What became of us

maybe, if when we think about her, we stop worrying for a second and realize what a luxury it is to be able to worry, and how we should ration it, just like we ration the Godiva chocolates we got for Christmas, then maybe we’d have more time to do some of the things we meant to do, to be the person we hoped we’d be, and, you know, I think Penny would approve of that.’

PART TWO
White Lies

Chapter 28

    It was a warm, almost muggy, night. Clusters of friends had taken their coffee outside and were sitting chatting and laughing in the arc of light cast on the lawn by the hall lights. Jennifer was replacing her cello in its case, and Leonora was talking to Roy. One waitress was sweeping up the shattered glass around the top table, others cleared dessert plates away from the women who had decided to remain at the tables inside.
    ‘That was a super speech, Annie,’ Ursula said, reclining on the grass. Her body went down with a thump as she misjudged the space between her back and the ground. She lay perfectly flat, staring up at the dome of night sky.
    ‘I feel as if I’m an undergraduate again,’ Ursula said, ‘except that I never was the sort of undergraduate who got drunk. I’m not that drunk, am I?’
    ‘Not at all,’ both the others lied simultaneously. She was bursting to tell them about Liam. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t for the moment put her finger on why it was so important to keep it a secret. She prided herself on her ability to keep confidences, her very livelihood depended on it, she told herself, but still the urge to talk about him became more and more pressing as each minute passed. Her hand went to her throat to touch the necklace.
    ‘I must go to the loo,’ she said, taking rather a long time to stand up and then heading very purposefully towards one of the halls of residence and stumbling over a croquet hoop on the way.
    ‘Annie, you’re meant to strike the equipment after you’ve played,’ she called crossly.
    ‘Oh fuck off!’ Annie said.
    ‘Annie? Is that you? Come and join us?’ Leonora called, emerging from the hall and peering into the darkness.
    Annie and Manon held their breath until they heard the sound of court shoes on concrete receding into the distance.

    Ursula found a toilet at the bottom of the staircase, just where she had expected it to be, which made her think that she couldn’t be that drunk after all if she could still remember the geography of the college.
    The interior of the toilet was utilitarian and there was a small square of polished steel instead of a mirror. Ursula stood on tiptoe so that she could see all of her necklace in it.
    ‘You look beautiful.’
    ‘Don’t tell them,’ she spoke sternly to her reflection: ‘do not tell them. You will only regret it.’
    Then she bent her head over the basin and splashed water on her face and the back of her neck.

    * * *

    ‘It was a good speech,’ Manon volunteered.
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I thought it was quite profound,’ Manon said.
    Something had happened to her this evening. It was as if she had been carrying the entire weight of her life in her head, and she could feel it was now dispersing throughout her body, making her feel strangely light. Enlightened, she thought, I feel enlightened.
    ‘Profound, really?’ Annie said.
    ‘Sometimes we think too much about things that are very simple. This place taught us to intellectualize about truth and to question the value of emotion but sometimes the truth just is very stark. An idiot can see it, but an Oxford graduate cannot. That’s what you were saying, isn’t it?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ Annie said, wondering if there was a subtle put-down in there somewhere. Was Manon suggesting that she was an idiot?
    The quad fell dark as the last guests left the hall and Leonora switched off the lights. The other groups gradually picked themselves up and headed off to cars, or rooms, depending on whether they were spending the night in Oxford.
    In the dull glow of the lamp by the lodge, Annie caught sight of Ian’s silhouette. She wondered whether to call him over, but it was nice, just the two of them sitting in the dark and she suspected that Manon would clam up again if a man were to join them.
    ‘There’s one thing that’s been puzzling me all evening,’ Annie said, needing somehow to get back at her for the remark about idiots, ‘and that’s why you’ve got a dressing-gown cord round your waist.’
    ‘Oh no!’ Manon said, ‘is