Page 42 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

‘He’s a good friend now, and a supplier. One of many, I suppose, like you said.’

‘Far cry from being a lecturer, I suspect.’

‘Mm, it is. I don’t know that I’d swap it, though.’

‘You didn’t enjoy teaching?’

‘Oh, I loved teaching. But it’s a job that catches up with you after a while. Everyone else getting younger while you’re forever–’

‘Patti.’ She laughed. ‘You’re always so worried about age.’

‘I’m not that worried about it.’

She pulled me to a stop and span me around to face her. ‘But you are, and you shouldn’t be.’ Sheila kissed the corner of my mouth and I imagined everything becoming slow-blurred around us. ‘You’re only as young as you feel.’

By my reckoning, I must have been about sixteen in that moment.

‘Come on, I want you to choose something today,’ she said as she encouraged me back into a gentle walk. ‘Bookshelf, cabinet, chair. Lady’s choice.’

‘You need a new project?’

‘I want a new project.’

‘And how long do your projects usually take?’

‘It depends on the projects.’ She thumbed at the corners of sample fabrics displayed at the front of an especially colourful stall. ‘And how much time I have to give to them. Some of my work is commissioned and that has to take priority. But I’m in the market for something personal today.’

We went back to our quiet browsing after that, neither of us ever straying further than an arm’s reach from the other. That is, until I spotted the thing I’d been looking for. ‘I’ll be back in a second,’ I said to Sheila as I eased my hand out from the lock of hers, and I wandered to a nearby stall that was made up entirely of old, dark wood items. There was a tall rocking chair right at the front of the space, and as soon as I laid my palm flat against it, I was catapulted back to Sunday afternoons as a child. My mother would drag me to church with her every week and I would sit still and wear a bow and do all of the right meek little girl things – that so often involved ignoring other little girls, lest I give them the wrong kind of stare. In return for that compliance, every week my mother and I would tuck into her old rocking chair – until I outgrew it and took to curling up next to her feet under a blanket instead – and she would read to me. In among a precarious and sometimes challenging bond, as I recalled it, these moments were some of the gemstones that marked my mother–daughter relationship as really being one worth having.

I was yanked back into the moment when I felt Sheila’s hand against my back – no, not my back, my skin. She must have slipped her hand under the fabric of my blouse and I wondered whether it was an accident. She didn’t correct the placement, though, and instead rubbed softly at the skin there until I found I was leaning into her, closing any gap between us.

‘What did you find?’

‘A memory,’ I answered.

‘Can we take this, please?’ Sheila caught the attention of the stallholder. ‘Any chance you can arrange delivery? I’ve got a trailer but I don’t like my odds.’

He laughed along with her. ‘Sure thing, let me grab a pen and the card machine.’

Sheila was fumbling with her phone and I put my hand over its screen. ‘Let me? You’re the one who’s going to be working on it.’

She smiled and kissed my cheek. ‘My treat.’

I pressed my hip a little harder against her and thought how lovely it all was. This woman has just bought me a memory.