Page 53 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

Sheila introduced them all in turn, and they flashed me wide and knowing smiles that made me wonder how much of our story she’d shared with them. I soon discovered that Mamie and Iris were a couple – ‘We’ve been desperate for another lesbian pair to have over for dinner,’ Iris informed me in a tone that sounded like genuine relief – while Estelle and Blanche were both married, to Tom and Harry respectively. Sheila hosted these girls’ afternoons once a month, it turned out, where all of them would get together and gossip – ‘And drink!’ Mamie shouted from the window, a standpoint she seemed reluctant to move from – and otherwise enjoy their merriment before going back to being “dull grown-ups” – Blanche’s words – the following day.

‘Usually with a raging hangover apiece,’ Mamie added.

‘Much to Tom’s dismay,’ Estelle said.

Their conversation rolled out so quickly that it felt like a tense and disorderly tennis match to keep up with them. No sooner had one woman spoken and another fired out a response; my head shot across the room to catch sight of the speaker and bam, another player would enter the game with a rushed answer. While it was difficult to keep up with, there was also something I recognised in their signs of long-standing friendship: finishing each other’s sentences; insider jokes that I imagined must stretch back years. It was all a greater comfort than I expected it to be, as well as being eye-opening in the best of ways to see Sheila in this habitat, where she giggled like a teenager, drank neat berry gin as though she might die of thirst, and stole drags from Mamie’s never-ending stream of lit cigarettes when she thought I wasn’t looking; I was touched that she went to the trouble of hiding it, as though I’d even care about such a thing. I thought of telling her I didn’t, but there was something endearing about watching this tipsy version of her being teenager sneaky with the behaviour. The longer I stayed in their company, the easier it became to trick myself into believing that Sheila might understand the situation I had with David: the old friend; the companionship.

Though Sheila doesn’t appear to be married to anyone here…

I sighed and tried to force out a smile and keep up with their chatter about–

‘He’s here!’ Sheila announced and then she took off, fleeing the room before any of her guests could.

‘That’ll be the delivery man,’ Iris explained.

‘Ah,’ I answered. ‘I can see why that warrants a brisk jog.’

‘He’s been bloody ages,’ Mamie said as she finally moved from the window. ‘I hope there are extra crackers in those bags.’

‘Never mind all that,’ Blanche said as she landed clumsily on the sofa next to me. ‘Let’s talk about you for a quick minute while Sheila isn’t here to mind us, shall we?’ She squeezed my knee and bunched her shoulders, and even though she was smiling, there was something intimidating about this sudden shift in the set-up. I should have perhaps expected it, though; after all, isn’t this what friends do?

‘She’s going to ask what your intentions are with Sheila,’ Mamie warned me.

‘I think we all know what her intentions are…’ Iris said in a voice that had clearly emerged louder than intended. ‘Shit, sorry, that should have been an inside comment.’

‘You’re right’ – Mamie squeezed her shoulder – ‘it should have been.’

‘I just want to know,’ Blanche picked up again, nudging closer to me, ‘are you going to treat her right? Are you going to… Well, what I mean to say is… I think I’m trying to ask–’

‘Do you love Sheila?’

My head snapped around the find the source: Estelle.

‘You don’t have to answer that,’ she added. ‘But that’s what Blanche is angling at.’

‘Christ, Estelle, you’ve the force of an elephant sometimes. Patti’ – Blanche softened her tone again when she spoke to me – ‘you don’t have to answer. But as her friend, as a cluster of her friends actually,’ she said as though to rope the rest of them in, ‘above anything else we just want Sheila to be cared for and loved. I’m sure you understand that?’

I opened my mouth to answer but Iris beat me to the punch.

‘Besides which’ – she was standing in the doorway as she spoke – ‘it would be a crying shame if you didn’t love her, given how much she loves you.’

And miraculously in the seconds after that, none of us had anything at all to say.