What became of us

Mummy’s charity,’ Saskia told her solemnly.
    ‘Mummy’s charity,’ Lily echoed as Roy pulled into the college car park.

    ‘Ah, here you all are!’ said Leonora, greeting them in the lodge, which threw Roy off balance because he was about to explain why he had brought the girls along when he had expressly stated that he would not.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Take a look. I think it’s come out very well, don’t you?’ Leonora handed him a printed menu.
    The food was described in French. He looked at Leonora’s expectant face, thought how he and Penny would have laughed about it and said, ‘Yes, fine. Lovely.’
    ‘We’ve had a couple of cancellations, which brings us down to forty-two, so I thought four tables of eight and ten on top table. There’ll be enough room to serve drinks in the hall beforehand too.’
    ‘Whatever...’
    She smiled indulgently at him, then bent to talk to the children.
    ‘Have you come to help Daddy?’ she asked them in an over-loud voice, as if someone listening in was about to award points for her ability to get on with children.
    ‘No,’ said Lily, ‘we’re going punting with Manon.’
    ‘Manon?’
    ‘Where is she?’ Lily demanded.
    ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Leonora replied.
    ‘Why are you afraid?’
    ‘Come on, Lily,’ Roy said, taking her hand, ‘let’s have a look around. If you can spare us?’ he added, remembering his manners.
    ‘You’ll be taking the girls home and changing later, will you?’ Leonora said.
    Roy looked down at his jeans.
    ‘That’s the general idea, yes,’ he said.

    They turned the corner into the quad and there, sitting on the grass, were three familiar figures. For a moment, the arrangement of their bodies was so familiar it made him reel with déjà vu and a terrible sudden feeling of loss. There should be four, he thought, struggling against displaying anger or grief.
    Then his two children let go of his hands and started running across the lawn.
    ‘There she is, there she is!’
    Only one of the women moved. In a split second she was on her feet, crouching at their height, with both arms outstretched to catch them as they hurtled towards her. He watched her face at the moment of impact, the broad abandoned smile and her eyes closed with the sheer pleasure of two small bodies pounding against her chest.
    As he drew nearer, her countenance changed, almost like a cartoon transmogrification, to the reserved, withdrawn, mourning figure he had stood opposite at the graveside. Her eyes would not meet his.
    ‘Hello, Manon,’ he said.
    ‘Hello, Roy.’
    Conveniently, the girls tugged her away.
    ‘Manon, do you know we haven’t got a home now?’ Lily announced.
    ‘Manon, are we punting from a boathouse or a bridge?’ Saskia asked.
    Slowly the other two women stood up, Annie brushing grass clippings from her bottom and smoothing the figure-hugging garish dress over her thighs.
    ‘Hi, Roy,’ she said.
    ‘Annie. Good of you to come.’ He held out his hand. She had always made him feel awkward and unsophisticated as the teenager he was when they first met.
    ‘Hello, sis,’ he greeted Ursula, kissing her on the cheek. She looked different, he thought. There was something very different about her features, but he couldn’t work out what it was. It was as if he only vaguely recognized her. She looked almost beautiful.
    ‘We’re going punting,’ he said. ‘Would any of you like to join us?’
    ‘I think I can just about resist,’ Annie replied. ‘People always think that punting is about reclining in a white muslin dress and trying to look like Helena Bonham Carter, but all I remember is pulling a great heavy boat over runners and getting covered in mud.’
    ‘Have you bought us anything nice?’ Lily wanted to know.
    ‘Lily!’ Ursula scolded.
    ‘Are you coming, sis?’
    Ursula looked nervously at her own cream dress.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
    Manon was already walking in the direction of the back gate with a small child attached to each hand. Roy shrugged his shoulders apologetically at the rest of them and ran after her.

Chapter 17

    ‘Manon,’ said Leonora as she, Ursula and Annie watched the chain of people making their way across the lawn towards the back gate of the college. ‘Wasn’t she the one with the boyfriend who hung himself?’
    ‘Hanged,’ Annie corrected automatically. She’d been hauled over the coals by the headmistress of her secondary school for making the same error in an