Page 65 of The Late Bloomer’s Playlist

George Michael

FAITH

Janet followed me from the hallway to the living room, where I’d already got a teapot, two cups and two saucers waiting on the coffee table for us both. She’d been in charge of bringing the biscuits, though I guessed from the Louie’s Bakery bag she was holding that she’d decided to up the ante and bring something slightly more exciting. I lumped myself down in my armchair with one leg tucked beneath me and reached for the cigarettes that were on the table. David had started to leave them lying around the place – something to do with his writer persona, I assumed – and it made it that bit harder to resist the pull of them. I sparked up and exhaled the first plume in the general direction of the open window, and that’s when I noticed Janet was still standing in the doorway.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know what’s more perplexing,’ she answered as she looked around the space, ‘the fact that you’re smoking again or the state of this room.’

I mirrored her look around. In the last week, since my official diagnosis of heartache, I’d spent so much time here that I’d lost track of the state of it all. Every evening after work I’d watched a different romantic comedy – Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’s Diary, there had even been some that didn’t involve Hugh Grant – and I’d hurriedly made notes on them all. I’d jotted down plotlines and cock-ups and vain attempts at winning back the girl – because it was always the girl who needed to be won over, it seemed, with the exception of Mark Darcy. There were sheets of notepaper, lists galore, I’d even brought in a corkboard from the spare room to start pinning ideas to.

‘Oh, that,’ I answered.

‘Yes, that.’

Janet gently sat down on the sofa opposite me as though frightened to disturb anything. She looked around again, then at me. ‘When did you start smoking?’

‘When my husband became the next great British novelist.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that a reference to a reality show?’

I laughed and billowed smoke out at the same time. ‘No, but it’d be a great concept.’

‘Put a load of writers in front of typewriters?’

‘Ask for a different genre every week?’

‘Give them an unattainable word count?’

‘I’d watch that.’

Janet opened her mouth to answer but then seemed to think better of it. She shook her head instead and said, ‘But seriously, Pat, what’s happened in here?’

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. ‘I’m planning.’

‘Murder, or…’

‘No, romance. But it feels a bit like a slow death.’

‘You’re not making any sense. Do you want a cream horn?’ She held the bag out to me and I shrugged. I could go for a cream horn, I thought as I struggled one free from the bag; cigarette in one hand and pastry in the other. ‘What is it that you’re planning?’

‘Have you ever forgiven a married man for lying to you about being married?’

There was an observable penny drop moment, apparent from Janet’s expression. ‘You’re trying to win her back.’

‘I can’t just let her go.’

‘And while I applaud that, I really do’ – she struggled to free her own pastry as she spoke – ‘it’s been, how long? Well over a month?’ She waited for an answer and I nodded. ‘Do you not think you’ve rather… What’s that expression? Missed the boat?’

I winced at her phrasing. ‘No.’

‘Righto. Well, that was a good talk.’ Janet sank her teeth into the pastry and cream squeezed up and out, as far as her nose. ‘What does David make of all of this?’

‘I haven’t asked.’

‘And he hasn’t commented?’ She looked around the room again. ‘Patti, you look like a mad scientist. I’m sure I’ve seen things like this in true crime documentaries. You can’t blame me for being worried, and I’m sure David is, too.’

‘David has his own concerns.’