What became of us

supposed to do. I have no career, no home, and no family.’ Her tone was self-mocking.
    ‘Is that what you wanted?’ he asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    His gentle questions were beginning to feel like an interrogation. It would only take five minutes to walk to the bus station, she told herself, and then she could escape back to the anonymity of London where nobody knew or cared about her.
    ‘You’ve published a book, and you’re a wonderful godmother to Saskia and Lily...’ He began to list her achievements.
    She looked at him and smiled.
    Everyone spoke about her visits to the children as if they were a duty, not a pleasure.
    ‘I think they do more for me than I do for them,’ she said.
    He stopped walking suddenly.
    ‘Are you with someone at the moment?’
    His voice croaked as the words left his mouth.
    ‘At the moment, I’m with you,’ she teased him.
    ‘I meant...’
    ‘I know what you meant. No, no, I’m not.’ She thought of the cluster of cells in her womb, the grain of rice, and felt a shiver of betrayal.
    There was a long silence. A pregnant silence, she thought. Then they started walking again.
    ‘Are you?’ she finally asked, for politeness’ sake.
    ‘No,’ he said, abruptly. ‘It’s difficult enough looking after the children.’
    Part of her felt very sorry for him. Penny had been the practical one who managed everything. Penny had wanted children so they had had children. It wasn’t that Roy didn’t want them or didn’t love them when they arrived, but he probably would never have made such a decision himself. He was still so much a boy, perhaps because he had grown up with such a domineering big sister. Patterns of behaviour laid down in childhood were difficult to change. Often you did not realize that you were conforming to their shape.

    The pavement on St Giles was dark and narrow. The effort of negotiating it side by side without becoming closer to one another and risking the possibility of contact made them silent again.
    The smell of the burger van was the same as it had always been. Onions and cheap meat frying. As they reached the intersection of St Giles and Beaumont Street they slowed down and both exhaled, as if they had been holding their breath the entire distance.
    ‘This is where I leave you,’ Manon said. ‘Are you sober now?’
    Her voice was a little French, a little scolding.
    ‘Maybe.’ He did not want her to go, but could think of nothing to make her stay.
    ‘Send my love to the girls.’
    ‘Yes. Look next time you come, maybe I could join you. We could go punting again,’ he offered, ‘or maybe something less watery?’ he added seeing surprise pass across Manon’s face and remembering Lily’s accident.
    ‘Maybe,’ she said.
    ‘Well…’ He felt utterly defeated. Her refusal to be drawn exhausted him.
    ‘Farewell!’
    She smiled and began to cross the road, then she seemed to change her mind and walked back to him. She grasped his upper arms with surprising force and kissed him on both cheeks. It was like a greeting between two Soviet generals, he thought, and contained as little affection. Then she stood back one pace and looked at him, that same bewildered child’s look.
    In desperation, he dipped his head and touched her lips with his.

    Manon froze. Not this, please, she pleaded to some higher presence she did not really believe in. Please not this. She had got away, and then she had let herself come back for this.
    It was as gentle and tentative a kiss as anyone had ever received, and it was achingly familiar.
    Just the same as the first time.
    She could feel her defences dropping away like the creepers round the palace of Sleeping Beauty.
    She closed her eyes and let herself respond for one blissful moment, and then she tensed and drew away.
    ‘Why are you so angry with me?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m not,’ she said in a clipped voice. She was not ready for this conversation.
    ‘You are,’ he persisted.
    ‘You know why,’ she insisted.
    ‘Tell me,’ he said more softly.
    ‘Not here,’ she said, glancing around as if an oasis of calm where they could talk privately would suddenly reveal itself in the traffic.
    ‘Where then?’ he asked.
    ‘I’m going home now,’ she said, trying to convince herself as she walked away from him.
    ‘We could go to Joshua Street,’ he called after her.

Chapter 30

    ‘Well, well, well,’ said Annie, swishing the curtain in front of her face.
    Manon and Roy. Whoever would have thought it?