What became of us

Experience together.’
    A misty image of wet seats in New College garden after a shower filtered to the front of Manon’s mind.
    ‘I don’t remember much about that time,’ she
    said.
    Gillian’s face had lost its bright smile.
    ‘It took us a long time to come to terms with Carl’s death, and it must have been so much worse for you,’ she said.
    Manon stared at her in confusion. She had always thought of Carl’s death as her own burden. She had never really considered the other lives it had affected.
    ‘I haven’t talked about Carl for a long time. Never, really...’ she stuttered.
    Gillian smiled at her encouragingly.
    ‘Perhaps you should,’ she said, and then when Manon did not reply, she added, ‘I’m sorry, I’m training to be a bereavement counsellor at the moment, so I’m more interested than I should be.’
    ‘No, you’re probably right,’ Manon said, trying to show her that she wasn’t offended.
    ‘You see I understand more about it now than I did then,’ Gillian continued. ‘There are certain distinct stages of bereavement and each one takes its time, but it is important to go through them all...’
    Manon began to feel oddly as if Penny’s spirit was taking over their conversation, just as it had taken over her life during her first-year exams all those years ago.
    ‘...first denial and shock, of course. Some people will experience this as numbness, or a sense that it isn’t really happening, then loss, then often anger and nearly always guilt, you know, “if I’d just been there”, that kind of thing?’
    ‘Yes, I know about that,’ Manon said.
    ‘Depression often, and loneliness,’ Gillian rattled on, ‘they don’t have to be in that order, and finally, acceptance which is the beginning of the healing process...’
    ‘I think I got stuck... somewhere between guilt and loneliness,’ Manon said, with a glimmer of a self-mocking smile.
    ‘Then perhaps you should talk to someone. It’s never too late.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Manon agreed.
    ‘I’m glad we’ve spoken. Your stories brought it all back, you see,’ Gillian said.
    ‘My stories?’
    ‘They are resonant with loss.’
    Manon fell silent again. Resonant with loss was a good enough phrase, the sort of phrase that would have impressed their modern literature don who had been a published poet himself. Gillian was not wrong, exactly, but Manon suddenly felt uncomfortable being the subject of literary analysis. Writing was a strange process of sifting experience and thought to form a different reality that had its own logic and language. It was not the simple cut and paste of autobiography. She did not think that she would go to talk to Gillian’s book group.

    ‘What do you think of the food?’ Ursula said, as an individual raspberry pavlova was placed in front of each of them.
    Manon looked at it, and then at Ursula’s face which was distinctly flushed.
    ‘Pink,’ she said, ‘it’s all very pink...’
    ‘Which is more than you can say for the politics,’ Ursula said with a significant look at the MP, who was now chatting to Gillian about failing schools. ‘She won’t get away with it with Gillian,’ Ursula whispered, ‘she’s better at proselytizing than I am. You two seem to be having a very animated conversation about death,’ she added.
    Then, realizing the absurdity of what she had just said, Ursula began to giggle and Manon couldn’t seem to stop herself giggling too.

Chapter 26

    ‘I think Penny would have liked this’ — Leonora blew a puff of meringue crumbs towards Roy as she spoke — ‘don’t you?’
    He nodded, but could not bring himself to agree with her. He couldn’t stand the banality surrounding death. He hated the smugness of mourners and the way they congratulated themselves at every opportunity for knowing what the dead person would have wanted. He hated the way that intelligent people were suddenly unable to say anything controversial about the person who had died. There is no doubt that Penny would have enjoyed a reunion of her friends had she been alive. The point was that she wasn’t alive.
    Penny had not been sentimental about death. He remembered very clearly a conversation he had had with her early in their relationship, shortly after his father had died. They were eating an Indian meal after seeing a movie. He recalled particularly the sound of her crunching poppadoms as he recounted some of the family canon of stories about Roy Senior: his adventures as a