What became of us

road.
    ‘They’ve moved to be nearer her parents,’ the old woman told her knowledgeably. ‘Did you know about...’ she nodded woefully at the house.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Tragedy, it was. I’d known her since she was a girl. Wait a minute!’ Her watery eyes narrowed as she focused on Manon. ‘You’re the French one, aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You haven’t changed.’
    Her tone made what most people would have taken as a compliment into a criticism.
    Manon couldn’t stop a tiny nervous laugh escaping.
    The woman turned her sights back on the empty house opposite.
    ‘Tragedy for the little daughters, and hubby.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you have children?’ the woman wanted to know.
    Her name was Mrs Harris, Manon remembered suddenly, but Annie had given her a nickname. She racked her brain to remember what it was.
    ‘No... no, I don’t...’ she replied.
    ‘Well.’
    ‘Well,’ Manon repeated, suddenly feeling the need to justify herself, but not knowing how to.
    ‘I’ve come to take the girls punting,’ she faltered. I’ve been to see them quite a lot since Penny died.’
    The woman peered at her again.
    ‘You’d think they’d have told you they were moving, then,’ she said, as if she did not believe her.
    Mata Harris, Manon suddenly thought, as a bright image of the four of them sitting round the remains of a pasta dish popped into her mind. Mata Harris was the wildly inappropriate nickname Annie had given the old woman.
    ‘Why Mata Harris?’ Ursula had asked.
    ‘Because she’s a spy,’ Annie had replied.
    ‘And it sounds a bit like Mata Hari, I suppose,’ Ursula had added.
    Annie looked at her pityingly.
    ‘And she’s obsessed with our sex lives,’ Annie had concluded.
    ‘Those of us who have sex lives,’ Ursula had said, giving Annie a critical glare, ‘if some of us didn’t forget our keys all the time and wake the whole street up at midnight.’
    ‘Oh, you’re as bad as the witch across the road,’ Annie had retaliated.
    ‘She’s just lonely,’ Penny had said, always the conciliator, ‘poor old thing.’

    She’s just lonely, Manon thought as she walked away, not quite knowing which direction to go in, but wanting to look as if she knew. She could feel the old woman’s malevolent eyes following her all the way back along Joshua Street.

Chapter 15

    Ursula looked at the clock. It was typical of Annie to be late, even though she lived just an hour’s drive away, but she might have known. She fished about in her handbag. Her hand touched the little package Liam had dropped in. She hesitated, then let it go and pulled out an envelope containing a photograph.
    It was the four of them in the yard at Joshua Street during their first summer there. She was taking a strawberry from a bowl that Penny had just put on the table. Annie was pulling a ridiculous face at the camera. Manon was barely visible, reading a book in the criss-crossed shadow of the trellis that Vin had nailed to the back fence for Penny’s clematis.
    For a moment she wondered how it could have been that Penny had gathered together such different people in the house in Joshua Street. They had had nothing in common then, and even less now. Perhaps it had been the fact that they were all poor. Penny was a vicar’s daughter and even though she had been as agnostic as the rest of them in those days, the duty of charity had been drummed in since childhood.
    They were all her friends, but almost everyone in college had been a friend of Penny’s. People liked her because she was fun and because she seemed so grown up. While the rest of them lurched from one crisis of self-esteem to another, Penny was the person everyone wanted to be. She knew how to do things like remove limescale from a bath and cook a proper omelette. She had a steady boyfriend with whom she had had sex before she even arrived at the University. She advised on the advantages of getting the pill from the Family Planning Clinic rather than the college doctor. Her naturally blond hair was cut in a square bob with all the ends exactly the same length. When she smiled, dimples appeared that made her straighforwardly pretty face look winningly naughty.

    Ursula asked for a cappuccino, telling the waitress, ‘I’ll be ordering my food when my friend arrives.’
    They had chosen Brown’s because it had been the height of trendiness when they were students.
    ‘How about Brown’s?’ Annie had suggested on the phone when they were arranging to