What became of us

From her window, she had seen them emerge from the darkness of St Giles and observed the kiss in the shadow of the monumental Ashmolean. Where were they off to now, strolling down Beaumont Street, side by side? If they didn’t cross the road soon, they would miss the bus station. But she did not think that they were going to the bus station.
    ‘What?’ asked Ursula from Annie’s bed. She had made herself very comfortable on the counterpane, her shoes flipped onto the floor and her toes wriggling in the air. The room stank of hamburger.
    ‘Nothing,’ Annie said, with uncharacteristic continence. ‘Coffee or tea?’
    As she filled the kettle from the mixer tap over the bath, she began to calculate how long the thing with Manon and Roy might have been going on. The kiss she had witnessed was hardly the passionate clinch of the first intensely sexual moments of a relationship, so it could not have started this afternoon. There had been something natural about it, something almost inevitable as Roy’s blond head was drawn magnetically towards Manon’s dark one, both their faces white under the street lamp, eyes closed.
    With a ghastly pang of embarrassment, she remembered telling Manon of her own proposed seduction of Roy. Manon had laughed. All these women after Roy. Well, she should know.

    ‘So how long has this affair of yours been going on?’ she asked Ursula.
    ‘I met him soon after I went back to work after Georgie.’
    ‘Is he married?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Divorced.’
    ‘Children?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Never asked him.’
    ‘Is he the reason you’ve lost so much weight?’ Annie demanded.
    ‘No.’ Ursula looked up, ‘I just don’t seem to be so hungry any more.’
    ‘Perhaps you were eating to replace love?’
    ‘Barry loves me,’ Ursula said defensively.
    ‘But do you love him?’
    Ursula felt herself redden.
    ‘He’s the father of my children, and he’s a good man,’ she said.
    ‘So that’s a no, then,’ Annie said. ‘What if he finds out?’
    ‘He won’t.’
    Stop asking all these questions. It’s too late now, Ursula wanted to say.
    ‘Do you think you’re just bored, or wasn’t Barry ever the love of your life?’ Annie asked.
    ‘I don’t really want to talk about Barry, if you don’t mind,’ Ursula said.
    Reality was beginning to creep back into the conversation. She took the cup of tea that Annie handed her, but what she most wanted was another drink.
    She sipped the tea. Tea tasted of home. What she really wanted were the bubbles of sinful champagne pricking her tongue. She put the cup and saucer down on the bedside table.
    ‘Let’s have another drink.’
    ‘Ursula, you can’t. You’re pissed enough already.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘Well, you’re not a very good drunk, actually. You’re a bit aggressive and you laugh too loudly. Not very sexy.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘However, if you insist...’ Annie dialled room service and was ordering a bottle of champagne to be sent up.
    ‘No, you’re right.’ Ursula’s confidence suddenly drained away. Was she really a loud shouting drunk?
    ‘... sorry, forget it.’ Annie dropped the phone back into its cradle and looked at her watch.
    ‘It’s nearly an hour since you called. He’ll be well on his way.’
    Ursula thought about it. Liam had been patient so far, but he was not the sort of man you could muck around. This was her opportunity. If she did not snatch it, it would be gone. The choice was simple.
    ‘Just one night,’ she said.

    ‘What?’ Annie asked. She was trying to give her full attention to Ursula, but she could not help twitching back the curtain to see if anything was happening on Beaumont Street. There was no-one about.
    ‘Do you think that Roy was the love of Penny’s life?’ she asked, hoping the roundabout question would elicit a revealing answer.
    ‘Penny and Roy?’ Ursula asked, ‘I’ve never really thought about it. I suppose I was a bit surprised when they got together, but they always seemed very happy.’
    ‘Did Roy have other girlfriends?’
    ‘Girls were always after him at school. Our phone at home never stopped ringing. But he was incredibly shy.’
    ‘But when he was away at Oxford?’ Annie pressed.
    ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? He came up after we’d already gone down, didn’t he? We were quite good friends when we were children, but since we left home we’ve hardly seen each other. The first I heard about him and Penny was the Christmas she came back from