What became of us

imagination, that none of them got anywhere near the person she imagined herself marrying. And yet, if she was being really honest, she knew that if one of them had shown the slightest interest in her, her mind would almost instantaneously have found a dozen good reasons why he would actually be most suitable.
    Not particularly witty or good-looking? Obviously an ideal partner for life. Better to keep your own circle of friends, but nice to have someone who was just there when you fancied going out to a local movie and couldn’t face walking back in the dark alone. The great thing about marrying a nobody was that he would look after their children while she continued to work. If she decided she wanted children...
    Within seconds her mind would have sketched out the plot and, after a minute or two, a whole television series of their future life together would be In production in her brain. Often it made it quite difficult to concentrate on what her future husband I was saying. On one occasion, after being introduced to a mildly attractive man who was a concert pianist, she had spent the entire conversation with I half of her mind trying to work out how on earth they would get a Steinway up the stairs to her flat.
    Arriving at a party, Annie would scour the room for men above a certain height she did not already know. If there weren’t any of those, her eyes would drop a few inches, and she would take the first excuse she could find (dancing, just-bought-them-today, trying to give up smoking) to remove her shoes. She was good at opening conversations, and it was best to take control, try to establish immediately that they weren’t married, Tories, or having a mid-life crisis (although in truly desperate moments she had even been able to persuade herself that a more mature man with different politics might broaden her outlook in a positive kind of way). Usually it needed no more than a reference to the progress of the Euro, and a passing remark about Woody Allen. Two strikes and you’re out, was her motto. Life was too short to waste chatting up someone who thought that Woody had been unfairly treated by the press.
    Her fame didn’t make the whole process any I easier. After the first flattering five minutes, I would-be starfuckers became embarrassing. Yet she didn’t really like it if someone had no idea who she was (after all, there had been a cover feature in the Guardian tabloid section, as well as all of her appearances in the red tops). She hadn’t quite got past the point of thinking that if someone didn’t mention the show it meant they hated it, although she had trained herself to resist asking, because they always said yes, they loved it, and then she just thought they were being two-faced.
    Sometimes in the cold light of a hangover, she wondered whether she really wanted to get married at all, but it didn’t matter how feminist, rich or successful you were, if you weren’t married, or at least living with someone, or divorced by your midthirties, there was no getting away from the fact that everyone thought you were a failure.

    Annie took two large white towels from the airing cupboard, wound one round her head and wrapped the other round her body. At a time like this she wished she had one of those white cotton robes you got in expensive hotels. She had owned several but had found that they were never quite as luxurious when you were the person responsible for getting them clean and dry. One had broken the spin mechanism in her washing machine, another had gone mouldy in the corner of her bedroom where she had casually flung it on the last occasion she had had sex on the floor.
    It was light outside, but the sun was not yet warm. Annie sat down at her desk and opened her laptop computer. First she checked her e-mail box, which was empty, and then she opened the file named iloveanniexmas, which was also empty, apart from the header, which she had spent some ours customizing with holly and snowflakes. With a sudden flash of inspiration, she typed a title in capital letters. frankly, my dear...

    * * *

    Even in her most detailed fantasies, Annie had never imagined that she would become the eponymous star of a sitcom that she also wrote. She had wanted to act ever since going to her first pantomime at the age of five and volunteering herself from the cheap seats at the back for the role of a helpful elf. At school she was always a man because of her height, and at Oxford she was always one of the