What became of us

Roy’s face into focus. It was caught in a grimace halfway between laughter and pain. His eyebrows shot up questioningly. You started this, he seemed to be saying, you get out of it yourself. It was a quintessentially adult exchange.
    ‘Of course you don’t,’ Saskia said, ‘it’s just your spirit that goes...’
    ‘It’s quite difficult to explain,’ Manon said. ‘Even adults don’t really understand all about heaven.’
    ‘Grandpa does,’ Saskia corrected her.
    ‘Yes, you’re right, he probably does,’ Manon acknowledged, grateful for a way out. Sometimes religion made things so much easier.
    ‘Are there any fish in this river?’ Lily asked, with no sense of a change in subject.
    ‘I expect so,’ Manon said.
    ‘And dolphins?’
    ‘Not dolphins, no.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Well, because dolphins live in the sea.’
    ‘Are there dolphins in heaven?’
    ‘There may be. I really don’t know.’
    Roy was smiling now.
    ‘Lily, don’t ask so many questions,’ Saskia scolded her little sister in a tone she must have learned from an adult.
    ‘No, Sas, don’t say that,’ Roy said gently. ‘It’s good to ask questions,’ he added.
    ‘Manon, did you know there was a whale and he jumped right over a wall!’ Lily said.
    ‘Did he really?’ Manon giggled.
    She loved it when Lily’s imagination took flight, or she recounted her impression of something she had seen in a book or on a video.
    ‘Yes! In fact, he swam right out to sea, like this...’ Lily stood up and jumped. Manon caught her.
    ‘It’s very important to sit down when you’re in a boat,’ she said.
    ‘It’s not a boat, it’s a punt,’ Lily squealed.
    ‘I think we’ll stop in a minute and let them have a run around,’ Roy said.

    They were approaching the Parks. Roy steered the punt towards a spot where it would be easy for the girls to clamber out. As the end of the boat clunked against the riverbank, Manon felt the thud of déjà vu. It was the very spot that Annie and Ursula had been talking about at lunch. The one tree of all the hundreds of trees along the river that he could have picked. It was where they had come for a picnic on the day they all finished finals. Had he chosen it, or was his decision to stop there entirely unconscious? He was concentrating on pulling the end of the boat out of the water and she could not see his face, nor find the words to ask him.
    The girls leapt out of the punt with the casual dexterity that children have before they become aware of danger. They ran into the sunlight. Manon stood up and picked her way unsteadily along the boat. Roy offered his arm to help her onto the bank. She looked at it, nervous about taking his hand, not wanting to feel his skin against hers, and then she stumbled and he caught her wrist, taking her choice in the matter away. She regained her balance. He held out his hand again, in an exact repeat of the gesture he had made seconds earlier. This time she accepted it gratefully. His palm was dry and slightly rough. His fingers closed firmly around hers and she felt his strength as he pulled her onto dry land. As he let go, she looked into his eyes, but he was deliberately staring over her shoulder. Then he said,
    ‘Where have the girls got to?’ and ran after them.
    She sat down under the tree, in the place she had sat that time, and kicked off her shoes, wriggling her toes in the air. She watched Roy chasing the girls and listened to their innocent laughter, thinking that uninhibited gurgle of enjoyment was her favourite sound in the world.
    ‘Don’t chase me, don’t chase me!’ Lily shouted, meaning just the opposite, and then they all fell down on the grass.
    ‘Come over here, I’ve got something to show you,’ Manon called, picking up her flowerbasket bag.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Look inside.’
    Tiny grass-stained fingers opened the lid.
    Inside there was a piece of bread that Manon had filched from the Cherwell Boat House.
    ‘It’s bread,’ said Saskia matter-of-factly, giving Manon a suspicious look.
    ‘I thought the ducks might be hungry,’ Manon said.
    ‘Daddy, Daddy! Come! We’re going to feed the ducks!’ Lily snatched the bread and began to run along the riverbank towards some ducks she had spotted further down the river.
    ‘Lily, stop!’ Roy shouted, suddenly conscious of the danger.
    ‘Wait!’ Manon got up and began to run after her. Twigs and hazelnut shells bit into the tender soles of her shoeless feet. She knew immediately that