think he’s a bit hot, but he’s sleeping very peacefully.’
    ‘George?’
    ‘He woke up in the night.’
    ‘Yes, yes, of course.’
    She watched the memory of their nocturnal exchange filter back into his consciousness.
    ‘I’ve got my mobile on if you need to call,’ she said.
    ‘Right. Good. Isn’t it a bit early? The do’s not until this evening, is it?’
    The train journey from Nottingham to Oxford took about three hours if you made a good connection at Birmingham.
    ‘But I’m having lunch with Annie...’
    She was slightly exasperated at having to explain something she had told him days before. She couldn’t stand it when he forgot things. She never forgot things. Forgetting was a luxury she could not afford in her busy schedule.
    ‘Of course you are. Send her my... whatever.’ Barry considered Annie overbearing, which also irritated Ursula, although she supposed it was partly her fault for always complaining about her. She had known Annie so long she was almost like family, which meant that she was allowed to criticize her, but no-one else was.
    ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then,’ she said crisply.
    ‘Yes. Have a good time,’ he said, automatically, ‘I mean... well, you know what I mean.’
    He turned over, eager to get a little more sleep.

    As the minicab accelerated away from the house, she felt a momentary sense of dread, and at the lights at the end of the street she turned in her seat and looked back. For a moment she wanted to stop the cab, run back down the street to say goodbye to each of her children properly, but she knew that if she did that she would miss her train. She told herself that it was natural that she should be thinking morbid thoughts when she was going to the memorial of her best friend. She still thought of Penny as her best friend, even though she had subsequently become her sister-in-law too.
    As soon as the lights changed and she could no longer see the house through the back window she turned to face the front again. The sense of dread disappeared and a less familiar feeling of freedom, elation almost, took its place. She was going away for two whole days by herself! If she had been walking she would have done a little skip. She was going away. Away from work; away from the weekly shop at the supermarket; away from wondering how to fill that hour before Saturday tea when all the boys and their father sat staring at the football results on the television screen. Away from the sense of responsibility that seemed to weigh so heavily on her these days.
    The station concourse was almost