Page 57 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

‘You’re quite right, ashamed, better than this,’ I’d parroted. ‘David, the car keys?’

‘Patti, are you even listening to me?’ David’s snap brought me back to the present. I wasn’t sure which timeline was safer territory: the here, or the memory. ‘Don’t you at least need to be going into work? Mightn’t it help?’

‘I’m self-employed.’

‘But you still have customers!’

‘I can’t see how anyone is desperate enough for bric-a-brac that they’ll mind the shop being closed for two days.’ I sipped my drink and swilled the liquid around my dry mouth. ‘Does that have sugar in it?’

He spoke into his lap. ‘It’s good for a shock.’

The sentiment softened me. On the night of The Incident, David had come home with me – despite Eudora’s protestations – and I had in no uncertain terms bawled the bloody house down about how this was all his fault, about his stupid plans and his stupid lies and his, his, his behaviour. He’d sat quietly and accepted nearly an hour of ranting before I’d turned attention to my own stupid, stupid behaviour, my own stupid, stupid decision not to explain to Sheila sooner – or at all. But I’d managed to fling a few unfair accusations his way before the evening had timed out, before I’d collapsed into bed feeling every bit like I’d run a marathon – or, how I imagine people must feel when they’d run one. This muddled conversation over tea was the longest exchange we’d had since then, though, and with self-pity simmering in my belly I suddenly felt the need for deeper reassurance.

‘David, are we all right?’

His head shot up and when he faced me, he looked as though I’d slapped him. There seemed to be so much of that going around, I thought it might be nothing short of a miracle that we’d got this far into the debacle without someone actually being slapped – and I thought I was perhaps the most likely recipient, too, if it were to happen.

‘Don’t be an absolute tit.’ David struggled to kneel on the carpet next to my bed, getting a better view of me in the process. ‘Patti–’

‘No, get up, think of your knees.’

‘Patti,’ he started again, easing my mug away from me as he spoke. He set it down on my bedside table and grabbed both of my hands in his. ‘You silly cow, you are the love of my life. Whatever happens, whoever is in the wrong or in the right, whatever we cock-up on as a couple, you will always be the love of my life.’ He reached forward and pushed hair away from my face, tucked the stray strands behind my ear. ‘We will always be okay, me and you. I made a vow.’

I smiled. ‘That wasn’t in the vows.’

‘Oh, Patti, we were pissed as farts by the time that wedding happened, who knows what we agreed to?’ He struggled into a standing position again with a series of moans, while I juggled both light laughter and a new wave of tears that were streaming down my cheeks – but at least they were happy ones. ‘Now’ – he held out a hand for me to take – ‘will you please take a shower?’

* * *

By the time I was treading into the kitchen – a fluffy bathrobe pulled tight against my bare skin and my hair tucked in a towel – the room was full to bursting with sugar. There was a tall stack of pancakes on the kitchen table, and a squat jar of what I thought must be syrup in front of them. There were satellite bowls, too, that I saw on closer inspection were packed with raspberries, blueberries, and chopped strawberries. David turned with a brew in each hand and caught me peering at his offerings.

‘I’ve never wanted you more,’ he said, his tone deadpan.

‘I’m glad someone wants me.’

‘Don’t be dramatic. Sheila still wants you.’ He set a drink down in front of me, then took a seat with his own. ‘She just doesn’t like you very much at the minute.’

‘Why are you so terrible at giving comfort?’

With a touch of the dramatics about it, he set a hand flat on his chest and flashed me an open-mouthed expression, while making a sweeping motion across the food with his free arm.

‘I’m not hungry,’ I answered, every bit the sullen teenager.

‘Okay, well I am so don’t mind me.’

David reached for the strawberries and, as he did, my stomach unleashed a rip-roaring growl so extreme that someone could be forgiven for thinking a Yeti had somehow washed up in Hereford. I could see that David’s mouth was full – not with food, but with a snarky comment that he was holding back. Instead, he leaned across the table and nudged my plate a fraction closer to me.

I grabbed my fork and speared at the edge of a pancake, and it was like breaking a seal. I suddenly found that two days’ worth of hunger gripped my stomach at once and, if I’d thought my blood sugar could have coped with it, I might have forgone cutlery entirely in favour of upending things into my mouth: the strawberries; blueberries; the jar of syrup. I was ready to pour it all in. I ate with the hunger of a woman freed from a long imprisonment; a swift movement from having previously starved my feelings, to now, where I seemed hell-bent on overstuffing them.

‘Do you feel better?’ David asked when I set my fork down.

‘Is there more?’

He laughed. ‘That’s more like it.’

‘David.’ I spoke to the table, unable to make eye contact with him in the harsh light of the kitchen. ‘What happens if she doesn’t forgive me?’

‘She will.’

‘But really, what do I do if–’

‘She. Will.’ He spoke deliberately with a slight pause between each word. I sensed there was more coming, and narrowed my eyes at his cocksureness that made no sense in a situation that absolutely didn’t call for it. ‘She will because’ – he paused to sip his tea, and to heighten the dramatic tension – ‘I happen to have a plan…’