What became of us

realized with a ripple of relief, because when she was alive he had not felt this way.
    The earnest woman had turned to talk to her neighbour. Manon’s expression was bewildered, like a shy little girl at a children’s party where she did not know anyone. He wanted to go and rescue her. He wished that the two of them could just slip out of the hall together unnoticed and go for dinner in some quiet restaurant. His need to talk to her was almost physical.
    ‘... you’ll find it easier when they go to school. At least they come home totally exhausted...’ Leonora was speaking to him again.
    ‘Do they?’ he smiled inanely.
    The idea of having a relationship with another woman had not even crossed his mind until this afternoon on the river (or was it earlier, in the Cherwell Boat House, or even before that, on the lawn of St Gert’s quad the moment he caught sight of Manon’s face animated by love for his children?). Now he wondered whether it would ever be possible, or whether it would always be a betrayal. He knew without asking that Ursula, and Penny’s other friends, would see it that way. It felt almost sacrilegious to be having such thoughts at this gathering, and so lonely to have the responsibility of deciding.
    He poured himself another glass of college red, and pushed his pudding to the side of his plate.
    ‘Full up?’ Leonora asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have some breathing exercises to do,’ Leonora told him, paying him back, he thought, for his reluctance to talk.
    He didn’t know whether he was meant to watch or not as Leonora warmed up, but he thought it politer to look away. He could feel the exaggerated rise and fall of her chest next to him. He thought how he and Penny would have howled about it in bed, and couldn’t stop himself smiling.
    He looked over to Manon and Ursula’s table again. Now they were both laughing together. Penny would have been pleased to see that, he thought, wryly acknowledging his own slide into cliche.
    Then Leonora tinkled her fork against her glass and stood up.
    ‘Jennifer is going to play us some Elgar while coffee and petits fours are served,’ she announced.

Chapter 27

    The noise level in the hall dropped to near silence apart from a few coughs and some throat-clearing. ‘Why does that always happen?’ Annie whispered. ‘What?’ asked Ian.
    ‘Why do people clear their throats before someone plays?’
    ‘I suppose because they know that they won’t be able to during the performance,’ he suggested.
    ‘But, I mean, who needs to? Nobody clears their throat normally, do they? I’ve been talking to you for the best part of an hour and I haven’t cleared my throat once.’
    ‘Perhaps it’s nervousness...’
    ‘But what have they all got to be nervous about? They’re not playing, are they? I’m nervous because I’m giving the keynote bloody speech, but I’m not clearing my throat...’
    ‘That’s because you’re talking.’
    ‘Sssh,’ hissed Leonora from the other end of the table.

    Jennifer was a rather plain and serious girl who had read Classics. Her shoulder-length mousy hair which she had always worn in a longish bob was now streaked with grey and her fringe had been cut too short, which made her look permanently surprised. She was wearing a gathered calf-length skirt of Indian cotton with a batik-type pattern in purples and greens. It was the sort of fabric that had been fashionable in the Seventies and had tried to make a comeback in recent years, but never really succeeded unless it was by Gucci and cost several hundred pounds. Jennifer’s skirt had not cost several hundred pounds. You could tell from the unflattering gathered waistband and the way the hem dipped at the back. She sat down on the solitary chair that had been provided for her beside the top table, and as she struggled to get her instrument in tune, Annie wondered idly whether she had bought the skirt from a market stall or whether it was one she had kept since she was an undergraduate. It didn’t look faded enough to be an original, and yet she could not see Jennifer having the fashion sense to buy a new one.
    Then Jennifer looked up, as if taking a cue from an invisible conductor, and began to play. The low, rich notes from the instrument slid through the hall like syrup, settling the twittering gathering, and reaching depths in Annie’s consciousness where considerations about fashion became suddenly shameful. Jennifer could really play,