What became of us

children. Lorna, who had been her tutorial partner for Middle English, announced herself as a full-time mother and part-time NCT teacher. They were all juggling their lives between career and family much as she was doing, with the same limited successes and probably the same failures. It occurred to her, as she sipped a glass of sherry, that the main reason she felt such a failure in life might be that the only person she saw these days from Oxford was Annie. Annie was so incredibly successful and her contempt for family life so palpable that whenever Ursula went to visit her in London, she had the definite feeling that Annie was giving up some of her precious time to do a bit of charity work, a bit like a star taking an underprivileged child on a Variety coach to the seaside.
    Ursula glanced round the room. Annie had not yet arrived and she couldn’t see either Manon or Roy. There was a tall, well-built man standing by the serving hatch chatting to a couple of women she didn’t recognize who were giggling over-loudly.
    Pinned to an easel near the entrance to the hall was a seating plan with placements.
    Leonora came hurrying over. She was wearing a dark green silk dress, clearly home made, that made her look like one of those awkward maids of honour you sometimes see trying to hide from the photographer as you pass a country church wedding on a Saturday afternoon.
    ‘Where are they all, Ursula?’ she asked, as if Ursula had hidden her brother and her friends.
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ Ursula replied, ‘but it’s not late is it?’
    ‘Seven-thirty for eight and it’s now seven forty-five...’
    ‘I’m sure they’ll be here,’ said Ursula.
    ‘A man has turned up,’ Leonora whispered, taking her to one side and pointing at waist height towards him.
    ‘Yes, I noticed. Who is he?’
    ‘He’s the husband of Chloe Brown, nee Cole-fax.’
    ‘What’s he doing here, then?’
    ‘Well, he’s an alumnus too, one of the first St Gertrude’s men. Says he knew Penny a little. Apparently Chloe had to go on a field trip, so he showed up instead. What shall I do with him?’ Leonora asked in an urgent whisper.
    Ursula shrugged her shoulders.
    ‘I mean, should I put him on the top table? Would that be sensible?’
    ‘Eminently,’ Ursula replied. ‘With you and Roy?’
    She gave Leonora a look that said she knew what she was up to.
    ‘Yes. He’ll be more comfortable with another man.’
    Leonora turned and hurried away to fuss over something else.
    Ursula looked at the seating plan again. She noticed that Manon had been put on the same table as she had, the one furthest away from Roy. Inside the hall, she could see Leonora rearranging the placement cards on the top table. But as she hurried off to check the kitchen staff, the man detached himself from the group of women he was with, sidled over to the top table, and swapped the cards around again.

Chapter 23

    Manon was wearing the black dress again.
    Geraldine looked at her critically for a moment.
    ‘It looks so plain,’ she said. ‘Would you like to see if I have any jewellery to cheer it up a bit?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ said Manon.
    In the almost tangible flatness following her refusal, Manon seemed to sense she might have given offence.
    ‘Perhaps I might borrow this?’ she asked, pulling the gold dressing-gown cord she had used to keep up the jeans she had been wearing. She wound it twice round her waist and the result was so effortlessly stylish that even Geraldine’s bemused, sceptical face broke into an involuntary smile.
    ‘I’ll send it back with Roy,’ Manon offered.
    Roy felt a slight thrill hearing her voice speak his name. The trace of a French accent that she had brought to the R made the prosaic syllable sound different. When she said it he felt as if he had the potential to be someone else.
    ‘You’re very welcome to stay, you know,’ Geraldine offered.
    ‘Thank you, but I’m going back to London tonight,’ Manon said carefully.
    ‘Well, some other time perhaps, while the girls are with us?’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Much to his surprise, Manon approached Geraldine and gave her a kiss on each cheek which Geraldine was clearly not expecting, but accepted with obvious pleasure. He had been nervous of bringing Manon wet and smelling of river to the rectory that afternoon, but perhaps her vulnerability had brought out Geraldine’s profound sense of charity, and Manon seemed to have blossomed in the bosom of the older woman’s